Hoops Tonight - PISTONS-CAVS GAME 7 REACTION: Donovan Mitchell & James Harden DOMINATE Cade, advance to ECF v Knicks

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The Volume. Hi, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great end to your weekend. Got a jam-packed show for you guys tonight. We're going to break down that kind of travesty of a game seven as the Cavs just beat up on the Detroit Pistons in their building. I want to talk briefly about the game, talk about the Cavs Nix series that we will start on Tuesday, talk a little bit about the, a little bit about the Detroit Pistons and their future. And then Jackson's going to come on the show. We're going to take some questions from the chat. So if you guys have anything that you want to get into from anything around the NBA, drop it in the chat and we'll get to it at the tail end of the show. Shane Gilders Alexander, one MVP. We'll talk briefly about that as well at the tail end of the show. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channel. So you don't miss any more of our videos. We're trying hard to get to 150,000 subs on this, in this playoff run. So if you guys can help us by scrolling down, hit that subscribe button. It would mean a lot. And the last but not least, if you're already subscribed, like this video, sign up for post notifications. That helps us a lot. All right. Let's talk some basketball. So the end of this series, actually to me, it kind of reminded me a little bit of the end of the Rockets Lakers series. And what I mean by that is like, you watch a team have a lead and have an opportunity to close out on their home floor and they kind of get ran from start to finish. Like the similar type of game where like they're kind of in striking distance, but never able to get over the hump. And as you're watching it in the moment, you're thinking very much like, oh man, they're screwed. They're going to go back on the road and they're going to lose again. And you know, for a team like Cleveland, obviously series would be over for a team like the Lakers that have a game seven. But I remember in the moment feeling more concerned for the calves in the Lakers. And then what happened was, is I had an opportunity to rewatch the Laker game because I do a podcast on the Lakers on the cycle, Lakers collective. So I rewatched the next morning and similarly for the calves, pistons, because it was on a night where there was two games while I was watching the second game, I went back and I rewatched that game. And on rewatch, I came away feeling like, oh, like they really played poorly. Not to say that they don't still have a daunting challenge in front of them to go on the road and, and try to close out a playoff series, but I knew they could play much better. I left that Lakers Rockets game five thinking like Austin and LeBron were both terrible. I felt like they weren't physically competitive in like just the, the mud of the game without how, how, how much Houston was competing. And I just felt like they could play a lot better. Who knows what'll happen, but maybe they'll just come out and play a lot better and things will look different. They rolled up into Houston and game six, played their most complete game of the post season and dominated Houston and sent them home. And that's kind of what this reminded me of, because over the course of this series, one of the things we talked about, if you guys remember, is starting in that clutch run of game two, I thought the shot quality dynamic started to tilt pretty heavily towards Cleveland and Detroit's runs seemed more dependent on their defense, just decomposing Cleveland for stretches, like just causing them to fall apart with their execution and start making mistakes. And then just trigger triggering the transition runs that can get Detroit going. But whenever things really slowed down in the half court, it felt like Cleveland had an advantage. They had found a better one on one matchups. They had two primary ball handlers that were consistently getting good shots, not to mention action from Evan Mobley, not to mention off ball action for guys like Max Drewson, Sam Merrill. They were just getting better looks and they were able to get the defense and rotation more often with their passing and pick and roll and just generate some wide open catch and shoot threes for guys that are just better shooters than the Detroit Pistons shooters in game five, like we talked about or in game six, excuse me, there was just a complete lack of physical competitiveness from Cleveland from the start of that game. They kind of just got punked a little bit. I talked about that after the game and I thought Don have a Mitchell, both Don have a Mitchell and James Hardin both played two of their worst games of the post season. Hardin less so in the box score more so in just his effort in energy and Mitchell just had a brutal night all around. And so it just felt like, Hey, you know, obviously Detroit's got an advantage. They're at home for game seven. They're going to be really difficult to win to beat, but like Cleveland can certainly play a lot better. Right. And they went in tonight and not only did they play a lot better, I thought they played their most complete game of this entire season started on the defense event of the floor. Just simply there is an advantage that they have in this matchup with the types of players that Detroit has that they can sink off of and put extra attention in, in and around the paint. Right. You know, even just like over the course of this game, we saw more of Cleveland centers on a SAR Thompson, especially in bench groups. Right. Like Evan Mowley saw that matchup a lot, but we saw Jared Allen on a SAR Thompson for stretches of this game, just keeping their bigs around the basket. I thought they're a don of a Mitchell and James Harden in particular were way more attentive on defense. Don't even had a lot of these like tap out rebounds to where just big contested rebound situations where he just would make an effort to crash from the perimeter and just tap the ball to one of his teammates. There was a level of an engagement from James Harden and Donovan Mitchell that with their frontline with Allen and Mowley and with the competitiveness of Dean Wade and Max Drew, so continued to do a great job on Kate Cunningham. They just played their best defensive game. And the reason why I wanted to highlight that first, cause Donovan Mitchell was the star of this game. We're going to talk about him in a second. The reason why I wanted to highlight that first is like, there was a lot of criticism of Detroit's defense tonight. Rightfully so. They gave up a ton of dribble penetration. They just didn't look like the same type of