Mo Dakhil
Appearances
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Dame Lillard openly talked about it because he was worried he was going to get traded. He didn't want to get hurt, so he didn't work out during the summer. If you don't take care of these guys, then they don't work out over the summer. And then they come in and something will happen, right? Murphy got hurt in the first part of the season because he wasn't working out over the summer.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's little stuff like that that you wonder who's in charge of this team. The owner is an absentee owner. And it's a franchise. The bigger question to me is, is this basketball work in New Orleans, which is a whole separate topic? Like, like, is this been enough of a sample size at this point to say maybe professional basketball doesn't work in the city?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
We have no wins in New Orleans, really, ever. And from a money standpoint, from the money they pull in compared to some other cities, and the fact that they're so Saints heavy, and the owner owns the Saints and saved the Pelicans just because the family felt bad and didn't want them to leave, but it's clearly not a big priority for them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And big picture, it's like, does basketball work in this city? And if it doesn't work, why?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
All right, let's talk about... Well, you're in an organization... Probably a D minus or below. City, one of the least five appealing small market cities for people wanting to stay there as free agents, for being able to spend money, for the money you're getting from the arena, all that stuff. And then you're in the West where over and over again, all the good players are, you know?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And it's just, it's a tough one. This is a team... I hate saying like, man, it would be nice if New Orleans won the lottery because they've had a lot of luck with this stuff and they won the Zion one. But this is one where flag, they need like a culture changer and Zion is not the culture changer. We've at least learned that.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
That Spurs game. when they blew it. And now all of a sudden they're playing the Clippers in round one, somebody got hot or something stupid happened.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah. I remember just like, it felt like, Oh shit, this is significant. And then they were out in round one.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I talked about that last night on my pod. What were your thoughts watching that game? Like for, from a matchup standpoint, did you feel like the Clippers were better?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, I was thinking last night. It's one of the great injury comebacks I can remember because it's not just like he's back. He actually... looks like an older version of San Antonio Kawhi again, which is the part I wasn't going on defense too. Yeah. His side to side stuff on defense now is stuff that I just don't feel like he could do a month ago.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I listen, the, the odds makers agreed with you because when we taped last night and we did guest Alliance, cause the odds had just came out. And I think Denver was like minus one 70 or minus one 60, something like that. And now it's like basically a pick them for the series. So I think everybody's on the Clippers.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Here's what I thought. We didn't even talk about it on my pod last night. Cause I thought he was hurt. I didn't, Him not being out there, I just thought he wasn't healthy. And then came to find out, reading all the stories this morning, that it was just a benching and Kerr was going with his guys. I was like, first of all, I disagree. And I see it like you. Kaminga has something...
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
especially in bigger games. I like how competitive he is. Like there's something there. I still feel like there's something there. And that sounded like Joe Lacob, but in that specific game with how, how important Kawhi was for the Clippers. And now he was like bullying Peyton and Butler on some of those plays and just physically seem bigger than them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like to me, that's the perfect coming to spot. Because he has the size and physicality to at least make Kawhi work a little bit. And he just threw it out the window. So I'm with you. I honestly thought he was hurt. I didn't realize that was just the coach's decision. And I'm a little more on the I don't know if you come back from that one. That was the biggest game they played this season.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And they're like, you're not one of our best players.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
If the coach is a bad fit for the team and you're stuck with the team, the only thing you can really do is change the coach again. But you made the key point. They've had four and three years. Ishby, I don't know if I'm officially ready to name new owner syndrome after him because that's a concept that I had been writing about going back to like pre-Grantland.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Couldn't agree more. And that's why they did what they did with coming yesterday, because I think they treated yesterday as like, this is by far the biggest game of our season gets us rest gets Curry and Butler and dream on at least five days off. And I think Butler needed it because Butler's gone. Butler's been playing, you know, he hasn't exactly been 82 games a year the last couple of years.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Right. And the intensity and the amount of minutes that he's just been playing in the last two months, I think he probably hasn't carried that burden for a couple of years. On the Kaminga thing, Steve has done this before. right? Think about like some of the Olympic teams, like they basically buried Brandon Ingram and then came up with some fake illness or whatever.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's like, it's never happening, never happening. And he didn't fit there. He did it with Tatum last year. Like he doesn't give a shit. He's has, what does he have? 10 rings? What did he win? Five as a player, four as a coach. Like he's just going to do what's best for the team. And he's not going to care that coming as agent is going to be mad at him the next day. But I thought,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
