NBA Mailbag: Why Luka Doncic & Mavericks can beat Celtics, what happened to Wolves? | Hoops Tonight

NBA Mailbag: Why Luka Doncic & Mavericks can beat Celtics, what happened to Wolves? | Hoops Tonight

all right welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume happy Tuesday everybody hope all you guys are having a great week just going to do a quick mailbag today before we get to game for the Western Conference Finals tonight we’ll be going Live on YouTube tonight after the final buzzer make sure you guys are there got like uh 20 25 questions we’re going to get to today you guys know the drill before we get started subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don’t miss any more of our videos follow me on Twitter atore jlt so you guys don’t miss show announcements don’t forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on Hoops tonight and then keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason all right let’s talk some basketball so the first question what is your most interesting storyline from a likely Mavs Celtics final obviously the Celtics have officially secured their spot in the NBA Finals the Mavs need one more win to do so but as we’ve broken down at nauseum in the show we’re going to get into a little bit deeper today I don’t see a pathway for Minnesota to flip this script against Dallas I think it’s a terrible matchup for them in addition to the fact that Luca is clearly a better player at this phase of his career than Anthony Edwards and so I don’t really see a path there so I think the overwhelmingly likely scenario is that we’re going to get the Mavs vers the Celtics in the NBA finals and so from there I’m going to I’m going to kind of go a little bit deeper into a concept I talked a little bit about last night with Colin coward what I think is most interesting about this this series is the complete difference in the two builds of these rosters right Boston feels like more of a talent accumulation type of roster right everyone plays positions that uh that complement each other really well right like Derek White’s more of like a skill guard right he’s also an excellent defensive player and a great athlete but he’s a guy that can you know really run a lot of action excellent pull-up three-point shooter when they go to late game situations it usually ends up being Tatum white Twan game right but then Drew holiday kind of play play that athlete guard who guards the other team’s best guard kind of thing right and then you’ve got you know your smaller forward and then you’ve got your bigger forward and Jason Tatum and then you’ve got that Center position with a rim protector and christop porzingis right but at the same time none of those guys are like role players right every single one of them has at various points in their careers been playing in very large roles even like Derek white who’s been a role player on a lot of teams like I would argue at this point he’s become one of the primary decision makers for the Boston Celtics right and so that team is you know as as we mentioned in many of the recent episodes all five of those guys that I just mentioned on the open market if they were free agents right now would command over $30 million a year so it’s like a very talented you know conglomeration of players right then we get into Dallas and it’s like you’ve got a player in Luca that I believe is better than Jason Tatum I believe he’s the at least the second best player in the league if not the best player in the league right so it’s more of like a topheavy build where you have Luca and Kyrie and they take on basically the vast majority they take on the entirety of the offensive decision-making part of the offense that puts everybody else in a play finishing role right so Derrick Jones Jr it’s catch and shoot threes driving Closeouts PJ Washington it’s catching Sho threes driving Closeouts a little bit of work in the dunker spot maybe the occasional duckin postup right Derek Lively vertical spacing Daniel Gafford vertical spacing every single guy on the team is playing in a play finishing role on the offensive end of the floor then you go over to the defense end of the floor and every single one of those same guys has super focused and important defensive responsibilities right PJ Washington and Derrick Jones Jr are guarding your best guard and forward on the other team Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford are running deep drop coverage and protecting the rim and Kyrie and luuk are primarily off ball although Kyrie’s done a good amount of work on ball in this playoff run right so it’s like it’s a lot of like guys having less Talent being focused into very specific roles Behind These two super talented offensive players versus Boston where it’s like kind of everyone has to do everything because everyone is a star right and so like I I do find that to be super super fascinating going into that series that to me is the most interesting storyline another kind of way to look at it is like Luca being potentially the best player in the series versus Boston clearly being the more talented team in the series and so it’s going to be an interesting kind of uh of of you know case study in whether or not the best player on in the series can Elevate his team over more Talent now again for the record we’ve seen many times over the years that not be enough right like I think LeBron James was clearly the best player in the world from 2012 to 2020 I I thought that that was clear and yet there were several examples over that stretch where he did not win the NBA championship he won four of them what is it nine-year span so he lost five of them right so like 2014 that Spurs team just had it cooking in in so many different ways offensively and Dwayne Wade’s knee was kind of bothering and the team was kind of just getting a little bit fatigued a little bit old right you know 2015 Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving get hurt right 2017 and 2018 Kevin Durant and Steph Curry the second and third best players in the world team up with each other and that ends up being enough to unseat him right 2019 he has the groin injury so like you you guys can see the point like the there are many times in NBA history where the best player in the series does not win I think just look back at the Denver series now knowing knowing what we know about Anthony Edwards now and seeing that he doesn’t have the matchup resiliency that someone like Alca donic has now that we’ve seen that we can State unequivocally that the best player in the series in the Denver Minnesota series was joic and yet Denver lost and so we’re going to see if if Luca can reverse that Trend going into the NBA finals next question does Dallas have what it