Detroit Pistons team that we watched for most of the season. But I do think these things tend to be connected. One of the things that we've noticed with the Pistons is they do have these lulls where they get into big deficits because their offense can't score. And then eventually they go on a big run, right? And that run is fueled by their defense, but also by Kate Cunningham scoring the basketball, also by Tobias Harris scoring the basketball, right? And like what ends up happening is if you can't score, then it's really hard to get the momentum from your defense, right? Like at a certain point, it almost feels like a lost cause because you feel like, all right, we're getting some stops here, but we're never capitalizing them on the other end of the floor. We're not able to get any sort of offensive juice going that might ignite their defense and get them to meet the moment with the energy and intensity that they typically did when they were at their best defensively. I just thought everything in basketball is intricately connected. This is why I've always had pushed back towards catch all advanced metrics. I just think that there's millions of moving parts in a basketball game and all of them are very uniquely related to each other and nothing can be synthesized down to a number. And one of the things that I've always believed is offense and defense are connected. A lot of times like when one unit is struggling, it can have a lot to do with the other unit struggling. And sometimes one of your units having success can ignite your other unit to take it a step further for Cleveland. Like, you know, I, you don't think it's, you don't think it's connected that Donovan Mitchell just right away to start the game, getting two, two really easy driving dump offs to Jared Allen for dunks had a, a role to play and then meeting the moment defensively. Like just right out the gates, Donovan Mitchell streaking down the lane. He had a really nice cut off of Jared Allen on one of them out of the right corner where he cuts off and gets a DHO cuts down to the left block and just lobs it back over his shoulder to, to Jared for the dunk. He had constant drill penetration. You don't think Cleveland just being like, Oh man, Donovan's got it tonight had something to do with them having the, the, the belief in doing the job on defense. Like all these things are connected. And I just thought Detroit's offense really struggling to get anything going credit to Cleveland's defense as well was a big part of why they weren't as like, as impactful defensively as they typically can be. But I thought the story of this game was dribble penetration for Cleveland's offense. Donovan Mitchell early, but I thought James Harden as well also like slip cuts, like little things like, okay, Max truce is in a three man screening action. And he slips over the top Jared Allen hits him on a back cut and that creates an open three on the, on the weak side or just there. I, one of the specific things I noticed in this game was Cleveland had a lot of like semi-transition drives, meaning like, okay, we get a stop. We're pushing the ball up the floor. They're not like in a straight up fast break situation, like a two on one, but you have like a four on three or five on four where the defense isn't quite set and they're not pressuring the ball and they're not pressuring the ball because they're not taking it out of the net. They're taking it off of a live rebound, right? And you see Donovan just like get ahead of steam and then get into his bag, right? Like just throw a hard in and out dribble that just buckles, buckles Marcus Sasser and he's able to get to his right hand and get downhill and draw foul or right in the middle of the floor, like hard in and out dribble into the crossover back to the left. And he's passed his man. Like Donovan hasn't quite had the burst, like the athletic burst that he's had in previous stretches of his career, but a nice way to kind of help that is to get with a running start instead of coming from a static situation, come in that, come at the defense in that semi transition phase where they're kind of on their heels and they're not fully set. But when you get dribble penetration and I talk about this dynamic all the time, the difference between like making a drive into like a banana shape versus a straight line, meaning like if you can contain the ball and slide and like kind of maintain contact and prevent the guy from really turning the corner, then help doesn't have to sink in as hard. The on ball defender can kind of hang for a little bit longer and you don't give up the same high quality lobs and the same high quality drop off passes or kick out threes, right? But if you give up straight line drives, everybody goes like this and then there's wide open guys, right? And one of the things that you saw in this game was Donovan Mitchell got a lot of straight line drives, just like cleanly beat his man from the parameter 25, 30 feet from the basket, screaming downhill, jail endurance or Paul Reed or like just whoever was at the rim would just have no choice but to step over quickly. And it's just an easy drop off pass to Evan Mobley, an easy drop off pass to Jared Allen. If that guy doesn't have to help as hard and it's a little bit more congested, then all of a sudden those reeds become harder to make. And so I think Donovan Mitchell just deserves a boatload of credit for his dribble penetration in this game. And honestly, making some of the reeds that he wasn't making earlier in the series, but it helps when you're getting the type of dribble penetration that you're getting. I thought Sam Merrill's shooting was absolutely massive in this game. It started off the catch. He had a couple of big, he had a couple of big week side kick out threes off of the left side, but then it turned into some more complex shot making, hitting that three with the and one coming off of the double drag on the right side of the floor, hit like a little drop covered shot where he almost drew a foul around like the left lane line area. His shooting similarly early in the game kind of gave the calves some breathing room. Like these games tend to be super stressful. These games tend to have a lot of pressure, but if you get an early lead, that can go a long way to getting everybody to relax and just focus on doing their jobs. And I just thought Cleveland between the job they did defensively, starting with their stars, just like pulling their weight and doing their jobs rather than floating around anchored by their bigs at the basket, Dean Wade and Max Drew's doing their job on the perimeter. They had this beautiful defensive execution game mixed with, you know, boxing out and crackdown rebounding from the