Rex Walters, Charlotte Hornets Assistant Coach

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There's something for everyone. Download the Viator app now and use Viator 10 for 10% off your first booking. One app, over 300,000 experiences you'll remember. Do more with Viator. Rex, what's happening? What's going on, Zach? Thanks for having me.

Well, I appreciate you coming on. So, you know Eric Spoelstra very well. When Spoel was a little bit younger, what stood out to you the most about him? And did you just kind of understand that one day, man, this was going to be a very successful head coach in the NBA? Well, I'll be honest, I had no clue he was our video coordinator. He was very detailed. He already had a good relationship with Pat Riley. Every time Pat Riley broke a remote, Eric was always there ready to hand him a new one.

If the TV wasn't working, Spoel figured it out really, really quickly. And then the edits that he would come up with. Back then, he didn't have the sophisticated editing systems that you have now. So he was doing a lot of great work and there was an attention to detail with that. Coach Riley could come up with amazing, crazy ideas, different movies, different commercials, different television shows, spliced in with Timmy Hardaway hitting the three, Alonzo Mourning dunking a basketball, all of us getting defensive stops.

So Spoel was always someone that took great pride in his work, no question. So after Game 2, he got a little bit annoyed with the questioning about how to defend Nikolay Jokic, because a lot of people, including myself and my producer, Ryan Hickey, we've been saying there's no easy way to defend Nikolay Jokic, but I guess you've got to try to take something away, so let him go get his and focus on everybody else and take away from the assist. If you were in that coaching room with Spoel, how would you kind of be devising up the game plan to try to slow down Nikolay Jokic in the series? Well, he's just like every great player, although he's probably the best player in the world right now in terms of you're not going to stop him.

You can only try to contain him. You've got to make sure that you're making him play to his weaknesses. You've got to make sure that you're showing the crowd all the time, but then what he's really good at is getting his teammates involved.

So you've got to show a crowd and yet still get to the three-point shooters, right? Maybe on the penetration, maybe on the pickup of the dribble. You don't want to ever give him straight line passes where he's zipping that ball around and creating good shots for his teammates, because that's when they become really, really good.

When he gets his 25 to 35 points, but also he adds in 10 to 12 assists, now they go up a whole other level. So I can understand why he was saying what he said, because they're not going to let him score, but they are going to make him work. And yet at the same time, try to take away Jamal Murray, who really didn't do a whole lot until the fourth quarter. That's a big key for Miami having a chance to win and win this series. What type of performance do you think we see tonight, Rex Walters, from Jamal Murray? Because you're right, when you look at Jamal Murray so far, he hasn't played a great game yet, but you know he's so important if Denver's going to find a way to win three more games and hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy.

Well, just listening to him talk in his interview. I mean, he missed some shots that he's very capable of making. I think the switching effects, I think that they threw in some blitzes against him and the zone. The zone is a great equalizer in terms of you don't know exactly where your shots are going to come from, and sometimes it becomes more equal opportunity basketball offensively for Denver.

And that's not what they want. They want to play through, Nicola, they want to make sure Jamal Murray gets his look, but when you're blitzing them, you take the ball out of his hands. When you're switching, if it's a good matchup for Miami, they still have them matched up and he's going to have to beat that guy. And then the zone, like I just talked about, now you have to play through five guys as opposed to just putting the ball in Murray's hands and creating an advantage for him. So he's got some, I'm sure that they've looked at the tape in depth and they're figuring out ways to get him some quality looks so that now it's not so much of him making great plays, it's also putting him in position to be great.

Rex Walters here with us. You look at Michael Porter Jr. Game one was two of 11 from three. Game two, one of six from three. When you have a player that's struggling to start off in a series as a coach, is there anything that you could say or is it just, hey, keep that mentality up there? Shooters got to shoot.

Eventually they're going to fall. Well, there's no question you're going to tell him, hey, every time you're open, you're going to shoot it and shoot it aggressively. I would encourage him though, cause he's got great size to get on the offensive glass a little bit more, maybe create some second chance points for himself when he's not shooting. Also, running the floor and running for layups, taking advantage of his size because right now he's just a seven-foot standstill shooter or one dribble pull-up guy. He's got to figure out ways to get more involved in the offense.

And the great way of doing that is running the floor, number one. Number two, getting on the offensive glass when the opportunities present themselves. Bam Adebayo is such a big key in this series. He's been pretty much flawless through the first two games of the NBA Finals with game three coming up tonight. We did see in the last series, Bam was really good early and then as the series did go on, he didn't have that same greatness earlier in the series that he did later on in the series. What do you think Bam's going to be the rest of this series? Because I really do believe he's the biggest key for Miami to find the way to win the Finals.

