Wemby & Spurs Not Playoff Ready? Concerned About Jokic? + Dort Foul Reaction & Watch Out For Hornets

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective Podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Sunday evening. Joining us from New York City, where he attended the New York Knicks-San Antonio Spurs game today, where Spurs' losing streak, or winning streak, I should say, was brought to a crashing end at the hands of the powerful New York Knicks, Tim Bontemps. I don't know about powerful, but they are the Knicks and they did win. Hello, everybody. Joining us from Dallas, Texas. Yes, he's just back from Oklahoma City where he saw Yuka Ljokic almost tear the face off of Lou Dort and has headed out to L.A. in a couple hours here. It's Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners. Also made a little pit stop pregame to go see the Thunder tonight in Dallas. Didn't seem to need to stick around for the actual game, but did want to ask Mark Dagonalt what he thought of David Adelman's two days later comments on the little fracas there. We'll get into that later. We certainly will. Let's start right there in New York, Bontemps. Let me just say that, you know, it's been quite a bit of discussion about the fact that the Spurs are 4-1 against the Thunder this year. And, you know, we've talked and counted the plus-minus point differential with the Pistons being 3-0 against the Knicks. What is it, 84, 80-something, you know. I think if you're going to stick with those types of things, then it must be recognized that the New York Knickerbockers are 3-0 against the San Antonio Spurs this year. No, they're not. Not officially in the standings. I think the Knicks lost because that was the start of their slide. The Spurs came back and beat the Knicks on New Year's Eve. My preparation for this podcast is a disaster. Yeah, I would say so. I even studied the box score from that game. From a year ago. I mean, yeah, they did beat them on Christmas. Did they beat them in the NBA Cup? They beat them in the NBA Cup. The Knicks are 2-1 against the Spurs this year and led a lot of the other game before they completely collapsed in the fourth quarter and lost. All right. They beat them in the NBA Cup. They beat the mess out of them today. Honestly, the Knicks needed like a convincing win against a good team because they've had some that went the other way on them recently against some quality competition. And then the Spurs rolled through February. but what? Out like a lamb, in like a lion? Is that what old March gave him a little lion treatment? He blanked out Christmas Day this year because Cavs Corner came to New York and lost. Cavs Corner with a powerful win over the Nets today. The Spurs also had a pretty memorable Christmas Day where they spanked the Thunder's little butts up there in OKC. That is correct. 3-12. And I have been at Madison Square Garden on many an afternoon on Saturday and Sunday over the years where the road team, Whether the Knicks have been good or not has come into the building and looked like they were asleep, which is, I would say, a large part of what happened in this game today. How long have they been in New York? They've been in New York since Thursday, right? They got to New York on Wednesday, played the Nets Thursday. No, it was a back-to-back, so they got in early Thursday. That's right, early Thursday morning from Toronto. Then they played the Nets Thursday. What game is this on the rodeo road trip? It's pretty high up there. I mean, they played the Austin games in the middle to break it up a little bit, but they've been on the road for a long time. Then they go to Philly to play the Joel Embiid-less Sixers on Tuesday. The Joel Embiid injury is that it's an oblique and not a leg injury. So at least there's not a leg injury that's knocking them out. That is true. And then the Spurs go home on Thursday to play the Pistons again. They last played in San Antonio on February 7th. Yes, Circle Thursday. That one's going to be interesting because, you know, I'm pretty sure the Pistons will come down there determined to prove a point. No old beef stew, I believe, will be back for that and rested and refreshed. Yeah. That'll be a fun one. And look, to your point about the Knicks, Tim, it was good for them to get a win against a big opponent on national TV at the Garden. They have been very up and down of late. It was a nice win for the Knicks, you know, Sunday afternoon MSG stuff aside. They played well. They, you know, it looked like the Spurs might run them out of the building, out the jump. They got out to an early lead. And then the Knicks played pretty well the rest of the way and took care of business. Spurs had a lot of weird turnovers. But yeah, for a team that's been, I think it's fair to say, flailing around for a while and is, you know, not really had their legs under them for a while, to get a win like this, particularly ahead of a pretty tough back-to-back later this week, They go to Toronto on Tuesday, and then they come back to New York to play the Thunder on Wednesday. Certainly getting a win over the Spurs today was a nice change of pace for New York to get them back going in the right direction. Yeah, and I'm not going to overreact to the Spurs. Obviously, they just won 11 straight games. You know, the Wimby turnovers, okay. He shot it better, or at least scored better, scored more efficiently than he had over last week. You know, he admitted after the game in Toronto the other night that he was basically exhausted from all the travel and the schedule coming out of the All-Star break, even though he was absolutely just dominating things defensively. This was a game that the Spurs starting guards, who, you know, it's one of the better backcourts in the league, De'Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle, both of them can't lay eggs, and they both laid eggs today. Yeah, Victor, pretty much by his standards, has been offensively at least in a slump. defensively, he is not ever in a slump, really. But he did, you know, he's, I'm not, I still, it still makes me get a little queasy when he takes so many threes, but I gotta, I'm gonna have to move past it because he's, this has been the case for his whole life and he doesn't care what anybody thinks. And I think, I think ultimately he will, I suspect ultimately he will learn, especially in the playoffs, that if he's going to lose a playoff game, it's going to be with him playing inside, but he doesn't want to play that way. So there's not really much that I'm going to say that's going to affect that. Well, and this is all part of what is to come for the Spurs over the next few months. I mean, they play Stephon Castle, who at this point is a negative shooter. They play Dylan Harper, who at this point is an unproven, if not negative shooter. They play De'Aaron Fox, who's not a big volume three-point shooter. Like part of the, not issue with their team because they have an awesome team, but like part of the bill of their team is that Victor is one of the better shooters on their team. And when it gets into the playoffs, like I