perimeter to keep Detroit off of the deep off of the offensive glass. Like they finished with 10 offensive rebounds, but most of those came later in the game. Like in the first, I want to say like, you know, quarter and a half or so, they had like two offensive rebounds. Like they were just in complete control of that end of the floor and then playing a lot with pace to get those semi-transition opportunities so that they could get early dribble penetration. Donovan Mitchell, especially getting great dribble penetration early. James Hart and I thought did a great job getting the defense and rotation, which is simple passing reads off the top of the key. Guys were knocking down shots. Jared Allen and Evan Mowley cleaning up everything underneath the basket. It was just the most complete all around start to finish performance from the calves that they've had in this entire post season run, arguably in this entire season. They went on the road and they beat the shit out of the one seed. And now they're going to the conference finals. So tip of the cap to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I think looking ahead at Cavs, Nix, again, I'm just going to go very brief here. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be working on a full series preview for the Eastern conference finals. It'll be on our feeds somewhere in like kind of the mid morning Pacific time, like around like 11 o'clock or so in Pacific time. But that, that series went to one in favor of New York this year in the regular season. Two of the games were pre deadline. The two Nix wins. We actually have a really good game to watch for this one. A game in late February where the Cavs beat the Nix in Cleveland, where most of the guys played. Now I'm not going to just, you know, pick a team based on winning a regular season game. I'm going to watch the film and look at the matchups and see how comfortable guys look being guarded by certain guys. And the Nix are playing completely different basketball than they did back in the regular season. So there's a lot of, a lot of noise in there, but we actually have a pretty decent game to watch to get a good look at scouting these two teams. My, my initial gut feeling as I, as I kind of like approached the series before really doing all of my research is this is going to be fundamentally different than what Detroit looked like for Cleveland. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, Florida's sports book. 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You can save £20 per month plus claim a Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Lite. Now we're talking. So get yours today. Offer ends 28th of May. Notice the change in your hearing. We'll get a hearing check from SpecsAvers. Oh, not sure where to start. Well, we're very flexible. Book one online, on the phone, on your lunch break, on Saturdays, on the same day if you're lucky. Oh, you only miss the odd word. But what if the odd words you're missing are nice ones like love you or important ones like duck? Oh, too expensive, is it? Hmm, all right, we like you. We'll do it for nothing. For free hearing checks, should have gone to SpecsAvers. Starting with Cleveland's defense. So one of the things with this, this particular matchup with Detroit, not that there was no off-fall action, because we did see some work with like, you know, Duncan Robinson trying to put Donovan Mitchell in double drags off the ball or like, you know, double wide pin downs off the ball. But for the most part, that was a brute force attack, right? It's Jalinder and ISOs. It's K Cunningham pick and roll. It's K Cunningham ISOs. It's a lot of just power smash mouth basketball in the half court, right? That's the way Detroit plays. New York plays a fundamentally different brand of basketball than they did, than the Pistons did. And certainly even then what the Knicks did in the regular season, like Carl Anthony Towns is averaging six times as many assists as he did last year in the post season. But that extends to this year. He's averaging well over twice as many assists as he did in the regular season in that calves win back in late February. He had just two assists the entire way that the Knicks are playing offense is very different now. Jalen Brunson is working off the ball more than ever for the calves. Fans who haven't heard it, the basic stats that I gave to break this down are cats had three tennis this games in the post season, never had done it before this season, averaging six times as many assists. Jalen Brunson last season, 71% of his made field goals came out of on ball reps, like pick and roll ISO post ups just on the ball, right? This year that numbers dropped from 71% down to 56%. Last year, the Knicks were dead last and assist percentage among all the playoff teams this year. That's gone up from 50% all the way up to 61% of their made baskets are assisted. So in a weird way, it targets a different weakness in Cleveland's defense because you know, James Harden being asked to slide his feet and compete with Kate Cunningham and ISOs. If he ever has to switch is very different than like, we're targeting you an off ball action now. James Harden is a much better on ball defender than Darius Garland is right? That was part of the deal, but he is a less attentive off ball defender. He's not as good at tracking things off the ball. And so one of the things that I think will be really tricky for the calves defense in this matchup is just James Harden and Donovan Mitchell getting caught in off ball action, either not paying attention or botching a switch or doing something that gives up slips or easy layups or easy threes for, for either, you know, guys like Mikhail Bridges or OG Ananobe cutting towards the rim off of Brunson backscreens or guys slipping out to the perimeter as they lose somebody. It's just going to be a tricky matchup for them in their off ball defense. That to me is the biggest difference between the Pistons attack and the Knicks attack. The Pistons attack the lot with a heliocentric ball handler. Jaylen Brunson is a heliocentric ball handler historically, but he's working more off ball than he ever has. And it inverts your defense when you have Carl Anthony towns operating as a passing fulcrum from the perimeter, different than having Jared Allen hang off of Jaylen Durand or had Jared Allen hang off of Paul Reed or Isaiah Stewart, right? It's a fundamentally different geometry to their defense. So that's the first thing that stands out to me is just how different that will look. Now the flip side of that is Cleveland has some guys that were less useful in this series defensively. That will be more useful in the next round, right? Like Dennis Schroeder guys, like, you