The fact that Kaminga didn't play in that game tells you how important that game was to them, where it's like, they know they can beat the Lakers. That's just small ball versus small ball. That's a good matchup for them. Now they have this dumb Memphis game. They're going to put miles on themselves. And then this Houston team, that's just a pack of pit bulls with some real size.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And the chance to, um, uproot an older team, but it's your classic, classic, classic older team, younger team game. This is one of the better versions of it. Right. I was thinking about it last night. Like this is the textbook. Do you like experience? Do you like having the best guy in the series? Or do you like just this team that's coming?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And sometimes we've seen versions of this where the young team just sweeps. You're like, oh my God. And then other times you see the 6-7 game version. But I do not think it would be a short series.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I don't know what else he has to do. When you think the combination of irrational trades, irrational moves, the Bradley Beal, when you look back at all the swaps they gave up in that trade, it's just staggering now.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Obviously, I looked at it long and hard because I'm a Steph guy, whatever that means. I just appreciate what he does, and I think he's even more valuable than the stats, especially all the stuff he creates just by being on a basketball court. The reason I went with Mitchell, and I'm going to pick Mitchell for first team. I think he really, truly sacrificed something on that team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I think his stats could have been better. So that's why when like comparing the Curry stats to the Mitchell stats, I don't think it's fair to Mitchell because I think he could have scored four or five more points a game. It was better for his team to have the season he had the way he had it. And he gave up something. And this is something that dates back. You know, it's funny.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I was talking to Isaiah Thomas a couple of weeks ago. and the Detroit Isaiah Thomas.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He got a little get off my couch-ish.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Isaiah didn't like it. But Isaiah is the best example ever of somebody who really sacrificed numbers to help his team. He's the best because... I was watching basketball that whole decade and Isaiah could have averaged 29 to 31 a game if he wanted to. And he knew that wasn't the best thing for his team. And he really took a backseat. He got, there's a great books written about this.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He really wanted to elevate everybody else. And he took over when it mattered. And I think that's what Mitchell tried to do this year with Cleveland. So I don't want to like ding him on it because do I think he could have, if you switch Curry and Mitchell and Mitchell went to the Warriors and Could he have ever averaged 28 to 29 a game on the Warriors? Probably.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Would he have played more games than Curry? Maybe. So I don't know. It's a really tight one for me. I had trouble with it, too.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, they had nothing to play for for two months.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's interesting. I was looking at Edwards versus Mitchell, too, because I think Edwards has a real case.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And we both love durability with the words. I think this is one of the cases for Zubats, too.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
If you're 2,600 minutes in a season and you're just there night after night after night, this is the Tatum case, too. I think that really matters. And I don't think... you know, people just look at the per game averages. The fact that you're showing up for your team night after night, after night, when you're not a hundred percent, my ankle hurts a little bit.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Tatum hurt his ankle a couple of weeks ago. Guess what? He was back on the court, you know, five days later. So I think with Edwards, the reason I didn't have him over Mitchell was because if you flip them as amazing as Edwards is, he's still at this stage of his career where I don't think he sacrifices like Mitchell did Mitchell. He's at the stage. Mitchell was five years ago.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And he goes there, he's going to want to, you know, have his 45 point games. Cause he's a young guy. He's still trying to figure out where his ceiling is. And I think it would have messed them up as weird as that sounds. I don't think they're a 64 win team with them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Do you know how many All-NBAs Mitchell has made? I'm going to say this will be his fourth. He's only made a second team All-NBA.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
That's it. Yeah. Wow. I was really surprised. Yeah, he's been on the cusp.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, so, I mean, the Curry thing is tough for me because I always like rewarding the great players. It's almost like boxing champs where you kind of have to lose the belt. And I feel the same way about LeBron. Like, there's... there's cases against LeBron where you could kind of shove them the 13 mall NBA and feel pretty good about it, but I'm not doing that. Like he should be second team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He's, you know, if you watch him gaming game out and the, and it's, that's another one where he's actually been on the court, um, But yeah, LeBron's net rating for the year is minus 1.5 or minus 1.3, something like that. There's ways to ding his candidacy, but he has to be second team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
