8:00

Since I've been able to do this all

8:02

the time and just rewatch playoff games

8:04

and have the technology to scout and

8:08

analyze these games in depth, what

8:11

I wanna say about the heat here that

8:13

needs to be said out loud is when

8:15

you look at them, they might not have

8:17

the best talent. They might not have the

8:19

best players, but when they lose, it's never

8:21

like, you're never watching them on a play

8:24

going, well, why is the player doing that?

8:26

Oh, well, they're miscommunicating over here. They don't

8:28

know what they're doing. Or, oh, this is

8:30

so sloppy. Or this is lazy. They never

8:32

have, it feels like they never have a

8:34

play out in a playoff

8:36

game where that's the case. It's always like,

8:39

ah, Duncan Robinson just isn't fast enough. Or,

8:41

ah, Jimmy Butler just can't shoot well enough

8:43

if you, or bam, bam, obviously

8:45

not being a shooting threat. So I'm

8:47

rambling, but it's the end of the year. I wanna give

8:49

some flowers. I wanna give some flowers to

8:52

the Miami Heat. And my point here was they're

8:54

a good defense, but maybe the Cavs and the Mavs

8:57

are like the two best possible

8:59

defenses that could tax that Celtics

9:01

offense. The Cavs

9:03

can't pressure you on the other end of

9:06

the floor. That was the thing there. So

9:08

you didn't really get the tension. You didn't

9:11

really get Boston pulled in multiple directions. And

9:13

Dallas, as we'll talk about, when we talk about

9:15

our top teams, is a better team

9:18

to me, but it was

9:20

just a terrible matchup because I

9:23

would describe Dallas as a more rigid

9:25

team and running into this

9:27

Celtics matchup, as we talked about going all

9:29

the way back to the preview, was just

9:31

like, oh, they take

9:34

away the way you play. Your

9:36

base offense, what else do you

9:38

go to? And how do

9:40

you attack what the

9:42

Celtics do defensively? So in that sense, they

9:45

never really got the stress test that I

9:47

want and my fingers are crossed for 2025.

9:51

So there's a couple of good points you brought up here. There's another

9:53

point I wanna add onto it, but the first thing that you said

9:56

the matchups weren't good. Like, oh, these teams are actually

9:58

built in a way might be able to slow down

10:00

the Celtics. The Mavericks are built in a way where

10:02

maybe the Celtics are gonna be able to take advantage

10:04

of them more. Ranking teams is

10:07

difficult because of sort of

10:09

the rock, paper, scissors element of it, right?

10:11

Because when you try- Isn't that exacerbated when

10:13

you have parity? Isn't that, like, this feels

10:15

like the year to try to start wrangling

10:17

this kind of stuff in, which is, I

10:19

think, your point. Absolutely, because then

10:22

I went back, so I'm like, okay,

10:24

let's pretend for a second. Let's say

10:26

that I actually think a team that

10:28

was fully healthy was the

10:30

second best team in the playoffs and lost

10:32

in the second round, but didn't lose to

10:34

the champion, right? That's a lot of qualifiers

10:36

in there. And I'm like,

10:38

I wonder how many times that has actually happened in the last 10, 15, 20

10:40

years. So I tried to go back, and

10:43

first of all, throughout most of the 2010s,

10:45

like the Warriors, the LeBron, Cavs, Heat, whomever

10:47

else, the Spurs, it was pretty obvious who

10:49

the two best teams in the league were.

10:51

Like, every year it was just like, yep,

10:54

the LeBron Cavs, yep, the Golden State Warriors,

10:56

yep, the San Antonio Spurs. The

10:58

OKC Thunder. These were just the best teams that

11:00

were there. So it's difficult

11:02

to point to any of those other teams and rank

11:04

them because the parity wasn't as good. This year, like

11:06

you said, it is so difficult to go through and

11:08

be like, well, actually, this team is clearly better than

11:11

this team, but I imagine if this team played this

11:13

team, then I actually think this team would have moved

11:15

on. So I'm really happy we're talking

11:17

through this exercise. I think out of all the

11:19

ranking things we do, I know we have top

11:21

10 players coming at some point during the summer,

11:23

we're gonna talk about that. And

11:25

I feel a little bit more solid and like, all right,

11:27

here's gonna be the guys that I talk about. With ranking

11:29

these teams, man, I feel like I could change my mind

11:31

like four times by the time we're done talking

11:34

here because it's a lot of different strategic ways,

11:36

a lot of different roster construction ways. So yeah,

11:39

I don't know. I found this to be a

11:41

really tough exercise and I'm really not wedded to

11:43

it more than I've probably been wedded to some

11:45

of my other rankings. Here's another way I think

11:47

we could phrase this. How

11:51

much did you learn about X team in the

11:53

playoffs? I think that's another way

11:55

to phrase this, right? Because to

11:57

your point, traditionally.

12:00

Additionally, if you look at

12:02

a slightly different economic league, you look at

12:04

a different league in terms of the distribution

12:06

of players Just go back to like 2016

12:10

2016 was a really top-heavy, you know, you

12:13

had like the Spurs had like a plus

12:15

10 margin of victory You had the 73

12:17

win warriors You

12:19

had the Thunder who were really good and you

12:21

had the Cavs who ended up winning and ultimately

12:23

winning the championship But you also had a lot

12:25

of teams that and then it got even worse

12:27

when you got to 2017 a lot of teams

12:30

That were just like well, we're not in the

12:33

position to compete with our timeline

12:36

That's another interesting aside about thinking about

12:38

stuff from a team

12:41

perspective and we just had the

12:43

video on the thinking basketball YouTube

12:45

channel about the Celtics and ensemble

12:47

teams and sort of these Multiple

12:49

star casts versus like building everything

12:52

around a top two top three

12:54

perennial MVP candidate

12:57

it's interesting because when you have Certain

13:01

superstars under contract or in the case of

13:03

a team like the Celtics They have this

13:05

the same core under contract next

13:08

year. You are obviously buying at

13:10

the deadline You're building to win right now.

13:12

You have this little window where you're competing,

13:14

but there's a ton of teams at

13:16

any given time That aren't in

13:18

that window and when you put parity in

13:21

place like we have now and

13:23

you give more teams Like the

13:25

thought that they can win. Hey look

13:28

at the Western Conference. Where

13:30

are you in the Western Conference? Oh, you were in

13:32

fourth last week now you're in 10th and you're in

13:34

the play-in game I mean all

13:36

of a sudden you have six seven eight teams at a conference

13:39

Who are doing that and adding these

13:41

little parts to their team buying at

13:43

the deadline trying to compete on the

13:45

margins? Oh man, Cody,

13:48

it is it is hard to separate some of

13:50

those clubs and like you said you get into

13:52

some rock-paper-scissors I don't know. I

13:54

don't know. I don't have a finalized Ranking

13:56

in my head. I just know these are the conversations.

13:59

I want to have and this is the discussion that

14:01

I wanted to have now that the season's

14:03

over. And you know, there are some weird

14:05

things, like you said, the amount that it could change. The

14:07

Nuggets, the end of the regular season, they

14:10

beat that Spurs team. They're the first seed

14:12

in the West, right? Like, I'm not making

14:14

this up. They end up being- Oh, that's right, yes, that's

14:16

right. So would it change the matchups? It

14:18

completely changes the matchups, and the Nuggets might go further.

14:20

We might not see some other things. It's just weird

14:22

sliding doors things. It's unbelievable. I'm

14:24

not even saying that the Nuggets would have made it

14:27

further. Like, it was definitely significant that Jamal Murray wasn't

14:29

the Jamal Murray that we're used to. But

14:31

all of a sudden you change some

14:33

of the things. Maybe one of the

14:35

play-ins series goes differently. Maybe Zion doesn't

14:37

hurt himself in like the last play

14:39

of the game in the play-in tournament

14:42

versus the Lakers, right? There's

14:44

a lot of weird sliding doors things. That's,

14:46

again, not even mentioning the two top

14:49

five players in the East

14:51

that just straight up weren't either playing or

14:53

at their full health. I

14:55

don't know, man, it's a really weird playoff. It was

14:57

a really fun season. I love the parody, but it

15:00

really feels like we missed out on a lot of

15:02

stuff. And I don't want to fast forward to next

15:05

year, Ben. I want time to slow down, right? We

15:07

need to enjoy each moment, savor it.

15:09

But I am really excited to see everyone at

15:11

full health hopefully next year. Well,

15:14

it's a good segue because normally when we do

15:16

top 10 players, which we'll probably do, I don't

15:18

know, maybe next episode, we'll do it coming up

15:20

now that the season is wrapped. Or

15:23

maybe we'll have a draft up. I don't even know when the draft

15:25

is. Who am I kidding? I have no idea when the draft. I

15:28

couldn't name a single player. And then Alex Sander-Sarr,

15:30

is that a player in the, Cody, does that

15:32

sound like? Yeah,

15:37

so we'll get to that at some point. But we

15:39

usually do, when we talk about players, I

15:42

try to differentiate between when a player

15:44

is healthy and then what his actual

15:46

value was based on an injury with

15:49

the additional caveat that sometimes a player

15:51

just doesn't play enough to really warrant

15:53

any kind of evaluation like that. Like

15:55

he plays 20 or 30

15:57

games early in the season and then he's

15:59

out. for the year and it's not really enough for

16:02

me to really consider talking

16:04

about he's healthy you know what's he what was

16:06

he like when he was healthy this year so

16:09

we'll try to do the same thing with teams and

16:12

I think that right out of the gate eliminates

16:14

a team that I think when they were healthy

16:17

I had in my inner circle of contenders for

16:19

a while which is the Los Angeles Clippers and

16:22

the reason for that is they get

16:24

this like 30 ish game

16:26

stretch in the middle of the year where

16:28

they look healthy where James Harden is there

16:31

and now he's starting to get accustomed to

16:33

playing there maybe he's playing himself into better

16:35

shape now Kawhi Leonard because Kawhi Leonard it's

16:38

constantly having devastating injuries and then coming back

16:40

now he's looking pretty good and

16:42

that like 30 something games max

16:44

or whatever it is it just doesn't

16:46

feel like enough for me to

16:48

wrap my head around what this

16:51

team was in a meaningful way their

16:54

performance in Boston against the Celtics

16:57

when they went in there and won was

16:59

one of the single most impressive regular

17:02

season games I've seen it was during

17:04

that stretch and so I think the

17:06

idea of the Clippers is an extremely

17:08

interesting team that I personally would definitely

17:10

have near at the top of my

17:12

ballot if healthy but I

17:14

have I don't even have past playoff games

17:16

like Cody when would be the last playoff

17:19

game with a team like this

17:21

that we could go back and say yeah

17:23

it's very similar to the Clippers but Zubat

17:25

says younger and they swap out Harden for

17:27

Westboro like when when what would

17:30

we do it what Clippers team would we look at

17:32

2021 that was three years ago yeah

17:35

that was the last time because this year Kawhi played

17:37

two games but he wasn't healthy for them last year

17:39

he only played two playoff games year before that he

17:41

missed the entire season with his ACL injuries so I

17:43

don't even think they made the playoffs or 22 I

17:45

should say so 21 is the last time we actually

17:47

saw a healthy Kawhi and even that run he injured

17:49

his ACL at the end of it and he missed

17:51

I think a game or two at the end of

17:53

the playoffs so we haven't seen like a full slate

17:57

of healthy Kawhi Leonard games do you want to

17:59

try and who

30:00

lost in the conference finals. But also

30:02

of course it does a disservice to

30:04

the individual players who aren't their teams.