know, Key on Ellis guys that were useless to put on Cade that are actually pretty decent options to put on a guy like Jaylen Brunson, right? So you probably see some shifts in the way that Cleveland's rotation looks in the next round. You know, all of a sudden a guy like Dean, Dean Wade might be less valuable because now you're looking for shooting off of your primary on ball defenders rather than, you know, him being a guy that you're deploying on Cade, right? So like, we'll see how the rotation shifts as they go into the next round defensively though, it's going to be a fundamentally different challenge than what the pistons presented on the other end of the floor. You know, you'd be inclined to think like, Oh, this is a team that you can, you know, put in the blender in terms of attacking Brunson and cat and getting them into rotation and getting great looks. But the teams that have typically given the next issues are teams that can put five spacers on the floor. Like, you know, Miles Turner at the center, Al Horford at the center teams that can really space them out and force cat to make a lot of defensive decisions on the perimeter. It gets a little trickier when you have Evan Mobley and Jared Allen on the floor. And there's two guys that they're like, we'll live with you shooting and Jared won't shoot, but you'll live with Evan Mobley shooting out there. It allows the nicks to get away with things like, you know, deeper drop coverage for a Carl Anthony towns can either come up to the level and have help behind him without giving up a wide open three, or, you know, he can maybe work in some deeper drop coverage or Jalen Brunson probably going to do a lot of hedging and recovering in this series, especially if he's, you know, being deployed on a guy like a Dean Wade, right? Like he's just, he's just, he's just going to be able to throw a hedge and get back out and not have to worry about giving up a great look. Right. So that's the thing that gets fundamentally different for them on the other end of the floor. It's just going to be a different challenge in terms of their ability to attack cat and Jalen Brunson. The flip side is the, the nicks just don't have the same type of defensive personnel that Detroit has, right? Like they don't have the same, you know, a Sarr Thompson type of problem that they present. Mikhail bridges did give Tyrese Maxx he some issues though. So don't be surprised if Mikhail bridges similarly give some issues to Donovan Mitchell, but again, we'll get into this more tomorrow. That's just like kind of my 30,000 foot, haven't really put a ton of thought into it, but that's just my initial impression on that series tomorrow morning. I'm going to dig into the, the footage from the regular season. We'll dig into the numbers. We'll dig into the lines. We'll, we'll just have a deep dive into the Eastern conference finals that'll be up on the feed mid morning Pacific time tomorrow on the Pistons front quickly before we get out of here, just in this game, I was a little disappointed in Cade and just the kind of chill approach he had coming out the gates. I talked earlier about how the two sides of the floor are connected. If Cade comes out and brings a certain amount of verb with like his rim pressure and just playing with his hair on fire on offense, that could be the kind of thing that ignites a better defensive performance. I thought Cade kind of eased his way into this game. It was just a little relaxed, settled for a lot of jump shots as well. Now, obviously spacing plays a role, but like there were a lot of plays where he went downhill and tried to attack and was able to make something happen near the basket. I just thought Cade just was a little too chill for what the team needed from him in this environment. I'm not going to be overly critical of Cade. I thought this was an overwhelmingly positive playoff run for him. I thought that, you know, if you're a Pistons fan and you were wondering through the first three playoff series of Cade's career, if he's going to be good enough to take you to the promised land, the answer to me is resoundingly, yes. He is absolutely capable of being in a playoff series with the best players in the league and being at the same level as them. He's got work to do, right? Like that, you know, the jump shot came and went at times in the post season. He shot it overwhelmingly well overall, but that's got to be reliable for him. The turnovers were an issue at times, but that guy's got the goods. Tonight wasn't the best night for him, but overwhelmingly, I was, you know, really impressed by Cade in this post season run. I thought the bigger issue was the issues that the Detroit had in terms of their lack of offensive talent around Cade, they were hidden by the fact that Tobias Harris just found a groove that he hasn't found in the post season in really any of his recent career history, right? I mentioned this on the show, but he had in his previous 25 playoff games before that streak of 20 point games, he had gone for 20 plus in just four of the 25 games, right? Then you come into this stretch and he goes, what was it? Seven or eight games that are 0 with 20 plus points and it literally saved their ass, right? Saved them from a humiliating first round loss to the Orlando magic. So credit to Tobias, but he, since that streak has completely tailed off, even in his last 20 point game in the streak, which was game three of this series, that was the game that he got absolutely fried by James Harden and ISO. So like Tobias just kind of tailed off and it turns out like in this setting, especially when you go against better teams, he's just not a good enough player to be Cades number two, you know, vet leader, sure. Dude, you want the locker room? Sure. Maybe you can convince him to stay around longterm, but like that position needs to be upgraded. There needs to be, that number two for Cade Cunningham needs to be a better basketball player flat out. I know we talked about this earlier, but it earlier shows, but like Cade playing in a box, meaning like Cade learning how to score in tight spaces is a valuable ceiling razor, but it's a poor use of his best trait. What does Cade do better than Shay, for example? He's not the same driver. He's not the same pullup shooter, never will be probably, right? But what does he do better than Shay? Pass the basketball and play with power, right? What does he do better than Wemby? Pass the basketball. His way to compete with those guys longterm is to be this, the Eastern conferences version of Luca Donchich. And in order to unlock that, you have to surround him with high level play finishing talent. Again, this kind of guy, I want him surrounded with guys that can knock down, catch