takes to upset Boston in the finals absolutely they’re an elite defensive team right I think a big part of it is going to be Luca attacking in pick and roll I started to just barely look at some film we’re going to do a lot of of series preview content around this series because we’re just going to have a lot of time like guys if if if Dallas wins tonight which I think they probably will but Minnesota’s got a shot if Dallas wins tonight we’re looking at eight consecutive days full days off before the NBA Finals like I was thinking we’ll probably go there’s two Dallas Boston games we may just do full breakdowns of both of those games we might spend an entire show talking about the offense we might bring on Chris manx we might bring on uh those of you guys who are Dallas uh fans if you guys have a specific like team uh someone who covers the Mavericks really closely that you guys think is great at it drop it in the comments I’ll see if I can’t reach out and get them on the show we’re going to have a lot of fun previewing this series and we’re going to get into all those details but one of the things that I noticed in my initial kind of uh look at some film yesterday is Luca is too big for everybody on Boston pretty much except for Jason Tatum and so I think a big thing is Boston’s not going to want to put Jason Tatum on Luca especially not early in the series I think Drew holiday is going to get that assignment a lot right I think Jaylen Brown and Drew holiday are going to be the guys that see the majority of the time on him and like you know first possession in the game in Boston like Luca gets Drew holiday on his hip and just methodically Works him down into the lane waits for kristos porzingis to recover to the roll man and then he just shoots an easy little floater over Drew holiday and he turns around and makes the two small symbol right so like I think that that’s going to be kind of like where this series hinges is can Luca really strangle the pace of the game and pick the Celtics defense apart in the half court because if he can and keep the game kind of slowed down and intense and high pressure maybe on the other end of the floor can your Elite defense play Boston into some of their worst encies now one of the things that’s going to be interesting is Boston is very much a spread you out type of drive and kick offense which is very very different than what Minnesota does right and like d you’re not going to have the luxury that you have in this series of having Daniel Gafford and Derrick Lively just park in the paint because Rudy gold bear uh is is terrible at making anything other than a dunk I’m GNA actually pull up this stat real quick I tweeted it out yesterday but I pulled this up on uh on Synergy yesterday and I was like literally blown away so Rudy goar uh is this stat is like legitimately insane um let’s see Rudy goar is shooting 16 for 35 on layups in this playoff run and three for 11 on floaters in hooks so like that’s one of the things that allows Derrik Lively and Daniel Gafford to just kind of roam off of of goar and help in the lane is like unless it’s a clean dunk goar is probably not going to make it and so that buys you that luxury that’s not what it’s going to be like with Al Horford and Christof porzingis they’re going to be operating primarily from the three-point line and it’s going to be a lot more about covering in space now this is where we’ found out that Maxi kba is coming back tonight that’s a big deal for Dallas right like having kba back gives you the ability to put lineups out there with kba PJ Washington and uh Derrick Jones Jr all on the floor at the same time and then you can you can put those guys on Tatum and brown and Derek white and ask Kyrie to do a somewhat easy job of of guarding someone like a Drew holiday and ask Luca to maybe um be the guy who’s hedging and recovering on an on an Al Horford or something along those lines like they’re they’re going to have options more options by virtue of having Maxi kba back but it’s going to be much more of a of a of a defend in space type of series whereas this series is much more of a load up and pack the paint type of Series so it’s going to be very very different but Dallas certainly has what it takes and it’s all going to come down to Luca just completely dominating the series and it’s going to come down to physical perimeter containment from Dallas’s perimeter Defenders and if they can do that and kind of play Boston into their worst Tendencies I think they’ve got a good chance who is the best lob thrower in NBA history and why is it Luca donic I was thinking about this earlier I think it’s probably Luca as well there are a lot of really good lob throwers that I’ve seen over the years guy like guys like Trey young guys like Chris Paul LeBron was always good at he just never played with a vertical spacing threat until Anthony Davis and he’s been pretty good at connecting him with lobs but the problem with LeBron and AD is uh they play very similar positions so teams will typically switch those ball screens um and so LeBron ad pick and roll is not something you see a ton of unless you’re playing against a drop coverage big right uh but I I think it’s clearly Luca one of the big things that I think makes him the best at it is he’s tall and like you got to think so what makes a lob open a lob is open when the rim protector leaves the lob threat right if the rim protector is leaving the lob threat that means that a seven-footer some sort of large Center type player is leaving that guy to pressure Luca and so he’s got to be able to get that pass over the tall player I I put in the film session yesterday do you guys remember that transition post up of Mike connley where Luca spun Baseline and threw the lob up to I think it was Gafford might have been Lively done matter but uh on that play goar left him and and double team Luca and came up arms up and Luca just happened to get the pass up over the top of him which is just a kind of like a benefit of him being as tall as he is I I’ve been saying this for a while but I think Luca is the only current NBA player that can contend for goat status thoughts so I was looking I thought about this for a little while this morning um because I I kind of think of like three tiers of young players there’s like the guys in that like age 27 to 30 range that are like kind of in the heart of their Prime right now there’s like the guys that are in that like 25 to 26 24 25 26 range those to me are the guys that are just just entering into their Prime and then there’s the guys that are in their early 20s that are like very clearly just like raw talent that are still kind of getting into that phase in the the older tier Giannis and joic they both have a title