was talking about some of the Spurs writers after the game today, including Corleone Wright, who's here. I mean, when they get in the playoffs, they're playing a team that's game-planted for them. They're going to say, Stephon Castle, we're going to stand 25 feet away from you, and we're going to let you shoot the ball and have a time. And how is he going to handle that? How are the Spurs going to handle that? How is that going to impact their spacing? What are they going to do to react to that? Like, there's a lot of stuff like that that's gone on, that hasn't really gone on during the regular season because over the course of 82 games, teams are not game planning like that, really, for an individual opponent. When you get in the playoffs, they're going to start to hone in on stuff like that. And, you know, this is all part of the growth that's going to be required from the Spurs to get where they want to go and the stuff they're going to learn about their team. And, you know, the same goes for Victor. We all know how insanely competitive Victor is. And, you know, he might want to win with style points, but at the end of the day, he's going to want to win. And I suspect if the way to win is to play in a different style than the way he has been, he'll play in a different style. Yeah, Stephon Castle has improved as a three-point shooter over the course of the season, you know, over the last like six weeks or so. It's, you know, he's in the mid-30s, but I agree with you there. My thing with Wimby, it's not necessarily how many threes does he take and how many shots are on the rim. It's the quality of three that he's taken. And Honestly, more than the threes, there's a lot of possessions where I'm like, let someone else dribble. Let somebody else dribble. I know for a 7'6 guy, he's got a great handle. But he's a 7'6 guy. I don't need Wimby pounding the dribble and trying to go between his legs and around his back through traffic very often. Well, this goes back to what we've talked about all year. The more he plays like a wing, the more you're giving the opposition a chance. Play finisher rather than play creator is the way to go right now. It's not to say that he can't be an awesome wing. But the more he plays like a wing, the more it favors the other team, which is what Kevin Durant was essentially saying a few weeks ago. But having said that, there are going to be times when this dude hits six out of eight threes and it's an undefensible shot. It's just less undefensible than inside. If they hit threes, it's going to be like that game against the Pistons when they went, I think, 18 for 40. And, like, if they shoot 40% from three, they ain't going to lose. Like, that's the bottom line. So, you know, yeah, when the threes go in, it's going to look awesome. But, you know, when they don't go in, then they've got to change things up. Right, but the idea is that he can be 7'4", 7'5", whatever he wants to list himself at. He can be that every night. The three can have variance. His size can be the same every night. That's just a basic tenet of basketball. They've got a couple guys who, and Devin Vassell, you know, three of nine from three today, but Devin Vassell has really been cooking lately. That's a pretty big development because he is their best shooter in that starting lineup. And then Julian Champagny has become a critical part of that team. He's, you know, become a permanent fixture of the starting lineup. You know, took Harrison Barnes' spot. Barnes is coming off the bench. and Julian Champagny is kind of the epitome of that 3 and D type of role player. And it's funny, I looked up his three-point percentage the other day, and he was like 37. I'm like, man, I swear, almost every time I watch this guy, it feels like he's a mid-40s three-point shooter. But those two guys are going to be huge for the Spurs because their biggest, like obviously the inexperience is something that is just a fact. And then aside from the inexperience, the biggest blemish on their contender resume is that they're a little bit light on the shooting. Since getting blown out by the Pistons, the Knicks have won four out of five games. The problem whenever you talk about this going forward with some of these teams, you've got to go back and look, well, how many tankers did they play? They played the Bulls, who are in tank situation. Hey, big win for the Bulls today. What do you mean? I know, they beat the Bucs. They ended there. They were winless in February, but March 1st, they got a W for the Bulls. But they did beat the Bucs the other day who were not tanking. I would just point out that the Knicks have won four out of five. They continue to be reasonably formidable at home by on time. This is the thing really since the start of the season. They were pretty awesome at home, and then they had a favorable schedule, very home-heavy early on, and then when they had to start playing road games. And they have some head-scratching losses and probably will continue to have them. But when you play them in the garden, they're pretty formidable. That remains the case with this one for sure. Yeah, I mean, for these top four teams in the East, I don't really think there's... The only one that we're going to learn, I think, anything real about between now and the end of the season is Boston. And that's assuming Jason Tatum comes back, which I do think will happen at some point. And then obviously there's going to be some adjustments there. But for Detroit, they are going to be who they are. and we'll see how it goes in the playoffs. With the Knicks, they are going to be who they are. We'll see how it goes in the playoffs. With the Cavs, we kind of know what the Cavs are, even though they have these new pieces, because it's going to be James Harden and Donovan Mitchell with the ball. They're going to be playing with the two bigs. And to me, the biggest questions there are, obviously we'll see what happens with the James Harden thumb thing, but that shouldn't be a long-term deal. So will Donovan Mitchell be healthy when they get to the playoffs? And then how does this wing rotation look? Can Max Drews come back? Will they be healthy when we get to the playoffs? But their main core guys, even though James Harden is new, we kind of know what they are. So it's kind of, to me, for the most part, I mean, wait and see mode until we get to mid-April with all four of these teams at the top of the East, at least until we see Jason Tatum on the court. Speaking of Tatum, by the way, we taped this a little bit before the Celtics played the 76ers on Sunday. I should point out that today, the second episode of the Tatum documentary, The Quiet Work, which is chronicling his recovery from that torn Achilles, is on every Sunday on the NBA and NBC and produced by our friends here at Omaha. Episode two has now come out without him coming back. So there was a lot of conspiracy theory that today would be the day. You know what the new conspiracy theory is, Bontemps? Have you heard the new conspiracy theory on Tatum? I have a theory that I know what it is, but I will let you tell me. Have