and shoot threes and drive closeouts, right? Different player, right? Steph Curry, he's inverting gravity. I want read and react talent, guys that can make quick decisions and like cut, relocate, pass in the middle of the floor, right? It's totally different type of advantage, right? Cade's advantage is typically going to be powering his way into the lane, drawing multiple defenders. He needs to be surrounded by a lot of three point shooting. I'd argue that his build should like mimic some of the Luca Donchich builds that we've seen in recent years. Secondary ball handler that's also a pick and roll player and there needs to be a knockdown shooter in each corner. His secondary star needs to be able to knock down a catch and shoot three off the opposite wing and his role man needs to be, his role man needs to be able to be a legitimate vertical spacer. And if he, and who can dominate switches on the offensive glass, right? Like that's the build that we've seen work with this type of player. And so to me forcing Cade to score in a box is asking him to be better than Shay at being Shay. And that's just not going to happen. Put him in a situation that accentuates his strengths. Yes, the scoring over the top will be a ceiling razor, but not a defining characteristic of his career. This was just a really strange way to watch Cade have to play basketball. And so I want to see them make that adjustment in the coming seasons. I'm nervous that they're not going to. I think that there's some intel that's been coming out that they want to bet on these guys improving longterm. And like to me, Jayland Durand just feels years away from developing into a secondary option on offense. Like a Sartom, sitting in Ron Holland, they are wonderful defensive players and athletes. They feel years away from blossoming into the type of on ball talent that they need. Danish Jenkins, really impressive end of this playoff run was much better in this series than he was in the Orlando series. That guy's not good enough to be the number two alongside Cade Cunningham. So I just want to see them look to, to kind of round out the edges and transition more into what accentuates Cade Cunningham strengths as a passer. All right, let's bring Jackson up here and let's take some questions from the chat. Let's do it first before we get to the chat. Let's start with the morning's news. Shay Gilgit, Shay Gilgit Alexander, one MVP this year was announced. It is his second straight MVP. Your thoughts on this, him winning this specific award as well as sort of a little bit of a further back look about what it means for the fact that he's now won two straight, which is, you know, not happened that many times in NBA history. Yeah. So first of all, extremely well deserved. I had him as a clear number one, the only, the only inkling of a hope I had for anyone else is if the Spurs had managed to pass them in the standings, which they didn't, because there was just like a per minute impact thing with Wemby that was going to be really tough to match. And I also thought just strictly for Shay, like being the number one seed was a big part of his case. And so in terms of the MVP case, I just thought that he was the obvious choice. I didn't understand the Yokich buzz at all whatsoever. Like that was really strange to me. Lakers fans were completely delusional for thinking Luca should have won MVP. It was to me between Wemby and Shay. And I personally would have leaned, they each had such good cases off, off of the, the, the one seed piece, right? Like you could argue Wemby was the best per minute player in the league this year. And you could argue Shay was the best overall player who played the most this year. And both of them were deeply valuable. The on off numbers were insane. Both of them were playing with a ton of talent. So there was no like, you know, you know, carrying a bad team bonus for either team. So really to me, the differentiator was going to be who got the one seed. Shay got it. He deserved it. I think, you know, we, there's been a lot of hot button topics surrounding the okay, the okay, see officiating and the flopping with guys like Shay, not just Shay, but around the league and like, you know, Shay doesn't, he drives me crazy. Like I've watched footage of the Spurs match up this year and they were for our series preview and there were three or four times where I'm like, good God, dude, like what the hell are you doing? Like that is disgraceful. But Harden had five or six of the worst flops I've ever seen in this last series. And B had a dozen of some of the worst flops I've ever seen in his series. Like Luca, we know what it looks like when he's out there playing. These guys, it's rampant in the league. And so Shay to me kind of gets unfairly targeted as the only guy. When to me, it's more like, Hey, you're the best player in the league. So why not set a better example that that's where I get critical of Shay in that, in that sense. But that conversation in that discussion has to me not replaced the reality that I have a profound respect for Shay as a basketball player. I think that when you really look into what a, what a guard deals with in the NBA in terms of efficiency for him to be as efficient as efficient as he was this season, as a volume scoring guard from the perimeter was pretty much unprecedented. Steph Curry did it, but he did it with high volume three point shooting. Shay being as efficient as he was as like a legitimate three level score, who was like arguably the best driver in the game, the best mid range player in the league built out this reliable pull up three point shot from both ways, the ability to get to a step back going left and his ability to get to a step back going right for him to reach that level of efficiency with that type of shot diet is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen a player do in the NBA. And his growth as a playmaker this year, weaponizing the attention that he draws as an ISO player to generate open shots for his teammates and to be relentless with those reads, like going back and watching the Spurs footage. I was amazed by Shay's playmaking again in the tape that I watched like Shay is just a remarkable basketball player. No one hands out best player in the world in May. You have to earn that over the course of the post season and it is very much in flux going into this matchup with Wemby. But right now at this unique moment in time, if you ask me who I thought the best player in the world is, I'd say it's Shay. And I just thought that he had a wonderful season and to extend it past that, like I am really impressed by Shay's demeanor and his leadership, the example he sets for his teammates, his, for all of you guys who are watching, if