right but they both turn 30 next year and so one Championship entering into your 30s they just would have to go on an absolutely crazy run over the next 5 years to enter into those conversations so that feels pretty unlikely Joel embiid he doesn’t have one yet and and he’s going to be 30 I think he might actually already be 30 but like embiid is is probably off of that uh off of that you know pathway right in Lucas’s tier which is the kind of guys in that you know 24 25 26 age bracket I put Luca Shay gild Alexander Jason Tatum and Devon Booker Devin Booker just I don’t I just don’t think he has that upside Jason Tatum I think is a really good and maybe even a bit underrated basketball player but I don’t think that he’s in the the tier of players that can really like dominate the league for a half of a decade like a like I think he’s the perfect fit for this super talented Boston roster but I I I think if you swapped him with like with a guy like Luca and put him in a role where he really had to run an offense by himself or with only one secondary shot creator for an 82 Game season I just don’t think he’s the kind of guy that can really do that at a super high level um sh Alexander is damn good but I don’t think he’s as good as Luca so I think Luca is really the only guy in his tier that can do it but in the next Generation I think there’s two guys that can do it I think Victor wanyama has that potential and I think Anthony Edwards has that potential but it’s just completely raw potential with those two so it’s like there’s a there’s a huge wide range of outcomes for them and as you get older those ranges of outcomes kind of zero in between where your de current development is and what your potential upside is right and so yeah I think I think that uh I think that Lucas certainly has that potential but I also think that there are some guys in younger generation that have that potential what is it that separates gobear in the eyes of Voters from players like ad bam and Victor wanyama I find it odd that media voters complain about him winning just to vote for him year after year so voters I one of the big things that that I learned after I got into this business a good percentage of Voters rely heavily on metrics which is crazy to me but it is what it is and I’ve I’ve had one of those guys explain to me the reasoning and their whole thing is like the eye test is flawed but numbers are unbiased and that’s a good way to look at it I I think that that’s absurd personally but that is the way that so many voters think and there’s just a lot of of really good metrics that support Rudy gobear being the best regular season Defender and even though defensive metrics in particular are very flawed a lot of people kind of key key in on that sort of thing I think the second piece of it is people are just enamored with the fact that gobear is like super engaged defensively all the time which is completely ridiculous when you factor in the responsibilities that Anthony Davis has that bam atabo has that Victor wanyama has ad and Bam were both like fulcrum uh ball screeners in a five out offense all year like they were guys that had to like consistently make decisions and set screens and roll hard to the rim not in a way like Rudy gobear where it’s like maybe you’ll catch and finish every once in a while they were expected to score they were expected to score consistently on the offensive end of the floor and Victor wanyama obviously as well is a guy that is a primary initiator for his team and so like I can speak to this from personal experience like when I was in college when I was in junior college I was like one of the best scorers on my team I was the guy that had the ball in my hands a ton then I went to Nia and when I was there I played alongside two All-American guards my role fundamentally changed from guy who had the ball in his hands to I I stayed on the floor and and and like kept my spot in the lineup by basically devoting all of my energy towards guarding the other team’s best player and trying to knock Corner threes down right so like like in that every game I went in like all I cared about was defense defense defense because that was how I kept my job while I was playing alongside really good offensive players and so that’s what Rudy goar does Rudy goar goes into tonight’s game he’s not thinking about anything on the offensive end the only thing Rudy Gober is thinking about tonight going into the game is how do I anchor this defense whereas Anthony Davis when he’s going into game five in Denver he’s thinking man I got to give him an efficient 30 tonight too you know what I mean and so like there’s just a lot of pressure on those guys to do more and I I genuinely think all three of those guys and arguably Draymond as well are better defensive players in a vacuum than Rudy goar but because Rudy goar devotes all of his energy in that direction he puts up these crazy metrics and all the voters just kind of glom on to that sort of thing and and they run with it every single year and so Rudy goar has four defense player of the year trophies and I think he’s probably somewhere around the fifth to seventh best defensive player in the world and it is what it is we’re this close to crowning a new NBA champ and with the action heating up on the court it’s even hotter at draftking Sportsbook an official sports betting partner of the NBA there’s only so many games left draftking Sportsbook has you covered with same game parlays live betting odds boosts and so much more don’t miss 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they be up 3 or at least 2-1 I mean yeah but think about why they’re playing poorly they’re not playing poor like so many people want to uh you know point to this as like some sort of mental shortcoming like oh you know Carl towns and Anthony Edward just ran into this Aura of Luca donic and then they just crumbled the pieces no like they’re playing a very different defense than they did in the first two rounds they are completely incapable of getting into the paint all of Minnesota’s paint finishes have come off the ball either through cleanups around the rim uh putbacks or attacking Closeouts on the weak side Carl towns in in Anthony Edwards are not cons consistently getting into the lane because of elite perimeter athleticism and Elite vertical athleticism under the rim for Dallas and so again like they’re not playing well but there’s a basketball reason for that like we got to get out of this whole like oh they crumbled under the pressure no no no like there’s generally speaking if the basketball conditions are favorable a player is going to play well and if basketball conditions are not favorable they’re not going to play well and again it’s exposed a