30:07

The tricky part that we've hit is

30:09

when we talk about the best players,

30:12

they don't get to play each other one on

30:14

one, but these teams play each other one on

30:17

one. So it's like maybe

30:20

if the Suns played the Pacers

30:23

in a series, maybe we

30:25

might pick the Suns. Maybe the Suns might actually

30:28

win. Let's say in real life, they

30:30

did it once and the Suns

30:32

won in six. The

30:34

trap is to then go, the Suns must be

30:36

the better team because they won the head to

30:39

head. But that's the reason why we talked about

30:41

this earlier on in the show, because

30:44

we know that one team, I

30:47

mean, I'll remind everyone, that the

30:49

expansion Toronto Raptors in 1996 with

30:52

little mighty might Damon Stottemire gave

30:55

the Bulls, when they used to play that Bulls

30:57

team with that big backcourt, and they had their

30:59

quick little backcourt. That was a 72 win Bulls

31:01

team. They won 87 and 13 that year. They

31:04

may have been the best basketball team ever,

31:06

certainly relative to competition, one of the two,

31:09

three best basketball teams we've seen in NBA

31:11

history. And the

31:14

Raptors with their

31:16

total dearth of talent might've

31:18

played them better than like 20 other teams

31:21

in the league because of matchup. And they did

31:23

beat them. They were one of their 10 losses

31:25

came to the expansion Toronto Raptors. So

31:28

does that mean the Raptors are better than the Bulls? Of

31:31

course not. And similarly, the whole point of

31:33

this exercise is to think, well, how do

31:35

you, not how do you play necessarily against

31:38

everyone in the league, Cody? How do you

31:40

play against the other top

31:42

five or six teams? That's

31:44

really where I think the rubber meets the road. And

31:46

I'm gonna kind of try to parse my list based

31:49

on that. I'm gonna be honest,

31:51

I've been in La La Land ever since

31:53

you brought up eternal punishment for basketball takes.

31:55

And I was trying to like, if we

31:57

have like a Dante taking, or not being

31:59

taken through our levels of this. this lifetime

32:01

fitness to see the circles of eternal punishment

32:03

for basketball. I think like one of the

32:05

bottom ones, like you're set to do the

32:07

mic and drill forever, but every shot rims

32:09

out. Like it never goes in, everyone goes

32:11

out. Another one is you have

32:13

to do like dribbling drills, like two-handed dribbling drills,

32:16

but like the balls are much flatter than they

32:18

should be. Like they barely bounce like a quarter

32:20

of the way up. Those are just the first

32:22

two things that came to mind. So we could

32:25

build like our, you know, the inferno

32:27

in terms of eternal punishment. What

32:30

are we talking about? Are we talking about literature?

32:32

Cody, Cody. Yep. I just, I

32:34

want to, I needed to look it up for my own edification. The

32:37

Raptors. Yes,

32:39

yes. They played the Bulls twice. They

32:42

played the Bulls twice, at least with Damon Staunomare. No,

32:44

they played the Bulls four times. Sorry. They

32:46

played the Bulls twice at home. 50-point score, Damon Staunomare. Yes. Twice

32:49

at home, twice on the road. They beat

32:52

the Bulls by one in March. They

32:54

lost to the Bulls by home at three in a game

32:56

that went down to the last second. At

32:59

that point in time, the Bulls were 33 and three.

33:03

Entering the 32 and three, entering the game, 33

33:05

and three after the game. The Raptors were 10

33:07

and 28, and then they played two games in

33:09

Chicago and they only lost those games by nine.

33:12

I just, I, it's just one of

33:14

my favorite. It's very relevant for this

33:17

conversation. Anyway. Sorry. It's

33:19

not for me about Dante and the seven

33:21

circle of hell. Was that word? So we

33:23

had Pacers are 10. Is that

33:25

where we are right now? Yes. Yes.

33:28

Okay. We

33:30

have to be serious, Ben. Pacers

33:33

or Pacers or Suns. I'm

33:36

going to put. Oh, I have Pacers for 10. Yeah.

33:39

Did you consider the Pelicans? Yes, I did.

33:41

That's actually literally, I wish I could show you

33:43

when I put the Lakers in, I have two

33:45

teams with a 10 next to them and then

33:47

the Pacers and the Pelicans. Well

33:50

you did just describe it verbally.

33:52

So I, I believe. Yeah. Okay.

33:55

Thank you for that. The issue, because I think if we

33:58

grant them the health, like if Zion stays healthy. and they

34:00

go into the playoffs that way. And Brandon Ingram, of

34:02

course, was also injured during the playoffs and he was coming

34:04

back. I know people were kind of down on him, but

34:06

he was working his way back from injury. We've

34:09

literally just never seen Zion in the

34:11

playoffs, right? We have no data about

34:13

how he's gonna perform. One playoff game.

34:17

No one counts it as a playoff game, but. Are you counting the

34:19

play-in game? You can't just change

34:21

language like that. A playoff

34:23

is when you play and you get eliminated.

34:25

That's what the play-in game is. You go

34:27

and there's no more season, there's no more

34:29

standings. You go and you're playing and you're

34:31

playing off. That's the end of

34:33

my TED Talk. If we look at the words, once is

34:36

play-in, once is play-off, right? They're

34:38

not even the same words. That's what I'm saying.

34:40

They're kind of opposites. It doesn't work that way.

34:42

I can't pull up basketball reference and look up

34:44

these playoff stats. What do you want to know?

34:46

I have it right here. What do you want?

34:48

If you look up Zion's playoff basketball stats on

34:50

basketball reference, nothing. I

34:52

know. That's because of this silliness with

34:54

the elimination of the play-in from

34:57

the playoffs. Anyway, what I'm saying is we don't

34:59

have any data about Zion, but based on what

35:01

we've seen and his play style and his finishing

35:03

and how he played against the Lakers, I'm

35:06

pretty confident he'd do pretty well. He would

35:08

be attacked against some higher level teams. I'd

35:10

be really interesting to see Zion rotating around to defend

35:12

the Celtics and the Pacers and stuff. I know he

35:14

improved defensively throughout the season, so I don't want to

35:17

dog him too much on that. But

35:19

I do think a healthy Zion makes that pelican's

35:21

team really, really interesting.

35:23

But I also just watched the

35:25

playoffs where the Pacers, I think,

35:27

had basically the best offense throughout

35:29

the entire playoffs. I kind

35:31

of want to give them their flowers for that.

35:34

I don't know if that's fair or not, but

35:36

I want to reward the team that did showcase

35:38

what they were able to do. So I'm leaning

35:40

Pacers in that matchup. Yeah, they did have the

35:42

best playoff offense, just about by any measure

35:44

we can come up with. All right, we've been stalling long enough. I

35:46

mean, God, this podcast is going to

35:48

be six hours of us just

35:50

stalling. We have the Canterbury Tales

35:52

next. We got to reference that one. Okay.

35:56

I'll leave the Chaucer to you, sir. Okay,

36:02

what'd you say, the

36:04

Lakers? All

36:06

right, so pace is to 10, who's after that? Okay, so

36:08

now I have written down here

36:10

in this next kind of group,

36:13

quote unquote group, because I think at

36:15

least one of these teams, you

36:17

could make an argument that they're better than some

36:20

of the teams in the sort of seven, six,

36:22

five range or whatever. I

36:24

have the Lakers written down, I

36:27

have the Knicks written down, and

36:29

I have the Milwaukee Bucks written

36:31

down. I would like

36:34

to discuss those teams. I have a fourth

36:36

team sort of in that

36:38

range too, and I actually think that's a really interesting team,

36:40

so let's table them for a second and talk about the

36:42

three that you just talked about. Yes,

36:44

so the Knicks with

36:47

OG Ananobi, obviously fantastic. Very

36:52

solid, strong defensive team,

36:55

spunky offensively is

36:57

how I described them. Obviously

36:59

a ton revolves around Jalen Brunson.

37:01

Now it gets weird because

37:03

if we're doing true health, Randall

37:06

has to come back, but I

37:08

still don't know if that's actually a good

37:10

thing, the way they're constructed and the way

37:13

they play, giving him a ton

37:15

of extra reps and a ton of primacy in

37:17

some of these playoff series. He

37:19

literally has the two worst scoring,

37:22

heavy load playoff series,

37:25

I think in modern NBA history, I

37:27

don't know if we have stats on

37:29

playoff series going back into the 50s and

37:32

60s that can be sort

37:34

of apples to apples comparisons there,

37:36

but it makes me a little

37:38

concerned, but when you have Mitchell Robinson,

37:40

when you have Ananobi, you have a

37:42

good defense, you have a spunky offense,

37:44

you have their offensive rebounding which creates

37:47

problems. So I think for certain teams,

37:50

they are a very difficult matchup. I

37:52

think when you compare them to the

37:54

top teams, like in the East, for instance,

37:57

I think they may have been, once we

37:59

had into the East, to Philadelphia

38:01

and Milwaukee. I think they may have

38:03

been the only team left that could have really given Boston

38:06

an interesting challenge. I don't know how

38:08

much of a challenge they could have given

38:11

them necessarily. Yeah, and what's

38:13

really interesting about the Knicks compared to the

38:15

other two teams that you said, like you

38:17

said, number one, very much Jaylen Brunson-centric and

38:20

man, that dude put on a show. Like,

38:22

whatever I thought was gonna happen from a barely

38:24

six foot guard going into the playoffs that has

38:26

to have that kind of load, I was pretty

38:28

blown away. I think he did a pretty spectacular

38:30

job of doing that and I wanna respect Brunson's

38:33

ability to do that. But then if you think

38:35

about that offensively, that's a single pitch that you're

38:37

seeing. Like, there's not gonna be a game plan

38:39

where the Knicks walk in and it's like, you

38:41

know what? Brunson's actually gonna be the decoy today.

38:43

It's not gonna be based on Brunson. Like, it just doesn't

38:45

work that way. But what they do have is

38:47

they have a bunch of dudes out there coming off

38:49

the bench, starters, role players and stuff, they're gonna go

38:51

out there and they're just going to dog you. Like,

38:53

they are going to give you minutes, they're gonna be

38:56

physical and they're going to fight you. And that in

38:58

a playoff series is worth a lot. That's basically why

39:00

Josh Hart was playing like Wilt Chamberlain playoff minutes, right?

39:02

Like he was just out there every minute of the

39:04

game. Compare that to say the Bucks, who

39:06

again, full health, Giannis is out there, Middleton,

39:10

I think full health Middleton is still, you'd

39:12

wanna grant him like 90%. Like 90%.

39:15

In this season, what is full health Middleton?

39:17

Like, can you actually, yeah, go ahead. It's

39:19

not 21 Middleton, it's just not. I don't

39:21

know if we're going to see 21 Middleton

39:23

again. Like

39:25

even for a guy who didn't rely

39:28

a ton on athleticism, like you can

39:30

see a lot of him losing value

39:32

defensively. And that's where they're so

39:34

opposite from the Knicks is they have two Titanic

39:36

defensive players in Brook Lopez and Giannis and Teddekumbo.

39:39

But everyone else is just, they can't

39:41

contain anyone at the point of attack, right? And

39:43

I really don't trust their bench depth. And then

39:45

you go to the Lakers. Again, I don't really

39:48

trust their bench depth. They don't have a ton

39:50

of guys I'm really trusting. But LeBron and Anthony

39:52

Davis, like those two guys, you rolled them out

39:55

there and you know what you're going to get.

39:57

Both of them performed pretty spectacularly, I thought, throughout

39:59

the playoffs. Anthony Davis basically becomes Bill Russell

40:01

for however long is in the playoffs LeBron

40:03

can dip back into the old into the

40:05

old time machine And he looks pretty solid

40:07

for a little bit so I think it's

40:09

really interesting to compare and contrast these three

40:11

teams because I think it

40:13

would really depend on who would face

40:15

whom basically Yeah, the

40:18

Lakers. I think both The

40:21

thing is fascinating about them is both Davis

40:23

and LeBron I think at this point have

40:25

a history of being more valuable in the playoffs

40:28

playoff LeBron and his prime and when he

40:30

was younger Maybe that was more consistent with

40:33

those monster regular seasons, but certainly since he's

40:35

gotten older You have more

40:37

rest between games you have more focus He's leaving

40:39

it all out there at the at the end

40:41

of the year compared to a regular season game

40:43

where he might want to Conserve himself and

40:46

that basketball computer. I mean now we see

40:48

it. He's only a podcaster now I don't

40:50

know if he plays anymore, but like you

40:53

see how that can be an advantage Scouting

40:56

teams and and the way the

40:58

playoffs have just become this Ultimate

41:00

chess match over the last decade because of the way

41:03

the game is played you go from one series to

41:05

the next And you want to

41:07

understand not just tendencies and habits,

41:09

but all right. What how can we

41:11

stop this? How can we attack this?

41:14

What's what's what's a weak point here that we could

41:16

come up with a scheme and how as a coach

41:18

on the floor? Can I impact

41:21

that then you then you talk about you

41:23

know Davis and what he brings I just

41:25

think there's so much better than whatever their

41:27

regular season record and numbers Indicate

41:30

we've seen a precedent for that. I'll

41:32

go back to 2021 Cody

41:35

with those two guys. I think if Davis

41:37

doesn't get injured they you can't say

41:40

guarantee like you can't say a hundred percent But

41:42

certainly in the first three games of that series

41:44

against Phoenix. They were the

41:46

better team They looked like the better team.