No, I think you're exactly right because he's got the double-edged sword. They have to run offense through him when he's on the trail, when he gets the offensive rebound and he's pushing it up and creating offense for everyone else and himself. But also he's got to guard that other guy, right? He's got to guard Jokic and that's so there's a very good chance he could wear down. I think that you've made a great point right there that this is a guy that's having to do an awful lot of things in his 35 to 48 minutes every single night. I would think that they would try to match his minutes to Jokic as much as possible because he's the one guy that can really guard him. But yeah, there's no question that a wearing down of Bam could definitely happen because he's having to do so much on both ends of the floor. Is Jimmy Butler starting to wear down?

We know how important he is for their success. He has been phenomenal in this NBA postseason. The first two games though, I haven't been all that impressed with Jimmy Butler. We know he's been dealing with that ankle injury since the Knicks series.

Well, here's the thing. Aaron Gordon, really good defender, right? KCP, really good defender. And Michael Porter gives great size. It was surprising to see that late switch in that game for that last shot that he missed against Jokic.

But there's just no easy matchup. They're all bigger than he is except for KCP and maybe Murray and they can all move their feet. And as the Denver Nuggets and Coach Malone, I worked with his father for a year. I'm going to throw a shout out to Charles Glass who's behind the bench. They've watched Jimmy. So Jimmy plays off of your mistakes. Boston figured it out after about five or six games that they're going to stay down on shot fakes. They're going to make him shoot it over the top.

They're not going to bail him out. They've done a great job of keeping him off the free throw line, staying down on shot fakes and making him shoot it over the top. So there's been nothing easy for Jimmy Butler in the series. I think a lot of that is really good scouting report defense, not bailing them out and put them on the line. Miami in game two, they hit their shots. I know everyone's going to give you this comprehensive breakdown, but Max Shrews was really good from three. We know what Duncan Robinson did in the fourth quarter.

Gabe Vincent was phenomenal in the game. Eight of 12 from the field, four of six from three. You just keep on watching this Miami team. And I know at some point you kind of get bored with the story line just because everyone says the same thing, how gritty they are and how tough they are.

But from a coaching perspective, with what Miami's been able to do in this post season, when they don't have the greatest team in the world, when you look at the construction of the roster and guys that you didn't expect to be here in this spot, what jumps out to you the most? Well, the fact that they play through multiple actions. The ball continues to move. They're going to try to force you to make mistakes. They're going to play in pick and roll. They're going to play in double drags. They're going to play in low splits.

They're going to make you guard multiple situations. And yes, all of their guys, when you talk about Shrews, you talk about Vincent, you talk about even Kevin Love, who just started the last game. Duncan Robinson, Caleb Martin, who's been a little bit under the weather. And you've got Kyle Lowry, who's got a ring on his finger from Toronto. All those guys are going to shoot the basketball aggressively. And if you give them good looks, they can win four games in this series. So Denver's going to have to take it up another level, can't foul the shooter. You've got to be really clean on all your coverages, both in pick and roll and off-the-ball screening.

You've got to keep it clean so that you continue to at least have matchups. Even if there are some switching, there's no confusion, which creates space for Miami to get those quality three-point looks up. We don't know about the future of Chris Paul, Rex Walters. I saw some stuff today that he's maybe going to get waved and there could be a trade. He still could find the way back to Phoenix.

That's still his preference. How much do you think, really, at this stage of his career, Chris Paul has left in the tank at the age of 38 years old? Here's the one thing I'll say. Everywhere he's been, he's taken the team to a higher level. They've competed at a very high level. He's a basketball genius. He's an unbelievable influence on any young team or any aspiring team. The health is obviously a big, big issue with him, especially when you get late into the playoffs.

But he makes teams better. That would be the one thing I would say. Maybe with Frank Vogel, because he's not the same defender that he used to be. That might be a concern for Phoenix.

They have to make a decision. Maybe when you talk about salaries of both DeAndre and Chris Paul. But here's the thing I'll say. There are a lot of teams that maybe not at 40 million or whatever he's making, but maybe at a relatively decent price, but you now got a guy that understands how to win. And if he can figure out a way to stay healthy, which it's been a difficult thing for him, he makes your team a lot better, even at 38.

And it's worth the gamble at a much lower price. Maybe after all those years, he finally gets to go out there and play for the Los Angeles Lakers. Especially with the relationship with LeBron. That's the first destination that I thought of where Chris Paul could eventually land.

But no question. He's a winner. He knows how to organize. He knows how to play playoff basketball when he's healthy. He manages a game. Just watching him from behind the bench here in Charlotte, the way he manages a game, he understands how to win NBA basketball games at the highest level. Especially in the regular season. And if he's healthy in the playoffs as well.

So if it's not Phoenix, I still think that people will want to bring him in, take a look, see if it's the right fit because he makes your team better. Rex Walters, always great to catch up with you. Appreciate the time. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Experiences are what people love most about travel. With Viator, you can browse and book tours and activities so incredible you'll want to tell your friends. They offer everything from simple tours to extreme adventures in over 190 countries. There's something for everyone. Download the Viator app now and use Viator 10 for 10% off your first booking. One app, over 300,000 experiences you'll remember. Do more with Viator.