But we both liked the Durant trade when it happened. We thought, I didn't know why Cam Johnson was in it, but I understood why they did the trade. Hmm.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And even, honestly, the way he handled... Luca coming to the team and kind of sharing the, the, the biggest plate of chicken with Luca, basically. It's like the Chris rock joke about does dad get the biggest chicken? And then the kids get the, the smaller pieces. And, and like, he, he looked at Luca and he's like, you know what?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
There's going to be nights where I get the smaller piece and you're going to carry us. And I'm good with that. And that, you know, older stars don't necessarily always do that. They're not always good with sharing the limelight with somebody.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
So we have this. I think we have the same 10, except I'm kind of leaning toward Mitchell.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Well, not just that, but their teams double him when he gets the ball in low post. You watched it yesterday. Like teams are afraid of him getting him posting up. And there's that list of centers who teams react when they get the ball on the block.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
You left out some Zubat stuff. 79 games, almost 33 minutes a game. Plus 9.2 net when he played. Leads the league in offensive rebounds. Since the All-Star break, he's basically 20 and 14, 65% shooting. One other thing with Zubats versus Jackson. Zubats is like 2.1 fouls a game. Jackson gets into foul trouble all the time. It's the most frustrating thing watching him.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
When you watch him in big games, you just assume he's going to commit a dumb foul with three minutes left. I looked at the Jackson candidacy. They're 7-16 in their last 23 games with him before yesterday. He was 20-5, five rebounds a game.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I just think Zubats has been better. I think he's, I, if you talk to people on the Clippers, they'll tell you the two most important players they have are Harden and Zubats and they don't really differentiate between the two of them. Here's, here's, this will appeal to your heart, Zach Lowe, because you haven't turned in your ballot yet, have you? I don't have a ballot.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Oh, you don't have a ballot this year. Um, unemployed.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
How much Marc Gasol is in this Zubat season for you?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
One of your favorite players ever, and I'm not saying he's the passer.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I'm talking Grizzlies Marc Gasol. All this stuff, Marc Gasol, remember he was defensive player of the year that one year. The way he's always in the right spots with his hands up. You watched that Warriors game yesterday. He defended the rim, it felt like, 20 times in that game where he's the last line of defense.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Their whole defense is geared around funneling people to him because they know he's going to not only take care of it, but not foul somebody. And then you throw in the way he meshed with Harden. I haven't decided yet.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning toward two clips on the third team. Yes, Zoo! Because Harden has to be on. To me, it's Harden versus Halliburton is a bigger question.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
You know what else I'm talking for is one of the great bad trades in the history of the league that never gets mentioned ever. Mike Muscala. Mike Muscala for, I think it was Beasley and Zubats. LeBron needs a shooting five. Just a classic. The Lakers made so many bad moves and just keeps stepping on $100 bills and a pile of shit. I don't know how they do it over and over again.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
So we both think the Warriors are going to win against Memphis. I thought you were too kind to Memphis. I think Memphis is terrible for a playoff team. I think as a playing game, I don't see much difference between them and Atlanta and Chicago at this point. They can't guard anybody. They can't get stops.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
So Dallas-Sacramento, I remember there was a Celtic year When Jim O'Brien got fired, John Carroll was the coach. Do you remember that? He was the intern coach. And the team was completely checked out. And I remember asking somebody who worked for the team, like, what do you think? And he was like, this is an all-time one, two, three Cancun situation.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like, these guys just want the season to be over.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Well, yeah, I tried to do my best. The point is, I always think of that team of like, I just want the season to be over. I just want to get to the summer. And I wonder if the Mavs are at that point. Could the Mavs be a one, two, three Cancun? This has been the worst two plus months for all of us. It would be really nice if the season just ended.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
you're not thinking that you're not going into the game going, I want to lose. But, but when it's actually time to fight, to be like, ah, we got to win this. How much fight are you going to have? If you're having the year from hell is my question with them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Um, I still can't believe there was no way we could get Austin Reeves. He wasn't on the table was a thing that was said by human beings to each other.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Well, I mean, the Babe Ruth trade was actually not as bad as the Luca trade because the Babe Ruth trade was a pure financial thing. The owner just wanted to save money and wanted to fund this play called No No Nanette that he wanted to make. And he just basically sold Babe Ruth off and used the money and people cared way less about sports back then.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Well, you're forgetting a lot of 70s, 1970s trades. We had some great ones back in the day.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
This Luca trade is worse than the Babe Ruth trade. Babe Ruth is a greater athlete than Luca, but this trade's worse. It's less defensible. The...
