Breaking Down The Futures Of The Denver Nuggets And Orlando Magic | Did The Celtics Break The Mavs?

Breaking Down The Futures Of The Denver Nuggets And Orlando Magic | Did The Celtics Break The Mavs?

what is up fellow thermonuclear aers I am Dan valy coming at you without my certified fan fabulous co-host but I have duped Grace Jean of the what’s in a game podcast check them out on YouTube and Spotify and hopefully soon Apple music I will include the links to where they’re at in the podcast and YouTube description it is her first time on the podcast so it’s not her fault um even though she listens so she might know what she’s in for a little bit um I’m excited to pick her brain about a bunch of stuff the nuggets the magic some other offseason stuff the finals of course game one game two adjustments that type of stuff the biggest question we have well first forgot this follow uh Grace on Twitter Aon B27 that’s e r i n bu r27 so go follow her at the Twitter machine but the first question we must ask Grace and I keep I’m staring at your Twitter handle and I keep wanting to say eron but Grace how the heck are you doing I’m doing well uh it’s been it’s been a solid week been missing basketball but then we got game one of the final and then I was missing on the offseason gossip and of course you know W always delivers when you least expect it so um I’m just swimming in content right now so I’m doing I’m doing well uh yeah it’s a busy it’s about the the ramp up it’s where we have finals but so much of the discourse is about not the finals which ironically I’m going to start off by asking you about not the finals um I have to know though before I ask you about the podcast in your Twitter bio that you basically single out the nuggets and the magic which I think is one of the most unique whenever I’ve seen multi-te lists in someone’s bio I kind of like can connect the dots I need to know what is the Genesis of like this nuggets magic hybrid interest so the nuggets are my number one team I actually recently got into them like as in last year during their playoff run um I’m not from Colorado so I hope the Denver people don’t uh you know don’t disown me for that uh but I got really into the Nuggets following them during the playoff run last year uh it was actually the first time that I’d watched the playoffs uh from sort of round one uh usually kind of I was a much more casual basketball Observer audience member whatever um but I actually watched the playin and I saw the Pelicans Thunder playin game that was really fun went down to the wire all that prevailed in that 910 game they played the wolves and got SCH smacked and so I was like well I really like this young Thunder team and I don’t like that Minnesota like kind of messed him up so after like I had never watched a Nuggets game before but the Wolves played nuggets in round one last year and I was like well I’m G to root for the Nuggets now because I dislike the timber wolves for beating up this young Thunder team that I enjoyed watching in this one playay end game and so you know this is uh Adam Silver propaganda because he I think did a good job drawing me in as a deeper basketball fan with the playin um so it was kind of born from a dislike of a team that that beat a team that you did like yes that I liked after watching One game because I had not watched the Thunder before that play I love that yeah and what is the magic how do we connect that yeah so uh I actually grew up in Florida um I was more of a like Heat fan because like Dwayne Wade was my favorite player growing up but we definitely watched a lot of the Orlando Magic as well I was actually born in Orlando um and I was uh always watching those like Dwight Howard teams uh in the late 2000s and all of that but actually since I uh I don’t know became a teenager I hadn’t really watched any of the Orlando Magic and you know they haven’t exactly been giving me a reason to um but after last Year watching the nuggets in the playoffs and kind of getting deeper into basketball uh I just got really excited about the current iteration with this new Young Orlando Magic team and after just kind of watching them a little bit to start the uh this last regular season I just kind of fell back in love with them and I’m like well I’m from Florida and I’m born Orlando so I just kind of like felt that kinship with them um and after they had this um they had that really impressive win streak at the beginning of the Season that no one expected because they are so young and it was really like driven by this ridiculously good defense especially for such a young team and I actually watched them beat the Nuggets when I was home for Thanksgiving um so that was like o Bittersweet to watch so I was kind of rooting for them a little bit in that game even though I wanted I wanted the Nuggets to win because I just want the Nuggets to win everything like they are they take but it was like this is just impressive um to to see this young team doing that and so I just kind of uh followed them from there and never really fell off that’s [ __ ] awesome I love I love like how you reach that point of those two teams but Grant and I had talked about this this was like I think months back because I’ve talked to you on Twitter for a while do you have some you tweet and like you talk like you have a pretty technical basketball background because Grant and I talked about how you should be the ones hosting our podcast before we knew before what’s in a game even launched um based off some of the interactions I had had with you so is there a like a background there and one what is it and also two I guess like did you following the Nuggets more and the magic more like did that open up your interest then to the rest because you you talk about the entire league like in such a like it’s an incred you’ve you’ve said things not that this should be the this actually a really low bar so I won’t use myself as an example but like you said things that have just like I wouldn’t even have thought about or like your point out stuff to me in games and I’m just like I wish I could notice that in real time so threw a lot of questions at you there but it’s wherever you want to start with it yeah so uh I guess I’ll try to work backwards absolutely um especially watching the Nuggets last year they a team that just the way that they operate with yogic and the way they run their offense and everything the deeper that you kind of get into like the fandom of that team it it’s kind of impossible to not get more into the X’s and O’s of the game because they’re a team that even in the regular season a lot of their offense uh relies on like deploying counters to how like a particular team is defending them before last year I like didn’t it’s not that I didn’t care about defense but I had I didn’t know anything about NBA defense I am actually coming from this uh coming at this from a perspective of a very or previously like a very casual NBA fan uh I have no technical background in basketball um I watched a lot of NBA YouTube a lot of uh film breakdown as the playoffs were going on again last year and throughout this past regular season and really it was just born out of a just like hunger to like keep learning more about the game and it’s really I think interesting that it’s because of a team like the Nuggets uh because of the way that they operate that sort of uh like created that hunger because I want wanted to understand more about the team like what made them so good that it was impossible to do that without really getting into X’s and O’s because of course they have great players as well which is kind of like how a lot of fans get into the NBA it’s like wow this one player like can do these amazing things especially like you know different uh ways of like scoring getting buckets um but the way that they operate like as a team was very like enticing to me and I just wanted to know more and as a result I got more into understanding defense like I care a lot more about defense than I when you said that on the PO one of your segments on the podcast I I honestly my heart broke a little bit because that that I I basically exclusively advocate for small ball style because to call NBA players small when like if you’re 68 the biggest guy in the court like it’s still pretty [ __ ] big but I mean not by NBA standards not in today’s NBA Thunder ball when Chet’s on there and he’s like seven foot it’s like all right well okay he doesn’t play like a traditional seven-footer but that’s anyway my my soul was crushed when I discovered that you were just anti- small ball I know I am and it’s it’s kind of like you know JJ reic hates the dunker spot but you know he’ll have some exceptions if teams use it right I actually think to to go to your example of the the Thunder I’ve talked about this a lot that there are only two teams in the NBA that I trust to go small ball and play confident bastketball and the Thunder are absolutely one of them they are the number one the other is the Pacers um but part of that is because they have uh they have the Personnel at present to you know take advantage of that we don’t have to get into a whole like meta discussion about my qualms with small ball though but yeah to kind of answer that question about how I um why I got into just like a a broader not just that I have an understanding I don’t actually think I understand teams outside of the the nuggets and the magic all that well but I have a like hunger like I said to to just keep learning more about them and that’s how that’s how I got into yeah following the NBA more at large than I ever had previously so you co-host the what’s in a game podcast with your co-host will Jones it’s become one of my regular listens I’ve really enjoyed it since the the debut episode uh would you care to want elaborate on how that came about and follow them on Twitter at what’s in aame MBA spelled exactly as it sounds and like I said the links to uh where you can find them will be in the YouTube and and podcast descriptions um but would you like to elaborate on how did that come about like how did you will decide to start it and if you had to just give a little bit of a pitch because I have heard when people come on that their subscriptions will go up and I love getting those messages because uh it reminds me that a bunch of sickos are listening to this podcast so are you able to if if no one’s listened to it yet I would highly recommend checking it out but we all know around these parts that my word means very little so if you if you could give us the the pitch of what’s in a game yeah so uh will and I started what’s in a game a couple of months ago where came up with the with the idea will approached me on Twitter he kept saying like you should have a podcast I’m like I’m not going to start a podcast and eventually he said do you want to start a podcast with me like oh someone else to help me with like all of the work that goes into this uh yeah let’s do it uh I really liked his film breakdowns that he would constantly post on Twitter and I thought that we had a good rapport so uh yeah I decided that we we could be a good pairing and so what’s in a game the philosophy of the show is really uh about two basketball fans that are trying to share our perspective on these games and the NBA uh uh as a whole but for me personally it’s really a reflection of my journey in terms of learning more about the game of basketball and so my goal with each episode is to just kind of help a casual to medium Observer of the game and I really appreciate that you who uh is definitely like a higher level uh Watcher of of basketball I’m excited to watch my first NBA game on Sunday game two of the finals it be my first one I’m very excited about it uh yeah I’m glad that it can uh appeal to that audience as well but uh it’s really about uh trying to make it as accessible as possible honestly there’s so much great content out there that’s how I was able to get it come to this like deeper uh level of ball knowing than I did a year ago um but I also wanted to share some of my thoughts and uh you know just kind of Point more things out that uh some of the other um uh NBA YouTubers you know may not catch and also ask questions right a lot of the podcast is about um asking questions about why a team did a certain thing or did it in a certain way um and trying to you know have a discussion to to answer that question I am ready to talk to you about uh the Denver Nuggets okay are are we ready to get into them they I don’t know their fans I’m sure in very much offseason mode at this point because that’s what they are uh I wanted to start you kind of recently talked about this uh on on your podcast where are you at with Jamal Murray know he was injured during this postseason run I know inconsistency has kind of been ingrained uh into his DNA even like during his best moments there’s also you and will were talking about what I found interesting and missed is the comments maybe that Michael Malone had about but then uh corrected himself about everyone needs to be in the gym and work on their stamina but you think maybe we’re aimed at Jamal Murray absolutely I mean the question was about Jamal so I had I had no idea until I listened to the clip because I didn’t even see that uh but look he’s hit he’s had some amazing playoff performances he’s hit some incredible shots including during against the Lakers in the uh playoffs this year but I person I I’ll lay it like this in case people want to get mad I’m starting to wonder whether there’s a certain dependency on nicoa yic that’s almost uncomfortable because their Synergy is great but can you depend on this player to be a highlevel borderline star independent of Nicole yic yeah I mean you this is a very good point uh I’m a huge fan of Jamal Murray he’s a big part of the reason that uh I got into the Nuggets I love yic he’s my favorite player but Jamal’s my second favorite player and while I have uh all of these um new questions really and I think a lot of nuggets fans do about whether he can you know come into a season condition start to perform a lot better in the regular season than he has and not sort of try to play his way into shape before the playoffs and that didn’t work out this year um whether he can improve his consistency both in the regular season and the playoffs because like you said even at his uh at his Peaks that inconsistency is sort of ingrained in him um but outwardly I’m still on the Jamal is better than your favorite player train so if you uh you know find me on Twitter like I will sort of no I will I will kind of defend him to the death um actually