41:48

They looked like they had a matchup advantage

41:50

their shot quality on both ends was superior

41:53

Just rewatch some of this series a couple

41:55

months ago. And you know, that

41:58

is yet another example of hey when we

42:00

get into postseason series, we're really good. So

42:02

48 win pace when they were healthy with

42:04

Davis and LeBron this year. The

42:07

Knicks were 54 wins with Hart and

42:09

Jalen Brunson. Excuse

42:11

me. So I think these

42:13

are all kind of similar quality teams.

42:16

Yeah, go ahead. While

42:19

we're talking it through and while I'm thinking about it, part

42:22

of me leans the

42:24

Lakers above the other two. I think

42:26

we have to make a decision between the Knicks and

42:29

the Bucks. And then I think whatever the order is,

42:31

the Lakers would be the one above those two. Well,

42:33

thank you because I was, before

42:35

I lost my breath, the Bucks actually

42:37

played at a 55 win pace with

42:41

Giannis and Lillard. So if you look at like,

42:43

all right, when the Knicks are, I mean, when

42:45

the Knicks are healthy with Ananobi, it's even better,

42:47

but it's such a small sample. How do we

42:49

deal with the Randall effect? I

42:51

think the Bucks, Cody, cover your

42:54

ears. I think that roster

42:56

might have a tendency to go down

42:58

in playoff performance compared to the regular

43:00

season. We can talk

43:02

about certain limitations with the offense. This

43:05

year's roster, it's more probably about the

43:07

defense and what's happening there.

43:09

And, you know, Brooke Lopez is

43:11

getting older. And then you, as we talked about

43:14

all year with the guards and the back court

43:16

and Lillard and then just the

43:18

lack of depth and penetrators and second side

43:20

actions and dynamic players, you got Pat Conatin

43:22

or you're relying on for big minutes or

43:24

I was gonna say Grayson Allen, but

43:26

he's not even there anymore. Who's

43:29

the other guard that- Did

43:31

you say Beasley? Beasley, thank you. Yes, Malik

43:33

Beasley in the rotation. So I'm

43:36

kind of with you. I think if I look

43:38

at these teams and I have to handicap

43:41

some of the match-ups ahead of them,

43:43

I think the Lakers, especially with their

43:45

size, would be

43:47

at the top here. And I

43:49

actually think you might be able to make an argument for

43:51

the Lakers over some of

43:54

the top seven teams. That's

43:56

a conversation I wanna have right after this. Cause

43:59

I do think there's another. that I think is

44:01

really interesting and I would have actually really liked to

44:03

see these two teams play against each

44:05

other because I think they have some similar strengths and

44:07

that would have made for an interesting fire versus fire

44:10

sort of situation. But yeah the Bucks in

44:12

terms of defense too, I

44:14

just do not trust that perimeter defense when

44:16

we get into a playoff situation, but then man

44:19

Middleton, Lillard and Yannis, that's

44:21

a tough three-headed offensive duo. Like whatever we

44:23

just said about Middleton not being the same,

44:26

his pass- he might be the best passer

44:28

he's been in his career. He had like

44:30

this great synergy throwing lobs to Yannis throughout

44:32

the season. When the jumper falls,

44:34

he's an excellent, excellent

44:37

second-side creator, but also he can take some

44:39

primacy. I don't know man,

44:41

I think that's a tough team to try

44:43

and figure out what to do with defensively

44:45

and I think when you stack all

44:47

of that up, I

44:50

don't know, maybe New York's gonna call me biased. I think

44:52

my order goes New York 9, Bucks 8, Lakers

44:54

7. The

44:57

Bucks are really interesting if you think about

44:59

Dallas making a run

45:02

with Luca primarily driving the

45:05

offense and Kyrie sort of

45:07

secondary similar role. Although

45:09

of course Kyrie can do a little bit

45:12

more finishing plays off ball, it more lends

45:14

itself to his skill set, but you've got

45:16

that and a defense. Milwaukee,

45:19

you wouldn't necessarily have that and a

45:21

defense, but you might say, okay,

45:24

we don't really have that many dynamic players, but

45:26

if Chris Middleton is like, I

45:29

don't know, again, what does healthy Chris Middleton this year mean? 80%

45:33

Chris Middleton. So passing,

45:35

shooting, some isolation offense, and that means if

45:38

you swing it to him with an advantage,

45:40

he can still either hit the shot or take a

45:42

dribble or two. He likes it. He likes the dribble

45:44

or two pull-up or maybe dribble or two get all

45:46

the way to the basket.

45:50

You combine that with Lillard and Yannis and

45:52

Yannis when he was healthy this year as

45:54

we'll talk about when we get to the

45:56

top 10 players. I mean, especially offensively. I

45:58

think you can, you can pick

46:01

knits, you can pick knits with

46:04

his defense and the effort

46:06

and where he's at at this point in his career

46:08

in the regular season defensively, but man, the offense this

46:10

year, Cody, was spectacular

46:13

for a ton of the season. Probably

46:15

he's at his peak in terms of

46:17

where he's ever been at as a

46:20

passer and playmaker. It's just

46:22

the movement patterns still slashing around guys and

46:24

getting it done. Now, we

46:27

have another thing that we haven't mentioned. They

46:29

changed the officiating midway through the

46:31

season. I think

46:34

that probably lends itself to

46:36

help certain teams, bigger physical teams,

46:39

maybe teams that can't slide quite

46:42

as well defensively, but in

46:45

the playoffs, you can be a little bit more

46:47

physical and you have to, as we've said many

46:49

times, you have to actually fully be beaten off

46:52

the dribble. And so we just saw it

46:54

in the finals, like Dallas in earlier

46:56

series, when they were able to make

46:58

the court smaller, harder

47:00

to just shred their defensive weaknesses.

47:03

The Celtics were able to pull

47:05

out into space, weaker

47:07

defenders without as much of a backstop,

47:10

and then you can fully get by them. How

47:13

does that impact some of these teams? These are, we

47:15

saw the Knicks play, we saw them play, but the

47:17

Lakers, we had the one round, the

47:19

rematch against Denver. And

47:21

again, that's where it messes with your mind

47:23

because Denver is the defending champion. They just

47:25

played in the conference finals last year. And

47:28

it's like the point that a

47:30

team season ends really psychologically messes

47:33

with how good they actually are. I

47:35

mean, by definition, by

47:37

definition, every team loses to the

47:39

champs. But that doesn't mean that

47:42

the team that lost in the finals to the champs

47:45

did a better job against the champs than

47:47

the team that lost in the first round against them. And

47:50

that's where it really

47:52

messes with your head. I think it's tricky to

47:54

try to start to part this. This is

47:56

where we hit the glut of parody for

47:59

me because you saw it. start to, as

48:01

you said, maybe the Knicks, maybe I couldn't

48:03

make the same arguments I can make with

48:05

the, with the remaining teams that we have,

48:07

but both the Bucks and the Lakers are

48:09

interesting competing with some of these other

48:11

teams because especially in the Bucks

48:13

case with the unknown of like, man,

48:16

can the, can you get enough Yannis

48:18

in a series plus a

48:20

little Middleton plus Dame Lillard? Uh,

48:24

now of course they had a new coach, they got Doc Rivers.

48:26

So there's competing factors.

48:28

There's attention there, but yeah, I

48:32

don't know. What do you think? Yeah. The Lakers facing

48:35

the Nuggets two years in a row, I think really hurts

48:37

them in terms of people's minds. Like you said, I think,

48:39

I think we literally had this conversation

48:42

before the playoffs or maybe even during

48:44

the series in that the Nuggets

48:46

and Yokich sort of nullifies Anthony Davis's value. Like

48:48

Anthony Davis is value add as I'm in the

48:50

paint and I'm going to shut it all down.

48:52

But when you have Yokich, it just kind of

48:54

changes the complete geometry of the court and it

48:57

doesn't allow you to defend the way that you

48:59

want to defend. So against a different team, like

49:01

again, Nuggets beat the Spurs, Nuggets have a higher

49:03

seed. Maybe the Lakers face somebody else and maybe

49:05

they make it to the second round, maybe

49:08

even the third round, depending on some match-ups, who knows?

49:10

All of a sudden people think about this team differently,

49:12

but I think the fact that they just ran into

49:14

this team that has their number really

49:17

hurts them. And I think they're bet. I think they are better than

49:19

the matchup against the Nuggets and in the rock, paper,

49:22

scissors, that's just the wrong match up for them. It

49:24

just is. And I know that hurts them obviously in

49:26

this ranking, but that's why they're not one or two

49:28

or three right there. They're top seven. And

49:30

actually Ben, I might have

49:32

the Lakers a little higher than seven. I might have them.

49:34

I might have them a little higher. Yes. So I think

49:36

you can make the case that

49:39

I think you can make the case. This

49:42

is, this is, this is the greatest sentence

49:44

ever spoken in podcasting. Yes. I

49:47

think you can make the case that

49:49

the Lakers are better than Minnesota. Ben, that's the

49:51

team. That's the team. I

49:53

have the one spot of a Minnesota. Ben, this is great.

49:55

Let's talk. Oh my goodness. I'm

50:00

so glad you said this. I have the Lakers

50:02

at six and I have Minnesota at seven. Oh

50:04

my God. I don't know what numbers I can put

50:07

next to any, I'm just talking about, just like we

50:09

do with players, I'm just talking about ranges in my

50:11

head and the quality of

50:13

the team and the types of match ups.

50:15

Now it's an all timer because what just

50:17

happened? Denver beat the Lakers

50:19

and lost to Minnesota. And so you have

50:22

this, fans wanna do this very simplified transitive

50:24

property, but that's obviously not how it works.

50:26

It's not a neat, you know, stack down

50:28

the dominoes, the best team is going

50:31

to beat all 29 other teams. And the

50:34

second best team is going to beat all 28 other teams but

50:36

lose to the team ahead of them and so on

50:38

and so forth. So Minnesota one,

50:40

we've talked about it at

50:43

length. We don't need to belabor the point here. They

50:45

were very much built to beat

50:48

Denver. Also Denver wasn't

50:50

fully healthy in that series. How

50:52

healthy Jamal Murray was

50:54

in the Lakers series might be up

50:56

for debate, but he certainly quote unquote

50:59

aggravated or had an issue with that injury

51:01

at the end of the series. He didn't

51:04

play well in the series, by

51:06

the way, whether he

51:08

was, you know, very completely healthy

51:10

before that or not. But

51:13

this goes back to luck Cody,

51:15

where that series was

51:17

a very competitive series and

51:20

had what, basically two Jamal Murray buzzer

51:22

beaters. So that series,

51:25

it was four nothing last year and it was

51:27

pretty competitive. It could have been two, two this

51:29

year. And I still like Denver in

51:32

the matchup. But when you

51:34

start to say Minnesota go match up with

51:36

Dallas or the Lakers match up with Dallas,

51:38

do I want Rudy Gobert and Carl Anthony

51:40

towns and Kyle Anderson and whatever the heck

51:42

else was going on in that

51:44

series? Or do I want Anthony Davis and

51:46

LeBron James dealing with this

51:49

sort of lob goblins and

51:51

Luca Doncic coming into the paint. And maybe

51:54

the Lakers are more equipped to

51:56

handle a pick and roll type game like

51:59

that. I mean, Minnesota. to me is a

52:01

little bit more rigid as a team. Dallas

52:03

to me is a little bit more rigid

52:05

as a team. Trying

52:08

to look at who else I

52:10

would describe that way because I think

52:13

it's interesting to think if you're

52:15

a more generalizable or more adaptable team, what

52:18

does it mean to have a good or

52:20

bad matchup? Like OKC

52:23

and their size and especially having to adjust

52:25

to the playoffs as a young team. Like

52:28

how do you deal with the fact that maybe

52:30

OKC by the sixth game was a different

52:32

OKC team than OKC in

52:35

the first game of the Dallas series? Like

52:37

legitimately they're all that young. For

52:41

all of them this is like 100% of

52:43

their playoff experience. So by the end of

52:45

the series that came

52:47

down to you know a

52:49

series of incredible events, just

52:52

even the last play of game six to give

52:54

you an idea of how close that series was.

52:56

Each team scored the same number of points. I

52:59

think Luca dribbles into the paint, loses the ball.