you heard it, McMahon? Is this the MAC-10 numerology theory? Well, it's not just him, but, you know, our guy Dave McMenamin, he's a believer in numerology. And so when he heard this— Basketball numerology, at least. Basketball numerology, yes, just to be clear. yes there's a theory that Jason Tatum is planning a comeback on 314 which you know is the Ides of March isn't it? beware the Ides of March it's Pi when's the Ides of March? the Ides of March is the 15th Pi Day is the 14th and it's also the area code 314 of the loo where he is from San Luis yes Jason Tatum comes from Is it the story that he signed his contract? He could have signed for 315 and he signed for 314. Wendy. Unlike our guy Dave, I do not study the numerology to this degree. I just think he be back sometime in the near future if he going to come back because he got to have some time to ramp up before the playoffs And you know we only six weeks out from five weeks out from the end of the regular season at this point. Does Jason Tatum like pie, Wendy? I don't know. I need to, I will never assume anybody likes pie again. I will further study that and I will get back to you. Well, I really hope he does come back on March 14th for the simple reason that I was able to to get my little nephew, Jameson, tickets to a Celtics game. It would be the first time in his life. He's a suburban Boston kid. And our buddy Drew Carter came through for us. Oh, wow. I love that. It's a miracle when Drew comes through the fair. I mean, a rising star in the broadcasting industry, I should say, Drew Carter. So that would be great. Playing the Wizards, I was able to guarantee a win for my nephew's first Celtics game. Good job. The Lizards, I should say. My bad. Yeah. That was the thing. There was a lot of excitement with Jonathan Kaminga coming back, getting those two performances with the Hawks this week. But they were against the Wizards. Listen, perfect time to come back, right? Seriously. He had another 20-7 against the Blazers today with no Denny Avi on the other side. I will say this. Yeah, Avvia has missed a bunch of games here. And I will, you know, as a sort of a – we're going to talk about Denver, the Denver Timberwolves game here in a second. But the Warriors announced tonight that Steph Curry was going to be out at least another 10 days as he deals with that knee issue. And, look, they're going to make the decisions based on Steph's knee. I'm not saying they're making on the decisions on trying to get the, you know, the seven or the eight seed in the West. But one thing that has made it a little easier on the Warriors is that the teams behind them are losing. And the team in front of them, the Suns, have been losing, you know, because they've had injuries. And the Blazers have been, they've been on, I think they've been on a road trip. They're out east right now. But, you know, they've taken some losses. The Warriors are guaranteed, guaranteed, to quote our guy Charles Barkley, of being no lower than 10th no matter what they do the rest of the season. Right. Well, the tankers have done there. Yeah, I'm just— Yes. But the Blazers haven't even applied home court pressure. No, there's been no pressure applied behind them either. So they've got maximum flexibility to try to coax Steph's knee back as much as they can and get him ready to go for whatever the stretch run is going to look like if they can get him out there at all. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. All right. So today in Denver, the Timberwolves completed a 3-0 West trip with a win over the Nuggets. The Wolves, by the way, are now 11-4 in their last 15. and while they, like the Knicks, are known for a maddening loss or two, of the, we've talked about this, of the sort of non-elite teams in the, well, I mean, I guess they would say they're probably elite. No, you can't, no. Well, of the contenders in the West, there's easy to find flaws with a lot of these alleged contenders. Minnesota is, of that middle pack, I've always felt that they were the most formidable because they play at both ends of the court. Yeah. And they went to the conference finals each of the last couple of years. Which is because they play at both ends of the court. Now, neither of those conference finals were competitive series, but they went to the conference finals both of the last two years, and they have the kind of superstar who in any given playoff series, he can get you a couple of wins. I mean, Ann Edwards is good enough to, we've seen it. Like, we've seen him basically just, it's been more in, like, first-round type of series, but we've seen him just have games and playoffs where it's like, dude, you're not beating that guy today. They're right now a half game. They're a game back of the Rockets. They're actually tied with the Rockets. One more win, one more loss. So, percentage points behind the Rockets for third in the West. And look, if they can get to third in the West, and they can get on the side of the bracket with the Lakers again in the first round, and a Spurs team, assuming the Spurs are in second, that has absolutely no playoff experience, on the other side of the bracket, like, they're going to feel pretty good about their chances of getting back to a third straight conference finals. Honestly, even if they match up with the Nuggets because they've knocked the Nuggets out before. And, you know, today's another reminder. The Timberwolves have no fear of Nikola Jokic's Nuggets. I just more meant that the way it's set up right now, one and two in some order looks pretty comfortably to be San Antonio and Oklahoma City. And I think it's probably going to be Oklahoma City one and San Antonio two. So really, the spot you want to get to is three. You avoid the Thunder all the way to the conference finals, and you probably also avoid Denver all the way until the conference finals to your Minnesota. And like Utah, the Wolves right now, they don't have to play. They play out to beat one of those teams to make the finals. Like, yeah, I don't think any of us are picking them to beat either team, but that's the path that you want to have, and it's a path that they'll gladly take if they can get it. So I would point out that Denver, the season series is over, and Denver has beaten them three out of four. they won the season series. But of course, Minnesota... Are we sure? No, I'm not sure. I thought that was the case. I thought it was the case. I will double check your match just to make sure. Yeah, I guess you better for the rest of the pod. I do think you're right. I'm on tilt apparently. I mean, I studied the game and everything, and I remembered Champagny had this big performance, and I was like, are we going to get a night admission on the next pod? No, no, I'm stone cold sober. The third game, by the way, was that Christmas Day game, speaking of Christmas, when Jokic only had 56-18 and 15 in overtime in that game that I believe we recorded the podcast before that game started. We did. And it turned into an epic game. Yeah. It was an unbelievable comeback by... And had that shot in the quarter to tie