like Jamal had a decent regular season this year he uh a lot of nuggets fans pointed out how he had improved his playmaking by a lot especially his playmaking with yic like that chemistry just kind of kept getting better and better as the years went on and everyone thought that uh you know the playoffs last year was the peak of that but it had started to carry over and they were building on that to start the season but he uh he also improved his uh shooting efficiency especially on his pull-up threes that’s like a really big thing on a team that doesn’t take that many uh threes even when they’re you know clicking offensively but he couldn’t stay on the floor and so his season kept getting interrupted his progress kept getting interrupted because of hamstring shin splints he had the calf strein in the uh in the playoffs and I’m not saying that uh that’s an excuse I don’t think it uh I don’t think it is because the conditioning and health questions have been a consistent concern with him and uh a lot lot of what those comments from both Malone and Calvin booth at that end of season press conference were about challenging Jamal to take those things more seriously in a conscious way especially as he you know gets older he’s he’s in his prime right now um but he’s going into what will be his age 28 season and Calvin booth made these comments about how Jamal should you know study what Championship level guards of the past did after their Championship Seasons because they did have a short off season last year following uh winning the finals and uh you know you kind of cut everybody some slack for coming in with maybe less than ideal conditioning Etc but it is it has been this consistent concern with Jamal in particular even before the title run so the one sort of I guess summary that I would have of this is that I it’s not that I trust him to just kind of get better at these things I think they’re legitimate questions that he needs to answer and he needs to show us now that he can be let’s say 80% of the player that we want him to be particularly in the regular season because I do think that he needs to take that more seriously to take some pressure off of the rest of the team um but but if he can’t it does change the conversation about how you build this team because the the team is built around Jamal and yic being Superstar level at least in the playoffs Jamal was not that in the playoffs this year and he hasn’t been that in any regular season and the the starters are sort of paid accordingly so if they’re not going to if he’s not going to perform to that level it changes is the calculus about how the rest of the roster is constructed to make up for that I just can’t I keep going back to and so this would be my question to you when you look at how much they’ve struggled historically when he plays without yic and even this season they were obliterated in his sample without yit his effective field goal percentage was below 50 during those minutes I think the Nuggets were hammered by like minus 15 points per 100 possessions is that like oh like is that something that we can legitimately start clinging to or is it more about well the samples are so tiny in part because of the way Michael Mone prefers to stagger his lineups and is that something that needs to be further investigated rather than saying why hasn’t Jamaal Murray been able to lift up the Celtics uh the Celtics excuse me the Nuggets independent of of Nicole yic more yeah so I actually think it’s a combination of the two because when you look at I was thinking about this the other day when uh I was having a discussion with uh with somebody about playing with a top if joic could play with another top 15 player and I thought about the top 15 players who are not their like franchise guy like First Team all NBA MVP caliber the dude on their team um and I’m like how consistent are these second options actually and are they good enough to lift up a you a second unit that is entirely composed of bench players like uh these particular onoff splits are um are suggesting when it comes to Jamal I do think that he can be better and in particular a better leader for those units not necessarily as the primary um you know scoring option but because of the way that the team is constructed he’s often not playing with a with you know four uh offensive players are all very offensively limited especially this past year when it comes to uh the the younger players with Christian Brown and pton Watson uh we did have Julian strawther in the rotation for a bit um but I do think it’s a combination of the two and I the the theme of let’s try to stagger these lineups let’s do a little bit of what say the Boston Celtics do where they have they have a really expensive starting lineup they have uh is it four starters that make over $30 million a year including Jaylen Brown who’s on the supermax now and Tatum is about to be uh but they stagger them a lot more and what you end up with is a situation where you have at least two starters on the floor with the with the with the bench players and the bench players can kind of play off of them and maybe augment what they do instead of the one starter being you know put in a situation where they have to kind of carry a unit that is either challenged on one end of the floor or the other so it’s not like the Celtics have a particularly defensive skewed defensively skewed uh second unit like the Nuggets do with their guys so the questions are a little bit different but I think it’s really about like okay we have this really expensive staring lineup and they’re really really good together and that’s great but can we start to deploy some of those resources in a way that uh sort of smooth smooth smoothens out the um the uh the on FL the onc Court impact whether yic is on the floor or not this is all to say I would still give him the the four years 28.5 million extension that he’s eligible for especially with the they probably will that’s that’s they should I don’t like they don’t really have a you’re alternative does not look look great so he’s just he’s always been a polarizing player for me another polarizing player especially after the playoffs we had a lot of people in our mentions and our YouTube comments calling for the Nuggets to trade Michael Porter Jr uh I don’t think they last year too I don’t I don’t well I was really impressed with what he did during the playoffs last year even at points this year I don’t think they would get a lot for him just because I don’t think he has BR yeah he’s made improvements as a Defender as a rebounder at times but there just hasn’t been a ton of strides offensively it feels like in large part because the Nuggets aren’t necessarily set up that way and there’s a level of concep being made here of okay well he fits into this role but at the same time it’s like it’d be great if they could have a third player on this team who can break down defenses and put them in rotation when they’re in the half court and that’s not him I want to say yet but are we at the point where you’re concerned that I was looking this up in preparation of the podcast in the minutes without joic this season and I know that most of his baskets come off assist but he made 14 unassisted baskets without jokic on the floor this like that just seems super low is there room to experiment more with him maybe generating his own looks or playing more complicated offense in those micro stretches or do you not view him as the type of player that is even worth trying to do that with I definitely think that there are things that both the team and mpj could do to improve his game now you could say there’s a limitation on what his ceiling could be in terms of on ball creation but the way that the Nuggets run their offense and could run their offense even with jic off the floor if they were to make some of these um some of these changes means that you can run more things for mpj I mean Michael Malone talked about running a bunch of atos for Julian Strather throughout uh the first half of the season when he was in the rotation and mpj can come off of wide pin Downs more try to playmake off of those make more shots get downhill more for sure I do think that part of uh part of what happens is that mpj plays a lot of his minutes with yogic I don’t think he has a bunch of opportuni to play with the bench and I would like to see that change actually Calvin Booth alluded to this in an interview that he did last year right before preseason um I believe it was in a a piece with sports kada and he went on a whole sort of uh diet tribe about mpj and one of the things that he suggested is that he staggers more with the bench and I actually like a lot of those looks especially because defensively he can really help with their rebounding that unit is really undersized as as currently constructed um but also offensively it’s not like you have to rely on him for on ball creation he can set goost screens he can slip uh and you know depending on however a bench unit of the opposing team is guarding them uh he can probably add a lot more to his off ball game and he did this season uh add more than we’d seen from him last year which was the year coming off of the third back surgery so he actually made a lot more progress than I think people expected at least in the in the regular season he was getting down hillmore his mid-range game improved dramatically he was not a good mid-range shooter last year and he I believe was second in the league in um shooting the mid-range like 55% behind Chris Middleton this season so I actually do think that there are facets that can be explored that don’t rely on him improving his on ball game and it’s really about uh the team being willing to to get a little bit more creative with how they run their offense I think particularly in those bench units because it’s not like it’s like they can’t get any worse so let’s just try [ __ ] is do you think that we then could see that especially when you look at the extent to which even Michael Malone came out and said well our starters look gas and I’m not saying experimenting more with mpj is necessarily going to be good for his stamina but if you can get more creative with mpj during minutes maybe where yoka just on the court is there a point where you can either rest players more down the stretch because you were a better more balanced team or maybe Nicole yic is able to log fewer minutes or is this more of a wholesale zooming out and you’re looking at the overall depth of the roster but like is it like and I I would probably lean more towards the ladder when you just look at how dependent they’re going to be on still guys that are developing but do you see this team given what they’ve talked about and acknowledging Michael Malone specifically their weaknesses like okay could we then get what is it going to be Michael Porter Jr’s sixth season next year seventh season like I know he missed a ton of time but like we’re getting into the meet and potatoes of his career and haven’t really seen a lot of the stuff that you’ve necessarily been talking about that they could do in theory with him no I I I agree and I think it’s both it’s not just it’s not just zooming out I actually do think that um mpj could be part of sort of unlocking more um viable staggered units particularly in the regular season and you talk about how like well wait wouldn’t that just increase his minutes load the thing is like you you don’t want to throw four of them out there but you could throw one other starter and like three random dudes out there with yic and that unit’s going to be like very positive for like not no reason but for all the reasons that are nickol yogic right so if you find a way to use the other starters to help lift up these non-age minutes then you’re not going to be consistently blowing leads and then having to play all of the starters deep into games against the Brooklyn Nets or the Washington Wizards or the Toronto Raptors for no reason um and once you you know build up the winds and then down the stretch like you don’t have to worry about seating as much and don’t have to play the starters you know three quarters of a game against the Memphis Grizzlies in game 82 the like hospital hospital Memphis Grizzlies right um but I also think that just to kind of touch on uh all of Malone’s comments during this offseason have been very much about the fact that this the starters were gassed at the end of the year and yeah part of that is because they uh because they they just played uh too deep in the year trying to push for that one seed when they didn’t really you know need to and I don’t know that they’re going to be prioritizing top top seating as much going forward I mean they had home court advantage in round two and lost game seven at home right but they also demonstrated that they could win on the road at a really um a high level in the playoffs like they went into um they went into Minnesota and won two games when they were down 02 and that was really impressive to me and they also um you know won a road game against the Lakers Etc like I don’t think that this is a team that needs homec court advantage to yeah win a series and I think they need to be healthy they need to be rested and they need to be playing their best basketball um and so finding the way to to get to that point by the time the playoffs start is probably going to be more of the priority going forward when you look at how and I do think there was an overreaction after after after they lost because one of the Timber roles are really [ __ ] good um and they could very well be they they could run it back as is resign or extend kavus K Pope and they could just win the title next year like that’s absolutely on the table but if your impressions of what they have in place changed it all because of not necessarily how the season ended but because of all the things that you’ve talked about where especially you’re talking about the starters looking to gas and kind of looking at you know and maybe this is more of a question of have your impressions changed or I don’t even necessarily know where you were at originally on this sort of multi-era timeline that they were trying to juggle to hit on these cost controlled youngsters that can in theory extend their title window have your impressions of just where the nuggets are at right now and maybe what they need immediately rather than longterm have have those changed at all those Impressions haven’t changed actually in the slightest I was talking to another nuggets uh fan about this I think it was like the day after game seven or something where you know