53:01

I'm trying to remember someone hit the ball, he

53:04

like fumbles it or something, gets it

53:06

to the corner. Shay Giljes Alexander

53:09

blocks it and then for you know he's

53:11

like trying to totally cup it so

53:14

he continues with the block and then PJ has

53:16

to have strong enough wrist to keep the ball

53:18

in his possession so it's a foul. Shay has

53:20

to kind of make that, instead of just contesting

53:22

or trying to tap it, he has to like

53:24

make that pull down motion to maybe get a

53:27

jump ball. The official has to make that incredible

53:29

call which is technically the absolute correct call. He

53:31

has to see that. If they don't make that

53:33

call it's going to show up on the late

53:35

on the last two minute report and the Mavs

53:37

fans are just going to gripe about it forever.

53:40

You know this stuff happens all the time. There's

53:42

just so many little things when the series is

53:45

that close and to me a team that young,

53:47

do we look at them based on the

53:49

end of that series, the beginning of that series?

53:52

I don't know but I did feel like with

53:54

their inexperience if they got

53:56

a perfect first round matchup

53:58

with the Pelicans not having Zion the

54:00

Pelicans also had terrible shooting luck in

54:03

that series they couldn't throw it in the ocean I

54:06

think if they got the Lakers in the first round it

54:09

could have been a totally totally different factor with

54:11

Los Angeles's size and

54:13

Anthony Davis and Anthony Davis potentially matching

54:15

up to nullify Chet because with the

54:18

Thunder Cody Shea held

54:20

up his end of the bargain oh

54:22

he was isolation man length on

54:25

defense Chet

54:27

held up his I think I've seen comments that

54:29

like Chet was not good in the

54:32

playoffs I don't we were watching different

54:34

playoffs we were watching totally different playoffs

54:36

you can say you know

54:38

he's got to add these things to his game he's

54:40

young and his shot wasn't great but

54:43

defensively he was phenomenal that's

54:45

what he's designed to do move around space the

54:48

floor I think Chet

54:50

for the ten games that they played held up

54:53

his end of the bargain J Dub did not

54:55

hold up his end of the bargain and he

54:57

finally kind of looked like he figured it out

54:59

at the end of that series so yeah

55:02

I think if the Lakers hit them first that's

55:05

a matchup that even though OKC is kind

55:07

of a fluid team they

55:09

they still want to play a lot of that

55:11

like manipulate the

55:13

spacing and create isolation for

55:16

Shea Gilgis Alexander and I think if

55:18

you start to take that away or

55:20

if you're not totally buckled by them

55:23

stretching you out you know

55:25

maybe that's a good matchup for you against them so

55:28

when I think about I'm gonna kind of tie

55:30

in the Timberwolves here in my discussion for a

55:32

second because the thing about the Timberwolves is

55:35

the Timberwolves that people think of is an

55:37

a like the 2004 Pistons level defense like

55:39

this team is just locked in shutting everyone

55:41

down but be Anthony Edwards courting 40 points

55:43

a night on really efficient offense right and

55:45

if you get to the Timberwolves those two

55:48

sure they're probably like a top two top three

55:51

team in the playoffs right but that's just not

55:53

the case like sort of like we saw with

55:55

the Knicks and whomever else it's more or less

55:57

a one man offense in terms of Anthony Edwards

55:59

and then hoping that Carl Anthony Towns is a

56:02

really good game, which of course he did that

56:04

I think that Final game seven

56:06

against the Nuggets was we talked about even though

56:08

the box score wasn't crazy Probably the best game

56:10

of Carl Anthony towns his life But

56:12

we also saw you can't necessarily count on it

56:14

right like Anthony I mean Carl Anthony towns isn't

56:17

somebody that's gonna show up and give you that

56:19

kind of game every single day Especially on the

56:21

defensive end so you're again not diversifying

56:23

the offense as much because you just don't

56:25

have the the attack there Whereas okc like

56:27

you said at the end of the series

56:29

J dub Starting to figure it out those

56:31

first few games were a little rockier It's

56:34

not like the box score is crazy terrible

56:36

But it's not the same Jalen Williams we

56:38

saw like if we did the Jalen rankings

56:40

again Jalen Brown's bumping up a

56:42

little bit Right he showed up a little bit

56:44

more throughout throughout these playoffs But by the

56:46

end of it you started to see a

56:48

little bit more of the second side action

56:50

a little bit more of the Decisiveness getting

56:52

further into the paint and stuff like that And

56:54

I just feel like that's a more dynamic

56:56

offense That's tougher to choke off than Minnesota

56:58

would be for the Lakers And I just

57:00

don't trust the entire Lakers defensive ecosystem to

57:02

handle like a spread offense like that So

57:04

if I'm going in some kind of ranking

57:06

or tearing here like you know I'd say

57:08

the Timberwolves Lakers are right next to each

57:10

other I did end up leading

57:12

the Lakers a little bit, but I still

57:14

see the Thunder despite the youth which definitely

57:16

impacted guys like J Just

57:19

a tick higher than those two teams the Thunder

57:21

a tick higher. Yeah the Thunder.

57:23

Yes. Yeah, it's it's it's

57:25

it's interesting I'm

57:28

fascinated by how angry this is gonna make

57:31

people who are fans of

57:33

a team and then they get very excited

57:35

about that team Making it to

57:38

a certain round. So if you like made the conference

57:40

finals in your Minnesota in your head, you

57:42

should be in the top four But

57:45

obviously we wouldn't be doing the podcast

57:47

if I thought that it was logically

57:49

consistent for teams to just stack up

57:51

that way At the end of every

57:53

NBA season and furthermore Cody, I

57:56

would add I would just add that for fandom purposes

57:58

It doesn't change the fact that that your team had

58:00

that run and made the top four

58:02

and got those match ups and was able to play

58:04

that way or Anthony Edwards, like it's a good matchup

58:06

for Anthony Edwards, that's one of the reasons why Minnesota

58:08

is such a good matchup for Denver. Because he can

58:11

get to the paint and they don't have that great

58:13

rim protection. And then in the next round, all of

58:15

a sudden against Dallas, it

58:17

cuts both ways. Dallas' pick

58:19

and roll game hurts Minnesota.

58:21

Now I think this is where you go back

58:23

to coaching as well. I

58:25

don't like to say a

58:28

lot of negative things. I mean, these guys work so

58:30

hard, they do such a great job. Most

58:33

of them, even the coaches that get

58:35

fired and get so much flack, it's

58:37

for other reasons than the

58:41

thing that you're yelling at your TV for about,

58:43

like, why didn't they play this player? Like, no,

58:45

there's more that goes into that. And so I

58:47

don't wanna be too negative about Minnesota, but I

58:49

just wish they would have tried different, like everyone

58:52

says, well, they tried all these different coverages. They

58:54

trapped, I wish they would have tried a different

58:56

scheme. I wish they would have tried different lineups.

58:58

I wish they would have

59:00

done something akin to what they did. It

59:02

feels like against Denver, they had a specific

59:04

game plan for Denver, where they're

59:06

like, this guy guards, we're gonna have towns

59:09

on Yokich and we're not

59:11

gonna leave the role. And then we're gonna have Gobert

59:13

roam off a shooter. This is kind

59:15

of a cousin to the

59:17

way the Celtics like to play defensively with

59:19

a lot of match ups, where they take

59:21

the center, they put the center on a

59:23

wing and they put someone like Jason Tatum

59:25

on a center. And we knew

59:28

that they were going to do that coming into

59:30

the finals, one, because they do it all the

59:32

time. And two, because they do it against teams

59:34

like Dallas. When they see Dallas on the regular

59:36

season, they break that out. And what does it

59:39

do? It means you're switching

59:41

the one-five pick and roll. So that base

59:43

part of the pick and roll, spread pick

59:45

and roll offense that Dallas wants to run

59:48

goes away. There were a lot of people

59:50

in media that I heard say, well, why

59:52

didn't the Mavs in the finals, why didn't

59:55

they run more like staggered screens or

59:58

three man actions, or they would do something. of

1:00:00

that stuff, but you switch it, you switch it

1:00:02

and you nullify it. And also at a certain

1:00:04

point in those actions,

1:00:07

what someone like Luke is looking for is still

1:00:09

the mismatch. So sometimes they

1:00:11

would set up a staggered

1:00:13

screen action and he would get

1:00:16

the player he wanted switched on him in the first screen. And

1:00:18

then he tells the other guy to go away because now he

1:00:20

wants to play one on one against

1:00:22

them in space or something like that. That

1:00:25

is a attack

1:00:27

that I think really broke

1:00:29

Minnesota on both ends

1:00:31

because on the offensive

1:00:33

end Anthony Edwards is driving into,

1:00:35

you know, the twin towers back

1:00:37

to Mutombo and Ewing back there.

1:00:41

And they had no way to space them out because

1:00:43

Kyle Anderson and Rudy Gobert and players like that can't

1:00:46

space them out. So how did

1:00:48

how did we get on this? I can't remember. I

1:00:50

don't know. I'm trying to figure out where. So

1:00:53

the Mavericks are factored in here. I think the matter

1:00:55

is I think the Mavericks are in this group as

1:00:58

well. I think the Thunder in this group. I think the

1:01:00

Timberwolves are in this group. And

1:01:02

for me, because there's some uncertainty and

1:01:04

they're right on the edge of this

1:01:06

like Clippers disqualification, I would also put

1:01:09

Philadelphia in this conversation as

1:01:11

well. Yes, sir. Let's let's talk

1:01:13

about Philadelphia a little bit because what

1:01:15

Embiid comes back, he's injured. He misses a

1:01:17

good chunk of time. He comes back with

1:01:20

like eight games left in the season, if

1:01:22

I'm not mistaken, eight games left. He goes

1:01:24

into the playoffs. He's not quite at

1:01:26

full health the way that we've been seeing not 70 point

1:01:28

Embiid that we

1:01:30

saw throughout the season. I think it's an

1:01:33

understatement to say not quite at full

1:01:35

health. Yeah. It's

1:01:37

apparent to me because it was the end of the year that

1:01:40

a lot of people did not watch his games

1:01:42

when he came back from the long layoff with

1:01:44

the meniscus. But he looked very

1:01:47

good when he came back from the long.

1:01:49

The first game he needed to get up to speed and kind

1:01:51

of like trust his body a

1:01:53

little bit. But that five or six game

1:01:55

stretch or whatever it was, we

1:01:58

did the video on him at the end of the year. I

1:02:00

only used clips. If

1:02:02

you want to see what he looked like, that's not

1:02:04

a reference to him playing in November. You

1:02:08

see the clips that are obvious from the earlier parts of the year

1:02:11

when they're called out, but I deliberately

1:02:13

wanted to capture where he was

1:02:15

heading into the playoffs because I thought he looked

1:02:17

so good physically, he was playing so good, and

1:02:19

the other key to nitpicking

1:02:22

about this, Cody, is their

1:02:24

whole team revolves around him. Like, he's the

1:02:26

Bill Walton of the 2024 76ers. Like,

1:02:32

that guy, the defense and

1:02:34

the offense, if you take him from 100% and move him to

1:02:36

60%, I think

1:02:38

it has a real impact on the

1:02:40

rest of the team. Wait, so what are you saying? It sounds

1:02:43

like you're saying that he looked really

1:02:45

good, but he wasn't, like...

1:02:47

I'm saying he looked really good before

1:02:49

there was maybe against Orlando. I'm trying

1:02:51

to remember. At the very end

1:02:53

of the year, he re-injured the knee. Oh,

1:02:55

I... Yeah. And then after that, he was a mess. So,

1:02:58

yeah. What I'm saying is we

1:03:00

have the healthy 76ers sample is

1:03:04

all the time before his injury, and

1:03:06

then I guess Melton wasn't playing next to him, but

1:03:09

the four or five games kind of

1:03:11

was a glimpse of what I thought it was going to

1:03:13

look like, and then we just had, like, 40% or 50%

1:03:15

health for Embiid. So,

1:03:19

they're tough because we

1:03:22

have an approximation of what it's

1:03:24

like in the playoffs with him not

1:03:26

playing well. I don't know how you feel, Cody. I

1:03:29

feel like if he was healthy, they... He

1:03:31

and Melton, especially, because they needed

1:03:34

extra guard play. You can see that just from the game where

1:03:36

Buddy Heald came in and hit,

1:03:38

like, 5-3s, like, just having extra guard

1:03:40

play in that series with Maxie's quickness

1:03:43

and what he's able to do with

1:03:46

the basketball in a little space. It

1:03:48

also took away some of the two-man game with him and Embiid

1:03:50

because Embiid wasn't as dynamic on the handoff.