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Are you convinced that the owners of the Dallas Mavericks will be the owners of the Dallas Mavericks a year from now?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I've never seen a situation like this before, and I don't know how it gets better for them. It's almost like you almost have to think about a complete reset. And the Vegas team is coming. I know that's been a big conspiracy thing, but I also wonder how much of that is, how much smoke is there? I just, I don't know what to expect with this situation.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It might be possible. Kings Mavs is going to definitely be like a sociology experiment.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, yeah.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And you left out one thing, 2006 Clippers playoff series win over the nuggets. Very important moment for all Clipper fans. Cause I don't think they'd want to play off series in LA ever.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I'd never liked the Beal trade. I have learned, as I know you have too, to really trust people that I trust their basketball when they're watching somebody day in and day out and they're saying whether the guy is truly a winning player or not. And for what they gave up, I thought they were doing the Wizards a favor. It was one of those contracts.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Did you what'd you take away from game 82 for them? Because I thought Houston wanted to win and played hard and Denver absolutely kicked their ass for two quarters. And then Houston was like, OK, fine.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Do you think this is a better series than Minnesota versus the Lakers? I think just from a basketball nerd standpoint.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
they were delighted. They were like, really, we get to get out of this Bradley bill thing. Look at what happened with Zach Levine, you know, recently with the bulls where the bulls had to like take on contracts back just to kind of get out of that deal that they had. So I, you know, I, I think the big sin was that summer with the Chris Paul expiring and,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I enjoyed everything you said. You left out one thing that I think is actually going to be the key to the series. I left out a ton. Look at my notes. My notes are insane.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
There's one thing. The Clippers are kind of built to shut down Jamal Murray with the guys they have. Chris Dunn, who... Might be on one of my all-defense teams. Spoiler alert. He's not eligible.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
All right. Well, I'm going to have to. That's why I haven't turned in my ballot because I wanted to research dumb crap like that. Chris Dunn, you saw what he did against Curry yesterday. Curry had eight turnovers in that game. But they have him chasing around Jamal Murray. They have tall wings with size they can put on him.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I just don't think the Nuggets are good enough unless he's really good in the games. Unfortunately, that's where they are. They don't have a bench. You can spot Jokic. Just give them 35, 16, and 17 every game. And if Murray's not good in the games, they're not going to beat the Clippers four times. And that to me is the matchup to watch. Can they shut him down?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like, even if you're looking at gambling props and dumb stuff like that, I think their whole defense is going to be, if we take out Murray, we win the series. And I think the Clippers, to me, they're a top four or five coach team in the league. And I actually think the Lakers might be in that conversation too. I think the Celtics are.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
But the Clippers are just really smart with how they attack teams. And I think they're going to try to cut Murray's head off in that series. And they know that they just don't have enough other guys. Their bench is so much better than Denver's bench. And you saw the Clippers bench last night. It's not even that good.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
But when they get Batum back for the series, that's going to make a big difference for them. They just have so much length.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And by the way, palace kind of, you know, he's playing 35, 36 minutes in these games before Kawhi came back and he was scoring big points and he was a big part of what they were doing. And there was all-star buzz for them. And he settled back into that instant offense role. I think really nicely. I've, I've really enjoyed watching the Clippers this year. I I'm shocked by the,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
how much fun it's been to go to games just to watch them day to day is like the late night game out here and i think they're i think they're the second best team in the west i really do with all that said is anyone going to be surprised between game two and game three when you get that you know the little the tweet or the hoops type thing about Kawhi Leonard mispractice today.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