Calvin Booth the general manager and Josh koni said in the preseason a preseason media that uh this sort of two timelines plan was probably would probably mean that this past year would be the toughest year that they had to win the title and I said like okay they got their Gap year now they need to deliver like these these young guys that Cal drafted need to get ready and be like viable in Malone’s eyes playoff rotation ready dudes because pton Watson didn’t play Julian Strather didn’t he had the the knee injury midseason Etc so that’s one of the things that has to happen is that the the the young guys that have already been drafted need to be playoff rotation ready because we’re not going to get high quality vets at this point because of the situation with the cap sheet I actually do think that Justin holiday played a lot better in the playoffs than I thought he would um particularly in the first half of that Wolf series when the Nuggets were uh dropping games but like blowing them away in these bench minutes they were losing the starters minutes uh he played incredibly well and I actually don’t think the bench minutes were like the reason that they lost that series no W the starters Gob smacked they were they were completely like destroyed in the starters minutes and part of that is because of how well like Minnesota I wouldn’t say like has their number but it was a combination of that is a tough matchup for the Nuggets starters um and they’re like incredibly good starting five but the but Minnesota constructed a team that just makes what they do so well very very difficult and the fact that they were gassed and the fact that Jamal was injured and the fact that nobody nobody could shoot um just made it uh it was just everything compounding and then on top of that you weren’t going to have somebody off the bench come in and save you except Justin holiday for a couple games he tried but they lost them anyway when you look at the youngsters I mean and they’re not the relatively the inexperienced on their roster talking J picket Hunter Tyson Julian Strather pton Watson Christian Brown um what let’s start here who is the most important of that I know Christian Brown is the best one right now but is he also the most important to this team longterm of that group no pton Watson’s the most important long term um Christian Brown so when I when you say most important I think like what needs what needs to happen with Christian Brown like he could stay the way that he is and like the team like would be fine because if nothing else he’s going to be either a valuable rotation piece for us or like just a VI viable rotation piece for another team and he could be a good trade ship potentially down the line pton son is the one who has the biggest long-term upside I know like last year two years ago a lot of people were sort of comparing him to like he could be our kawhai Leonard in the way that Kawai sort of extended the Spurs championship window depending on whatever it is that he develops into I think his defensive upside is sort of solidified like we kind of know like he’s just going to be a beast defensively both on Ball and off ball he can be incredibly impactful and so the questions are about his offense and that’s going to mean uh like his him sort of reaching the you know 60th percentile plus outcome of the spectrum of things that that fans have envisioned for him is going to determine how much longer the Nuggets Championship window is unless we just like find another random sleeper in the back half of the draft because this team is not a team that’s ever going to end up in the lottery like Malone would literally never allow it um and in addition to that it’s a smaller market like it’s just harder to get really topend free agents and a big trade would require trading a starter and because of the way that our starting 5 is currently constructed no individual starter outside of yic who is absolutely Untouchable uh is about to title this podcast uh five Nicole yage trades the Nugget should consider them yeah let’s do it um no no individual starter is going to sort of yield anything near that value right and so I do think that the the two timelines plan is sort of like what needs to happen and it’s not just because they’re a small Market but also because of the new CBA you know I was listening to uh Adam Mars and West Goldberg talk about this how uh the the new CB actually allows for rookie skill contracts to be extended uh by with a with a fiveyear extension now um and that was sort of like one of the trade-offs that’s in there like okay we’re making it harder uh for the top end stuff to happen in terms of trades for agency deals to to to happen especially for contenders but you know you’ll be able to keep your your younger guys longer term if you happen to do that right um and Wes made this point about how uh like college and NBA are flipping because now all of these college teams they have all these oneandone players that end up going in the NBA but also the transfer portal means that there’s a lot less continuity on all these college teams than there had been before and so now the NBA is moving toward like continuity more sort of forcing contenders to either like go with continuity or you just won’t be able to afford your team and and or iters are the more stable option for J Hurley than is that what this Ed oh my gosh man that’s situation is such a such a mess um but yeah it’s kind of like well this is just what has to happen so I don’t think that there’s a I don’t think there’s an option to not go two timelines like we need this to work and we need to develop these young guys into players that will be viable playoff rotation players but also guys that can help us in the regular season to make sure that the starters don’t get burned out who intrigues you most longterm or even looking ahead maybe it’s most likely to make a difference next season from the uh Julian Strather Hunter Tyson jayen picket Trio and I feel like the answer is easy but I’m hoping that you might have an offbeat answer because I kind of find myself like maybe unhealthily intrigued by jayen picket I was gonna say I think everyone expects me to say strawther but I’m gonna say Jaylen picket there are a lot of questions about him because milen didn’t play him much last year uh I think there he was in the in the actual actual rotation like two or three games for like two to five minutes a piece and there were times when he had opportunities because of all the the injuries that Jamal had throughout the season um Reggie Jackson was backing him up but uh one of the two-way players Colin Gillespie sort of uh you know jumped him in that pecking order I think part a large part of that is because Malone uh likes trust Gillespie more he had been on the team the year before um but maybe it’s because piet’s bad but also maybe picket was fine the time that I saw him on the floor in the rotation I thought he played just fine next to yogic uh runs pick and roll pretty well whatever needs to work on the shooting that was a big emphasis um for the team I’m sure the g-league film looks how it looks uh the questions are like can he deal with NBA athleticism on both ends of the floor we don’t really know that because we haven’t he hasn’t gotten enough run and so if he is viable that’s big because that means we don’t have to worry as much about the backup point guard role I do think that the team could use a little bit more ball handling overall though but part of that’s going to come from development from guys like Christian Brown Julian strawther pton Watson um but we need a point guard and we don’t have one so if he can be one that’s big um so that’s that would be my answer I’m happy that you’re answer I hope they do give him more Run next season but then that also means that they didn’t and this is my next question for you if I’m to tell you that they’re able to get you know maybe someone wants to ring Chase with them on the veterans because all as they can offer is minimums assuming case I’m just pening Casp to come back if they try and sell us on Christian Brown being ready to take those minutes or Payton Watson uh I’m gonna call [ __ ] uh so I’m assuming he’s gonna come back they only have minimums to offer or they can look at moving number 28 before it’s a salary in that sweet spot where it’s not a future pick but it’s also not a salary attach it to zek Nagi and they’re able to get somebody that has to make the same amount or less what is the biggest need for them like looking at they need a few things but what would be the one if they could address one need um what would be your brothers there so everyone talks about backup ball handler SLO guard and also backup center I would 100% prioritize backup center over everything those second units need a solid rotation level veteran scaffold to help those young guys have something to go to zek Nagi has not been I will not listen anymore it’s been every season they’re talking about this is the Zeke I will not listen to anymore Z nji hype coming from the Nuggets my problem isn’t that zek nji can’t like be the things that all the zek Nagi stands maybe think that he can be but it’s not going to be on this team it’s not what this team needs we need a backup center who can set screens Andor be some kind of roll threat or lob threat um um the screen setting is so big because no one in our second unit can really create their own separation we’re not a good you know isolation team right um but also the rebounding those second units are really good at you know protect Rim protection but they can’t grab a defensive rebound to save their lives and part of that is because they are undersized zi is an undersized Center but also you had units where pton Watson is playing the four um and so if we had a more viable option there it just raises the floor for those second units by a lot more so that would be my answer in terms of like this is what we need for the regular season I do think that there’s a reasonable uh there’s a reasonable argument for backup ball handler to be more important in terms of creating um playoff versatility but I actually think that making sure we can get to that point where the starters are just totally refreshed and all of that like they could have made it through that Wolf series if they had been you know better at like not being completely gassed in the second half of the game where they were up 20 um but they can’t get through the regular season with uh they can’t get there without a uh a solid option Off the Bench to help spell yic that doesn’t involve Aaron Gordon playing more minutes backup five in the regular season because he he and yic I think were the most just they had the biggest burden uh because of that throughout the regular season and I think that that’s the reason that they looked the most gassed um throughout the playoffs it wasn’t just in the wolv series either um yeah you gota we gotta rest our big guys a little bit more I would normally my view would be that because you have Nicole yit it’s like don’t care as much about the backup five but this is not like a Joel and beid situation where you can kind of pencil joic in for between 30 and 50 games of rest every single year um so if you can have somebody who is capable and especially because they don’t have the resources to get stupid it’s it’s like let’s trade like let’s give up a first round pick for a backup center um that the the combination of oh maybe there’s a night where we can just force jic to rest and play this not DeAndre Jordan at Center but you mentioned the Aaron Gordon thing I think is huge that’s Al part of the reason I think they missed Jeff Green a little bit is just that when you look at the minutes that Gordon played as the dayao center those went up this year and also just like the assignments he had during some of the the like those bench units like he was just guarding bigger players a lot of the time it felt like and so I’m assuming that creates wear and tear so I would agree with you that if they could get a capable backup center that that might go a longer way at this point than if we can get veteran X to come in and soak up some of the the Reps behind Jamal Murray instead of a Reggie jacks are testing out jail and picket yeah and I think that again having just like a screen Setter would help the offense of the other guys a lot more because they can’t I don’t know whatever experiment with their games uh or have any confidence to like do something with the ball when they can’t create any separation from their Defenders because they’re not isolation players the guys that we draft the guys that we sort of build um uh used to build this team around yogic uh and that’s like they play well with Y because he’s a good screen Setter and a good passer but the screens are like a really underrated part of what just makes those units successful um I think that the the fact that yic is like kind of Peak at all the basic Center things that makes those lineups so successful uh I will never stop trying to trade Nick Richards to the Nuggets if anyone if anyone I I’ll I’ll take that although they did have they had tatted up yic and then uh isaah hartstein went on and had a he wasn’t tatted up at the time but they had soon to be tatted up yic and they let him go I asked other nuggets fans like what was the deal with this guy he’s like he couldn’t stop fouling and like he couldn’t catch the ball and I’m like but look at his floater was that there maybe it wasn’t I he’s about a three-point shot that I don’t think tibs will ever let him experiment with but uh that’s neither here he’s about to get paid I that’s going to be Nicks need to worry about that a little bit if they can’t keep him uh anything else about this team that we didn’t touch on that you would just like to discuss before we uh move on to some magic talk yeah I mean there’s been a little bit of um of conversation about whether the Nuggets offense is like too organized um I I tend to think that there’s like a little bit of something there especially watching say the contrast between how the Mavericks played the wolves and how how the Nuggets looked against them in the games that the Nuggets looked the best especially the starters was when they were super decisive in their offense ball was moving and when a guy was the play finisher there was no hesitation to like take the shot makeer Miss um I think the Mavs and the Pacers have a lot of freelancing in their offenses you see how much uh issue that ended up giving the Celtics in the in the Eastern Conference Finals in that Incredibly Close four game sweep um I do think that like