you guys haven't had a chance to check out Starting Five, Starting Five did a profile, part of the series was a profile on Shay Gilders Alexander on Netflix. And I was just super impressed by Shay's routine and just the way he goes about his business. One of the most fascinating things from that that I liked was the discussion surrounding never getting too high or never getting too low, not just within games, but also within practices. Those of you guys who work on your game a lot know that sometimes you go to the gym and you, like even just practicing your game, you don't have it. But sometimes you go to the gym and you're practicing your game and you're making everything, right? And like their understanding that like it's not any individual day that defines you, but it's the totality of all the days and like keeping an even keel, keeping a good attitude throughout that process. How that isn't just good for you and your confidence, but it's also an example that he sets for his teammates. Just, I think Shay is a remarkable basketball player, a very deserving MVP. The next in a long line, a short line, I should say, an NBA history of truly great players that have had extended stretches of dominance. When you look at the list of guys that have won multiple MVPs in this league, it's not very long over the, you know, what has it been, you know, seven or eight decades of basketball. So what he's done is remarkable. I can't say enough about the guy. Yeah, it drives me crazy that he flops, but that's not just a Shay thing. That's a thing with a lot of players in the league and tip of the cap to him for, for hoisting the trophy. All right. Let's talk about some of the games from tonight as well as some big pictures stuff for next question. The Eastern Conference finals has a battle between Warriors 2022 assistant coaches. Which of the two do you think has had more success post the Warriors and who do you think is the better, who do you think has the advantage in the coaching matchup? You know, Mike Woodson, Kenny Atkinson. Man. I think I lean towards Mike Brown. I think what Mike Brown has done with the Knicks is one of the most remarkable like turnarounds of a team that I can remember. Now there is, I was actually pitched this by a person on Cavs radio the other day when I was on, uh, uh, before game six. There's this belief that like the, what's happening with the Knicks is just fueled by hot shooting. And I don't want to like undercut. We actually discussed that on the show too. We had a mail back question about it the other day. I don't want to like sit here and pretend like that doesn't play a role. Like they are shooting very well, but it doesn't take a lot to watch the Knicks and just see that this looks different than previous teams. And so I think like that is just an extremely impressive achievement to be, uh, to turn around the team the way that he did. Um, and I, I like, I actually really enjoy watching the Knicks now in a way that I didn't in years past because Brunson ball to me wasn't, you know, just a suit. It wasn't a super appealing brand of basketball, but like I, I, yeah, I would, I would leave. I think what Mike Brown's done with the Knicks is super impressive. Uh, I said, Mike, what's in a second ago? Sorry. Excuse me, Mike Brown. Um, next question. Super chat from Chris. He is sort of pondering some off-season moves. He says, Rui to Detroit question mark. Dejante Murray, would he be a good option for either Houston or Minnesota? I thought about Dejante Murray last night when we're talking about Wolf stuff as well. I, Dejante Murray to me is an interesting option in the sense that like he is a dribble drive guard who gets good dribble penetration, uh, underrated passer, good mid-range score, which I think has value in the post-season. I thought he had some runs too, where he looked pretty good after the injury this year. Uh, to me, Dejante is just, it all comes down to the price. If he's really inexpensive, it's kind of like a low risk, high reward type of direction to go. I think he fits the culture too. Like he's a super aggressive competitive dude. Rui Hachamura is fascinating. Rui Hachamura to me would be the perfect weak side corner guy to have with Kade because he's a catch and shoot player kind of through and through. And as someone who's rooted for Rui a lot over the years, he is a guy that if he has got his feet set and he's open, that that's shits going in like just about every time. It gets a little more complicated when you ask him to put the ball on the floor as a read and react player, but he's become so good at the wonderful pull-up mid-ranger that it's kind of turned him into a decent closeout player too. So like, I think Rui is, let's focus more on like the archetype. Whether it's Rui or it's a Michael Porter Jr. to me, a very good off-ball score on the weak side that Kade can skip the ball to in pick and roll is the type of guy that makes the most sense. So teams generally don't like to help off the strong side corner in pick and roll, right? Because it's too easy of a pass. So if you help off the weak side corner and you have a good shooter, let's say whoever Kade's future number two is that's sitting on the opposite wing, it becomes a very simple dynamic where if you tag the roller or defend the action three on two, the skip to the corners open. And if you're skipping to the corner and that's a guy who's just like going to hit damn near 50% of his wide open catch and shoot threes, that's a huge value. I just think what I like about a guy like Michael Porter Jr. as a difference to Rui is I think Michael Porter Jr. is a much better defensive rebounder. He's a much better secondary rim protector and he's got more of a bag if he needs to put the ball on the floor or work out of like dribble handoff. So like, say for instance, he's running DHO action with a guy like Jaylen Durant. Like, I like Rui, but Rui to me is a little, I think Rui is going to be overpaid this summer. I think he's going to get somewhere in the 20 to $25 million a year range because he shot the ball super well. But the truth of the matter is, is he's great as a spot up player and pretty mediocre at everything else to bad at some of that stuff. And so like if I was Detroit, I just, I'm not sure he's the solution to all their problems. Who's the other guy you mentioned? We hit Sean John. Super good. Yeah. Yeah. The root, the Michael Porter Jr. stuff I agree, especially with, it felt like he always thought he had this bag and we weren't really sure if he did. And then this year for the Nets, like, okay, I'm, I mean, I don't want him to be like the guy for a team, obviously didn't go anywhere with the Nets, but he can put the ball on the floor a lot more than it