with Aiton when they basically tried to make a title team and they went all in. And I remember saying at the time, like, I just never like moves where there's no way out. Once you're past a certain point, if you don't have any outs, that's the most dangerous place you can be in basketball. We've seen these teams just get paralyzed for years and years.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like that's what the Clipper fans, they're just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop with them. And it just hasn't.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
That's it. It's been a half decade of the same thing happening over and over again.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Shooting is like there's games when he'll just drop like 35, 38. I think if you could, I'll go this far. I think the Clippers are decidedly better than Nuggets. I do. With Kawhi, the way he's playing, I just think they're better. And if Jokic wins this series, this will be one of the great things of his career, to just beat this team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Because this is the second best team in the West, if they have everybody. And if he beats them, it'll be because he beat them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
You want to spoil it? I've talked about it in a couple of my pods. I've just never seen anything like this season he's having. Jokic? Yeah. I've never seen anything like it. And that has to be part of MVP. If somebody's doing something... And I voted for Kobe in 06, even though they were a 45-win team or whatever they ended up winning. And I didn't even have a vote yet.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I think it was just my column vote. But I was just like... I don't necessarily even totally agree with what he's doing because I think it's crazy to have this many shots in a game. And the amount of control he has over his team's offense, I think is going to end up killing them in the end. But this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. How do you not vote for this?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I do wonder with the 60-10-10 game really messed with my head. He was so good in that game. That it's just like, what are we doing? If you ask anyone in the NBA who the best player in the league is, they're all going to say Jokic. Like all of them. Is there one person who would be like, ah, I think it's this person. It's like, it's Jokic.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
So that I'm having trouble with it because I don't think it's his fault that... his team's not very good and that they didn't put together a good roster and they're, they have no bench and they didn't spend enough money. Like, I don't know how you hang them for stuff like that.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And if he SGA, who's been incredible, that team is how many guys on OKC, how many guys at Denver would play for OKC other than Aaron Gordon and Murray would play over Wiggins.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It was a six, 10 shoot.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
The Sixers with the Embiid and George contracts, they left themselves no outs. And yet somehow they got an out because now they have a chance to have a top six pick And they have some collateral. They might be able to move out. There's no way out for the Suns. And that's, you know, I talked about this on my pod. I went to see them in that Austin game against the Spurs. You were alarmed.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
So you have four nuggets being able to get time for the Thunder? Well, maybe it's not as bad as I thought.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I'm fully lean that way. I think it's amazing that they had the season they had when it was that dysfunctional, you know, and some of it's overrated that like, you know, the coach and GM don't talk. It's not like that's going to single-handedly submarine your team, but.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
when it gets to the point where the coach isn't playing certain guys, cause he feels like they're the GMs guys and there's obvious stuff with the lineups, like Zeke Najee playing with Jokic and the stats are good and he just won't do it. Cause he doesn't like that.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
They gave the extension when it gets to that level or the GM being so mad that they're playing Russ in these big spots that he's just talking to everybody in the organization about it, that he can't believe they're doing it. That stuff's pretty poisonous. You know, these guys are together all the time. They're on the plane together. Yeah. you know, they're a practice together.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And when it's that dysfunctional, I don't think it's great. And I think Crocky, look, we've never been in this situation before where we had two teams that were playoff teams where the people running those teams said to themselves, I'd almost rather blow this up now because there's a faint chance it might work. But if I don't, we have no chance.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's unusual, but I think it speaks to how deep the league is, right? That was my biggest takeaway. It just feels like there's so many good teams and so much talent now that desperate teams, especially in the West, are just so much more desperate than they used to be. Think about that Nuggets team in 2014 would have been like a 63-win team. Think how fucking shallow the league was 10 years ago.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