there’s a question of like is it because we lack confident players because our players are so young Off the Bench in particular I think part of the frustration with how the wolf series went a lot of people were like why was Christian Brown hesitating on a lot of his shots the thing with Justin holiday was he was ready to uh let that bad boy fly make her Miss whenever he got the ball a lot more misses were the uh back half of that series than Maks but in the first half it was great he was making everything and we’re like yes somebody who will take a shot love it um but I do think that there can be more room like we talked about with mpj like there’s room to experiment a little bit more with all of the different players in the roster so that we’re not overly reliant on the muray yic Twan game and this is something that uh I think a lot of uh a lot of nuggets fans are talking about this offseason um that is it’s funny that at point I me it felt like a lot during the playoffs that offense was the bigger issue for the Nuggets I would be it’ be which no one would have expected although going up against the Wolves a team that we see received push back from this from Timberwolves family we said it like they were built in the image of beating the Nuggets like that’s just a fact at this point um but the Orlando will disagrees by the way but that they were built to beat the Nugget yeah he hat that narrative is it because they had some of those players before like the Nuggets were this version of the nuggets and Tim Connelly were there that’s a lot of the he like doesn’t want to give Tim credit but we don’t have to we don’t have to dive into that too deeply I just wanted to say that to annoy him oh man I will say I can’t remember who tweeted this but for Tim Connelly to play I’ll phrase it this way as to not anger will or anybody else to play such a big role in building what became the championship core of the nuggets and then building what turned out to be their Kryptonite um someone tweeted like using that as act phrasing I found it hysterical but the Orlando Magic a team that uh I’m prepared to scold if they’re not super aggressive this offseason because I think that they’re at that point where they’re they’re good enough to act that way but before we kind of get into the offseason minations I have questions about a couple of their current players for you what do you view as the next Frontier functionally for for poo banero shot selection shot selection shot selection uh is he still leading the playoffs in mid-range field goal percentage by the way not something I know off the cuff um he was absolutely Sensational in the playoffs and mid-range shots just become more valuable with the way the defenses operate and that’s all fine and dandy but I do think that his decision-making overall not just the shot selection needs some work he really does have incredible vision and some of the passes he makes I’m like wow where’d that come from but then you look at his assist turn over ratio and you’re like wow you like gave it to the other team almost as often as you made these incredible passes uh to your teammates I do think that being more decisive with either um not with the shots but with the getting off the ball when he can uh like defenses are constantly loading up on him right and just sort of trusting his teammates to make the next pass instead of trying to uh create that kill pass by holding on to the ball too long is a big part of the the next phase of his development um but I actually think that one of the really encouraging things like I talked about the shot selection but one of the really encouraging things about seeing pal in the playoffs is from game one he was the player on the magic that was the most comfortable with the level of physicality that the CLE the the Cavs were bringing um to uh defensively and he didn’t shy away from that even though he’s known as like this like oh he’s always taking these mides but I think that the the the criticism of that shot selection is a little bit different than some of the other wings that we sort of ding for not using their physical tools as much to create um higher value shots I think that it’s not about him like shying away from physicality at all like he it’s more about like reading the floor a little bit better but when he does have those opportunities he does take them like one of the things I really want to see the magic do more is finding ways to get poo on the Move he’s and not just in transition but also in semi- transition in the half court uh by letting him operate a little bit more off ball because he is like a devastating downhill athlete when you when he can attack off the catch because he’s 610 249 pounds and plays power forward he’s going to have a physical advantage on basically every single night because of how big the Orlando Magic play yeah there’s like I’ve said it before a btic brutality to the way he plays like there’s force and finesse there I would kill I believe in the step back we’ve kind of seen hints of it during his first few seasons I believe in it like from the three-point range shot looks good yeah and I think I just want to see him and I I I’m reticent to say NBA I want to see him with NBA spacing I want to see him with NBA Shooters because I actually want to give Jamal Mosley credit Orlando’s spacing isn’t terrible it’s just that defenses don’t give a [ __ ] about the players who are spacing the floor for them um fron Vagner though footwork is still it’s it’s basically basketball porn when you look at like what he’s able to do with his footwork and has these moments is there any cause for concern though after like this year he was sub 30% on jumpers he had some like low lows this year so bad and it’s from like everywhere on the floor too um one of the things that caught my attention earlier this season was when he went on JJ reic and he was talking about how uh he was trying to improve his efficiency with his shot selection he was taking less mid-range jumpers overall and and all of that and I did see a lot of hesitation from him both on the three-point shot and on the mid-range jumper first of all the shot like looks a little bit coach so he needs to like work on the form and the consistency of all that in contrast to um in contrast to poo not that either of them is like a great three-point shooter but France was shooting 29% on on the threes in particular um but I think the hesitation on the shot is a problem and maybe stems from the fact that he doesn’t have a consistent form that he feels confident going to um but I think that the the mid-range shop both the sort of longer floaters and the jumpers are just very very bad and I think part of it is because he tried to cut them out of his game and so he’s not as comfortable taking them or he’s like in on a given possession thinking like we don’t want a mid-range shot we don’t want a mid-range shot we don’t want a mid-range shot I want to get something closer to the basket or try to create a three and I think that the um that hesitation ends up uh making us he’s either out of rhythm or gives the defense an opportunity to recover more to the jumper whether it’s in the mid-range or the three not that anyone is jumping out to contest a three-point shot right now that’s a problem um so I’m I’m concerned but I’m not concerned I’m just like well these are things you have to work on but it’s not that I don’t think he’s capable and I think he’s a he’s a very smart player as well like you said the footwork is just it’s so good I saw him like close out the Nuggets when I watched them play Orlando uh earlier in the season and it was just like oh no he’s cooking everybody in isolation like his his ISO footwork is like so so good I do think that he could lean into physicality a little bit more he is also like 610 not quite 250 lbs or whatever B is right now but um and but but he’s also like very big and I think he could play a little bit more bully ball and not rely too much on the footwork to create exactly the right angles that exactly the angles that he wants on his little pushups and floaters I think he can bully a little bit more and continue to work on his finishing because he is a very big very athletic player when he wants to play bounce off his shoulders when he wants to play I feel like he did a bet maybe I I’m curious you agree like he did a better job playing physical like earlier in his NBA than we kind of saw from him this season I felt like I least saw more of those kind of like bullish oh those dudes just went flying off of fron Vagner and I just don’t I don’t yeah like when it happens I’m like oh yeah he’s huge um so I think he’s he’s capable of playing big and I don’t like I I wouldn’t I wouldn’t say he like shies away from physicality but I think he relies too much on trying to create crafty angles when he could really just kind of like bulldoze people sometimes um and it really shows like we’re talking about his jumper but like defensively the fact that fron is 610 really shows up when he tries to guard like a really good player one-on-one like I thought he did a really good job on Paul George for like most of this this ended up being a clutch game against the Clippers that they lost earlier this year and Paul George hit this ridiculous shot over Jonathan Isaac but defensively the fact that fron is so um like Fleet of foot opens up so so many ridiculously jumbo lineups for the Orlando Magic and if there’s if there’s anything to their team identity it is we play Big all the time you know For Better or Worse right especially when it comes to their their offense but I do think that um I do think that France has more things that he you know can work on particularly with the shot but if it gets there it’s like he’s such a smart player that the ceiling could be insane danan Suggs used to be a siren song but now I don’t have to defend him as such because he’s just like he’s good in a vacuum what have you kind of made of his progression over the past couple years his I really was kind of uh skeptical about how his playmaking in particular TR translate to the NBA I think he had to play too much at point guard for a team that is you know so young and so needs to work on their aggregate decision ision making that it didn’t um sort of translate to helping the aggregate decision- making of those lineups overall but he has some like crazy flashes of like transition playmaking and finding guys on cuts that are really like enticing to to those of us who follow these like young NBA players that are you know just trying to make a name for themselves um but I think the biggest leap that he took this season was obviously the shooting because not just because the the efficiency improved dramatically um but the number of attempts he does not hesitate on that shot and I love to see that uh for a team that sorely needs somebody to be willing to shoot the ball um in the playoffs that deficiency did not translate but the uh the shot volume was still there he was taking almost seven attempts a game only shooting 29% but um you know that’s just kind of how it went they still went they still took the Cavs to seven games their first time in the playoffs so uh a lot of that had to do with his defense which what a wrecking ball of a guard he made second Team all NBA but I actually would have had him first team did I can’t remember if I had him on first team or not NBA uh all defense rather I I was surprised he didn’t get more first team love I can’t remember I think I had him on my my fake first team ballot uh but sorry that was I I I knew that the bigs would get a little bit more love given the the position of it all but I thought if there was going to be one guard there it really should have been Suggs and I love Derrick White like I think he’s no longer the most underrated player in the NBA because everyone knows that he’s awesome now um but Jaylen Suggs was an absolute wrecking ball on defense his energy too just the what it does defensively for the rest of the players on the floor just Mak everybody play harder and he’s just he’s just such a menace and you’re like how does this guy have this motor as a guard as a guard who plays this hard defensively it just it just feels kind of unreal and I don’t know if it’s going to like continue on throw like the the rest of his career but right now he’s like a scary perimeter Defender to try to go up against if you’re a guard right yeah I mean his I can’t say enough good things about his def and the strides he’s made offensively like you mentioned the playmaking too like he really increased I thought he did a better job decision making on his drives this year too um and you mentioned the three-pointer how he’s willing to score now whereas he was constantly willing to pass and like just turning the ball over like the rest of the Orlando Magic but he’s willing to like especially in semi- transition like I I loved seeing that in the playoffs like he’s just he’s like I’m I’m pushing Pace we’re getting downhill and I’m either going to kick out or I’m going to get something good uh for myself at The Rim the semi transition stuff is fascinating with this team because I think they finished they were seventh or whatever it was in transition frequency but you watch them and they you’re so young and so athletic why don’t you play a little bit faster right they were so and this I know just because it it it actually angers me as someone who has no attachment to this team they were 29th in average offensive possession time and when you’re also seventh in transition frequency but that’s still your average offensive possession time what is going is that like where you look at it like does I don’t even know if a a true conventional floor organizer like that feels like more of a philosophical approach than it has anything to do with their personnel is there anything I’m missing there um I think it’s a combination of both I do think that there there have also been transition possessions where I watch them like turn the ball over three times in a row because they’re just making like wild passes to each other trying to get the ball up the floor and like whatever and I’m like oh this is why they play Slow okay I get it like Jamal’s probably trying to like slow these boys down make sure they have a good possession and whatever so that’s the philosophical part but I think that they would do that less and maybe Jamal would sort of urg them to do that less because he is a very he’s a very like Hands-On uh play calling Coach like he’s basically telling them what to do almost every time down the floor which makes sense they are so young and so