J. Kyle Mann

He is meticulous in his way.

So I can see the precision, the attention to detail.

That checks out for me.

Okay.

Anything else from this game?

The Carpenter.

I don't know that it's an aberration so much as a lot of the variables surrounding the Magic are just like how they deal with adversity.

When they do meet equal pressure or a certain kind of attention on defense that's stifling them, how do they deal with it?

Historically, the answer is not super well, and they get bogged down.

And Kyle, you talked about just the total absence of movement that their offense devolved into over the course of this game.

That stuff is still fixable.

Even with poor space, if you are committed to getting some sort of flow in your offense, you can find it.

It's just incumbent on guys like Paolo, guys like Franz, to be fair, who I thought had a pretty terrible game and was completely bottled up over the course of this one, to not just be attacking in the most straightforward paths possible, to be like a little more Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black, and a little less Paolo Franz Wagner.

I don't even mean that in the sense of who has the ball, but like how they choose to attack and how predictable those attacks are.

especially when I think they can be back-footed so easily.

And I want to give credit for that back-footing to the Pistons overall, GB Bickerstaff in particular, but also Asar Thompson, who I thought was just awesome in terms of picking really unpredictable times to jump the ball, to really insert himself into plays.

He would just show up out of nowhere

in a way that's like a very particular kind of menace.

And you could see the magic over the course of the game trying to anticipate when they might experience that and ultimately failing or slowing down or not taking advantage of some opportunities that were right there in front of him.

And I just think...