1:03:53

So much of the handoff is what you do the

1:03:55

rest of the time, your inherent pressure, your latent value.

1:03:58

It's kind of a fun thing. we

1:04:00

talk about Steph Curry and off-ball movement and

1:04:02

how it strains and stresses defense without the

1:04:04

ball inherently without having to take a shot.

1:04:06

When you're doing that handoff game, when you

1:04:08

have the ball at the top of the

1:04:10

key or the elbow and you're playing off

1:04:13

a dynamic player, like it's not the handoff

1:04:15

itself that's dangerous, it's the threat

1:04:17

of what you're going to do when

1:04:19

you start acting and just taking chipping away a

1:04:21

little bit of that value, I

1:04:23

think was the difference. You know, well,

1:04:26

it was a lot of value loss for

1:04:28

Philadelphia. So to me, healthy Philadelphia is

1:04:30

a better team than healthy New York.

1:04:33

There's a lot of elements, like you said, the guard play.

1:04:36

One factor of that, Kyle Lowry, well, he was basically

1:04:38

playing like 30 minutes a night. He

1:04:41

has enough guile that he's able to go out

1:04:43

there and do his mischievous little Kyle Lowry stuff.

1:04:45

He can hit some threes. He's a strong little

1:04:47

defensive player, low center of gravity so he can

1:04:49

handle some mismatches. But like, if you're really banking

1:04:51

on, what is it, like 38, 37, 36 year

1:04:53

old Kyle Lowry, really

1:04:57

trying to play like that many minutes in a

1:04:59

playoff game. I think you're, I don't know, it's

1:05:01

a rough situation to be in. Melton would have

1:05:03

certainly helped with that. And then Embiid, again, the

1:05:05

spacing, the geometry of their offense completely changes what

1:05:08

Maxie is able to do. Right? Like Maxie was

1:05:10

a spectacular player this year. I think he was,

1:05:12

I think we talked about him being an all-star

1:05:14

level player throughout the regular season, but that's really

1:05:16

amplified when Embiid is out there. When it's Paul

1:05:18

Reed that he's doing handoffs with or something like

1:05:21

that, the spacing is just not there. There's no

1:05:23

threat of what Embiid is going to do. Like

1:05:25

you just said, and then that takes away some

1:05:27

of the pressure that Maxie can bring with the

1:05:29

shooting pressure, the driving pressure, some of the playmaking

1:05:31

chops, which again, I don't think it's good enough

1:05:34

that you can throw him out there without Embiid

1:05:36

and say, hey, we need you to be the

1:05:38

best guy on the court. I think Embiid really

1:05:40

amplifies that skill set for him. So if

1:05:43

they're at full health, they're just a much

1:05:45

more dynamic, much more interesting player. And even

1:05:47

the way that they played, like they

1:05:50

were like a plus seven per 100 when Embiid was

1:05:52

on the court already. Like the minimal minutes he was

1:05:54

off the court, they were just, they were a train

1:05:56

wreck back. Just a train wreck

1:05:59

against the name. And if he could have been

1:06:01

in good enough health that he could have played more minutes

1:06:04

And of course he has the what the self

1:06:06

lob alley oop where he lands And it looks

1:06:08

like he's like completely snaps his knees So he

1:06:10

hurts himself again during the series if

1:06:12

they're at full health. I mean it's a

1:06:15

completely different Eastern Conference playoffs Well, I think it's

1:06:17

two things. I think when they're out there that

1:06:19

plus seven could be higher That's

1:06:21

the idea and then when he's on

1:06:23

the bench, it's better because mountain is

1:06:26

playing as well But this was when they were

1:06:28

healthy. This was the second best regular season team

1:06:30

of the year They played a little less than

1:06:32

half of the season 39

1:06:36

37 games whatever it is with maxi and in bead

1:06:38

and 65 win

1:06:40

pace using our our calculator where we look at

1:06:42

the wins We look at where the games are

1:06:44

in your opponents and we look at the margin

1:06:46

of victory Only the

1:06:48

Celtics were better in the regular

1:06:50

season than Philadelphia So my question with Philadelphia and

1:06:53

I want to apply it to these other teams

1:06:55

before we wrap up and and sort out the

1:06:57

rest of this list I think

1:07:00

we know the strengths for

1:07:02

most of these teams and And

1:07:04

how they attack I mean Minnesota its

1:07:07

defense its size They

1:07:10

are probably the weakest offensive team

1:07:13

on the I mean out of all the teams we've discussed.

1:07:15

They might be the weakest offensive team Period

1:07:17

I mean the Lakers offense Is

1:07:20

maybe in that conversation. Yeah, guys, where would

1:07:23

Knicks be? I just feel like yeah I

1:07:25

think they're in that conversation, but I kind

1:07:27

of feel like the Knicks

1:07:29

are a little bit Spunkier, I

1:07:31

mean first of all you just have that

1:07:33

Helio Brunson tough shot making thing You have

1:07:36

some three-point or a decent amount of three-point

1:07:38

shooting from that team and then the offensive

1:07:40

rebounding Offensive yeah in certain series can I

1:07:42

think give you get enough extra possessions and

1:07:45

it's like, okay You're all kind of the

1:07:47

same but the Knicks are getting like five

1:07:49

extra points of offensive rating from all those

1:07:51

extra possessions Okay. Yeah, yeah, so I just

1:07:54

feel like Minnesota's strength

1:07:56

is defense and their weakness

1:07:59

in so many ways is offense and

1:08:01

spacing and the lack of dynamic playmakers

1:08:03

and things like that. If

1:08:06

we talk about Phil, we can, we can do okay. See

1:08:08

in Dallas, if you want, they played a great series. Talk

1:08:11

about Philadelphia, Philadelphia

1:08:13

to me, it's the

1:08:17

guys outside of Maxi

1:08:19

and in bead, maybe to some degree what

1:08:21

we saw with Dallas, you get to these

1:08:23

better teams, you get to these more round,

1:08:26

well-rounded teams and they find a way to

1:08:28

say, like, okay, Tobias

1:08:31

Harris, Kelly, Oobre,

1:08:34

I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you look the worst.

1:08:36

I'm going to put you under a spotlight. I'm

1:08:38

going to ask you to do things and I'm

1:08:40

going to make you look the worst. You've possibly

1:08:42

looked. And if the team and the stars of

1:08:45

the team can't protect that, then

1:08:47

it starts to bleed value. Now, Nick nurse is

1:08:49

a great coach. And this is where I think

1:08:51

in bead being healthy, it's

1:08:53

almost an unknown in the sense that he's been injured

1:08:55

so many times in the playoffs, but

1:08:58

to my eye this

1:09:00

year, this specific year with nurse

1:09:02

changing the offensive structure, changing the

1:09:04

scheme. Uh, this is not only

1:09:06

the best he's ever played, but

1:09:09

his passing I think got good. And you

1:09:11

actually, even though he was under duress and

1:09:13

playing in slow motion and injured, they actually

1:09:15

saw a few great passing moments in the

1:09:17

Nick series that were critical in that series.

1:09:19

So it's like, can

1:09:21

you just make Tobias Harris, a

1:09:24

spot up shooter and he's good enough

1:09:26

as a spot up shooter. These are the questions I have

1:09:28

about the Knicks. I mean the, uh, the

1:09:30

76ers when we really put their feet to the

1:09:32

fire. And if we backtrack a

1:09:35

year prior, if I'm not mistaken, this

1:09:37

76ers team with, and you know, I

1:09:39

mean, I try and say this as

1:09:41

analytically as possible. Let's say Nick

1:09:43

nurse, a much more dynamic coaching

1:09:45

head coach that they have this year in

1:09:47

bead is better this year than last year.

1:09:49

Hardin had a couple of really raw Rocky

1:09:51

games and they still pushed the Celtics gate

1:09:53

team in 2023 who, if we ran it

1:09:55

back, probably

1:09:58

should have been in the finals. in 2023

1:10:00

against the Nuggets, push them to seven. And

1:10:02

I think this is just a much stronger

1:10:04

76ers team. And we saw like

1:10:06

the Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown last year in

1:10:09

2023 playoffs really struggled with the Juell and Bead

1:10:11

rim protection, right? Like you think about what Bead

1:10:13

can do in space and there's a couple of

1:10:15

great clips of Tatum getting him in isolation and

1:10:18

blowing by him and getting shots that they want.

1:10:20

But in terms of a Bead being down in

1:10:22

the paint, like you really can't name three,

1:10:25

four other guys in the league that could shut

1:10:27

down a paint individually as much as Embiid does.

1:10:29

So if you factor in all of that,

1:10:31

I don't think it's crazy to point that

1:10:33

team and say, honestly, Ben,

1:10:35

if you told me that this was the

1:10:37

second best healthy team this season, I'd

1:10:41

be a hundred percent on board with that. I

1:10:43

think with the uncertainty that you can make

1:10:45

that argument that the range of

1:10:47

Philadelphia could go up to number

1:10:50

two. I think they're that interesting. I think you can

1:10:52

also make the argument when they're healthy that

1:10:54

some of these teams we've discussed are

1:10:57

quote unquote better capable of making

1:10:59

deeper runs against more robust competition.

1:11:02

Because of that, I'm just a

1:11:04

little uneasy about that depth.

1:11:07

And when you get into the right series,

1:11:09

you get into the right situation, it's like,

1:11:12

Oubre, Harris, we saw it to a certain

1:11:14

degree at times during the Knicks series. And

1:11:17

when you aren't as dynamic, when you rely

1:11:19

on one or two players to

1:11:21

kind of run everything through you,

1:11:25

is it a little bit easier to

1:11:27

take that away if those guys are at like

1:11:30

all time level of just making

1:11:32

everything super easy for their teammates

1:11:35

on offense? Who

1:11:38

else here? Oklahoma City. Well,

1:11:41

I think part of it, we already saw, which

1:11:44

is size, inexperience,

1:11:48

which I don't like to say that because

1:11:50

I actually think they were very close to just like having

1:11:53

the experience not really be that big

1:11:55

of a factor, but it was their

1:11:57

first time. So there's a calibration period

1:11:59

that. that takes place with them and they're young. So

1:12:03

they're guys that haven't necessarily grown into their

1:12:05

body. So I do think the physicality component

1:12:08

is something that can throw them. Do

1:12:12

you have any other sort

1:12:14

of things to point out with these

1:12:16

teams here? With these teams,

1:12:18

or can I bring up a team? Yes, can I bring up

1:12:20

another team? We haven't talked about the Denver Nuggets yet. Who,

1:12:24

I don't know. I think this is a very good team. If

1:12:26

they're healthy, Jamal Murray. I

1:12:29

mean, I think if you ran back

1:12:31

the Timber Wolves series just as it

1:12:33

was, you grant everything to go health-wise

1:12:35

exactly the same way, Nuggets

1:12:37

probably win that series. That's the same way. That's

1:12:40

not even necessarily with Jamal Murray.

1:12:43

Yeah, it was a crazy

1:12:45

series. It's a really weird series to think back and

1:12:47

think that they were down 2-0 and

1:12:49

then not only won the next three

1:12:52

games, but in

1:12:54

a fourth game of five, so like most

1:12:56

of the rest of the time the teams

1:12:58

played, they were up by 20 in the

1:13:01

second half and cruising

1:13:04

is not the right word because those

1:13:06

games were just like people are throwing

1:13:08

haymakers left and right, but

1:13:10

they were playing really, really well. And

1:13:13

then hit a wall, and a lot

1:13:15

of that wall had to do with

1:13:17

missing open shots or things

1:13:20

that I think are uncharacteristic of the team

1:13:23

when they are at full strength.

1:13:25

So yeah, I think you and I

1:13:27

are aligned in this that Denver,

1:13:29

I mean, if you look at the other teams,

1:13:31

like we've seen, A, we have

1:13:33

a better sample over the last two years with

1:13:35

this Denver team and the playoffs, but if you

1:13:37

look at Denver, playing some of the

1:13:40

teams we've discussed in the postseason,

1:13:42

obviously we haven't seen them against any

1:13:44

of these Eastern teams, but in the

1:13:46

regular season, we've seen Philadelphia match-ups, we've

1:13:49

seen Boston match-ups, we've

1:13:51

seen Oklahoma City match-ups, we've

1:13:54

seen Dallas match-ups. I

1:13:56

like Denver in those match-ups, mostly

1:13:59

across. the board compared to most of

1:14:01

the other teams that we've

1:14:03

seen. I mean Denver, I believe

1:14:06

they beat Boston twice in

1:14:08

close competitive games. Their size and

1:14:10

Jokic's thing. So this is this gets back to

1:14:13

like style makes fights and strengths

1:14:15

and weaknesses. Most teams can't

1:14:17

really quote-unquote take away Jokic. I mean Minnesota

1:14:19

is built to stop him with all that

1:14:21

size and they didn't really take away Jokic.