sort of seemed a little bit in terms of his role in Denver, which I think would be more helpful for us. He liked Detroit. Yeah, I agree. A question about this series, Evan Mobley, the question is Evan Mobley hasn't shown much growth in the box score, but I feel like watching him this season and this playoffs, he's taken a leap Jason, your thoughts, I have been, I've seen some of the discourse surrounding Evan Mobley and frankly, like I don't understand it because for instance, like we already know what Evan Mobley is. He is not a guy that's going to be able to play the five in like a small ball group because he's going to be able to be pushed around. And we saw that in like game one, for example, when Jaylen Durand just buried him under the basket a bunch in crunch time. But like to me, I have, even though I've been somewhat frustrated, like I think everyone who's an Evan Mobley fan or a Cavs fan or just a believer in his has to be a little disappointed in the lack of offensive development over the course of the years, but I just think he's a really good basketball player. I just think he's an awesome defensive player with a great amount of versatility who like contributes enough offensively in different ways. Like he's one of the better vertical spacers in the league. Like when he catches around the basket with a decent amount of space, like he's dunking it super fast and usually before the defense can react to him, he hit literally one of the biggest catch and shoot threes of his life in game five. Like they don't win this series if Evan Mobley doesn't hit that pick and pop three at the top of the key in game five. I understand that it's been a little bit of a slow burn there and that you'd like to see more offensive development, but I just think Evan Mobley does a lot of things that impact winning and he deserves a lot more credit than he gets for what he does for this Cavs team. We'll take two more questions. I'm going to put you on the spot for both of them. Not too hard for the first one. If you had to pick a non-Shagill to Tyler Alexander, non-Victor Wembleyama, MVP for the upcoming sort of weather next season, just next season, or sort of in the next era of basketball, who is sort of the guys that come to mind? The chat throughout Cooper Flag is why I was sort of bringing up the question. The chat thinks it's Cooper Flag? They think they threw out Cooper Flag as a guy who has potential to win one or multiple MVPs in this era. This is such a good question because the reality is it's probably going to be Wembley and Shay quite a bit in the coming years. I still wouldn't write off Luca as someone you have to consider. I don't think Ant is the kind of guy that gets enough love from the nerds to be an MVP. Ant is a hoop heads player. He doesn't perform super well in catchalls. Man. Cooper's a great pick. Yeah, for sure. I don't know that there's, I think Cade would be the only other guy I'd consider there. Yeah. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I think next season, even though the odds are probably in a favor, I think the odds are heavily in favor of Victor Wembleyama. I think the voters show you they don't want to give three straight MVPs to pretty much anybody. It's got to be a pretty serious exception. So unless, assuming Victor Wembleyama plays the right amount of games next season, I think he should be the heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy favorite, regardless, which is not a shot at Shay. I think it's more of a voting calculation there. And then after that, you could certainly swing back to Shay. You could certainly be Wembley again. And by then, you're two years from now, which is when I think Cooper Flag is going to be, I still don't think he's winning it that like two years from now, that feels a little early. So it's, I think Cade's a good answer if you sort of can rebuild the team around him. I do think that he can do a lot of the things that the effects similarly of Luca Dantric in a weaker conference without having to go up, be in the same conference as Shay and Victor Wembleyama. And he doesn't have as much of the ugly lack of defense and as much of the, nearly as much of the flopping stuff as Luca does. So I could see him sort of being a narrative and sort of like, if they can really, if they have a good bounce back and rebuild the team around him, I could see the narrative going towards Cade for sure. Yeah, it's such an interesting question because like these other guys are just not good enough. Right. Like there's the, I would be stunned if any of those other names I mentioned when it was like, again, I think there's the, there's the, what if the Lakers pull off a couple of good cycles and they have a better scouting department that finds more talent and Luca Dantric just has like this age 29 freaky, you know, because the other thing too that we have to remember like guys is like, there wasn't another good candidate. Like there was a drop off. Like the reason why Luca wasn't the MVP this year is the Lakers looked shitty for two thirds of the season. Like they were the biggest fraud of the good record teams in the league. Everyone knew it. Every time they played a good team, they got their ass kicked. And like, it was hilarious to me how much Lakers fans pretended that didn't happen. Nicolio Kic, like after he had his knee injury, missed a big chunk of the season. Then when he came back, he just won his good. And like even Nugget's fans were like, we're like, yeah, it's just not the best version of Yoke. So like there wasn't a good like MVP case for like the team, the guy that was like dragging a mediocre team to greatness. Like that, that didn't exist. Like there, the on off stuff wasn't there with Cade. And the defense was really what was carrying that team. And in the again, like we talked about with Luca and Yoke it. So the one thing that opens up for a guy like Luca or Cade or Cooper, and I take Cooper out of this discussion because I think he's a few years away, but let's say Luca and Cade, what makes them a lot more likely than people realize for like next season is there is a tax to just being on a way more talented team than everyone else. Like Steph and KD were both amazing in 2017 and got zero MVP consideration because it's like, fuck you, you guys are playing together. Like that was literally like the attitude surrounding the whole thing. And there's going to be a certain amount of like, okay, C and San Antonio just have way more talent than all the other teams. So maybe one of these guys doesn't deserve MVP. Just enough to crack the door open for like if the Lakers won 56 games and Luca played 72 games and he averaged 35, nine and nine on 64 percent true shooting and just had a killer