turnover prone but if they had a more reliable floor organizer they could get into things faster and also Jamal would sort of trust that more than who they’ve got out there now because like I said Suggs was playing a point guard for most of the year whether you know whether folz was healthy or not because he ended up starting off the bench um yeah I’m obligated to ask this because this is basically this is a national NBA podcast is there a chance that jayen Suggs has kind of like usurped fron Vagner in the when you’re trying to scale ahead to the best version of this team who is more we know Paulo is just he’s Head and Shoulders above both those guys there chance that like Jaylen Suggs is the second most important player to that franchise right now or is that still very clear not even clearly but is that still to you fron I think it’s fron but it’s close because the way that I look at it I have an I like I know basically what jaylen’s ceiling is and it’s it’s a very good ceiling it’s a very high level role player ceiling but for me that’s France’s floor if the jumper doesn’t improve by like a lot it still has to improve a little bit but fron has like really high sort of I I see it as sort of second option uh ceiling if the jumper improves because he’s so good at all these other things that he can already be like a highle role player for another team rebounds defense playmaking Etc like one of the things about this team is that whenever things get out of hand most of the time the the atto is ronze running something whether it’s isolation pick and roll whatever it is because of how he is able to calm down that offense relative to the other guys on the floor did you see the balloon fly across my I have no idea what’s going on right happy birthday to whoever’s listening or watching this and it’s their birthday that’s that’s why it always popped up yes happy birthday person um so I I wouldn’t say that he’s usurped him but I do think that because of what like Jaylen has this like kind of known ceiling so you could see a scenario where if they don’t see like the kinds of improvements from France that make him an ideal piece next to Paulo they look at trading him because he has that value as a again highle role player um for like basically any other team because of like how versatile uh he is in like all the ways that he he impacts the game on a consistent basis um but I wouldn’t say that he’s less important and it would also be dependent on like is there somebody that we like wanted to come and get from the outside but I would still say that France is the second most important player in terms of creating the best version of this team especially because if you aren’t even looking at the offense defensively everything that he unlocks for this team is crazy because you can you can run you know quote unquote like magic style small ball lineups include fron at the three like they I don’t think they ever play him at the four because they never play pette 5 which is funny because one of the when he was coming out of the draft I questioned whether he could be a full-time three in the NBA and I was clear I was clearly wrong Ian he plays the two in their jumbo lineups he’s a wing Defender and does really well so I might good on Donovan Mitchell one-on-one like I was just like he just slides his feet so well again 610 great Wings span he’s just got really good instincts he’s just like solid and big which makes him great I might mean Suggs but that might be more of a recency bias and he’s just I love chaotic players and there’s just like an embraceable anarchy to the way that jayen Suggs plays particularly on defense but they’re both extension eligible this year their Maxes in year one could be 38.8 million I’m just going to throw two numbers at you if they come into extension their Agents come into extension negotiations and say we want this number or if you think they’d be worth more uh I think Fran’s people would push for the max um would you give fron the max at 38 and a half here’s the thing is I would based on the current CBA but the Orlando Magic front office is very weird and as an Orlando Magic fan I particularly don’t trust them I was pretty shocked and like pleasantly surprised when they gave gave Jamal Mosley that extension it sort of seemed like and was read as a signal that they’re ready to transition into a new era where they care about team stability and like properly building a high quality competitive basketball team however that is not how they’ve operated throughout my entire really my entire life in terms of the the front office moves and so so I would give France a 38 million as the uh 38 million a year rookie scale extension because of the current CBA the the media deal coming up Etc like I I’m just like oh that’s not that’s not that bad um but I don’t know that they would especially because of all these improvements that I think France needs to make in order for I think most NBA front offices to see him as a you know rookie Max scale extension player um so I I think that it’ll probably be another year before they end up uh working out a deal personally I would agree I would agree with you they just like show us yeah and I think one of the things is too if he was to hit let’s just say he was a restricted free agent right now and the that the numbers were still the same there are teams out there that would give him the I think it’s a fouryear 173 point7 Max and the magic I think that can go up to five years in like 225 almost if say wait I think it might say it might be a pro it thing it might also be well we didn’t do anything massive or seismic this summer and we want to make sure that we’re working with a lower cap hold before we resign you because maybe next summer we try and strike um which I would be against because I think they need to do it now but jayen Suggs so the over under number I gave you for him was 27 and a half yeah um honestly my brain is like again I’m a primarily nuggets person so I think in terms of like how the CB affs the Nuggets but the the the magic are in a bit of a different place they’re not worried about like oh second apron implications for that so my initial thought was I think I gotta wait on it but when you look at how much he improved his shooting when you look at what a absolute Menace he was defensively you know this kid’s a hard worker he cares about the game a lot there’s no questions there the character aspect of the team fit is absolutely there I would almost say just give it to him because when you look at what he could become uh in terms of just a 3 andd player that literally every team could use you don’t want to end up in a situation where you’re competing with other teams for it but my GM brain also goes well we could always offer him more than other teams anyway so maybe we wait until restricted free agency and I again like my brain is like I don’t trust Thea magic front office to do the just like let’s just make the team good things and so I would do it but I don’t know that they would I don’t think they will this year either but I think there’s arguments even from the GM perspective to do it because you’re like this kid’s so good if he gets any better the market could be steeper than we want right and that’s like far enough away from the max though to where I would just want to sign it because if he gets on to the restrictive free agency and someone gives it to him uh so I’m with you I would give it to him I I think these guys should sign extensions because if I’m the magic I’m looking at this offseason as the offseason but this is my next question for you they have what I’ve grown to call your Choose Your Own Adventure cap sheet like depending on how you value their own free agents they could have anywhere between like 20 plus million or like they could go past 60 million pretty easily do you think and I’m starting to think that the answer from you is no based off what you just said that the front office is going to operate with a zemblan of if it’s not urgency than aggression this offseason not just because they have these tools at their disposal but oh hey we’re we’re really good so the answer isn’t no but it’s that I don’t know definitely not aggression I don’t see them making a particularly aggressive move this off season because there are still so many questions about all of the young players on this roster that it’s not really about like well we could be like a Conference Finals team which they could be anyway because they could just get better next year um but I do think that there are specific moves that they can make that aren’t necessarily aggressive but urgently address the the need to answer some of the questions about the young players on this roster something that we talked about uh already we talked about shooting and we talked about the need for um maybe a floor General as well and so I think that there are there’s like a range with both of those um with both of those Direction and maybe they try to get both uh in terms of like going for like the star that could give you this thing versus like a a more marginal piece whether it’s in free agency or a small trade to you know fill either of or both of those roles is there I I it’s it’s a stupid question when it comes down to it because if you’re there you’re not going to sign if you’re signing like an elite playmaker chances are they’re pretty good shooter too but like what do you view as the more urgent need for them is it to improve the functional shooting around them or it’s oh we need someone who is not Cole Anthony not palero not Marquel fots to to organize our offense I 100% think that if there’s only one thing they can do they should address getting a floor General because to me the shooting was definitely a problem especially for the way that teams were defending both poo and frons um both of them also need to improve their their own individual shooting however the bigger problem to me was the frequency with which everyone on this team turned the ball over oh I remember I was like game two against the Cavs and I think uh Pao and Jaylen had five turnovers each in the first quarter it was a problem uh and it continues to be a problem it’s a problem their I believe 203d in turnover rate on the season I remember looking this up because the Phoenix Suns were worse and I was like how are you worse the pat um they were like they came I think they led the league or maybe it was Memphis which would make sense because they were their roster was changing every night they were they were in the top I’ll say they were in the top three of turnovers from just stepping out of bounds which is like there’s a lot of dumb turnovers too yeah when you’re talking about hit the play better button or the play smarter button that’s what you mean it’s like hey maybe don’t step out of bounds as frequently as you were right but the live ball turnover is a really big problem like you said just the halfcourt Pace getting into their sets getting guys in the best positions to succeed um one of the things that they need to address with both Paulo and fron like you said like what’s the next Frontier for poo what’s uh what are the ways that that France would need to improve to get um to get to the point where the front office feels comfortable giving him this uh the max extension is getting somebody on the floor that you feel comfortable is going to get to say the 80 or 90th percentile outcome on every possession when it comes to organizing the offense seeing what fron and Paulo are going to do when they are put in positions to succeed right and if any if I learned anything from this regular season from the Nuggets to basically any team I watch it’s the importance of point guards not just ball handlers not just like a combo guard but your primary decision maker and the the the initiator the guy who’s handling the ball whether it like I said even the Nuggets like yog is great but you need you need your point guard to to make everything flow to like its optimal level um and I think that watching the magic this year was like the most maybe not the most CU there are definitely worse teams one of the most glaring examples of the need for particularly these younger teams to have someone that they trust Joe Eng Les was their backup point guard Off the Bench he actually did a really good job of calming the offense and just like running basic actions um also spelling both Pao and fron when only one of them was on the floor that they weren’t constantly having to initiate too but you know he’s not he’s not like amazing right but also he could get he could get everybody in their spots and run basic pick and roll um also like a good uh connective passor Etc things like that and so it’s like well I wish they had my I wish they could get Mike Conley like he’s like ideal because he also provides the shooting but will play off Ball but also play on Ball and like everything gets chaotic uh but the the name that a lot of people have been floating around for over a year now is Anthony Simons he’s not like the best decision maker but he’s okay and he provides that shooting so in terms of finding someone that gets you that combo but there are other options that like tus Jones or if they could pick up Kyle Lowry on a either a minimum or a low-l deal just to have someone there as that option so you could still play your starting lineup the way that you like to but you can also mix and match and you create these like really like I said they like to go with these gumbo lineups and it creates like absolute Havoc defensively for opposing teams but then like okay we can’t score because one they don’t respect our spacing and two like we don’t know what to do here um so Kyle lar is an option people have been floating Darius Garland as an option as well he also provides some of the shooting although like the um his willingness to shoot is a good question for me I actually think he could really Thrive with the magic when he’s surrounded by a bunch of really good play finishers yeah yeah um and guys that would take pressure off of him offens like the thing with the magic is that a lot of them are really good at getting open off the ball but they’re not good at doing that while like kind of alternating possessions being the guy that’s initiating and trying to set other guys up too so I actually think that yeah floor General is the absolute um priority and I think that should be prioritized over um overshooting I do think that Klay Thompson has been floated I don’t love the idea because it eats into what you could do to get a really good point guard but I think he could be like decent Off the Bench and this