it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Yeah, Joe Gratlin. All-time game. A fairly notable performance in that one. Yeah. Well, it was Christmas Day. We had to draw the line somewhere. It was fine. I wasn't blaming you. It was just funny. I listened to... I talked to Chris Finch a little bit, but listened to him in some interviews the other day in LA. And two things that he said, first off, he just, even though that was the night that he got into the back and forth with Ant, one of my favorite things about that little back and forth, so Ant, Finch is telling him to pass. Ant hits the game winner, step back over two Clipper defenders, and, you know, starts barking at Finch, like, this is what I do, right? This is what I bleep and do. That's what I do. That's what I bleep and do. Well, I also liked Derek Jones Jr. He was trying to get to his bench. The Clippers called timeout. And he ended up basically in between Finch and Edwards as that was going down. And he just sort of smiled as he listened to it. But one of my favorite parts about it is as Ant is barking at Finch, Finch is just saying, all right, all right, all right. And their relationship is actually an awesome relationship. I agree. And, you know, Ant said after the game, you know, he's right 98% of the time. But he— Well, and he was right on that case. It's just— He coaches him hard. Ant made the wrong play with the right result. He coaches him hard. Yes. But he was praising Ant before the game and really praising his work ethic and, you know, his drive to be great. Like, you know, up one side and down the other, praising Ant. The other thing that he was praising was Rudy. Rudy Gobert. He was like, you know, our defensive improvement is so tied to Rudy. By the way, did you see the drive-by that Rudy—Rudy takes so many shots. It's crazy. Did you see the drive-by that he got today on the broadcast? I did not. So Dante DiVincenzo is wearing the mic. Okay. And he missed a free throw. I don't know if he missed two free throws, but he missed at least one free throw like really bad. I saw where he said, I'm shooting free throws like Shaq. Right. So he said that during the first half. so they they come back to halftime for inside and of course they play it um and shaq like has a puss on and he's like you know if i if he's like he's lucky i'm not playing if he did i would have flagrant fouled him the next time i saw him and you know so they're all laughing at it and then he's like yeah you know what he's like i liked even chen's i wouldn't have flagrant fouled him i just would have flagranted rudy uh just for the hell of it well at least he didn't bring up rudy's free throw percentage. Well, that's true. But anyway, he's been praising Gobert. Gobert had 15 rebounds today. He's plus 12 in 30-something minutes. And listen, if it wasn't for Wimby, there would be a real deal conversation, and it would probably be, I want to say confrontation. What's the word? Controversial. How could I not remember the word controversial? You know that all of a sudden. It would probably be controversial, but if not for Wimby, Rudy would be a very deserving defense player of the U candidate this year. 8.7 points per 100 possessions better when Rudy Gobert is on the court than when he's off defensively. And Finch, it's one of the things why I will always and I find myself at two or three Timberwolves games a year during the regular season usually and I always make sure I go a lot of times I end up on the court talking to agents and scouts and stuff, but I always go to the public press conference for Finch because you never know what this guy's going to say. It's one of the best quotes in the league. And he said, yeah, he goes, yeah, the other night we were playing in Portland and Donovan Klingham got the better of him for three quarters. But he woke up with the fourth and shut him down and we won the game. And, you know, that's the thing. He will talk about how Rudy is helping drive this turnaround and drive their defense. And I'm like, yeah, Klingham was kicking his ass for three quarters because he'll be honest. Well, and the same thing with Ann. And that was kind of a perfect little flashpoint of that relationship because the thing I think that he's gone on Ant the most over the years is, dude, make the right play. When you're doubled, make the right play. As much as you hype your teammates up and like you pump your teammates up with your personality, pump them up with your decisions, pump them up with your play. And so that's been a source of friction and coaching. And Ant has improved significantly over the years, but he just had jumped on Ant about a bad shot. And then Ant hits the dagger that's a worse shot. The team's barely cracked 90. It was not exactly a high-level 2026 NBA game. So Denver has lost. You talk about 11-4 for many. Denver is now 4-7 in their last 11. Four and eight since Jokers returned. Oh, is that what it is? Okay, four and eight since Jokers returned. Yeah, please check all data right now. Jokic played better in this game than he had been playing. Cam Johnson was terrible in this game. And left with an ankle. And said afterwards he's dealing with an ankle thing. And David Adelman said after the game that even though it's been sort of the longstanding strategy for the Nuggets to not stagger Jamal Murray and Jokic's minutes because they want them on the court as much as possible, particularly at the end of games, that he's going to have to change his rotation, basically, to make sure either Murray or Jokic are on the court because they're getting hurt when they're off the court, which is, you know, kind of sounds like stuff that my compatriot Michael Malone might have said in recent years about the team's death. In this case, they're just really hurting defensively without Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson, but particularly Gordon. We've talked about this. They're just not the same team. And they were holding steady in the standings, but now Jokic has not been able to carry them to as many wins as before the injury. And so they're losing positioning. I think they slipped to fifth now behind Minnesota after this. Yeah, and so four and eight since Jokers returned. I don't know if today was technically a clutch loss or not. Was it within the last five? The second half was played even. They fell behind. They got boat raced in the second quarter and basically played the rest of the game even. So they were one and six in clutch games during that stretch going into today. So maybe one and seven now. I asked Alderman about that the other night, and basically he said, you know, the way teams are loading up, they're basically, obviously, that two-man game is as good as two-man game as there's been maybe in the history of the league. The way teams are loading up against it, they're basically forcing other guys to take the shots. And like that was the night where Cam Johnson missed a clean look at what could have been a winning three in regulation. but so look the injuries are obviously really hurting them and they've dealt with them all year long but with Gordon