couple of weaknesses as we’ve gone over in this series I’ve consistently said Carl Anthony towns is a guy that if you can flatten out his drives and shut off the lane from him he’s an inconsistent over-the-top shooter and so you will turn him into a make or Miss guy and he’s been missing in this series that’s something that can happen with Carl Anthony towns Anthony Edwards his flaws he’s all onee speed right now and so he’s got to learn against these super packed in defenses how to be more methodical to to manipulate help the Defenders which is going to take him a few more years of experience I’m there’s two of these I’m so relieved that Jason is leaning Boston would have crushed my soul for him to give us his curse the second one please don’t pick the Mavs to win Jason don’t do it uh first of all I literally picked the Mavs to win against the Clippers I picked the Mavs to win against the Thunder when they were an underdog so was I cursing the Mavs then in my pre- playoffs Contender rankings I had Denver one Boston to Dallas 3 so like I I obviously was a huge believer in Dallas all along I picked against them in this specific Series in a razor thin margin and then I also laid out in the series preview all the different reasons that Dallas could win including Jaden McDaniels might be too skinny for Luca including Dallas has real Rim protection that might cause problems for uh for Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony towns in the lane I also mentioned like I thought Luca’s knee might be in rough shape and it might cause some problems it clearly has not been an issue so like first of all I haven’t cursed your team second of all I’ve been consistently on the Dallas bandwagon for the most part over the course of the latter portion of the year so I really don’t know where all that sentiment comes from why don’t teams Target Luka why didn’t they put him in pick and roll so first of all there’s a reason why the Wolves can’t because Luca has been targeted on occasion in this series and he’s ended up on an island against you know Luca or against Anthony Edwards or against Carl Anthony towns the the reason why the wolves are struggling with it is think about it like this if ant has drick Jones Jr on him and he brings uh Luca into the screen gets a switch at that point where’s goar if it’s an ISO if it’s an ISO goar’s sitting underneath the basket in the dunker spot right and who’s guarding him Derek Lively or Dan Daniel Gafford right so Luca’s defensive job becomes very simple just press up on Ant and make him drive and if he drives he’s just going to drive into all of this damn traffic underneath the rim Dallas has also been helping heavily off of Jaden McDaniel’s all series so like it’s not that they’re not trying to Target Luca it’s just it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem which is ant can get by his man that’s not the issue even Derrick Jones Jr a can get by him it’s the totality of the team defense on the way they’re packing the paint and with goar and McDaniels being left open how they’re incapable of consistently making them pay for doing that um but Boston is very very big on matchup attacking up until the point where tyres Salton left the series the vast majority of action they were running was targeting Tyrus halberton either on the ball through pick and roll or off the ball through inverted pick and roll where he was hedging and recovering the Boston was going at him every single time down the floor Boston Al Boston can get centers out of the paint because they have shooting big so they can like legitimately play five out all the time right and so from that perspective I do think Luca will get targeted a lot more consistently in the Boston series and it will come down to you know is uh is Dallas willing to hedge and recover or they just going to have to double team M out of those situations or is Luka just going to slide his feet and do it well we’re going to find out in that next round every Luca play description has you saying watch how Luca bumps Jaden to create separation or watch how luuka hits him so hard he goes flying or Luca gives him a little off arm creating separation or watch Luca bump Jaden with a drop step here with each being followed by a Luca stepback this action is never called an offensive foul how can anyone guard this type of play effectively basketball’s a contact sport hate to break it to you that’s just what it is it’s not like uh every single basketball not only is basketball a contact sport it becomes more and more of a contact sport the later you get into the playoffs and that’s just not even a that’s not even just a NBA thing that’s at every level whether it’s high school when you get into the playoffs it gets more physical whether it’s an NCA Tournament game it gets like that whether it’s a a money tournament where there’s money on the line and guys are playing like it just anytime the intensity and Stakes rise it becomes a contact sport and so that’s why if you look back their NBA history It’s usually the big strong guys who end up playing the best it ends up being the Lucas it ends up being the yices it ends up being the LeBron James it ends up being the giannis’s in this league right the big strong guys who have the most success why are you so convinced that ant will just learn to be a smart player and game controller he will improve of course but he has an enormous Gap to close with guys like Luca or yic I’m sure he will be a brilliant player for years to come but I do not really see the signs of him being a great decision maker consistently I have the impression that wemi is more likely to have that type of impact and he is in his and he is in his way also a freak of nature like ant so if anyone is going to be an outstanding force in the league other than luuka or yic it’s going to be wemi not ant here’s the thing wem is a very different type of player than ant but he also has that type of potential I absolutely think that wemi could be better than ant he should better than a right like he’s got the best set of physical tools ever in the history of NBA prospects right so like w is kind of like a different thing as far as an goes he’s 22 years old guys he’s 22 years old Michael Jordan and LeBron James didn’t win their first titles until they were 27 that’s five years five more playoff runs like think about how long ago five years was five years ago Kawhi Leonard was playing for the Toronto Raptors five years ago Kevin Durant was still wearing a Golden State Warriors jersey okay like that’s how far we have to get for ant to be able to win a title on the same schedule as the LeBron James uh Michael Jordan tier of guys at the top of the league uh in NBA history right so like I wouldn’t overthink that