team could use some like movement shooting they did draft jet Howard last year he didn’t really play much yeah um I don’t know if the questions were like what about defensively blah blah blah maybe he gets better this year but I actually watched for something I was writing some jet Howard g-league tape nice he is someone that I thought that’s not a brag my point was for what they needed I don’t know why they just didn’t try him out more just after watching what how he was moving and navigating the floor I don’t understand why he wasn’t part of the IM especially when it’s like that was what they needed like it’s not like he would have infringed upon someone else who was really important minutes like you and he’s and he’s 68 that’s another thing is like I don’t want Klay Thompson because I think they should just give more run to Jet Howard right and also like wouldn’t at this point like I maybe they’d be cheaper if they are I don’t know what the Market’s saying but like I would prefer to have next season for the next couple Seasons buddy hee or even Malik Beasley based off what he showed this season as opposed to a Klay Thompson I actually wouldn’t mind buddy hee because he comes from uh comes from an offense in in Indiana anyway that plays in a lot of different lot of really creative ways um in the way that they run their sets and everything I think he could actually Thrive with some of the things that the that the magic do because like you said like Jamal Mosley actually does really creative things with their offense but other teams don’t respect their spacing um they end up like inverting they like to invert the offense a lot and they like other teams absolutely do not respect the shooting of of poo or France and things like that but having somebody like buddy out there he’s also a really smart player like he can uh he sets like really good screens off the ball and he can read the floor sort of mid broken possession like oh but I can get this guy open or like set this flare screen and get myself open and we can kind of save this uh so actually that could be interesting but uh again I wouldn’t prioritize it over the floor General I still Simons is probably my favorite trade or free agent Target for them even though I think I agree with you he’s trying to save anony which is also fair right um but also I could see them going the route of and I don’t necessarily think he he kind of checks in the same vein as well he doesn’t check any box primarily but like a Malcolm Brogden if they’re going to go the placeholder rout like has one year on his deal I actually likeone I I actually thought that the magic might take a go out at the treade deadline but they didn’t right uh and another name I thought of just because his contract is so friendly and I I I really think he’s better than people are giving him credit for I know Atlanta sucks but Deonte Murray on that deal like I know he’s not the best shooter but like he he’s an upgrade over Marquel F he he was a lot better this last year my thing is the decision making like I just prioritize that so much more than anything else and I think he plays really good with a really well with a lob threat um this team doesn’t actually have that many of them for a team with so many big guys uh so he wouldn’t be ideal but he’s on a good deal he’s on a good uh contract and uh yeah he could provide definitely that spacing and some more off the dribble juice like he can just break down defenses uh quite a bit better than any of the guards that Orlando has right now so not a bad option uh of among their free could be free agents um Jonathan Isaac his contract will be guaranteed but like Mo vogner’s team option I’m assuming is just going to be picked up um but looking at Joe Engles Gary Harris Goa bazza are there any of their free agents or could be free agents that you view as like oh these guys need to or if I had my preference they would stick around so my thing is if they end up not getting a floor General I think they have to like I would be upset if they didn’t keep joeing Les but if they do then you can kind of let him go I mean he’s going to be not like I don’t know sought after by like a lot of teams but he’s still a decent player he’s sorry about that known as a good locker room guy all of those things he can still run pick and roll and the volume isn’t there but he can still hit a shot every now and then right um actually Mo lner should absolutely be resigned I don’t know that they’re going to pick up his team option they probably won’t so they maintain the most flexibility in free agency if I’m sorry if they decline that team option then don’t do something absolutely nuclear the yelling that is gonna take that’s the thing is like they have if they if they decline the team option they have to have a plan to to use that that 8 million that his uh his uh salary is is taking up off the cap and they still have lots of space outside of that so honestly I would just pick it up because I think the 8 million is fair I wish the Nuggets had the fogner he provides so much energy he’s a great connective piece um gives them that line like what was that game was that game four what was it against he like had these like massive plays off the dribble too like just let me just bust out this attack going downhill yeah we had like the thing is like feea Mo Vagner just translated throughout the entire R Magic season uh he was terrific for team Germany last summer um so maybe they decline it and then try to sign him for like a little bit less but uh I just think he’s like a he’s like a super solid pack of Center he’s Fran’s brother all of that stuff so you know Vibes I don’t know if the magic front office cares about that but I think they should because this team has Good Vibes and they should want to to to maintain those anything I didn’t ask you about or someone or something we didn’t discuss with this team that you think needs to be touched on um no just I wanted to uh just kind of commend Jamal Mosley for what he built with this team over the past uh you know now couple of years but like the way that everyone buys into the defense and how much these young players care so much about the game and trying to win Etc I just think he made me uh sort of go back and question some of the thing some of the things I thought about what actually makes a good coach um I tend to prioritize offense offensive execution and organization when evaluating coaches but you know now that I know defense is important um I and and also culture and just uh building by in with with players I think that he he earned his what was it third in Coach of the Year status so uh I wanted to commend him and also give the Orlando Magic a little bit of credit for um their front office extending him and wanting to to keep that going all right NBA Finals talk time we’ve game one is in the books uh with the exception of it wasn’t a fox comeback the Mavericks came back in the third quarter of game one um but then they were pretty much shellacked throughout the uh you know the entire game basically leading into game two want to get into that with you and your thoughts on what you’ve already seen your takeaways and some adjustments that you could see moving forward I did want to start however with christops porzingis just coming back and having the I mean the the quart the half quarter of his life when he checks in at the 712 Mark of the first quarter that’s right he came off the bench I forgot right and he was look he did things that we know he could shoot over players who are smaller than him go figure he can kind of protect the basket but were you as like shocked I was a struck and how like he was dominant he just 38 days out comes back you’re in the NBA finals and he just absolutely killed it what did you make of of his performance in in game one and just the value of I guess what he’s doing to the Celtics as you look ahead to the rest of this series yeah he looked incredibly spry like there was there was one of two ways that this could go with him coming off of like he hadn’t played basketball in a month over a month because of the calf strain um he could have been super Rusty uh Andor still like who knows what lingering stuff might be there or he was going to look incredibly rested and just like ready to go and it was definitely the latter like his mismatch attacking and the decisiveness of it like he was really quick to it’s not like he was like attacking off the catch but he’s like I’m going to immediately size up my Defender and immediately like force them to react to me um and that really like he wasn’t letting Dallas off the hook so and like you said the rim protection he had how many how many of his blocks were just in that first quarter stint too uh he had that transition block on uh on Josh green and I was like Josh you’re going to get blocked here what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing and then he tries to dunk it and chrisop is really just kind of like backpedaling jogging back getting ready to get in position for that block but then he got it he met it like right at the like right at the Apex like right before yeah I mean it’s like that’s a oim over seven feet tall that was that exactly and he altered like many more shots than that on all of the Mavericks they had a really tough time finishing in the paint um I really thought that this series was going to look quite a bit closer to the OKC Series because I I knew that uh christops was going to provide that Rim protection uh as well even though bwon sort of switched up the matchups in a way that was a little bit different than OKC did for most of that series but uh yeah his like his he came in from the weak side and it wasn’t just like weak side blocks it was a lot of like weak side altering shots and just like mucking everything up around the rim that I think was even more impactful than the scoring although the scoring was really big because I actually think that if Dallas wants to have any chance in this series it has to be defensively the I mean the other story of that game was just Boston’s defense in general when you look at Dallas’s I mean the lobs of course those are taken away but their inability to generate the types of looks that they’ve become accustomed to they were leting the playoffs in corner three-point frequency they took three total Corner three-point attempts in game one um Boston did a great job of coaxing um more above the break looks and there was never there was no one person where it was super high volume but it was like yeah we’ll let Derrick Jones Jr PJ Washington or Jen Hardy take those looks um they threw aside from like actual blitzing they did everything that you could imagine against LCA donic where it was yeah sometimes like or they switched they had guys stay on him they also like there were points and Luca did you know go after I think it was Al Horford and he hits a three over him but like they were willing just not in high volume to have their bigs on him at points what did you just make though of Boston’s overall defensive approach like I think a lot of people came away from that game or at least some of the stuff I read I mean listened to was well Dallas is gonna hit some of their better shots Kyrie Irving will or hit more of their shots Kyrie Irving will play better I think there is some of that to an extent but I came away from that and maybe this is me living in the moment too much of game one but like how the [ __ ] is Dallas supposed to solve any of this I think that I didn’t expect Dallas to struggle this much offensively against Boston game one was truly like the best defensive performance I’ve seen from Boston the entire playoffs um and it was because of how sharp they were on everything they mix up the matchups right everyone’s talking about how they put Jason Tatum on christops to sort of or on uh on lively and put christops on PJ to sort of neutralize the the Luca Lively pick and rooll the did did Dallas have any lob dunks in this game no right I think they had one attempt I don’t know and maybe it was a Miss if I’m if I’m Mist yeah yeah I think there was like a was that a was that a pass or was floer and then Lively like cleaned up the offensive what the Testament that you talked about kristof’s like detouring shots or and just like you saw it with Kyrie and Luca a couple times just the way that they kind of bailed out on when they were going downhill yeah no I think that the the story of this game can really be told in comparing the impact of Gafford and Lively to Al Horford and christops because christops as impactful as he was the fact that Al Horford was able to hold up enough on switches onto Luca meant that Dallas didn’t have to change their game plan on at any point in the game whether christops was on the floor or not because like I said they had christops on PJ Jason on uh on lively and they could they were like we’re just going to switch everything now um so the the the yeah the lack of like overall three-point attempts is because they were making it difficult for Luca to get to uh you know to get to the the step back from his from his left I believe which is like the way that he tends to like to go and Al I think did a good job on the perimeter with that for the most part although I think Luca did hit one over him like you said he’s like I mentioned this a bunch of times but like horer is weird where I would trust him more if he has to cover someone who’s going to try and torch him laterally or going downhill but like if you can just generate separation with your step back he just doesn’t feel as equipped to guard those guys anymore I agree like I don’t want him on anybody Shifty right um and but I actually thought he he did like well enough on Kyrie my thing with Kyrie is that he he does need to play better but it’s not just about making shots although he did miss a lot of open shots in this game I just thought his process was terrible especially in those non Luca minutes like he does need to carry those units and it’s not like he’s playing with four starters but like watching them play like do they even know like how to run offense or what they want to do on a given possession no I watched Sam Hower like deny Kyrie the ball for an entire possession that ended in like a Sam Hower guard luuka at points two unafraid I and then Sam Sam forced that uh that Kyrie Miss off the back from the corner corner three yeah oh my God what is happening right now but but the process on those possession is what I was most uh not concerned with because I’ve seen Dallas not solv this before but have better process even against good defenses and so I do think that