NBA Playoffs continue into Round 2…

I have to talk about your two central and central. You can in the Gold State Sacramento series, just because a team has been good or bad on the road, doesn't mean that's necessarily gonna translate for the rest of that series. Gold State was as bad as any team has ever been going into the post season on the road, and they ended up winning twice in the hardest place to win during the regular season in Sacramento. Like, if he's healthy enough to play, even if he can only give you 15 minutes, because they were very, very close to losing that game. Like, there were some, so his impact was felt in terms of him not, and B not being there, was felt on both sides of the ball. One, Celtics were getting anything they wanted to in the paint. If they were able to bypass that first level of defense on the perimeter, Tatum, Brown, they were just making full raise right into the cup, because they don't have any other rim protectors.

And so I think they scored 60 plus points in the paint last night. On the other end, and part of the reason I think Harden had so much success, is because they could play that sort of five-out structure, because there wasn't MB sitting in the middle of that, sitting in the middle of the lane, kind of taking up some of that space that he maybe normally would have. I know he's a capable three-point shooter, but he does do a lot of his work in the mid range and in the high post, and that wasn't the case there. And Harden was able to use and kind of take it back to that Houston stuff. We mentioned Houston twice. It's also important to recognize, he only had four free throw attempts.

Whenever I would talk about, you know, him not being aesthetically pleasing to watch, it was because he was foul hunting. He wasn't last night. He was just going out there and getting, whether it was the step back, whether it was beating guys off the dribble and finishing, he was just doing whatever was necessary because they needed him to, because Maxie, who probably is their second, their third best scorer, or second best without MB, just didn't have it in the efficiency sort of category as he normally does. Real quick, Boston probably feels like they let that one go. They had the lead late. Did Malcolm Brogdon get an assist on the Maxie layup that made it, that gave Philadelphia the lead?

I'm just curious. I felt like Georgetown accidentally passing the worthy or something at the 82 national championship. Well, like I- Freddie Brown. Freddie Brown says hi.

Freddie, yeah, yeah, exactly. But it was weird because if you thought, I thought if there was going to be one of the teams that struggled late in terms of execution, I thought it'd be the team without the league's leading scorer. I didn't think it would be the fully healthy Boston Celtics. And there were some really bad possessions there late. And you mentioned the one, even if he doesn't pass it directly to Maxie, they're going to get a 24 second shot clock violation.

They just, no one seemed to have any sort of idea what was going on. You don't expect that from a veteran team like that. I don't expect, especially against the Philly team.

I could be wrong here. I don't see Philly as a lockdown defensive team. The numbers may say otherwise. It just don't, to me, that's not necessarily their identity, but we'll see what happens with game two if Embiid is coming back. Let me talk about game two.

And we're talking with brennanwoodedswarmandsting.com. So the Nuggets take game two. That was an uglier game, a little bit more of a grinder game. But in the end, I know he's not going to win the MVP.

I'm pretty sure it's going to be Joel Embiid. But Nicole Jokic was everything in the third quarter. I mean, really the second half for Denver is they kind of overcame themselves to beat Phoenix. Yeah, that was kind of an ugly game. Yeah, it was awful.

That was not something that I expected. It felt like kind of one of those 90s NBA final source of games because it was neither team, I don't think either team broke 100. I have to double check if somebody did it late. No, 97-87. Yeah, that was it. And so like the first half, both teams were really struggling to score. The Suns, man, they don't have anything off of that bench.

Nothing. And I think they went to a 17 from the bench and they needed more. And I'm honestly surprised we didn't see T.J. Warren. I know he hasn't been a big part of this squad since he got on there. But if you're struggling to score like that, Damian Lee goes 0-5. The backup point goes- Cameron Payne. Cameron Payne, he really struggled.

He was one of the set. If you can't get scoring from anywhere else and you just got T.J. Warren sitting there, there's no reason to have him on the court if you're not gonna do it. I know he has his troubles on defense. But I would be surprised, particularly if Chris Paul can't play and now Payne's gonna have to start. I don't know what, I haven't seen any updates on his injury.

But I would suspect, I don't know if they're gonna give an over-under for him for next game, but I would hit the over because he's gonna put at least a few shots up. Because they gotta have something else. Because it can't just be Devin Booker kind of playing the way he's playing, which has been phenomenal. They need more than that. They need KD. And they need to emphasize Ayton more. Because I think he's gotta be utilized a little bit more than just, if he's not open on the initial pass to a roll, they just don't look for him.

Brennan Wittert is joining us here at swarmandstaying.com. Here's the thing about the Suns. Charles Barkley said it and inside the NBA the other day as I was watching it. And before the series, the Suns were a pretty big favorite to beat Denver in this series, in spite of the fact the Nuggets are the best record in the West and have home court advantage. And Barkley came on after game one and goes, I just do not see how the Suns can stay with Denver. Like, he was basically declaring the series over after the home team won game one. And he said, I just don't know where the points are coming from.

