NBA playoffs are approaching, who’ll be there?

The Lakers and the Suns in the first round of the playoffs, which would be Lebron versus Kevin Durant. That would be a heck of a first round matchup.

A heck of a first round matchup. Also, Kyrie Irving. I think the Dallas Mavericks are 6 and 17 or 7 and 16 since Kyrie Irving was acquired in the trade from the Brooklyn Nets. I know there are people who said, well, you could see that coming. Nah, you can't see that. You can't see the team being bad. You can certainly see the team not being great, but bad? Playing at a level below a playoff team?

Heck no. And right now, the Mavericks probably have to win all three of their games. They're all winnable, by the way. Because they're all at home and they're not playing against any, you know, killers. Two playoff teams. Sacramento, that isn't going to be easy, but again, it's in Dallas. Chicago is at the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff ladder. And then San Antonio, but all at home. But Dallas is probably going to have to win all three to make the playoffs.

Because how much egg will be on their faces if they miss? So why don't we start there with Brendan Whitted, H.U. Cosell on Twitter, Bison Express, Swarm Instinct Podcast. Alright, sir, league pass later.

I'm an RNBA analyst. How is it possible that the Mavericks could miss the playoffs? They were inside. I think they were in the top six when they acquired Kyrie Irving to pair him with Luka Doncic and create the greatest 1-2 combination in the history of basketball professionally in Dallas. How can they miss the playoffs?

Well, if your house is on fire, try not to build a deck onto it. You're not addressing the issues. And it's very easy because he's a lightning rod for people to look at the Kyrie Irving trade and be like, see, it's Kyrie again.

He's not winning again. It's all the other stuff that comes with Kyrie. When in actuality, this was a management decision. And I still hold to the claim that this was not a trade for this year, but for next year, because both Luka and Kyrie need to learn how to play together. Two ball dominant guards is going to be tough. But they were bad defensively.

Yeah. And they decided to trade away their best defensive player, trade away their depth that made them a little bit more malleable versus other teams. Like if you take a look at the juxtaposition between what the Lakers did at the trade deadline and what the Mavs did, it is night and day.

And you're seeing the results of it now. The Lakers say, you know what, we're not a good shooting team. We're going to get Deandro Russell. We're going to add Malik Beasley.

You know what? We don't have a lot of depth. We're going to add Vanderbilt, who's going to give us a particularly more defensive capabilities on that end of the floor. We're going to just be able to build up and play more NBA ready guys on a regular basis. We're not having lineups where LeBron's playing the five and silly stuff like that. Obviously, ADK and healthy makes a difference, but like they address their needs and they got better. Dallas didn't.

And so you're starting and you're seeing some of that. The other part is they play a really tough style. Like we saw how well they did last year golf to way to the Western Conference final. Right. But it's kind of like with the Atlanta Hawks. They got to the Eastern Conference finals with it was the trade show. But it's hard to do that time and time again.

You need other things around. And they the masses started to put Luke in the post. They started to move him around a little bit. But they're they're going to have to do some real changes on that team.

Just the philosophy of it. If they want to get better and get back to a Western Conference finals or something like that. Just just real quick about your point that everybody wants to blame Kyrie and I don't blame Kyrie. I think it's absolutely just coincidence that they have gone in the tank. And I think it is about the defense that they've got in the tank since Kyrie got there.

This is Bill Reader on CBS Sports dot com. The Dallas Mavericks. This Dallas Mavericks fans is the Kyrie Irving experience. His arrival is not and was never going to be about his seductive scoring skill or the no arguments anywhere. Uber talent he embodies in a league that runs on basketball greatness. Basically, he says, look, all Kyrie can do is lose. And all I can think of is the shot he hit and the way he played when the Cavaliers beat the Warriors.

This is. It's not the same argument, but to me, it's the lazy argument based on what we're seeing this year. Not to mention he's not really to blame when people say Tony Bennett gets March eight for you. And meanwhile, right behind him is this championship trophy that he won in twenty eighteen.