We've kind of seen this play before.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, it was a 10 out of 10 for the body language doctor. I just couldn't believe it. So, you know, Bud clearly didn't connect the team at all. I couldn't have been more wrong. I love their over. Their over was 47 and a half. I thought they were going to be like one of the better offensive teams of the last 10 years. And it was just off from the get-go.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Who's your five at the end of games from Minnesota? I mean, with this matchup, it's going to go to things. I want to see how they, how that plays out.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It feels like to me it's Nas, Randall, McDaniels, Ant, and DiVincenzo when you go bigger would be where I think they go. Because they don't, Conley, it's not like the Lakers have some point guard that they're not going to need to pressure or defend any of that stuff. There's a couple of things I really like from Minnesota in this series.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
One of which is that Ant will go into the series thinking he's the best player in the series, which is insane, but he will.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's a great outcome. If it's a hero ball, first three quarters of the 2010 Game 7 Finals, Kobe's situation with Ant where he's like, I got this. I'm winning this by myself. Terrible for Minnesota. The part that worries me the most is the Randall piece because – the bully ball stuff he was doing really to the last couple of months that I thought was really good.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like I actually liked the way he was playing the last like few weeks of the season, but you're not going to be able to do that against this Lakers team. And if you're going to do the, I'm ramming my body into dudes, you just, this, this is like the bulkiest weirdest frontline. You're not, you're not bullying any of those guys on the team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And honestly, not against Luka. Luka's a big dude. It's not going to work in the same way. Like, the way it's worked with him, it's always like the smaller guys, you know, the 6'6", small forwards. So, and he always feels like he has to be involved. I don't think he'd be like, this isn't the game for me. I'm going to get everyone else involved. He's just not like that.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
There's bigger questions with them, though, because I just don't think the Durant trade is going to solve a lot of the stuff that's going on here. I don't know what his value is heading into his 19th season with the surgeries he's had and just the aging curve of the league where basically only LeBron has been able to stay at a top 15 level past a certain season. So I don't know.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I do like the matchup for Minnesota though. The go bear pieces. That's the one that I, I just can't figure out how he affects the series. I don't think you can play him in crunch time against that weird really light up that the Lakers have. They're just going to space them out.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
That's where deep Vincenzo becomes important too. It's just another creator who you can put in picks with people and just trying to chase him. McDaniels is a real wild card for me because if you catch the T-Wolves on the right night, he looks good. And when he looks good, they look really good. But, you know, the Nas Reed, he's basically a better version of Rui, right?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Ant could do a reasonable facsimile of Lucas' stats. maybe not the rebounds, but he, you know, at least kind of match the points and you go on down the line and you could make the case.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I just think the thing that worries me, if I'm a Minnesota fan, it's the same thing that would worry me as a Cooper fan, the way the first round structured and you have all these breaks between games, that's going to really help the nuggets. The nuggets are gonna be able to play other guys, 40 plus their top five will move 40 plus minutes a game. what do they care?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
The three days off after you run those guys in the ground and same thing for the Lakers. The fact that they're going to be able to play LeBron and Luca big minutes and not have to worry about it. I just think, I also feel like they've JJ's completely figured out how to stagger the minutes in the best ways. Now, when you watch them, they always have offense.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I don't know what they get for him. I don't know who's trading for that $55 million contract.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's 48 minutes and everybody's involved in the right ways. And, uh, you know, um,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