Watson out it's killing their defense it's killing their depth um they expect those guys back soon but man they've really got to be careful with Gordon because this is two straight years of repeated soft tissue injuries with him and especially the hamstring so as much as they want him to have time and they want seating they want him to have time to getting a rhythm before the playoffs Like they got to be real careful But the injury that not even on the report that they really concerned about is Joker wrist, not the knee that kept him out a month. He's been dealing with this wrist thing for years off and on. And it's kind of like a day-to-day type of thing where some days he wakes up and it's not bothering him. And some days it's stiff as hell. he's been under 50% from the floor six times during these dozen games which for most guys like okay for Joker it's shocking like this is a guy who probably has the best paint touch in the history of the game like he shoots his paint percentage is like a rim runner but it's a bunch of like tough hooks and floaters he's under 50% in the last month which is, I don't, we should have stats and info look up the last time he's had a month where he's under 50%. I'll bet it's been years. And he's really struggling with the three ball. You know, even today, he shot it much better from the floor, but one of four from three, OKC was two of 10. Five more turnovers today. His turnovers are way up. And, you know, he usually is just such a money player in traffic on what should be tough shots in the paint. And it's been very hit and miss since he's been back. And so, again, the knee kept him out for a month, but the wrist is a bigger concern. He won't talk about it. Like, you know, I asked him the other day, how are you feeling physically? Really good. And that's kind of a stock answer. But they're concerned. Well, speaking of Jokic physically and the other night, let's just speak a little bit about this incident with Lou Dort. This has gotten a lot of people into their feelings. And it's spilled over into today. So I wonder if you could talk about what happened today, McMahon. Real quick, you probably saw it. If you're a listener of this pod, you probably saw it. But in case you didn't, it was the weekend. The other night when Denver, it was Friday night, when Denver was in OKC, Jokic and Dort. What did Jokic hit Dort with an elbow or something? No, it was. Before we get into this, just because I just looked it up, do you want to guess the last time Nicole Jokic shot under 50% in a month before? Oh, wow, you did that. That was an impressive research. I'm going to say probably his second year. Splits on basketball reference. Probably his second year in the league. I would say it was not this decade. That's the only thing I'm going to say. It was not his second year in the league. However, it was also not this decade. It was November of 2019. Or 2019-20. His fifth season in the league. He shot 45% from the field in November. And I believe he never shot below 50% again until this month. Yeah. And again, it's crazy because, like, you know, the guy's putting up 26-14-9, and you're like, man, Joker's just not right. He's in a slump. And a quick eyeball of it, I think there's more 60-plus months than 50-plus months in that stretch. That's wild. Absolutely. It's pretty close. That's wild, but believable. All right, so what happened in that game? So, obviously, look, these two teams scrapped for seven games in the playoffs last year. They don't love each other. The Thunder are a very physical team. Joker's a very physical player. There's a lot of pushing, shoving, grabbing, tugging, you know, getting tangled up. And a lot of flopping on both sides. All that good stuff throughout the course of the game. Fourth quarter, pretty early fourth quarter. Joker's running up the court. He's in the backcourt. And Lou Dort, put it in reverse and it was a hip check. No, but didn't something happen before this? I mean, they got tangled up. There were a hundred things that happened during the game. There were a hundred things that happened during the game. But in that moment, the ball had been taken out of bound and as Nikola Jokic is running up the court without the ball while the ball's being inbounded, Lou Dort looked like he tried to hit him in the leg that he's hurt. That's what it looked like. He put it in reverse. He tripped him. He did the blind hip check and then he stuck his right foot out. And Jokic hit the floor hip check trip combo like a Redwood falling I've never I don't think I've ever seen him hit the floor that hard and he rolled over like he was going down a hill like when he was a kid yeah because he hit it hard and then he basically rolled over got back up and you know lose to the what I do thing and Joker got right up in his face gave him the chest bump was right he got up in his face it's a legendary the Fury the Serbian Fury in that face that's going to be a legendary moment. Well, that part you saw is when he grabbed Jamie Williams. Now listen, let's just start off with this. For any complaining from Oklahoma City about Lou Dort being ejected, about the call on this play, on anything else that happened, let's just ask one question. Is there absolutely any possible justification for Lou Dort's actions on this play? The answer is unequivocally no, not at all. It was a dirty play. It was an obviously dirty play. any neutral person watching the game would universally agree it was a ridiculous thing to do i would hope his reaction non-neutral thunder fans would recognize i would do so too his reaction afterward was also completely ridiculous first mark to act like he didn't foul him and then to be like oh yeah wait what are you talking about well and then mark daggenault with all due respect who i've got a lot of respect for him but mark daggenault saying didn't he say mcmahon he was like, well, I guess going forward, anybody gets tripped, it'll be ejected. Essentially, his thing was if that's a flagrant, I'm going to find his exact quote just to make sure that we get this right, but his deal was basically, hey, if that's a flagrant two, then it's a flagrant two, no matter who ends up getting tripped, which... I got the quote right here if you need it. Let me find it. And then we'll get to Adam. I will say this. Anybody who was tripped like that, it would be a flagrant too. So I guess I would agree with him on that. Go ahead and read the quote, Bond Timps. Yep, I'm just waiting. I'm just trying. I'm not trying to read the... I'll just read the whole thing. If you were watching the game, I think you could see very clearly, very early, that it was a chippy game. These are two teams that played each other in a seven-game series. We're in the same division. We've played each other a hundred times. You know, they know our playbook. We know their playbook. It's just what it is. Like I said, it's going to be the perfect game if things get, you know, they escalate like that sometimes. I know Lou. I know Jokic. I know J. Will. J. Will Lambs is the other guy who came in late when sort of defended Dork. That's the