1:14:24

The Nuggets missed some open threes, Jokic

1:14:27

struggled. Did Jokic play the best basketball

1:14:29

of his career? No, he was still

1:14:31

fantastic I thought and able to

1:14:33

set the table pretty well for

1:14:36

his teammates. I'll give you the offensive

1:14:38

ratings of that series in a

1:14:40

second. But we know that

1:14:43

they match up well with Boston and

1:14:45

we've seen them play you know very

1:14:47

well against the other kind

1:14:49

of top teams we're discussing.

1:14:51

I don't know if the other

1:14:53

teams in this in this discussion

1:14:56

in this conversation can say

1:14:58

that about as many of the top opponents. Okay,

1:15:02

so you think they match up just really well

1:15:04

against the best teams overall?

1:15:06

Okay, let me bring

1:15:08

up a concern I have about them though. Yes, please. Yeah,

1:15:11

and I think it's pretty similar to what you're saying about

1:15:13

Philadelphia but if you go down the line and you point

1:15:15

out the bench player that each team is able to roll

1:15:17

out, I just don't trust Denver's

1:15:19

bench. Like I think the top three guys that

1:15:21

played they basically had an eight they basically had

1:15:23

a seven-man rotation but it's Christian Brown who's really

1:15:25

not giving you anything on offense. He'll grab an

1:15:27

offensive rebound and throw in a floater but he's

1:15:30

not giving much on offense. Reggie Jackson who you

1:15:32

know once in a while makes some shots he

1:15:34

can be out there and be a nice little

1:15:36

point guard but he's not moving the needle a

1:15:38

ton and I can't even think of

1:15:40

who the who the third guy is that was coming

1:15:42

off the bench. Was there even really a third guy?

1:15:44

This is terrible. Did you say holiday? I

1:15:46

did not say holiday, Justin holiday, right? Holiday

1:15:49

because Watson was essentially shelved. Exactly,

1:15:52

so this is not the same Denver bench

1:15:54

we saw in the 23 finals run, right?

1:15:56

Jeff Green is not coming off the bench.

1:15:58

Bruce Brown is not coming off the bench,

1:16:00

right? It wasn't quite as dynamic. And I

1:16:04

don't know, you look at some of these other bench guys

1:16:06

that come in, the Boston Celtics, and Al Horford that's able

1:16:08

to come in, right? Oklahoma City

1:16:10

Thunder, I gotta say Jaylen Williams played himself

1:16:12

a nice little playoff. So it wasn't a

1:16:14

ton of minutes, but the other Jaylen Williams

1:16:16

was looking solid. Of course, the Dallas Mavericks,

1:16:18

they had Lively coming in off the bench.

1:16:21

All these guys have like solid guys that

1:16:23

you can like, okay, we can rotate around.

1:16:25

I just don't trust that Denver depth, like

1:16:27

basically at all. And if that five man

1:16:29

starting unit just isn't working, there's really

1:16:31

no other punch that they can throw

1:16:33

out there. And I think that really

1:16:35

caps them from

1:16:38

the heights that they hit the previous season.

1:16:40

Well, I agree with you, but

1:16:43

remember we are talking about healthy

1:16:45

Denver. So to me, so Jamal

1:16:47

Murray, I can't remember

1:16:50

if we explicitly stated this on a prior

1:16:52

episode, so I apologize for any redundancy. If

1:16:54

you look at high load players in playoff

1:16:56

series, and you look at like

1:16:59

extreme negative shooting efficiency,

1:17:02

you look at like the 20

1:17:04

worst shooting efficiencies using

1:17:06

true shooting percentage of the 21st century,

1:17:10

Jamal Murray is like one of,

1:17:12

I think Randall has two that

1:17:14

are like minus eight or minus 10 or something

1:17:17

like that. Jamal Murray is one of the only

1:17:19

other players to have two. He's the only player

1:17:21

to have two in the same playoffs. So

1:17:23

to me, looking at Jamal Murray

1:17:26

in the past and in 2023 and in 2020 in the

1:17:28

bubble as

1:17:30

basically like an all NBA level

1:17:32

player who totally

1:17:35

explodes the entire two man center. Like

1:17:37

I don't think anyone's still figured out

1:17:39

how to stop that Cody, that

1:17:42

two man game that they have, but it's only,

1:17:44

it only works if Murray is Jamal Murray. It

1:17:46

turns out that when you chop off one of

1:17:48

his legs figuratively and sort of literally, right? Like

1:17:51

it doesn't work as well. And then the

1:17:54

reason I think that's so important is the

1:17:57

bench minutes without Jokic need to

1:17:59

survive. They need to have some edge. They need

1:18:01

to have some ability to have a

1:18:03

flurry and a spurt and win a game

1:18:05

or two in those like

1:18:08

six minute margins where it's like, he goes to the

1:18:10

bench. They don't get outscored by 10 points. He goes

1:18:12

to the bench. Actually they outscore you by two points

1:18:14

because Murray's kind of on a heater

1:18:16

or he and you know, Michael Porter Jr. Get it

1:18:18

going or something like that. Let me, let me give

1:18:20

you a fun stat. Um, Nicole

1:18:23

Oakage, you're going to give me

1:18:25

like the reverse heat shooting luck from last year.

1:18:27

I just know it. I know that's what's coming.

1:18:29

No, I'm trying. I'm trying not to. Um, Nicole

1:18:31

Oakage, 25 points per 75 plus 3% uh, relative

1:18:38

true shooting in the

1:18:40

playoff series, basically

1:18:43

normal turnover numbers. Um,

1:18:46

trying to look at what else basically

1:18:48

normal passing numbers using

1:18:50

our passing stats like passer rating

1:18:52

or shots created for teammates. Uh,

1:18:55

let's see, he shoots 81% at

1:18:57

the rim, but

1:19:00

on five rim shots, what,

1:19:04

how is that serious sound? Okay. Do you, do you,

1:19:07

is that sound like an okay, like a mediocre series?

1:19:09

What do you think? When you hear that from the

1:19:11

Oakage, you're saying 25 plus three, 25

1:19:14

plus three kind of normal

1:19:16

turnovers, normal playmaking. Uh,

1:19:19

he's 37% in the mid range on 10 mid

1:19:21

range shots and 81% at the rim on

1:19:23

five rim shots. That's a,

1:19:25

that's a below average. You'll get serious.

1:19:27

Okay. That is, that is the 2023 Western conference finals

1:19:29

against the Lakers. And

1:19:34

that was a sweep where he had a

1:19:36

one 25 offensive rating on the court plus

1:19:39

10 net rating because Jamal Murray possibly could

1:19:41

have been the MVP of that series.

1:19:44

Cody, thank you for the little rope. Yes. They're a

1:19:47

little rope it up. Now we'll give

1:19:49

you the stats from the series against Minnesota that they lost 29

1:19:53

plus four, same playmaking

1:19:55

stats, the same turnover stats, 80%

1:19:58

at the rim on six rim shots. 48%

1:20:01

at the mid-range on 10 midrangers. Yeah

1:20:03

mid-range jumper is the key. Yeah. Yeah,

1:20:05

so to me I think I Agree

1:20:09

with everything you're saying. I think it's magnified the

1:20:11

fact that they don't have this depth is magnified

1:20:14

when someone like Jamal Murray doesn't work because there

1:20:16

is a synergy there that is more than the

1:20:18

sum of its parts and I Not

1:20:21

only think that they're better than Denver. I

1:20:23

not only think that they beat Denver if

1:20:25

he's healthy, but Minnesota

1:20:27

you mean Am

1:20:30

I I'm talking about Denver. Am I saying

1:20:32

you're talking about dead? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:35

Thank you Yes,

1:20:37

but I think that I

1:20:39

can't think of another team in the West who would clearly

1:20:41

be a Harder

1:20:43

matchup or something that you would get to the

1:20:46

conference finals and go Oh, if they're

1:20:48

healthy and playing the way they're normally playing I'm

1:20:50

gonna take the other team over them. Okay.

1:20:52

Yeah That's that's where I have they are setting myself up

1:20:54

for a health adjustment if case in

1:20:57

case anyone's not familiar with our Our

1:20:59

top 10 player rankings that we do because the

1:21:01

emphasis to me is on Denver being healthy, which

1:21:04

I don't think they really were Absolutely,

1:21:06

and I kind of thought we were gonna do the

1:21:08

the unhealthy version too But we're sitting here at like

1:21:10

Lord of the Rings hours. No, that's no that happens

1:21:12

very quickly at the end Yes, because

1:21:15

it's contextualized. It's couched in all these conversations.

1:21:17

We're having it's couched and everything we said

1:21:19

about him bead It's couched and everything. We

1:21:21

just said about Denver and Murray and the

1:21:23

way that system works I

1:21:26

mean Milwaukee is a lot easier because

1:21:28

you just say there's no

1:21:30

Yannis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I Spoiler

1:21:33

I'm not gonna have the bucks In

1:21:36

my top 10 without Yannis The

1:21:38

Knicks are a little weirder because the team

1:21:40

the team fell apart like every round They're

1:21:42

like we're gonna we're gonna remove a block.

1:21:44

It's like unbuilding a Lego Another

1:21:48

player is out for the Knicks every five games. So

1:21:50

so the the top team Obviously

1:21:53

is second half of the

1:21:55

year San Antonio Spurs, right? Yes, like the

1:21:57

NBA just allowed like

1:22:00

when me to get into the playoffs and

1:22:02

his final form like that's that's it's over

1:22:04

right that's just a clean 16 and 0

1:22:07

run for actually didn't I didn't even write

1:22:09

the Spurs here I wrote when

1:22:11

me number one oh yeah yeah one

1:22:13

actual one on five like you don't even need the

1:22:15

team you just need the best player in the series

1:22:17

and obviously it's when be so you know how hard

1:22:20

it is to score on the when be dropped zone

1:22:22

you can't score on that when

1:22:25

there's no other players on the court it's

1:22:27

just just when be yeah

1:22:30

he's like dolsom from street fighter

1:22:32

just shooting arms and legs blocking

1:22:34

shots uh

1:22:37

so the Celtics are the last team and

1:22:40

for me Cody in

1:22:42

this exercise can I make the

1:22:45

case that healthy Denver

1:22:48

is a better team than healthy

1:22:50

Boston I I think I can't

1:22:53

yeah I think I can't I'm

1:22:55

I'm not so confident so you have the

1:22:57

Celtics by themselves no one's touching them yeah

1:23:01

no one's touching so like if you played 10 series

1:23:03

between Boston and Denver am I saying that Denver

1:23:06

is no chance to win any of them no

1:23:08

I'm not but in a traditional playoff setting I

1:23:11

think the Celtics are are another tier above

1:23:13

everyone else oh I I actually think Denver

1:23:15

I think I think Denver is a very

1:23:17

tough matchup for Boston head-to-head I'm

1:23:20

not sure I'd give the Celtics you know

1:23:22

if they're gonna play 10 that means the Celtics would have

1:23:24

to win six to sort of be

1:23:26

looked at as the better head-to-head

1:23:29

team there I don't know

1:23:31

that the head-to-head actually I think is more about Denver whereas

1:23:33

Boston let's let's

1:23:36

let's give Boston some of the same treatment we just

1:23:38

gave these other teams okay

1:23:41

they ended the year let me remind you about

1:23:43

Boston as good as Boston is I

1:23:46

didn't really get to see them tested this version

1:23:48

of the team so I'm really

1:23:50

really hoping next year we get

1:23:52

to see them tested and that will

1:23:54

retroactively give us some information

1:23:57

about their diversity their robustness their

1:23:59

flex because from

1:24:02

a base standpoint, they're

1:24:05

already a little bit more flexible and robust

1:24:07

because we know that they've got five stars,

1:24:09

they're good on offense, they're good on defense,

1:24:11

and they like to play different coverages. Now

1:24:14

offensively they won't play a ton of different ways.