That counts, too. So I know people have people have made up their mind already about me like he's he for some people, he's completely irredeemable and unlikable and he plays a large role in that. And as such, it's it's it is the very easy thing to go to like, hey, he's the reason. But imagine adding a championship player, the only player, I think, on that roster with a ring and thinking, you know what? He's got loser mentality. It's just insane.

All right, let's get to there's a there's a lot of interesting things, by the way. Can they win their last three? Sacramento, Chicago, San Antonio at home.

They certainly can. San Antonio. You can just move that one off the board. Right. I still need help, though, because they lose the tiebreaker with Oklahoma City. OK, she is at Utah and home against Memphis.

OK, she is really good, by the way. They're learning curve is a little bit steeper than folks gave it. Like, I don't know whether or not they're going to make the play in this year, but next year is for real.

And they get you hungry, which is essentially, you know, a lot of you pick on top of essentially what they want to add. They're going to be real. SGA is amazing. I think they got a tough year to make about that. He did. I think the most interesting thing. Yes, they can win out to to to answer your question. I think the most interesting thing is whether or not Kyrie resides or not, because if he doesn't, then all those answers they traded for him.

Oh, buddy, that's the sort of thing to get you fired. I mean, is Dallas going to max him out? Yeah, like that. I mean, you have you have to you have to bring him back. And the thinking was that he was 100 percent going to sign because they were able to offer him the most years and the most money. But there's that thing about relying on like, oh, everybody knows Kyrie is going to do this one thing. And then realizing Kyrie, I'm not even sure Kyrie ever knows what he's going to do all the time, which is, you know, what? That's that's part of the that actually is part of the Kyrie show. Yeah, the the the unavailability is part of as part of the Kyrie show. We have great races, but let me get your thoughts on the Lakers.

I know you said they improve their team. I still I still do not buy them, but LeBron James went to the LeBron James of foot specialists. And what I just assume is he just looked in the mirror and said, can I deal with the pain? Because that's really what I believe he did and figured I'm just going to make a go of it and let's see where it where it ends, where it ends up. What chance do you give them of coming out of the West? Man, first off, that was a direct shot at Michael Jordan.

Why? You're never going to convince me anything differently. OK, he's trying to he's trying to change the paradigm of like, oh, he's the Michael Jordan of X, Y and Z. Now he's trying to now now LeBron's literally trying to change our language and our vernacular. I see what you're doing, LeBron.

Good. Everything he's most of the stuff he does is shot at MJ because who is his career high against MJ on Bobcats. But anyway, I thought everybody's career high was against the Knicks.

At Madison Square Garden, I thought, man, like folks love lighting the Knicks up, by the way. I think they're the only team that has clinched their who they're playing. Then the Cleveland are going to be a first round match up.

That's fun. Yeah, it's going to be it's going to be it's going to be a fun one. Donovan Mitchell is going to score forty three points a game and rub it in New York's face.

You chose R.J. Barrett over me. Oh, he's definitely the thing that bothers me so much about Cleveland because they're top ten on offense and defense efficiency. They don't have any bench help. So if they don't get great stuff from Mobley and great stuff from Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, they're in real trouble. They just have a bad game or foul trouble or something like that. There's just not much there. Like, I don't know what the odds are.

I have to look it up. But I'm I'm if it obviously this is if Randall and are healthy. But like, I really kind of I think the Knicks might be able to pull that. Now, forget it. They said it was serious. All right. Go back to the Lakers. That's really what I'm sorry about. It's my fault.

My fault. Can they come out of the West? Oh, they can definitely come out of the West. The West is as much about the Lakers as it is about the West this year.

Like, I don't feel confident about anybody. The Nuggets have certainly have certainly distanced themselves as the best ones in the Western Conference. But if you're going to tell me that we're going to get a rematch of that bubble series where it was the Nuggets versus the Lakers, I mean, maybe.