and most importantly I’ve seen encouraging signs a having that disastrous first half in game seven and then figuring out how to be deeply impactful in the second half that was a huge sign of adaptability from Ant even in this series I know every Mavericks fan is just convinced it was cu a lively I thoroughly disagree in terms of his overall approach he was much smarter in the second half of game three no it’s not going to be enough to turn the series around but he is adaptable he is learning and he is rapidly improving give this dude five more offseasons five more 82 game grinds five more playoff runs he’s going to be so damn good guys he’s going to be so damn good he W it looked like he might be ahead of schedule turns out still needs some more time but that doesn’t mean we need to pretend the dude uh is incapable of reaching where he wants to get to need the Boston verse Mavs breakdown like I said uh uh obviously we’re we’re going to wait until after the MAV series ends but we will do many many layers of series preview content for this this matchup a ton of film probably going to have some guests on as well we’re going to have lots to get into over the course of the coming week how has ant’s potential changed zero after the series you just said in this video that he will need considerably more time to reach the peak so that’s considerably less rings for him he potentially could have started winning championships starting this season but now it’ll take him a couple more years to get his first the potential does change no it doesn’t LeBron James and Michael Jordan didn’t win their first until 27 and they’ve combined to win 10 he was on paac to be way ahead of schedule it looks like he’s a little bit he’s got a ways to go but guys he’s 22 he barely can order a beer okay Jason I love the channel and have uh and have improved my understanding of basketball immeasurably thanks to your logical and insightful breakdowns of the game I use the logic you taught me to predict that the Mavs have many advantages in this matchup and that should put them as considerable favorite despite what the overall narratives were surrounding the series looking back on your coverage I believe you have the basketball acue and experience to have gone against the majority of your peers and predicted the shape of this matchup before game one but you allowed yourself to be moved by more narrative based statements such as Edwards is playing like a top five player in the league or that either Denver or mini could easily beat Dallas or Oklahoma City do you think this is a fair assessment and that if you followed your own processes more strictly you could have predicted this series more accurately so first of all I I really do try to look at the basketball before going into the series if you guys go go back and listen to the series preview and you’ll and you’ll hear a lot of the same that’s happened in the series I specifically brought up McDaniels might not be able to guard Luca I specifically brought up that the rim protection might be an issue for Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony towns I specifically brought up that Derrick Jones Jr was a freaky athlete that might be able to have some more success keeping Anthony Edwards in front off of the dribble I looked at all those advantages I think where I specifically made a mistake was I knew Dallas’s Rim protection would be different than Denver I just thought ant would have more success against it so like honestly like it it this series should be a little closer than it is it shouldn’t be a sweep Dallas isn’t 40 better than Minnesota but Anthony Edwards is having a really really rough series which can happen sometimes for young basketball players when they run into a tough matchup and so again like the way I look at it like I was wrong but I had it close go look at in the preview I’ve specifically said like this can go either way Dallas certainly can win I’m picking Minnesota I thought Minnesota’s defense would have a little bit more impact on Luca and I thought Anthony Edwards would have a little bit more success attack in the half court against this team it went a different way I was wrong it happens I I I don’t know what else to say but at the end of the day guys like like I guys Minnesota beat Denver Minnesota beat Denver Denver and Anthony Edwards went toe-to-toe with the best player in the world and like played more or less at his level over the course of a seven game series like Dallas flipped the script good on them tip the cap but like let’s not sit here and pretend like Minnesota was a bunch of bums and we all foolishly picked bums over because of narratives over the Dallas Mavericks that’s not the way that I see it first you were on Denver then Minnesota now Dallas do you have pick Integrity uh couple things I um I hate this part of the job but it’s something that we have to do right there is no such thing as like a basketball analyst out there if there is one show who year in year out just picks every single series correctly it’s not a thing I was I remember when we were talking with uh when I was talking with Ethan Strauss on his podcast he said something that I thought was fascinating he goes humans on a deep level are are are addicted to variance and what he meant by that was like we we want to go into a situation and not know what’s going to happen right and he was referring to it with JJ reic wanting to get back into coaching and essentially what what the way I interpreted that and what I thought was super fascinating is like that’s what makes Sports fun to watch guys is we don’t know what’s going to happen if we knew every single game clearly who was going to win no one would watch where’s the fun in that like at the end of the day like that’s what we love about sports is you tune in for game seven Denver Minnesota and it’s like man what’s going to happen tonight is Denver going to flex their Championship muscles and get this thing done or is Minnesota on the strengths of this 22-year-old kid and a great defense going to beat these guys and you’re like grab your popcorn man get a pop and ice cold beer let’s watch what happens like that’s what we love about sports and then guess what we turn it on and it’s like holy Denver’s up 20 oh my gosh they haven’t scored in like five minutes now Minnesota’s back in the game uh oh Nas Reed’s making shots it’s oh my gosh Minnesota’s going to win that that’s why we love sports that’s why we love it it I I I said this on a mailbag like a week ago there’s nothing that has surprised me more since getting into this industry than how obsessed people are with like my ability to successfully predict playoff series which is like completely absurd it’s completely absurd secondly I was on