1:24:17

Their offense is actually kind of fascinating to me,

1:24:19

but you won't all of a sudden see a

1:24:23

ton of like

1:24:25

movement and multiple play,

1:24:28

the Golden State Warriors offense of the past with

1:24:30

like a ton of, you won't see something like

1:24:32

that. You won't necessarily see, hey, we're gonna run

1:24:34

a ton of delay and

1:24:37

give it to a big man and run

1:24:39

the offense around a big man in the

1:24:41

middle of the floor. But defensively, their sort

1:24:43

of base approach is versatility and they'll mix

1:24:45

it up. And so the reminder to me

1:24:47

is that we just

1:24:49

saw them have like the best possible

1:24:52

NBA Finals matchup that I think

1:24:54

they could have where their base approach, combined

1:24:57

with their talent gap over a team that,

1:25:00

had some upsets and came out of a conference

1:25:02

that was, there's a bloodbath in this conference. There's

1:25:04

a couple teams that I think could have made

1:25:07

it to the finals. And obviously credit to the

1:25:09

Mavs here. It sounds like both you and I

1:25:12

have them pretty high in this list at the end

1:25:14

of the year, was if we did this last year

1:25:16

with Miami, as much as I love the Zombie Heat

1:25:18

and what they do, I

1:25:20

don't think I would have had the Zombie Heat third

1:25:23

or fourth or whatever, it's gonna end up

1:25:25

being here fifth even, something

1:25:27

like that. It was just

1:25:29

a crazy situation where Caleb Martin,

1:25:32

just for like one series, was

1:25:34

like, okay, let me just be, I'll just be

1:25:36

like Ray Allen or

1:25:39

something, I'll just be like Allen Houston for

1:25:41

one series and that's it. Yeah.

1:25:45

That's how, I mean, with Dallas, I wouldn't

1:25:47

even point to them and say that they made

1:25:49

it as far as they did because of any

1:25:51

kind of shooting luck. Like you could point the

1:25:53

Thunder series and say- Oh, the Thunder series. Yeah,

1:25:55

the Thunder series was the most lopsided shooting luck

1:25:57

series of this post-season. Wasn't as crazy as what

1:25:59

happened with Miami. Miami, Boston last year. No,

1:26:01

absolutely not. It's a good point. I

1:26:04

mean, to me, you have to

1:26:06

give Dallas credit and Luca and

1:26:08

the defense and everything for what

1:26:10

they are and how they match up,

1:26:12

but you just got this, like Minnesota

1:26:14

matches up well with Denver and

1:26:17

the scales tipped and Minnesota comes out and they

1:26:19

have this shocking win. Then, and again,

1:26:22

this goes to our narrative and winning

1:26:24

bias structure. Like people get overly excited.

1:26:26

I don't think you and I did.

1:26:29

People get overly excited about Minnesota and

1:26:31

then they're shocked when Dallas destroys Dallas.

1:26:33

So now they're conferring that value to

1:26:36

Dallas, even though I think Dallas is a

1:26:38

great matchup there. And then Dallas gets

1:26:41

this matchup with the Celtics. That's a terrible

1:26:43

matchup for Dallas. It's a great matchup for

1:26:45

Boston. So all I'm saying Cody is I'm

1:26:47

a little skeptical. I like that to me.

1:26:49

Don't look at the best situation or the

1:26:51

worst situation and what we always talk about

1:26:53

with great debates. That's kind of what I'm

1:26:55

trying to measure myself here with

1:26:57

the Celtics. Their

1:26:59

playoff offense did

1:27:01

not get stress tested in the way I want to

1:27:03

see it stress tested under a

1:27:06

tight competitive series. Just

1:27:08

by the way that the Celtics are constructed

1:27:10

though, it's difficult for me

1:27:12

to see it going a different way though. Cause

1:27:14

the point is to get somebody getting downhill to

1:27:16

kick it out to get the ball moving around

1:27:19

and someone else can attack. And they

1:27:21

essentially have five guys that

1:27:23

can do like, okay, maybe Chris Stavsthorzingis isn't gonna

1:27:25

put the ball on the floor and

1:27:28

drive in past people. Al Horford isn't gonna do

1:27:30

that unless he gets you in the air with

1:27:32

a fake. So let's say four, four guys that

1:27:34

can consistently attack like that, right? Like Drew Holliday

1:27:36

was a legit driving starting point guard for a

1:27:38

championship team three years ago. Like if you get

1:27:40

him on, I don't

1:27:42

say the fourth best defensive guard on

1:27:45

the opposite team, he's gonna have a pretty solid

1:27:47

time getting into the paint pretty much whatever, but

1:27:49

we didn't see Drew Holliday have to do that.

1:27:51

So I guess my point is I saw

1:27:53

enough to think that even if they were stress

1:27:55

test, if they were playing against a stronger defense

1:27:57

that was better on the perimeter, that it. their

1:28:00

offense would essentially still look the same, or

1:28:02

at least the outcome would look the same.

1:28:04

It's just not that it would be Jason

1:28:06

Tatum being able to do it

1:28:08

basically every single possession. It would have been

1:28:10

more Drew Holiday driving it. It would have

1:28:13

been more Derek White driving it and things

1:28:15

like that. So I believe pretty heavily in

1:28:17

this Boston offense, is my point. You don't

1:28:19

think that it's sort

1:28:22

of a perfect situation for especially

1:28:24

Jaylen Brown. I think Jaylen Brown

1:28:27

just played the best basketball of his life. I

1:28:30

think his two-way basketball was

1:28:32

really good. We've

1:28:34

talked about this endlessly. He doesn't cut

1:28:36

his teeth as an off-ball team

1:28:39

defender necessarily, but he's a good

1:28:41

man defender and against big physical

1:28:43

wings like, oh, come to Papa,

1:28:45

like perfect, perfect setup, right? So

1:28:48

it's a great matchup for him and he delivered. He

1:28:50

played great. But when you're talking about the

1:28:52

offense, getting to space

1:28:54

the team out and then attack such a

1:28:56

weak defender, I

1:28:59

think it was a perfect interaction for

1:29:01

him of improved

1:29:03

buy-in and understanding of how to

1:29:05

handle pressure in play make. But

1:29:09

it was the easiest possible. This is not

1:29:11

the final boss, right? It was

1:29:13

such an easy process for him to say,

1:29:15

well, I'm gonna stand back and I've

1:29:17

got Luca in front of me and I'm gonna drive

1:29:19

into the paint and I'm either gonna get

1:29:21

something easy or if they come, it's

1:29:24

a pretty easy kick out to

1:29:26

a shooter. And again, I think he did a great

1:29:28

job, but I wanna measure it in

1:29:30

my head of like, let's just

1:29:32

say they played another series right now against a

1:29:34

totally different team where you didn't have that structure,

1:29:37

you didn't have that matchup. He's not diamond, you

1:29:39

know, Drew Holliday in the fifth game had

1:29:41

that pass where he caught

1:29:43

it in the corner, up faked, took two

1:29:45

dribbles, and then the little like almost no

1:29:47

look to the Tatum for the

1:29:50

dunk, bounce it there. He's not making those

1:29:52

passes. He's not even making the passes and

1:29:54

the Tatum can make one hand skip pass

1:29:57

off the floor to say nothing of, you

1:29:59

know, half. the passes that

1:30:01

someone like Luca Dontrich makes,

1:30:03

orchestrating offense, driving

1:30:05

offense against elite playoff defenses

1:30:08

loaded up on you. So

1:30:10

yeah, I just, I'm just

1:30:12

trying to be measured and keep

1:30:14

that in mind because knock on wood, we

1:30:16

will get to see this next year. We

1:30:19

will get to see it. And even

1:30:22

if the Celtics win, even if they turn

1:30:24

out to be fantastic and the

1:30:26

sort of jury comes out and it's like, Oh,

1:30:28

actually this is like an all time great team.

1:30:31

They won back to back championships. They have all

1:30:33

these great point indicators. They have all these stars

1:30:35

on the team. They are truly fantastic. Um,

1:30:37

I don't think it's any guarantee that

1:30:40

it looks as easy or that some of

1:30:42

the parts, especially the way they just ended

1:30:44

the series sort of moved

1:30:46

through the machine with the same ease. Okay.

1:30:49

I agree with that the same ease, but I

1:30:51

don't think the drop off in terms

1:30:53

of what we'd see from the output on the offense. I

1:30:55

don't think that out that drop off would be any

1:30:58

too significant, right? I think the outcome ultimately would

1:31:00

basically be the same thing. And I'm looking through

1:31:02

the rosters here. I'm looking through the teams in

1:31:04

the league. What team would be

1:31:06

the best to stop something like that? Like you throw in

1:31:09

the Timberwolves out there with all of their wing defenders, but

1:31:11

then you have somebody like Carl Anthony towns, who we

1:31:13

know isn't necessarily the best defending in space. And I

1:31:15

don't know what he ends up doing when you have

1:31:18

to choose between. All right. So I guess go bears

1:31:20

going to be on, on who, and

1:31:22

then towns is going to be on somebody else. I just,

1:31:24

I don't see the defense in

1:31:26

the league right now that is going

1:31:28

to actually test this offense. Okay.

1:31:32

Healthy rankings. I'm going Indiana

1:31:34

10. If I have to choose,

1:31:36

I don't know how

1:31:38

much of an argument I can make against the

1:31:40

next teams we talked about. I'll

1:31:43

say Nick's nice, Nick seven through

1:31:45

nine. We'll put them ninth. The

1:31:48

Lakers Lakers are interested.

1:31:50

I'm kind of going to go. I think I'm

1:31:52

going to go six through nine for

1:31:55

the Lakers. I wonder how high up you could get the

1:31:57

Lakers. Let's say six through nine Milwaukee.

1:32:00

I'll also do six through nine for

1:32:03

Milwaukee. Minnesota,

1:32:07

let me see here. Let's do Minnesota like,

1:32:09

I don't know, I'll

1:32:11

put them next. They're probably like fifth to seventh,

1:32:14

fifth to eighth, something like

1:32:17

that. God,

1:32:19

now it's

1:32:21

just brutally difficult. Dallas

1:32:27

or OKC? I know, that

1:32:29

was a coin flip, that was a tough one. So here's

1:32:31

the thing. If you

1:32:34

get OKC at the very end of the series, the

1:32:36

way I think it was going was some of the

1:32:38

experience they picked up. I think you can, if I'm

1:32:40

forced to choose, I could go higher there. Otherwise

1:32:43

I'll go OKC five, Dallas four,

1:32:49

both of those teams kind of in this three

1:32:51

through seven range,

1:32:53

I'll put Philadelphia, healthy Philadelphia

1:32:57

at the top of the group. I

1:32:59

don't know if you can make a case for number

1:33:02

one for Philadelphia. I just didn't get to see, I

1:33:04

didn't see it. I didn't see it.

1:33:06

And then I'll have Denver one or two

1:33:08

and Boston one. Okay. Okay,

1:33:12

yeah. I think we're more or less aligned

1:33:14

with here. A couple of small quibbles here

1:33:16

and there, but ultimately that's basically the ranges

1:33:18

I have. Okay. And

1:33:22

now the next half of the podcast is

1:33:24

doing it exactly the same way. The health

1:33:26

adjustment to me is just like,

1:33:30

well, we said we can get rid of Milwaukee, right? Yeah.

1:33:33

So who would come, I guess

1:33:37

the sons, the sons would be, am I

1:33:40

forgetting a team? Yes, go ahead, please. You

1:33:42

can fight me on this one. I

1:33:45

put the Cavaliers in. Over

1:33:48

the sons. I did. I put the

1:33:50

Cavaliers in over the sons. How

1:33:52

healthy are all the, what does it mean for the Cavaliers

1:33:54

to be healthy? Is Darius Garland

1:33:56

feeling good about his jaw

1:33:59

or whatever? Well, here's the issue.

1:34:01

I think when you talk about injuries and

1:34:03

stuff like that, stuff that happens before the

1:34:05

playoffs, I feel like you have to

1:34:07

factor that into the team. But if somebody gets

1:34:09

injured during the playoffs, like Donovan Mitchell did a

1:34:11

little bit more, you can say that's kind of

1:34:13

a coin flip injury and that's probably not always

1:34:15

gonna happen. So if we ran

1:34:18

back the playoffs, Donovan Mitchell is just

1:34:20

fantastic. He's a killer. He's an incredible

1:34:22

offensive player. We've seen it in multiple

1:34:24

playoffs now. And I think if

1:34:26

we see that with the defense that they're able to bring, I'm

1:34:29

granting them that 10th spot. I'm

1:34:31

sorry Phoenix fans. I just, I didn't

1:34:33

see much that made me believe in that team. Do

1:34:36

you wanna know a weird stat? Please. I,

1:34:41

is this correct? Hold on, I

1:34:43

need to look at another source just to make sure

1:34:45

I'm not losing my marbles here. In

1:34:48

the second round of this

1:34:50

season's playoffs against the Celtics, I'm

1:34:53

gonna check a different source just to make sure this is

1:34:55

right. Because this is. Mitchell averaged

1:34:57

like 33 points on 60% true

1:34:59

shooting or

1:35:01

something like that. It wasn't quite that high.