iconic Joker stare. Yes. Was it J. Will? Yeah, he was angry at Dork. I don't think anybody's... I mean, J. Will was in his face, but he was angry at Dork. So then J. Will came in. I don't think anybody's trying to hurt anybody. They're just great competitors. And you know, that's what I thought. It just boiled over. I think it was nothing more than that. And then this is the part you were getting to. I will say this. If a player gets, if a player gets, if J-Will is running up the floor and gets tripped, we expect a flagrant two from this point forward. That's all. You know, if that's the precedent, if that becomes a malicious play and flagrant two is the line in the sand on that, we would expect that if it's J-Will. We would expect that if it's anybody. And if that's the case, we're good. To which my guy Tim McMahon came in after that and said, was the flagrant two upgrade because it was the three-time MVP who got tripped? and Mark said, no, I'm not going to answer that question like that. I said what I needed to say about it. And here's my deal. I hear what you're saying. Hey, if that's a flagrant two, fine. If it happens to any role player, then it should be a flagrant two. Okay. Yeah, I do agree that a blatantly intentional, dirty trip should probably be a flagrant two. Like that's not a basketball play. As Joker said, it was an unnecessary action and a necessary reaction. That was Joker's quote. But here's the thing, especially if it's to a superstar. And I would say the same thing if a role player, you know, I'll just say Bruce Brown because he's a tough role player for the Nuggets. If Bruce Brown takes that kind of shot at Shea Gildas Alexander, absolutely, he should get kicked out of the game. You cannot have guys taking cheap shots at MVPs. I'm sorry. I would go as far as to say this. I would say that if there's any player who has a known injury to his left leg and is running up the court and a guy on the other team does what Lou Dort did, universally, it's not hard to leap forward to what that looks like. I don't care if there's no injury. That was a bad play. You don't need to be blindly tripping guys. You don't need to be doing it regardless. That's what I mean. And that goes back to the beginning. Any complaints about the way this was handled, to me, should be answered with a very simple answer to that question. Is there absolutely any reason Lou Dort should have done that? The answer is no. There's no reason at all. It was 90 feet from the basket. He didn't have the ball. He shouldn't have been near him. All right. So, McMahon, it carried over to today a little bit. Yeah. And so, Adelman and the Nuggets were still heated today. And I think what happened was they started to see the replays. I'm not sure they had seen the replays, really. Trust me. They'd seen the replays. They saw the replays. The bench has all the replays immediately. They definitely saw the replays. And they'd seen the replays. And anyways, I'll get to the money point of Adelman's pregame quote today. He said, then for Dort to take that shot, and then I guess it wasn't that big of a deal from their standpoint, how they looked at it, is ridiculous. That was malicious. It was a cheap shot. Lou Dort's a great player, and that's not what I've seen him do before. But at some point, you have to stand up for yourself, and the team does as well. And so, basically, look, Lou Dort does have a bit of a reputation for being dirty. I think a lot of things people point out, like the job play last year, the Brandon Ingram play. I think there's been plausible deniability. This is a guy who makes his living as a tough, physical, aggressive defensive player. There was no plausible deniability here. It was not a basketball play. It wasn't a defensive play. No, it was just a dirty play. And by the way, all those other plays in the past, McMahon, I think you said the key phrase. Lou, who we all have big respect for. I voted him first team all defense last year. He's a tremendous player. His story is sort of the epitome of the Thunder ethos, right? He's an undrafted player on a two-way. He comes in. He's turned himself into this fantastic defensive player. He's a great player. And developed a three-point shooter. Huge part of their championship. Huge part of their culture. Huge respect for him as a player. However, he has had plausible deniability. That job or ant play brought it to me several times by people this weekend. Like there's always been an ability to say, well, you know, you could always sort of argue it. Like I would say going forward, I think this is a pretty big mark on Lou Dort's reputation. And I think a lot of the plausible deniability he's had in the past going forward will not exist. And Thunder people, I will probably say that's not fair. But at the end of the day, all these other things in the past, he was on the line of making a basketball play. and you could always say, well, you know, if you look at it this way, look at the context of the play, you could see why it happened. This is the kind of play that for fair or not is going to be remembered and is going to be in the back of people's minds if other things come up with Lou Dort in the future. Not so different than things that have happened with Draymond Green and Dylan Brooks and other guys who have gotten in a bunch of things before. Even if Lou Dort doesn't have anywhere near the history of flagrant twos and other things, that those guys have, but this was a very significant play, and it's, I think, going to stand out because of that. Real quick, I did ask Dagenalt, his pregame availability, what his response was to David Adelman's comments today, and he essentially avoided answering the question and instead gushed about how much respect that he and everybody else in the Thunder organization has for the Denver Nuggets. So that was, you know, that was basically Dagonalt's way of saying, like, hey, you know, I don't want to get into a back and forth on this. And by the way, I'll see both of those teams again March 9th in Oklahoma City. That is going to be a game to watch for sure. And perhaps again in May. Oh, and look, this is, you know, I mean, it'd be an unbelievable playoff series if it happens. I think they're the two best teams in the league. Whoever wins that series, if it happens, semi-conference, semi-finals could determine who wins the title. And, you know, they're both, like you said before, McMahon at the start. They're both physical teams. You know, they both know all the rules with the refs. There's a lot of stuff going on there. And, you know, this is, I'm sure not the last time we're going to talk about some sort of Thunder Nuggets refereeing controversy, whether it's this season or in the future with how often these two times are likely to go head-to-head for a while. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. All right, before we go, and we got to send McMahon over to the airport, I just want to point out a little something that keeps going on in the league here, because we kind of, you know, you guys mock me a little bit when I keep talking about Charlotte. I'm not mocking you. So the Hornets... We just don't like you, or at least I don't like you, repeating the nickname Buzz City Killer 7,000 times. That's all. I know you do. I like it. You've made the point on that. I was pointing out, you said it the first time on this podcast. I would like to say it. It's better if you go back to the buzz cut. You went Hollywood like a decade ago. Go on. You know, not only that, but like I haven't been able to see my haircut person. My hair gets out of control fast. It's like a tipping point in the game. We need a Buzz City Killer for Wendell's hair. That's what we need. Yeah I do need it Coming to cut it off I bring my Clippers to L for you All right Yeah please I see you this week They had an afternoon game with the Blazers on Saturday which they beat the Blazers. No Denny Avia. But there's a couple of things going on here that I just want to point out. So first off, the Moose is loose again. Moose Diabate is off suspension. So they won the game. They blew him out. I think they blew him out. I've got to check my facts here. I'm fairly certain they blew him up. So let's go back to this, that their starting lineup of Lomelo Ball, Con Canipo, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and Moussa Diabate are now 18-2 as a starting lineup. That's pretty good. One of those two was the game that they all got thrown out of, I believe. Right. I mean, they were losing throughout the game, but still. There's been some games in their turnaround where Lomelo hasn't started and come off the bench because in back-to-back situations, they bring them off the bench. So there's a small asterisk in there, but when those guys start, but forget about that. They've outscored their opponents by 179 points so far this season. That's the best five-man lineup going in the league. And as far as what they're doing to teams, let me point this out. They have now won four straight games. And I'm going to go, I have to go look at who they played because I got to check the tanking meter because maybe that's in there. But they've won four straight games by at least 15 points. That's the longest streak in franchise history. And they've made at least five more threes than their opponent in eight straight games. There's only been two longer streaks in NBA history. Well, look, let's just do it this way. Let's just do it this way. It's the eighth most used five-man lineup in the NBA. So it's played a lot of minutes. 281 total minutes, 29 games, offensive rating of 136.2, a defensive rating of 105.7, a net rating of 30.4. Just for comparison, and you don't want to call them the Buzz City Killers. I got it. Good to know. The most used lineup in the league is Minnesota's starting lineup. They're 600 minutes plus nine. Like, that's great. That's awesome. The Detroit's starting lineup, 457 minutes plus 14. Like, again, great. This lineup in a little bit smaller sample size, twice as good as the starting lineup of the 60-win Detroit Pistons. Like, we're not talking about a small sample size anymore. That is a lot of minutes. And look, I personally, this podcast in general, and frankly, the league as a whole, when you talk about front offices, scouts, etc., have been very down on LaMelo Ball. Was very down on LaMelo Ball going in the season, early in the season. You've got to give LaMelo Ball credit. The question was, can LaMelo Ball, this Harlem Globetrotter type of dude, ever really drive winning in the NBA? and fellas, he's shooting at 40% from the floor. His net rating is plus 9.6. They are a minus 2.3 without him. That's about a dozen-point swing. Even with him not shooting it great, their offensive rating when he's on the floor is 123.5. Historically elite, and it goes all the way down to 109.3 when he's off the floor. Over a 14-point swing offensively. Now, they've got talent around them. You know, Brandon Miller, Colin Knipple, who, by the way, is now officially the rookie of the year favorite, according to DraftKings. You know, Miles Bridges. But as much as we doubted, as much, I'll speak for myself, as much as I doubted LaMelo Ball, you have to recognize this dude is having the kind of season that we, I was not sure he could have. And that's making a major impact for a team that's winning. Now they are, this, I just looked at this. So these last four wins are against Washington, Chicago, Indiana, and Portland. Portland is not officially tanking. The other three teams are tankers. But we're not reacting to a week. We're reacting to months. Right. Well, January 2nd, they lost to Milwaukee to fall to 11-23. They had lost three in a row at that point. Since that game, they're 19-8. And by the way, they right now are in 10th place in the Eastern Conference standings. They are one half game behind Atlanta, which itself has gotten going, thanks in part to playing some tankers lately. Got back to 500. They're two games back of the Magic and the Heat, who are tied for seventh right now. And they're four games back, five in the loss column, of the Sixers, who have had Joel Embiid dealing with one thing after another for the past few weeks and, you know, have been up and down themselves. Like, it is not only not inconceivable that the Hornets can get into the 7-8, it's not inconceivable they can get into the 6 in the Eastern Conference when they looked dead and buried for all. It started January. We were thinking about them being down there with all these teams fighting for a lottery position. I think, frankly, if you gave them truceum, they were expecting to be down there fighting for lottery positioning. This is not what the Hornets... I know what the Hornets' plan coming into the season was. They were going to let the young guys play and see what they look like, but they didn't think they were going to be a playoff team this year. This has been a total flip-round to the point where they're buying Kobe White at the trade deadline, and they're adding him to their mix. And if you're the Pistons, if you're the Knicks, if you're the Cavs, if you're the Celtics, whoever winds up in the two-seed or the three seed in the East, or if they end up in the 1-8 with Detroit, this is not your typical six, seven, eight seed if they continue anywhere near this pace over the next four to five. I guess it's six weeks from today is the end of the regular season. Like, if they're playing anywhere near this level, I mean, they're going to be a team literally no one's going to want to play in the first round of the playoffs. Yeah, now, having said all that, uh the hornets track record in the play-in under the mellow is hey listen not good they're obviously a super young team that hasn't done anything like it's all the caveats you know i've certainly talked about with the spurs and some of these other teams times a thousand right but you know they're not a team if i was one of these teams at the top of the east i would not want to see this track meet hornets team that's been the hottest team in the league since the start of the year in the first round of the playoffs. They're playing as well as anybody this side of the Pistons