If it's not Booker and Durant, there are no points. And I think it's interesting that Chris Paul injured his own groin when he usually injures other people's groins. I just had to fit that in. I apologize to those people who don't like to hear that. But I mean, is that fair? Because Denver's got a bunch of guys they can go to. Yeah, that felt like a low blow on us. But yeah, there you go.

No, I mean, no, you're a hundred percent right. Like they sacrificed some of their depth making that Kevin Durant trade. And so if you've got just a starting five, even under the best of circumstances, even if Payne had scored well, there's just not going to be much coming from that end.

You're talking about Bismack, Biambo. You're just, Wayne Wright, you're not talking about a ton of offensive talent. And I think that's part of the reason I thought Aten has to play a bigger role. You're asking too much of your perimeter players to always be incredibly efficient on top of the score.

And that's really kind of their only way to go about this. What was interesting to me is how they were playing the pick and roll, depending on who the ball hound was, how Denver was playing it. They were in that drop coverage for CP and then they were either doubling or just hedging out versus Book or KD when they did that.

I thought that was a real mistake. I thought Chris Paul, the only thing that he has left is really that mid range game. He's not finishing at the cup like that. Going into last night, he was averaging one free throw a game. He was shooting 29% from three.

Really, the only thing that he's going to give you is the mid range and that's what they were giving up. And for a while in that third quarter, that's what was sustaining their offense. I'm surprised to hear that I hadn't checked that number before they played. I'm surprised to hear that the Suns were favorite. I'm assuming that Betters are just doing a thing with big names, right? Because if you look at it on the other side, Aaron Gordon is not a huge name. Yes, if you follow basketball, you know him. But once you get past Jokic, Jamal Murray has been injured and has come back this year. But you know, again, he's not Devin Booker. He's not Kevin Durant.

These aren't the big time names like that. Even Michael Porter Jr., you know, he's a guy that's been often injured. Only had five points last night and still outscored the Phoenix bench, by the way.

They only scored 97 and Jokic had 39 of them. All right, final thing. Got a couple of minutes here. Thoughts on, I mean, two historically great, two not, I mean, Mount Rushmore is four. So I'm not even, I'm not trying to do this, but you're talking about two of the names. You say LeBron, you say Steph.

You don't need anything else. Going up against each other for the fifth time in their playoff careers. What are you thinking about when you flip the TV on tonight?

One of the greatest robberies this sport has ever seen. It's magic and bird. I don't know if Jordan has one guy that you would look at, maybe Isaiah.

I don't know. But the fact that we've gotten the pleasure to see these guys go head up to, I think, the two best players at their positions, point guard and small forward that have ever played basketball, I'm really going to enjoy it. I hate rooting against Steph because he's, you know, North Carolina. I told you after Jimmy went for 56, I was like, the only guy I love to see get it going more. And we saw in that Sacramento game is when Steph is just lights out unstoppable. He was in game seven, 50 points, most points ever score. And then LeBron, man, and LeBron hasn't had that game yet.

And I think it's there somewhere. And they're going to need it, this series, if they're going to beat Golden State. But I think this goes seven. That's what I'm hoping for. Let me, I like to be the analyst, but the fan is still in me. I want seven. I want game seven. I want LeBron. I want Steph. I know they're not going to be matched up on one another that frequently, but I don't care. I want to see this.

I want to see all of it. Yeah, I do too. Historically, it's going to be incredible theater.

They obviously have tremendous respect for one another. I like the, I don't think this is a long series. I just don't, I don't see where Golden State's getting offense from.

I just, Clay is way too inconsistent for me. It's a hundred percent about Steph. I think the Lakers have been doing this really without LeBron being the offensive guy. And if he, if he, if something is triggered and LeBron's offense shows up, I mean, I think we could be talking about this in five games, but I don't, I don't see it going beyond six. The player watches Looney. Looney out playing some bonus was something that I did not see coming 11 to 21 in that game seven, but he out rebounded the top rebounder in the league who had played at least 60 games. Three, three rebound guys, three, three 20 rebound games. He was amazing.

He was amazing. Like, and the extra possessions, you can't give this team extra possessions. And I, and I wonder if Golden State, they didn't, they were times where they were just really loose with the ball. And I know we're kind of used to that with the Warriors, but when that pace drops as it's going to in this Lakers series, I wonder if that those turnovers drop too, and they get a little bit more efficient on offense.

Like that's what I'm really looking for. Are they going to be able to take care of the ball and what those rebounding numbers going to look like? As I play both sides of the fence here at the beginning of the playoffs, I picked the Warriors to win the West, but having seen both teams play right now, I think the Lakers are the better team. And you ultimately are going to be right, man. The Lakers are going to end up in the NBA finals, Brendan.