Bill Simmons

Defensively, there are just structural problems with having Jalen Brunson and Kat as core members of your team that are always going to be issues.

They can find ways to work around some of that stuff, and we saw it last year in the playoffs.

Who they can be collectively when they do tap into the best versions of all that.

I'm pretty apprehensive about just trusting this team to figure it out because they've had time now under two different coaches.

And I wouldn't say they ever fully figured it out.

They fired the first coach because the process behind the team felt busted.

And now at this point, the same roster more or less with some additional supplementary players hasn't really figured out anything different.

I mean, the Pacers version was pretty good.

and those two things alone i think not to mention they don't seem to trust their bench very much but that's what i see so is that does that add up for you it squares for me i mean jalen brunson is one of the best in the world at kind of making something out of nothing in some of these situations just like you know broken possessions situations where he shouldn't be able to create advantage and does obviously baiting guys into the air and drawing fouls and doing all those things i

But he has to do it a lot.

And to your point about the pressure that other teams are applying, full court and otherwise, that takes its toll.

You want to find ways to get easier mechanisms of offense.

And this is a team that has to have overwhelmingly good offense to overcome everything that they're not on defense collectively.

And it doesn't feel overwhelming right now.

It feels like they can be a decent offensive team and maybe a fundamentally flawed defensive team.

His mistakes are among the loudest in the entire league.

It's not just guys like you and I watching the games.

You feel that as a teammate, right?

When he messes something up, it feels glaring.

It feels like something that, oh my God, now we have to talk about this.