Denver because they have the best player in the world and they have a damn good basketball team they barely lost in a series where they led by 20 in the fourth quarter Dallas was third on my list of Championship contenders this year I picked them over Minnesota to start the playoff run right obviously I became very optimistic on Minnesota after they beat Denver also I picked Dallas to win in the first round I picked Dallas to win in the second round there’s no such thing as picking honestly whoever wrote that question I want another mailbag answer what do you mean by pick Integrity what does that damn mean I I just don’t understand like help me understand what what you’re expecting in terms of picks it’s it’s it’s so confounding to me in retrospect do you think that the fact that Minnesota took all seven games to beat Denver was an indication that they were not ready they went up 20 and honestly I think it should have ended in five or six Max the matchup was literally perfect for Minnesota I’m curious to see what you think about this I I don’t think it needs to be overthought I thought honestly just Denver is a championship caliber team that flexed their muscles and was able to kind of regain control of the situation but at the very last minute Minnesota kind of dug their heels in and and were and they were able to kind of drag it back but again guys like they were up 20 in the second half of game seven some of this is just the weirdness of sports right would you consider doing offseason film breakdowns of some of the all-time great players specifically their moves that changed the game Alla the Iverson cut love the channel you’ve helped me on my journey to love the game with basketball again with your great analysis thank you uh first of all I I and moan a lot about the people in my comments that are complaining constantly uh but the overwhelming majority of you guys are positive and I want to make sure that I let you guys know that I’m aware of that and I’m super thankful for it and I appreciate all of your guys’ support in the kind words along the way um as far as the offseason this is our first offseason having film and I’m really excited to see what we do when we do player rankings going to include film when we do alltime rankings going to include film when we do series season previews we’re going to include film so like draft stuff we’re going to be able to do film this year so like I I’m excited to see what we do we’ll probably after the finals do some sort of like strategy meeting internally to kind of come up with some ideas but we’re going to do a lot of stuff with film this summer Jason mailbag question for you what do you think is the hardest part regarding prepping for these reaction videos you make or even going into a series where it’s so evenly matched between both sides huge fan of the show uh so reaction videos the easily the hardest part is the close game so you can imagine I’m writing notes watching the game I’m writing down all the interesting tactical stuff that I’m seeing right but let’s say it’s 100 to 100 with four minutes left everything about The Narrative of the show and the flow of the show hinges on who wins the game and often I feel like a certain team’s going to win or I write a bunch of notes about one specific side and then you have a massive comeback like a 20o comeback in the second half of game seven and suddenly the entire show flips over and so instant reaction shows are kind of interesting and unique challenge in the sense that like it’s just you never know what you’re going to have to say because things can change so quickly over a few minutes at the end as far as like series previews like the hardest part is like I go through the film and I see oh this team has this Advantage this team has that Advantage this team has this Advantage this team has that advantage and it’s really difficult to predict something that’s wildly unpredictable the vast majority of the series in this playoff run were between relatively evenly matched teams that could have gone either way even just look at Thunder Mavs if if PJ Washington uh let’s say that Shay gets a clean block on PJ Washington on that corner three and they win and they go home and they win game seven the the the entire NBA Finals could be different like we would have thunder Minnesota in the second round in the third round so like again all of this stuff hangs by a thread and so many things could have gone uh differently and so like that’s the hard part and like honestly when it comes to doing series previews like like half the battle is like no matter what I pick I’m going to end up getting slandered for it at the end of the day anyway uh do you think Luca has hit his ceiling as an overall player or does he have areas to improve I think obviously with uh with Luca it’s it’s mostly going to be about physical fitness I think he’s obviously a good athlete I’m not trying to sit here and pretend like he doesn’t take care of his body at all but there certainly is another level he can get to on that front and I wonder if he will ever get to that in his career because if he does that could unlock an entirely different level in terms of him both defensively and in terms of his conditioning level over the course of games which is already really good how do you see the match up between the nuggets and the maps Barkley had a short comment that Denver would have beaten Dallas if they had managed to go through Minnesota I probably would have picked Denver to beat Dallas had they met in the Conference Finals it’s really this simple Denver in the same way that Denver has the Personnel to guard Anthony Edwards they really don’t have the Personnel to deal with joic they would have to double and swarm him the entire series which would have led to a ton of uh of open looks the other part of it too is Dallas um Denver is more capable of handling Dallas’s loaded up defense with their ability to move the ball side to side they play more five out and I think they would have just generated a lot more quality looks also Dallas H Denver has a player that’s big and strong enough to kind of sort of hang with Luca and Aaron Gordon which is something that Minnesota does not and that’s just fundamentally different like Luca wouldn’t be able to put Aaron Gordon in jail on those ball screens and manipulate Aaron Gordon the way he does Jaden McDaniels that said Dallas certainly could have beat Denver I would have probably picked Denver on like a 6040 basis which means I would have given Dallas like a 4 % chance to win the series which means I certainly think it could have gone that route I just would get feel like it would be more likely that Denver would have won this was an interesting comment not really a question