year with the step back three and just stayed healthy. Like I could see voters being like, this guy's more valuable because the spurs and the thunder are so much better, right? Or similarly with Cade, 63, 64 win season out East, crazy on off swing. He has a monster statistical season because that was, Cade might have won MVP this year. He got some votes. Yeah. Cade might have won MVP this year if he averaged 33 on a high efficiency instead of 28 or whatever it was he averaged. Like it just, there wasn't a candidate after Shane and Wemby. I had like a chasm after the second spot in the list this year. Yep. I completely agree. Last question for the night. We had a longer question. The question was, who was your all playoff team at the second round? That's kind of a hard big question since it's so many players. I'm just going to simplify it for now into one question, which is who do you think has been the biggest riser from there? It doesn't need to be someone who we thought poorly of, but just someone who improved and made a big jump from the regular season expectations and production to the post season. That's a really good question. I honestly think I'd go, I would say the guy that impressed me most relative to the regular season players probably LeBron in the sense that he just looked like another dude. He looked like a dude who was like maybe the 25th best player in the league during the regular season. And then you was like, Oh shit, he's still one of the 10 best playoff guys. But in terms of like overall riser with more relevance, because that team was bad and LeBron is just kind of a fading entity in the sport. I think I'd still lean towards Cade in the sense that I saw Cade very much as a like a second tier superstar that was just playing on a team that was full of ass kickers for a coach that had them all super bought in and they were winning games with defense to transition. Cade to me elevated in this post season in a way that I thought was just like, when you, when you look at the degree of difficulty of what he was dealing with, with these coverages from Orlando and Cleveland and for him to score at volume and as efficiently as he did, I just thought was super impressive. And like, I came away from this playoff run way more impressed by Cade and just his future potential than I expected him to be. And I know you did too. Cause I mean, we were just in interest of full disclosure, Jackson and I are both just big Cade fans. We're always just texting each other during the games like, Holy shit, Cade, holy shit, Cade. But like, I just think he demonstrated a real ability to compete with the best players in the world that I don't think anybody had seen from him yet. And there's the chat is there's a lot of answers, possible answers to this question. This chat is throwing out a lot of names as there are a lot of guys who have been awesome as playoff series. The ones in the chat so far have been OG Anno B, AJ Mitchell, Scotty Barnes, Daniels. Those are great answers. I think chat home grin has been, I mean, he has expectations are high, but he's been spectacular. I've been really impressed with Dylan Harper. Like there are a lot of, a lot of really, really impressive guys so far in this playoff run. And I'm excited to see more of those guys. Scotty Barnes is another guy that I think has gone up a full tier for me. Like he was, you know how when we do our player rankings every summer, there's like, there's tier one, which is just the top guys. And then there's like tier two, which is like, it goes from literally from like five to like 15, you know. And then what I said last year was like from 16 to like 40 for me, they're all pretty close. Like it's, they're all pretty jumbled together. And Scotty Barnes was like kind of just in that group as another guy. And like to me, Scotty is elevated a full tier to like, I would, I would look at Scotty going into next season as like one of the second tier stars in our league, like one of the top 15, 16 guys in the league, which I think is a real leap for him. Yeah, I think so too. He's been awesome. And like a guy who is sort of in a similar range, who I think most of us had hired, and I don't want to do too much hating tonight, but it was like Alperin Shangoon is a guy who has dropped, I think, I think him and Scotty Barnes can almost flip flop about where they were sort of at least entering the seat, the regular season and especially entering the playoffs. I was a big Shangoon believer after last season and not so much, not so much this year. And like Mitchell was a guy that I think could have dropped a tier, if not for what happened tonight. Like Mitchell, Mitchell, like we didn't talk about that enough in the sense that that was a real legacy saving game from Donovan Mitchell. Like that was like a, you lose that game, the calves probably trade you, or they sign you to some stupid deal that everyone just makes fun of immediately as one of the worst contracts in the league. Whereas like you win that game and you go to the conference finals and like, you know, you have lived to fight another day and like obviously if he stinks in the conference finals, then it'll be a whole other issue. And what would freak me out a little bit is like we talked about, he doesn't have that burst quite yet. And like, you know, there is no faster player than Tyrese Maxey and Mikhail Bridges did pretty good job on him. So I'd be a little bit nervous if I was a Cavs fan about that matchup. But yeah, Donovan deserves some credit because he was, he was teetering there for a second, he was teetering and he played, played, he stayed with me and got, he called it one of the best games of his career. And I actually agreed in the sense that everyone gets wrapped up in box scores, but like he managed the game extremely well. He came out and generated great shots right away with his dribble penetration, kind of had the game by the throat the whole time. I thought made a lot of contributions on the other end as well. Like when you factor in stakes and like all around impact beyond just the box score, I did think it was the best game I've seen in Donovan Mitchell play. So I was just, I was super, super impressed. All right guys, that's all we have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Stay tuned tomorrow morning for our Eastern Conference finals preview. Again, that'll be up around like, you know, 10, 11 o'clock, around like 11 o'clock Pacific time. And then we'll be live tomorrow night after game one of the Western Conference finals, which should be an all timer. It's a game I've been incredibly excited for over the weekend. Should be an absolute banger and we'll be here live on YouTube after the final buzzer. Hope to see you guys there.