Right. Because, again, it comes down to they might have the best one to combo in any series that they get into, especially on the Western Conference side. You're going to tell me that you got healthy LeBron and healthy AD who has been on a tear recently.

He's been phenomenal. You're going to sit up in there and tell me that in a seven game series, you're going to take somebody else. Like, OK, I know you said earlier now, I had said when the trade went down, I was like, hey, they could come out of the West. And you audibly laughed at me. I still am.

I still am. And you said that you take the Kings and all this other stuff. OK, but the Kings, although I do love the Montes about us. Oh, absolutely. He's been he's been he's been great.

They run that offense through the dribble handoff stuff that they do, particularly in transition is phenomenal. But if you're going to give me healthy LeBron, healthy AD and then put shooters around. Give me give me the real guy there, though.

Give me the key. Austin Reeves. Oh, Austin. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What is that?

Twenty six. He's just a really good player. He's a really good player that is playing alongside guys that give gravity. Right. They're going to your as a defense.

You have to pick and choose. So if you're third best player, Austin Reeves will use their third best player is LeBron James. Austin Reeves is their best player.

I'm kidding. But like if people have not seen the Lakers play, you will be blown away when you who's that? You will say who's that? And meanwhile, what do you have, like twenty six last night busting threes? He's got his own shoe. Yeah, he's really good. And he's and the best part is he's really efficient.

Yeah, right. He's not a guy that takes a ton of shots to get those twenty six points. He can move the ball. He's a solid defender. Like he is like your perfect sort of you can slide him in and it's and it's great. And then you add a guy like the Angeles who will on any given night can give you a 30 burger. Right. Like they added enough guys with high enough ceilings that you that they put around 80 and broad.

And now all of a sudden this isn't just the 80 broad show. Suddenly it's a real team with real depth. We're ahead, I think, 18 last night. Yeah, like that. Like this is the Lakers are a good team. If this team had asked, constructed have been together this entire season. You'd have a lot of different things like this. They wouldn't be fighting for now or some like play and play.

Oh, what are they going to be? It'd be like, OK, they're the they probably be like a third seed or something. They were two and ten. They were two and ten at the after after twelve games. Before I ask you about MVP, because you only have about two minutes left here right now, given health.

I'll take the Warriors anyway to come out of the West. Is Joel Embiid the MVP of the NBA? I think he might have won it this last week and a half.

I thought it was last night. Fifty four. Yeah. I mean, I think five five games of fifty ten this year.

It's been insane. Now, if you're going to tell me who actually is the most valuable, I might go with Giannis or something like that. Giannis is the best player. Yeah.

Like, yes. You know, because there's a semantic argument that we get into every year about the MVP. Jokic obviously has been great. His shooting splits, the on off stuff with him.

You can tell his his value to that team. They're number one in the West. Like you average and right at triple double. Like there's almost every metric and statistic that you're going to throw out there. Jokic is leading it. I think partly that's due that we don't do a great job of measuring defense. It's just a really noisy.

It's always going to be a noisy stat. But I think Joelle will end up winning. That turned into Joelle and Jokic turned into.

I mean, Angela Reese, Angel Reese and and Kaitlin Clark. Like, but but they've been going at it all year long and it's been great. We hate that Embiid had to miss the game verse versus Jokic. But like, I think I think he's won it in terms of who's going to pull the most votes.

I think he's won it this last week and change yourself. Both guys have pretty good personalities. I love I can listen.

I can listen to Joelle Embiid all the time. All right. We'll talk. We'll talk during the playoffs, Brendan. I love it. You the man.

Bison Express swarm and sting. Everyone know when the playoffs start, we'll talk about where the Hornets go from here since they won't be in the playoffs. We'll have plenty of time. Thanks, man.

Appreciate your time. And Brendan at H.U. Cosell on Twitter. I'd love for the for the Hornets to be better. I just don't see that. I don't see that happening.