they are going to play better in game two but I don’t even think Boston played particularly well um in game one except again defensively but I think that Dallas didn’t really pressure them too much with how they were approaching offense it wasn’t just like oh Luca needs to make more shots to force them to change their plan there are other ways that um that Dallas can sort of try to to adjust or try to punish what Boston is doing defensively that they just didn’t go to in this first game so yeah I think the the level of discombobulation from the by the Dallas Mavericks was something I did not expect in this series however the discombobulation of their defense against the way that Boston likes to play offense it was much expected and so Kudos on Boston for just like taking advantage of literally every single mistake or breakdown by the Mavericks one of the things I noticed on my uh watching back on the film of this game was just like I was originally concerned with like oh I hate this scheme like Dallas is allowing too many threes Etc but going back and watching it it’s like man 75% of these possessions were just like bad communication mistimed help um soft switching instead of like like do a real switch like you’re guarding this guy now don’t just like kind of drop back or like let him Blow by you immediately um and it was Luca but it was also it was Kyrie it was everybody um that needs to play on a string a lot better if they’re going to continue the way that they’re guarding I don’t know if kid is going to hit the okay we’re making a massive adjustment button in game two or if he’s going to hit the you guys need to play better and execute this thing better before I can even think about trying to change up what we’re doing do you think there’s anything to though when you’re looking at they struggle at points with ball containment too and then you’re talking about the health defense and particularly around the basket when you have they haven’t gone up against a true five out team in these playoffs and then when you look at where some of these I mean specifically kristofh porzingis can sling it from you’re so stretched out that it it’s going to be tough if you have what if it’s an actual big who has to close out on porzingis or if it’s going to be like one of your other players like they’re not going to be able to like the they either have to shoot those gaps are GNA be further away on the Closeouts or if they’re tasked with helping because actions are happening behind them that’s more ground that they’re gonna have to cover going south at that point and I just I don’t know and I I I don’t know what the defensive adjustment is like do you see and you mentioned the bad process but do you see anything they could try is it is it even lineup wise I know you had tweeted about they should try playing Derek Lively and kleba more together they’ve barely played together this season part because of injuries um and Derek Wy was in foul trouble uh by he got five fouls in the third quarter honestly impressive this a very rookie game like the most rookie game that I’ve seen from Lively the entire playoffs which is because he is a rookie and we kind of forget that because he’s just been so good basically wire to wire and specifically during the playoffs but is there anything you just look at that Jason kid maybe should try or move to is this going to I think a lot of people have latched on to the idea that this might need to be a maxi kba series and in terms of stretching out Boston’s defense even more and then maybe opening up Lane like I think if Dallas is gonna win this series honestly we can talk about oh they need someone like a PJ Washington to maybe force Boston into rotation a little bit more like do things off the dribble rather than just or be more of a screen Setter but it really to me is just going to come down to like LCA donin and Kyrie Irving need to figure out a way how to really prop up the offense one on one so Maxi klea to me would help there just the extra spacing he creates you of course du’s the lob threat in that unless you’re playing with him with a lively but he’s also not like shooting threes in high volume since he came back and so I don’t I’m genuinely asking you do you see anything that like Dallas should try because you mentioned maybe not trying anything drastically different and perhaps a better process in decision making will help them I just I left that game kind of at a loss for what I think Dallas can do on the offensive end right right no I I completely agree and it’s because I didn’t really expect Dallas to struggle this much offensively uh given what uh what the Celtics were doing because I really just thought that it would end up in a situation where Boston was going to switch a lot I was expecting that because that’s what they like to do they’re going to try out their base scheme see if it works out and it did um for the most part but I also think that uh you know luuka and Kyrie can improve their process when they have those switches I also think the bigs could play better I don’t think that d as great of a rebounder that Jason Tatum is and I talked about this in our series preview how important it is that Jason Tatum is as high a level of rebounder as he is because he effectively allows the Celtics to play small ball because he is a power forward but he doesn’t really play like a power forward but he does enough power forward things at a really high level that um The Bigs don’t have as much of a burden to on this team as as great as christops is and as good as Al Horford is the the fact of having to like constantly set screens constantly rebound um you know just etc etc things that fours and fives do puts a lot of pressure on these guys who are a little bit older and so Jason Tatum allows them to play this way because he’s so good at those things but Derek Lively should not be consistently getting bullied out of the way by Jason Tatum for both offensive and defensive rebounds Daniel Gafford I think he had a couple of offensive rebounds in this game but he was getting absolutely bullied and really it was fouling but that wasn’t being called by Drew holiday but like look it’s not about like oh Drew is a really good post Defender I’m like Daniel Gafford you are an undersiz Center but you are still like 69ine or whatever and Incredibly athletic when you’re on the floor you have the best vertical of anybody on the floor you cannot let Drew holiday push you from underneath the basket into the stanson so that you cannot grab rebounds that has to be one of one of the ways the Dallas punch punishes the switching both on the offensive end uh defensively they they need to continue to I think their defensive rebounding was mostly fine in this game although Boston got a lot it was a lot of like long rebounds off in the first quarter where Boston got like four like three yeah it was like half I’m like wait half of these were on one possession I think Dallas did a decent job most of the rest of the time um even though Boston had them in rotation a lot and the one the offensive rebounds that Boston got were in really key moments too so when you said it wasn’t a fake comeback like well it kind of was they ran out of gas and then they couldn’t keep executing and so it was like two offensive rebounds in a row that started to push the Boston lead back up again and then they got their offensive process back on track after just sort of playing Boston ball for for like a five minute stretch while the while the maps went on like a 29 to N Run or whatever it was um but I agree with you like I did not expect them to struggle this much offensively so a lot of the the adjustments that I predicted Dallas would have to make had more to do with the defensive end because I thought their defense would be really um just completely ineffectual against the way that Dallas likes to play or that Boston likes to play because Dallas likes to pack the paint um but when you look at the um the actual numbers like Dallas had a really good rating uh defensive rating in the half cour is like 9 was worse than what their offensive rating was overall in the game 97 because Boston’s defense was even better but they were getting absolutely crushed in transition like 188 offensive rating for the Celtics in transition and so I actually do think that the offense is the bigger problem and then defensively there are a lot of execution things that Dallas needs to clean up christops is a problem you talked about my double big suggestion it’s something that they did in the Clipper series for reasons that had nothing to do with a christops like player on the floor but it was really about allowing Lively or Gafford to stay at The Rim when whenever like one of them was on the floor or CBA whenever they switch somebody onto the big to try to neutralize that pick and roll game between a Harden zots now it’s not like Boston’s not have a high volume pick and roll team but they run a lot of uh like pick and pops with Christ stops and he’s involved in off ball screening options Etc if you end up in a situation where you can neutralize one of their more efficient actions that say involves Tatum and christops because you can switch kleba in that situation and then keep Lively on whoever is in the dunker spot I know Boston has does a lot of things to kind of keep players moving so that you have to you basically have to be in rotation because the guy who maybe wants to stay in the dunker spot in this case let’s say it’s Lively has to also watch out for the fact that oh they’re swapping places here this guy’s in the dunger spot now and now that shooter is like darting out to the corner or darting out to the wing on a particular action and that’s where like the communication and just execution aspect comes in but I think in terms of uh not letting uh Kristoff’s get those easier switches uh could really help in the second half they were doing a lot more of trying to keep Lively on christops to try to make sure that those switches weren’t happening but then Boston was able to create threes because whoever was guarding the the ball handler had to either Chase and the guys were getting downhill and collapsing the defense Etc or often when it was Luca he was playing a lot further back and trying to play in kind of a drop but the thing with Boston is that all these guys have like a super green light like they are ready to shoot one of the problems that OKC had was they have all these like really smart decision makers but they are a little bit too hesitant to take the good shot when they think they could get a better shot by driving into traffic and trying to I don’t know further collapse the defense um and so I don’t think they’re like they missed shots but I think they also were not taking a lot of shots that were available because of the way that Dallas was defending them and I I compare them to to to Boston because both of them try to play five out but the the Thunders five out is a lot of is a lot of like constantly driving kick and everybody wants to keep driving and kicking but with Boston they’re like oh first open three-point opportunity we’re gonna just we’re gonna take this make or Miss let’s go I’ve seen though a lot of and there was I have’t I can’t remember the specific time breakdown but it was like from the second quarter until the mark of when the starters were pulled in the fourth quarter uh Dallas only lost the game by three and so it’s like all right well for like that’s super Cherry Picked but in the third quarter they do go on that run and when you go back and watch it there was like a Dallas’s defense did seem on point and it seemed like they they had more of a game plan on how to defend the three-point line or how to get guys off the three-point line yeah you had kind of alluded to this I don’t I can’t remember if you were talking about the third quarter specifically the way they were defending because they were still just in constant rotation and flux they just ran out of gas is there anything though that they were doing during that mini stretch didn’t change too much about their scheme except like I said just trying to keep Lively like pressed up on Kristof so that they weren’t the Boston wasn’t getting those easy points and then the the Celtics just kind of you know they forced some other switches and took guys in ISO but they weren’t um there was like a little bit of better ball containment but they were kind of getting open threes off of not paint touches so it was just better containment and then not letting christops get the easy stuff even from like the the the mid-range on those like BPS on like a Mis A mismatch on a small but I think they could protect the rim better too because what ended up happening after like Missoula eventually calls a timeout because he’s like we can’t let this happen um eventually calls a timeout after like a 29 to N Run whatever um was the Celtics were like oh no we have to touch the paint on every possession and then we can generate better threes okay good and then they did that they got their threes they got their um uh shots at The Rim Etc I think when Lively and Gafford can figure out a way to spend more time closer to the rim the rest of the Dallas Defenders aren’t as concerned with collapsing or at least they shouldn’t be um so they’re able to stay home on Shooters a little bit better so I do think that the if you can get somebody else that you trust to be on Kristoff’s like kleba just because of his size and who can also switch onto all the ball handlers Boston ball handlers in all of those off ball actions that they like to run for Kristof then you can have like sort of Best of Both Worlds defensively but it’s all experimental because we haven’t actually seen too much of it they ran it for like a really really small stint in that third quarter and I don’t think it’s what propelled their run but I thought it was an interesting look that they should you know just try out a little bit more is there anything in particular you’ll be watching to see from the because in theory they really shouldn’t change much if anything but looking at Boston is anything you’re just La trying to see if they do better or that they might change heading into to game two and Beyond I think that they’ll probably Blitz Luca a little bit more okay um in part because throughout the the game one they did try a couple of different looks especially depending on if the lineup included both Luca and Kyrie or just one of those guys I think they’re just going to when I say a little bit more like they didn’t really Blitz at all maybe on like two possession or something entirety of