but a comment that I got Luca vers yic is interesting obviously yic has certain advantages with his size but I believe Luca also has a few advantages by virtue of him being a perimeter player and a great ball handler for example the best closers usually tend to be guards and Luka is probably the best closer in the league today on the Nuggets too Murray is typically the one closing games more often than not Al because he is a perimeter player I believe he is able to control the pace of the game more so than joic having said all that if there was one shot to be taken I’d run joic post up over any other play in the league there’s just a feeling of inevitability with joic that isn’t there with anyone else when it’s all said and done I do expect Luca to end up higher in all-time ranking simply because he’s younger by four to five years also to be fair to him he’s been a superstar basically from day one of his NBA career that part at the end I agree with like LCA probably has a better chance of ending up higher all time just simply because he got started younger right um I disagree in the sense that I do think joic can strangle the post the pace of the game I do think joic can operate as a closer he chooses to go through Jamaal Murray often just because of matchups and it’s also just joic is one of those guys too that like he doesn’t give a who makes takes the shot he just wants to win but yic is certainly capable of operating as a closer I actually think joic and Luka are very similar they are two offensive engines who consistently generate quality shots to their team either by scoring on an island and and they’re pretty much unguardable there’s only a handful of guys in the league that can guard both guys and then the consistent making of good reads when they draw double teams right I think if there’s one thing that Luka has kind of gained ground on joic on as of late is the jump shot just joic didn’t shoot the ball well this year Luca’s shooting it much better and that ended up being a problem especially in the Minnesota series when yic couldn’t hit pick and pop threes but I think that they’re both remarkably similar the only real difference is they play different positions and joic operates more in the flow of the game as a five out Guy versus uh Luca being like a four out you know heliocentric type of guy as someone in what I would consider to be the new age of sports media what is it going to take to get away from the clickbait headlines that currently dominate old/ traditional media I understand that the Celtics have had a far easier road than the Wolves but but the ant and Tatum narratives are so bizarre to me so again guys this is I I don’t like watching shows that have overly you know uh critical click baity type of subject matter right but I don’t have to watch them like this is the beautiful thing about the new age of sports media whatever it is you’re into listening to you can find and so like my thing is like there those things will continue to exist as long as people watch them and people still do like I I like I I still to this day see you know ESPN Clips with relatively clickbaity topics that perform extremely well and so like people still like that kind of content it’s like if you’re not into that go listen to something different you know I mean one other thing that I wanted to hit here I get criticized a lot for like my thumbnails and my titles I don’t write the thumbnails or the titles guys uh just to make that clear I record the show and I submit it and then my team does the rest and so like again like it’s uh there’s a certain business element that we have to be realistic of like if it get if a click baity headline gets you guys to click but then you like my show for being what my show is then I’m going to take that as a win even even if there was a a little grifty thing we had to do off the top to get you to come through the door right but like once we get the door swing it’s really about whether or not you like the show right but again like if you guys don’t like the the the stuff that’s out there all you have to do is not watch it you know like I don’t think it’s really that complicated damn after hearing all those stats how does Minnesota even keep it close turnovers I know games one and two Dallas shot pour from three but still in game four should Dallas not push it protect the ball and just run half court sets every possession since they’re so much better at it the main thing that’s kept it close to Second Chance points the uh the Timberwolves have been much better at converting offensive rebounds into points they’re up 39 to 25 and second chance points in the series that has closed the gap on some of the half court execution stuff I’m having an argument with my friends and I said Tatum has to be the one to guard Luca in the finals do you agree yes I think that’s where the series is eventually going so if if Lucas picking on matchups and just barbecuing all of your smaller perimeter Defenders the only thing you can do is put Tatum on him now how does that work work in different coverages so what that would mean is in ball screens you have Tatum on on Luca and you chase over the top and you that way when Luca tries to put Tatum in jail Tatum’s big and strong and long enough to actually bother Luca there in a way that a guy like Jen McDaniels can’t right from there Luca will probably start trying to run guard guard screens to try to get uh to try to get Tatum switched off of him from there you run hedge and recover and you rotate but I think that would be the goal because that’s the best way to get the ball out of Lucas hands and actually make other people try to score is like if you have it so that he can’t attack in straight ISO because one of the things that Dallas would do is if they’re blitzing ball screens against Minnesota Luca will just attack Jen McDaniels one-on-one because he feels comfortable he won’t be able to do that as easily with Tatum so I think Tatum on Luca is probably their best strategy in the long run also Boston has enough offensive talent that if you went to Tatum and said hey I need you to devote 80% of your energy to guarding Luka donic Boston would be fine because they have enough offensive Talent on the other end to make up for it all right we have four more it looks like hey Jason in your opinion what has made the Luca Kyrie back court work so well compared to other teams that have tried using two star guards like Atlanta and Cleveland uh it’s really the simple Atlanta was Trey young and Deonte Murray Cleveland was Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland Dallas has Luca donic who might be the best player in the world and Kyrie Irving who’s better as a number two than Garland or dejonte I don’t think we