in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be fascinating to see if they can keep it up because it's about as out of left field, especially in the middle of a season, as a thing as we've seen in a while, particularly for a team that didn't make some – it's not like they added some major piece in the middle of the year and flipped things around. They just took off pretty wild. Yeah, and that three-point shooting edge, like, that's, you know, you want to talk about a pathway to doing something in the playoffs? Win the three-point shooting contests every night. It's a special way to beat a team that might be more talented than you. If you're just bombing, if you could bomb in 25 threes, that could pretty fundamentally change a game no matter what else is going on. Well, and what's the biggest reason that they are winning that three-point contest every single night? Wow. A guy who's hit more threes than anybody is a rookie in the history of the league. Yeah. I mean, what Con Canipple is doing, and again, he is officially Gordon DraftKings, the rookie of the year favorite. Part of that's because Cooper Flagg's been sitting for a while with his sprained foot that the timeline keeps kind of getting bumped back and back and back and back on. And by the way, there is no 65-game role for rookie. There's not. But Cooper's going to have to get back on the court and play well because his college roommate has been playing so well. I mean, we've got how many games left in the season? He's already broken the record for three-pointers made by a rookie. I think he's got—there's about 22, 23. How many are left? He broke the record in February. And guys, he has a true shooting percentage above 65. He's shooting 49, 44, 88, basically, on high volume. Yeah, he's a 50, 40, 90 season is very much within his graft as a rookie. And he's averaging 19.3 points per game. And, you know, he rebounds. He's averaging like three and a half assists. He's an okay team defender. He's a hell of a player. I mean, the fact that— We've never seen a rookie shoot it like this on this kind of bottom. Averaging 19 points a game with this high of a true shooting percentage has literally never happened by a rookie. I had this discussion with some average people when they were in town, and I said to them, I said, look, I mean, as of today, I'd vote for Cooper Flagg for rookie of the year as of today. But what I said was, I think there's a very real chance Khan will win rookie of the year, and it's due to a combination of him leading Charlotte to a pretty unprecedented turnaround in the middle of the season. He's been one of the biggest reasons why that's happened. And he's also, to your point, McMahon, unequivocally having the greatest rookie shooting season of all time by leaps and bounds. Like, there's not even one in the same stratosphere as him. So if somebody like Cooper Flagg did not win rookie of the year, it takes something pretty remarkable to happen. And both Conk Caneple's play and the play of the Hornets is putting that in play. And, you know, hopefully Cooper can get back out there because he's fun to watch and it would be a fun race down to the end. But to your point, if he misses much more time, it's going to be very difficult for him to catch Conn with both the way he's playing and the way they're playing. To compare him to Steph as a rookie, now Cooper takes eight, or Kudupo takes eight threes a game. Steph took five threes a game. So the volume, it's just a different era. Yeah. Steph shot 43.7%. We'll call it 44, but it's 43.7%. And Knipple's shooting exactly 44% right now. He's higher at the free throw line than Steph was as a rookie. And he's two points a game more. Again, speed of play is different. But also, I'll point out, Steph was a year older. Steph was several years older, I believe. Well, yeah, I think, yeah, he played three years at Davidson or two? I can't remember. Yeah, three. Okay, so I think, yeah, so Steph was age 21 at the start of the season. He turned 22. Well, whatever. The point is he played three years in college. So, yeah. So, like, now they don't quite, you know, they're not the same type of player in terms of their makeup. But, like, Knipple, like Steph, works his ass off off the ball. Well, and Knipple is not just a catch-and-shoot guy. He's a move, movement guy. Like Steph. He has more stuff off the dribble than you would think. You know? There's, like, you don't shoot 49% from the floor being a high-volume three-point shooter without any— He doesn't get to the line yet. As he gets older in the league, he'll figure out how to get to the line more. I think his upside as a scorer is— He's a monster. Yeah. Yeah. He's an absolute monster. But beyond that, you know, because Brandon— There's a Brandon Miller stat here that I lost, but Brandon Miller's been killing it, too. I don't want to make it all about him, but Brandon Miller, he had a big game on Saturday. Their whole team is killing it. Like, it's just unbelievable how this whole thing has flipped around the past two months. Like, they, you know, I mean, they were showing some signs of making some nice progress this year, and Khan was playing great, and, like, they were able to get Miller out on the court, and he and LaMelo and Khan were all playing. Like, things were going the way they hoped they would, but, I mean, nobody saw this happen in the last two months. It's completely turned everything on its head. So one more point I do want to make on the rookie of the year thing. Typically, an impact on winning is not really a significant factor in the rookie of the year race. But that's because typically rookie of the year candidates aren't able to impact winning because they're on terrible teams. Correct. Well, this was a terrible team. Yeah, and Knipple's impact in winning. Brandon Miller has made five three-pointers in each of his last four games. So he is also shooting very well. He's averaging 21 points on 43% shooting for the year. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's been a really fun story, and it's going to be interesting to see how these next six weeks go and where they land. Because like I said, if I was one of these older veteran teams at the top of the conference, I would not want to see this track meet team come flying and bombing 45 threes that came in the playoffs having absolutely no conscience because you know they won't. Don't worry, McMahon. The USWB says no good nickname for him, though, whatever you do. Oh, that's right. I didn't say that. You got to go to the airport. They said don't run it into the ground. Eh, well, what, the USWB or Buzz City Killer? I mean, you've run that into the ground for quite a while. I don't think you have. No, people always, I still get asked, what does USWB stand for? And I just want to clarify for people, it stands for the urine-soaked wet blanket. And I think it's fitting, just as Buzz City Killers are. All right. Thank you to Jackson, Mark, and Devon, our producers. Thank you very much to McMahon and Bontemps. See you soon, McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you in a couple of days. Adios, amigos.