game one uh I think they’ll just throw it in a little bit more to to give him a different look and just keep Dallas off uh off balance um besides that I thought defensively they don’t have too much to solve because the Mavs haven’t really done anything on offense so far to make them rethink what they’re doing so there’s no real reason to adjust there I think that Payton Pritchard can be a little bit better than he was in game one it wasn’t just shooting like he just looked very uncomfortable on both ends of the floor he did like hold up decently on a couple possessions on Luca or whatever but um just watching him play he usually plays with a lot more confidence like knows exactly what he’s going to do there was just a lot of hesitation in this game and he wasn’t making shots and he was just like oh what do I do I’m stuck because like I there was good ball contained in this possession like what do we do like just kind of get the ball moving a little bit faster and that kind of thing but other than that I thought everyone played like pretty pretty well Jaylen Brown was awesome in this game um and guys made shots like so it’s really it’s really on Dallas now to force the Celtics to have to play better I am wondering I thought he had a good overall game and you already mentioned his rebounding um if there’s something that can be done or needs to be done to maybe make things a little bit easier on Jason Tatum I think the value is in the attention he draws I thought he did make some good passes I thought Dallas did a good job at points of getting the ball out of his hands I’m wondering if the Celtics I know they want to have the in his hands but if you’re going to do that can you maybe set some ball screens even higher um for him or can you do things off the ball you maybe set more pin Downs for him to come off of they won without him having just this monster offensive performance I’m just like kind of picking nits here because I don’t even I agree with that like he’s better uh it’s easier for him when he’s able to operate off the ball and attack downhill say off the catch he often just goes for the three because uh if he’s thing too like if Luka when luk is on you like you don’t got to take the step back like you could maybe try and like yeah so that’s I mean that’s something that Dallas sort of is probably going to try to go to more try to goting Boston to more isolations but I I don’t know like they were fine with Tatum having this like mid game because he wasn’t he didn’t have like a super high usage in it and everybody else was efficient he was creating for them he did have six turnovers in this game so that’s like the the plus when you like for Dallas they’re like oh we collapsed the defense a lot and we forced a lot of turnovers like so that’s you know a plus to packing the paint but he also made a lot of great reads um still lost by almost 20 so it’s like a bunch of his yeah and a bunch of his kickouts uh either led to an open three or just led to like a really solid drive and kick sequence that ended in a good shot for somebody so Tatum could play better but I thought he played pretty well like especially when you look at the burden that he has guarding Lively Andor Gafford On Any Given possession and having to make sure that they don’t get beat up on the offensive rebounds I don’t know I just think he had a really great game so they don’t need him to have a better one because yeah but uh something I’ll be watch is there anything else we haven’t talked about um that you think needs to be discussed yeah I think uh we talked a lot about uh the Celtics offense like NBA Twitter has had a lot of thought thoughts about the Celtics offense as a whole and uh you know oh they’re so reliant on threes so they end up with a low floor because if they have a bad shooting night so on and so forth but watching this game in particular it was very clear to me that the the like 25th percentile outcome for the Celtics is so high it’s not it’s not their floor because again badat unite could be bad but their 25th percentile outcome is very very good because teams are so afraid of their three-point shot that you have to defend them a certain way Dallas has had so much success packing the paint and guarding the rim and making teams have bad off offensive nights because of that but with Boston even on a mid shooting night like they they weren’t like amazing less night it was still like 40% from three or something as a team but even on night they they shot well from three overall but people were about it like it was a barrage of threes and no that was like a two that was regular Thursday for Boston basically right it was a barage in the first half and part of that cuz they had so many attempts like 27 attempts I don’t care what the scheme is or the level of execution is from Dallas you cannot allow any team to have 27 attempts from three in the first half unless it’s the Orlando Magic uh the the teams are so afraid of that three-point shot that it opens up so much else in the paint so even though I don’t really trust the Celtics to say make semi contested twos at a high enough rate to beat like a team that is running offense competently like that’s not what the did what the Mavericks did in game one by the way um but they’ll get a lot of decent looks from two just because of how willing they are to take these transition threes and things that they get because the other team is like messing up on their offense right so that’s just like philosophically something that I was thinking about with respect to the Celtics offense watching this game yeah they ended up shooting they’re 15 of 15 in the restricted area in this game which is just like that’s not necessarily not something that most teams do against the Mavericks or any teams did in the playoffs right and it’s just I’m wondering I will be interesting to see if there are any schematic or Personnel or whatever tactical adjustments from the Mavericks because it just feels like and I mentioned to this during the game is that there’s a chance we might look back on this Celtics team as an inevit ability that we not necessarily me and you but definitely me collectively tried to paint as something less because I’m just watching this Dallas definitely in that too right I’m just watching this Dallas defense which has been so good since the trade deadline and I’m not smart enough to say that I should have the fixes but the fact that I just can’t really point to anything and say Boston’s offense or the way that they their personnel won’t stretch them beyond the point of functioning at a high level is just absolutely wild and so like Boston is just I don’t know they’re they’re they’re actually literally hashtag built different like and so they will have the games you know you mentioned the low floor there will be variant when you’re taking threes but as you mentioned it opens up all this other other stuff and by the way we have not seen them really in the postseason without like chrisop porz is being healthy and moving the way that he was and it was funny afterwards by the way he’s like I didn’t even think I was 100% yet I was like what the hell does a 100% look like when you’re moving with some of the stuff that you did so I don’t want to say it’s hopeless for the Mavs because I picked against I think in every series so far except the first round so like they I had them beating the Clippers and then I just had them losing to everybody else the Thunder the Timberwolves and of course the Celtics but I’m going to be fascinated to see if there’s anything they can do because I I do feel like this series after watching game one maybe it’s over overreaction has the potential to kind of go off the rails for Dallas just based on some of the stuff we saw for sure I had this as Boston and six but I thought H five’s possible but I don’t trust this Celtics team but maybe they’re just like super locked in you could see that from their defense they were like totally on a string with all of their um all their communication Etc throughout this entire game which you need to be because like I said there are other ways that Dallas can punish you for the way that you’re sort of messing with the matchups but um yeah I think five is possible I still just don’t see Dallas getting swept um I’ll be curious to see how they uh adjust particularly offensively which I again I was not expecting to have that big of a question for the Dallas offense but that is the bigger concern for me now than than the defense after seeing game one did you I’m sorry I already can’t remember if we like talked about this but like do you just see they this a little bit but like is it do you need to spam more of Derek Jones Jr or PJ Washington being used as the screener just to try and get the day facto big maybe involved in the action or is Boston going to you know pre- switch that and it’s not even going to matter so Boston’s scheme is pretty similar to the the scheme that they used in the March 1 game that they had against the Mavericks and so I actually thought that that would be something that Dallas would have to keep going to that was my one of my predictions for the series but after watching game one I actually think they should try to keep finding ways to use Lively and Gafford because that vertical spacing threat is such an important part of uh of maximizing Luca as an offensive as an offensive threat as an offensive weapon um and I think that their offense is just most potent not just when you have that vertical spacing threat but when you have somebody with real rooll gravity because uh these other guys aren’t going to collapse the defense and Deron Jor in particular has been making really bad decisions with the ball I advocating for use I advocated for using him more as a roller in the wolf series Wolf series um but his short roll decision- making and his like just roller decision making from the back half of that series through now has been less than ideal so I do think that both Lively and gaffer just need to be more involved because I think you’re letting Boston off the hook if you do the thing that is a little bit more obvious because those guys are just easier to guard yeah I I’m kind of curious if this becomes not that it won’t be like that he can’t necessarily play but we kind of already saw it he what he log 14 minutes and change in game one is this just even looking at defensively can this just not be a Daniel Gafford series because we saw him run into some issues against OKC too and like Boston’s built in a similar way but with better decision makers on the ball or better attackers on the ball no that’s a really good point and I actually thought that Gafford was pretty bad through the first part of the Wolf series as well so I was just like okay they have one good center now and they just need to survive The Gafford minutes but as that series went on he became a lot better he was just playing smarter making good decisions on the short role whereas he’d kind of just been like I don’t know Euro stepping into three guys before and then by the end of that series they were like winning his minutes handily and losing livelies and maybe part of that’s just like rookie stuff that I didn’t even notice as that series went on um I think kid has to my um to a way that I appreciate uh been very consistent with his rotations and trying to figure out ways to get the guys that are on the floor playing better and playing with you know schemes that counter the other team so I don’t think that gaffard is going to be removed from the starting lineup as the the short answer to that um but I do think that they need to figure out a way to get him next to somebody bigger whether that’s kba or like he just needs another front Court partner and he needs to play better like I said can’t be bullied by Drew holiday for the rest of the series where it will be short because like they need their bigs to play well against this Boston team because it’s the only position that they really have an advantage outside of Luca anything else you want to talk about before I finally long last release you no that was all this was this was great I love talking Hoops well so do I and thank you so much for coming on I had a blast um can you please just let our listeners know very quickly in case they already forgot from the first part of the podcast where they can find you and the Fantastic work tweets that you may be putting out oh yeah if you want my live game tweets and my not uh not live game tweets where I just offer my thoughts on all all things Hoops uh you can find me on Twitter at Aon B27 e r i n b r r27 and check out what’s in a game it’s uh what’s in a game NBA on YouTube uh me and my co-hosts talk about postgame stuff but also check out our offseason gossip mongering too um we have a lot of a trade slop that’s going to be coming on lots and lots of rumors uh for every team uh I would just Echo go check out the what’s in a game podcast the links will be in the YouTube and podcast description Grace thank you so much for your time um I’ll definitely be pestering you again in the future sweet [Music]

Dan is joined by Grace Jean (@ErinBurr27) from the ‘What’s In A Game’ podcast ( @WhatsinaGameNBA ) to discuss their biggest takeaways following Game 1 of the NBA Finals as well as the futures of the Denver Nuggets and Orlando Magic. SUBSCRIBE TO WHAT’S IN A GAME HERE (https://www.youtube.com/@WhatsinaGameNBA) AND HERE (https://open.spotify.com/show/0jcmG5tuLWROu99aNIuiqA?si=b7fce8b494c9472d)! CHAPTERS BELOW.

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CHAPTERS⬇️
0:00 – INTRO
1:31 – The Nuggets AND Magic beat?!?
5:01 – Grace’s basketball background
13:02 – Denver Nuggets future outlook
—The complicated value of Jamal Murray (13:28)
—The future of Michael Porter Jr. (22:57)
—Should we adjust our perspective of the Nuggets? (29:55)
—General musings on Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, Jalen Pickett, Hunter Tyson and Julian Strawther (33:20)
—Denver’s biggest need this offseason (39:22)
—Should the Nuggets change up their offense? (45:25)

Orlando Magic future outlook (48:15)
—The next frontier for Paolo Banchero (48:23)
—Should we be concerned about Franz Wagner’s shooting regression? (52:14)
—The development of Jalen Suggs (56:31)
—Will the Magic be aggressive this offseason? (1:09:27)
—Jamahl Mosley making moves (1:22:11)

NBA Finals Takeaways, Questions, Thoughts, etc. (1:24:00)
—Kristaps Porzingis WTF
—Boston’s defense
—Dallas’ bigs
—Adjustments for the Mavs
—”Adjustments” for the Celtics (LOL)
—MORE

#nba #nbafinals #nbaplayoffs #nbaoffseason #denvernuggets #nikolajokic #orlandomagic