need to overthink it they just they’re the the stars are actually just really really good and they’ve got really good role players doing all the dirty work for them didn’t you say that Ant-Man is clearly better than Tatum so I had a mailbag question that said where someone said who would you take right now Tatum or ant and I said I would take I would take ant right now no questions and here’s the thing when I that was just a quick response to a mailbag question the way I really feel about it is that I do think that Ant-Man is going to be better than Tatum sooner than later I if I was a GM I’d rather have Ant-Man on my team than Jason Tatum but right now right now for a playoff series I think Tatum is better and I said that in our player rankings when we did the top five like a week and a half two weeks ago I had uh y i yic one Luca 2 did I did we remove yic no no yeah yeah it was joic one Luca 2 I had Tatum three Anthony Edwards four so uh like that’s that’s how I feel but I do think that I I would be stunned if 18 months from now if a wasn’t at Tatum’s level and if 36 months from now he wasn’t just clearly better two more I used to enjoy your pod with Raj and then one day it seemed like it was discontinued can you elaborate on what happened there exactly I know you explained some of the overall Journey recently but I really liked state of the Lakers so uh it’s really simple state of the Lakers was only half the podcast I had it started as J the Jason Tim podcast then it became state of the Lakers but half of the was me doing instant reaction shows with Raj at night the other half of the show was Me by myself covering the rest of the league Raj and I had very different goals my goal was to cover the NBA at large Raj’s goal is to be a credentialed reporter that covers the Los Angeles Lakers when the volume reached out to me they wanted me to cover the league as a as a uh solo guy like I was already doing for the other half of the state of the Lakers pot so that’s really all it was they were essentially just trying to build a new show around what the Jason Tim podcast was before I started working with Raj uh but Raj and I had different goals Raj Raj doesn’t want to cover the entire league he wants to cover the Lakers and that’s what he’s doing right now uh but I loved working with Raj and uh I think he’s one of the best people that covers the Lakers does great work I think he’s working I think he’s doing a a show right now with v kowala and they do a great they do a great job seems like Luca jumped Giannis for you and the best player in the world rankings wh how and why uh very simple I just just I think the most important skill that a basketball player can have is the ability to consistently generate quality shots for his team in the half court and I think Luca’s awesome at it potentially the best player in the world at it and for Giannis I think that’s actually been one of the major issues that has played him over the years like yes he got hurt but when push came to shove against Miami last year he couldn’t get a shot like he couldn’t make a quality shot over the top of bam like he can’t even get like a left shoulder hook right uh going back to the um uh 2022 season like his I actually thought he was really good in that Series against Boston but still there’s some limitations in terms of his ability to get shots off over the top when he can’t just penetrate into the paint and then obviously before that before the 2021 season when they won the title that was consistently what was his issue in 2019 and 2020 2021 in particular too like a genuine Championship don’t take anything away from it but it was a weird season and he played some limited competition along the way and I do think that that was one of the things that allowed Giannis to overcome that specific weakness of his second part of the question the Wolves exposed how bad yic is as a rim protector how is that shaped your view on him relative to Giannis and other great bigs in NBA history so uh the thing with uh with yic is he demonstrated last year that he could defend the rim well enough against like really good competition too against LeBron and ad against bam and Jimmy against KD and Devon Booker like he demonstrated that he could do that last year I think in a lot of ways Minnesota just drove him into the ground with their overwhelming physicality and I think he got tired and I think he fell apart there so obviously there are some things that he has to improve on in that regard but I still think to put it simply if I had to build a team that could win a championship I feel like it’d be easier to build one around joic than Giannis simply because it’s going to be easy for me to get defensive Personnel that can Thrive offensively off of what joic does than vice versa all right guys that’s all I have for today as always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show we’re going to be back tonight Live on YouTube after the final buzzer game four between the wolv and the Mavs I will see you guys then [Music]

Jason Timpf answers listener questions during an NBA Mailbag segment. Jason discusses his favorite storylines from the likely Mavericks-Celtics NBA Finals matchup, why Dallas can present problems for Jayson Tatum and Boston, and whether Luka Doncic has a chance to compete for NBA GOAT status. Later, Jason discusses what went wrong for Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals and his thoughts on Luka Doncic vs. Nikola Jokic for the best player in the world title.

Timeline:
00:00 – Celtics-Mavericks Top Storyline
06:00 – Can Dallas upset Boston?
10:10 – Is Luka best lob passer in NBA history?
11:28 – Can Luka contend for GOAT status?
14:00 – Why Gobert keeps winning DPOY
18:22 – What happened to Timberwolves?
20:02 – Jason did not curse Mavericks
21:11 – Why don’t teams target Luka
23:14 – Does Luka commit offensive fouls?
24:22 – Are we too high on Anthony Edwards?
26:30 – When Celtics-Mavs preview will come out
26:49 – Has Ant’s potential changed?
27:25 – Jason reflects on Mavs-Wolves prediction
30:08 – Jason’s thoughts on making predictions
33:08 – Were Wolves not ready for Mavs?
33:46 – More film breakdowns to come
34:45 – Hardest part prepping for preview/reaction shows
36:25 – Has Luka hit his ceiling?
36:54 – Would Denver have beaten Dallas?
38:04 – Luka vs. Nikola Jokic
40:00 – Will we get away from click-bait in sports?
41:42 – How Wolves have kept Mavs games close
42:08 – Does Tatum have to guard Luka?
43:28 – Why Luka-Kyrie backcourt has worked so well
44:05 – Anthony Edwards vs. Jayson Tatum
45:05 – What happened to Jason’s old show
46:16 – Is Luka best player in the world?
47:29 – Does Jokic rim protection hurt his legacy?

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