1:35:03

31 plus 10. 31

1:35:06

plus 10. 31 plus 10. But he

1:35:08

only played three games. He

1:35:11

missed two games, right? I

1:35:13

think so, yeah. What is,

1:35:16

yeah, he played three games because he played seven against

1:35:18

Orlando. Okay, so

1:35:21

this is just so weird. Do

1:35:24

you know what his net rating was when he

1:35:26

was on the floor? When he was

1:35:28

on the floor? Yeah. Like during the series

1:35:30

or the playoffs? Yeah, during the series. So you're like

1:35:32

a plus three? He's plus seven. Plus

1:35:34

seven. I'm

1:35:37

telling you. But he was outscored. Really

1:35:39

good. The magic outscored them in the series

1:35:41

before when he was on the court. Oh,

1:35:43

that's funny. Yeah. That's

1:35:46

really interesting. I will accept your. Thank you.

1:35:48

I will accept your Cavs. Yeah. I

1:35:52

will accept your Cavs. Yeah.

1:35:55

Thank you. I kind of like it. Sorry, I'm gonna go

1:35:57

with the Cavs. Be better next year. I'm

1:36:00

gonna go with the Cavs. That's all I want. I'm

1:36:02

gonna go with the Cavs. So, okay,

1:36:04

so now it's a little easier because

1:36:08

we've got New York. Wait

1:36:11

a second. Who are our teams, Cody? I've

1:36:13

messed up and lost track of our teams. I'm

1:36:17

assuming you have some

1:36:19

combination of Knicks, Pacers,

1:36:21

Wolves, Lakers, Nuggets, Mavericks, Thunder, Celtics,

1:36:23

and 76ers. Is that 10? It

1:36:26

would be if you added the Cavs in there, yeah. Oh,

1:36:29

I deleted the Pacers in front of me

1:36:31

by accident. Oh, okay, there. Whoo,

1:36:34

this is just a disaster. When you get to this

1:36:36

part of the podcast, you can't even figure

1:36:38

out what you have written in front. All right, so what did we

1:36:40

say, Cavs 10? Yeah,

1:36:43

because they took Milwaukee's place. They

1:36:45

took Milwaukee's place. Pacers nine. You

1:36:51

think the Pacers would've, wait,

1:36:54

Pacers nine? No, this is with their health

1:36:56

factored in. Yeah. Yes.

1:36:59

The Pacers nine? Yeah. Wait,

1:37:01

am I forgetting someone? They

1:37:03

beat the Knicks. And

1:37:06

I'm pretty sure they would've beat the 76ers. That's

1:37:10

true. Can you imagine the MB that we

1:37:12

saw trying to face that Pacers offense? The

1:37:14

Knicks did get totally decimated

1:37:17

by injuries. They just said no

1:37:20

one. Josh Hart was playing Wilt numbers, Ben. Yes,

1:37:22

yes. I'll tell

1:37:24

you the problem I'm having, Cody. I

1:37:27

can't do this upside down. I have to go

1:37:29

from the top. I'm forgetting I am not able

1:37:31

to process the teams. Dude,

1:37:33

I want to start one and you go. We already hit the

1:37:35

main event we can do. Well,

1:37:38

usually the adjustment for players is so easy. I'm

1:37:40

just like, well, this guy's out. Like you just

1:37:42

did it. You're like, the Bucks are out. Yeah.

1:37:45

And that just broke my brain. Sorry. I

1:37:48

completely broke my brain. Okay, so healthy. Yes,

1:37:51

I'm going to start at the top for

1:37:53

the adjustments for health, meaning the teams aren't

1:37:55

healthy anymore. They're what we saw. I

1:37:58

think the Celtics are one. Yes.

1:38:02

This is interesting. Is

1:38:05

Dallas two? It's

1:38:09

a coin flip, but I

1:38:11

put OKC and I put Dallas three.

1:38:13

Okay. Yes. OKC Dallas right there. But

1:38:16

if you have Dallas two over OKC, I'm

1:38:18

okay with that. I

1:38:20

don't know. I just think if you

1:38:23

play that series back, I'm coin flipping

1:38:25

it OKC. Yes. I will say two

1:38:27

three is Dallas OKC. Is

1:38:33

Denver next? Yeah, that's what I had. Yeah,

1:38:36

I think Denver's next. Yep. And

1:38:39

then then we get tough. What's

1:38:42

that? It's tough after that. Yeah. Then we

1:38:44

get to the Minnesota LA thing that we discussed. Yep.

1:38:47

So that would be the same. Yep.

1:38:50

And how many teams is that? Six. Yep.

1:38:54

Who's left? Pacers,

1:38:56

Knicks, 76ers. Oh,

1:39:00

this is really weird. I

1:39:03

that's the order I put them in. I thought this would be the

1:39:05

easy part. It's just say, hey,

1:39:07

these we know these guys were injured. We know

1:39:09

these guys were healthy because

1:39:12

it's weird. It's very weird because the

1:39:14

Knicks were healthier when they played Philadelphia

1:39:17

than when they played the Pacers and

1:39:20

Philadelphia. We have one round. You're thinking about one

1:39:22

round and the Pacers are thinking about three rounds.

1:39:26

The health thing is too much. You

1:39:28

think it's too much. It's just it's really difficult

1:39:30

to analyze that. I feel like I don't

1:39:33

know. You're saying it's harder to

1:39:35

analyze how things actually work. Yes.

1:39:38

I think I agree with you. I thought this would

1:39:41

be the exact opposite. I thought the hard part would

1:39:43

be treating the teams as if

1:39:45

they're healthy. Yeah, this is

1:39:47

really really weird because teams are getting

1:39:49

injured at different times. Exactly.

1:39:52

It gets very tricky. I

1:39:54

still think when the season ended well,

1:39:58

I mean, you get punished for playing later on. you're

1:40:00

more likely to get injured like the Knicks. I

1:40:03

suppose so. Maybe.

1:40:06

I don't know. We've broken our own

1:40:08

model. We've broken our own idea. Can

1:40:12

we just say Pacers, Knicks, 76ers are all equal there.

1:40:14

There's no way to map that out. Pacers,

1:40:17

Knicks, 76ers are clearly in

1:40:19

a similar ballpark. Yeah. And

1:40:22

that was what the Lakers and the Cavs? No,

1:40:24

Lakers are up top. Lakers

1:40:27

are with Minnesota, sorry. So are we missing a team?

1:40:30

Cavs or 10? That's 10 teams.

1:40:33

Yeah. Boston, OKC, Dallas, Denver,

1:40:35

Minnesota, the Lakers, Indiana, Philadelphia, the

1:40:38

Knicks and the Cavs. That

1:40:41

was a lot. To support the show,

1:40:43

patreon.com/thinking basketball. We're

1:40:46

gonna put up our genie coefficients on

1:40:49

the website for championship

1:40:51

teams based on box plus

1:40:53

minus. We had that in the video

1:40:55

on the Celtics at the end of the year.

1:40:58

Cody, do you have final thoughts, final parting thoughts

1:41:01

on this season? Wow. I'm

1:41:04

the entire season. I don't know. I'm

1:41:07

kind of fried after that. Or the playoffs or

1:41:09

the finals. I

1:41:12

think it's the, I guess I kind of talked about Drew Holiday.

1:41:14

I think people should be impressed with my restraint. I'm

1:41:16

talking about Drew Holiday. Cody only

1:41:18

brought up Drew Holiday three times per episode

1:41:21

in the playoffs. And

1:41:24

he should be commended for holding back his

1:41:26

praise. Yeah, I only talked about it like twice

1:41:28

today. I also learned

1:41:30

what the genie coefficient was. I didn't know until I

1:41:32

watched your video. And that was a

1:41:34

tremendous video. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. I

1:41:37

really liked that. Thank you. The swish army

1:41:39

knives. The swish army knives. It's such a

1:41:41

sick. Well, yeah, so you want to talk

1:41:43

about Drew, but

1:41:46

I think I've been on the Derek White train all year.

1:41:49

And thinking about the Celtics and their

1:41:51

growth as a team from a couple of years

1:41:53

ago, Derek White,

1:41:55

his improvement is incredible. And

1:41:58

I know, I think he got like a couple of votes. like

1:42:00

straggling votes for most improved player.

1:42:03

Yeah. But he

1:42:05

really, I think in the old days, he was

1:42:07

a guy that really would have gotten a lot

1:42:10

more attention and rightfully so, because he

1:42:13

went from someone that was like a good player

1:42:15

when the Celtics acquired him. But it

1:42:17

was, there was not a, I don't know if

1:42:19

there was a single person who was like, oh my God, Derek

1:42:21

White's coming off the bench for the Celtics, what are they doing?

1:42:24

And now, I mean, he

1:42:26

really could have made the All-Star team this year,

1:42:28

and his increase in three-point

1:42:30

shooting is just absurd. I'm

1:42:33

psyched to see him next year, and

1:42:36

just see like, can

1:42:38

he make 253s in a season? Is

1:42:41

he gonna shoot 90% from the line again? Is

1:42:44

he gonna top 40% from downtown? Can

1:42:47

his release get quicker? Can he

1:42:49

add to his volume? And then you have all the

1:42:51

other stuff. You have the offensive rebounding, you have the

1:42:53

defense, you have the shot blocking at the rim, you

1:42:55

have the fact that the Celtics now

1:42:57

have this team where they

1:43:00

don't have one great offensive player, they

1:43:02

don't have one great playmaker, but

1:43:05

after Tainanman Brown, who are the

1:43:07

primary mismatch hunters, you

1:43:09

have Derek White. Like Derek

1:43:11

White attacking in mismatch

1:43:14

pick and rolls has been super

1:43:16

successful for them from day one of this

1:43:18

year to the last game of the NBA

1:43:20

Finals. And I think

1:43:22

that has really, as great

1:43:24

as Drew Holliday is, and as much

1:43:26

as Cody has sung his praises for

1:43:29

years on end now, I

1:43:32

think it's just both of them, and that is just one of the

1:43:35

coolest, most unique back courts in

1:43:38

NBA history. Well, in terms

1:43:40

of White's shooting, if you make

1:43:42

a query of like all the players that

1:43:44

have played like 10 or eight games in

1:43:47

the playoffs and have shot

1:43:49

at least eight three-point attempts for

1:43:51

100 possessions and made 40% of them, Derek

1:43:53

White has now entered like the pantheon of

1:43:55

guys that has done that twice. He's done

1:43:57

it twice, right? He's done it twice. It's

1:44:00

like 15, 16 guys that have ever

1:44:02

done it twice and he's one of them. And this season,

1:44:04

these playoffs, he just shot 12 threes

1:44:06

per a hundred possessions and shot 40% on

1:44:08

them during the playoffs. So he's a certifiable

1:44:11

playoff shooter now. Like that is very clear.

1:44:13

He shoots threes at a very high volume

1:44:15

that's gone up each season. And now he's

1:44:17

very clearly like a 40 plus percent three

1:44:20

point shooter. That's it's unbelievable the growth in

1:44:22

shooting he's had. Just to put

1:44:24

this in perspective, the players

1:44:26

who have done this multiple times, Derek

1:44:28

white joins the following club, Reggie

1:44:31

Miller, Daniel Gibson,

1:44:33

J.R. Smith, Kevin Love, Kyle

1:44:36

Korver, Joe Ingalls, Kevin

1:44:38

Durant, Seth Curry, John

1:44:40

Starks did it three times. Ray

1:44:43

Allen, JJ Rettick, Steph Curry,

1:44:45

Clay Thompson all did it

1:44:47

three times. And the legend

1:44:49

himself, Danny green, uh, did

1:44:52

it four times. Derek white joins

1:44:54

that playoff club. Eight

1:44:56

attempts per 140%. He's

1:44:59

done it in multiple playoff runs. Uh,

1:45:02

that's a good way to wrap the season.

1:45:04

Thanks for listening to this one all

1:45:06

the way through. And of course, we

1:45:08

hope you're having a great day.