not to do the first take kind of angle on the game, but this is such an interesting LeBron series because they're going to throw a shitload of stuff at Luca and they might be okay with like the LeBron step back 25 footers every once in a while, or LeBron trying to barrel into the paint against Rudy and things like that. Not, I'm just interested to see how he plays it.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And if, is he more facilitator LeBron? Is he more, we need my offense LeBron. There's a Reeves piece of this. where sometimes when they play certain teams, it's like, you know what? Reeves is our best option here for the next five minutes that they've been really good about just letting it, giving them the car keys. I wonder if that still happens in the playoffs in the same way though.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He'd be delighted if that,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Everybody seems terrified about second apron being locked into numbers. They have contracts that are, you know, going up on their own team. And then you're just adding this and just people don't have the salary to, to move. And then the sons are handicapped by all these things where they can only take one contract back for Durant, unless there's like these other side trades.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Look, you're playing the Lakers in a playoff series. You're just not going to get as many calls as them. It's just a fact. I don't mean to be a dick, but... Well, yeah, they're first in free throw rate. LeBron and Luka are the two hardest guys in the league to officiate for different reasons. So you have that piece. Conversely... Luka's been a little on tilt since the trade.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And you and I saw it in person when we went to that game. What was that game when he started just talking to people?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
If I was Minnesota, if Minnesota hired me for conciliar and they were like, give us some advice. How do you think we win this series? I would say, Les Conley, fuck with Luke every game. Just try to agitate him. And I don't mean it's going to like fuck with him like he's going to play badly. He gets caught up in it. He's still not mature as a player.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like he doesn't like when people talk back to him. He doesn't like when people complain about they fouled Luka and the ref called it. They didn't think they fouled him. They start talking to the ref and Luka will just start talking to the guy like, you fouled me. Stop being a dick.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I think the guys on this team with Ant, with Alexander Walker, with McDaniels, I think they can get in a mind game with him where then you want Luka in this situation where he's just like, oh, I'm going to show them. And then you're throwing the Lakers off balance. If the Lakers stay smart, they're going to beat Minnesota, I think.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
If it starts to become like macho shit, like I think Minnesota could beat them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Do you think Randall can guard LeBron?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I think it's gonna be really hard to trade them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He's going to have to. But do you think he can actually, like, Because I feel like physically, I don't think LeBron will be able to overpower him. But I also could see him pulling Randall out and just going by him and getting 2,000.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
No, we hit everything. It was the right amount of Dallas-Sacramento talk. I'm sorry, guys. Sorry, Dallas and Sacramento.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I have. I have. I missed you. You're one of my favorites. Don't tell any of the other media members, but you are one of my favorites, my go-tos on the podcast to read, everything like that. But I also just enjoy bumping into you when we're at the same arena.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Got it right off the bat. I think the most interesting place to start is Paulo and Franz. Look in the three games that they've played against Atlanta. They've combined for 61.3 points. Like, that's a pretty big number. They need to kick that up a little bit, I think. Just like you said, the offense is a little bit tough. Franz hasn't shot it well from three.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
But I think it's going to be a really interesting battle for them. And I'm very curious how the Hawks will try to slow those guys down because they don't seem to have an answer for Paolo or for Franz in the way they're doing. I know Dyson Daniels is doing all that he can. But for the most part, like, this is a difficult matchup for the Hawks in general. It's going to be tough, Zach.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, I'm actually watching the way Trey works. Like you brought up Trey. This has been one of those years where she's actually had a poor shooting year. But I think this has been my favorite Trey Young year for the most part because he's more accepted the role. We talk about Donovan Mitchell kind of taking a step back.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He's kind of taken a little bit of a step back in the sense of like, I don't have to be fully involved. Now, this was bigger when they had Jalen Johnson healthy and they were able to kind of run Trey a little, work Trey more off ball or whatnot. But I think him embracing that has been fun. I think the thing I'm really going to just keep an eye on is just how will they continue to match that up?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
How will they attack this really tough Orlando defense? Because everywhere you look, I just feel like it's a nightmare for Trey. There's not a lot of places for them to attack over and over again. I know we'll do high pick and roll a bunch. We'll try to find ways to get Trey into the lane, try to find the lobs or whatnot. But the length that this Orlando team has is, it's really difficult.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Like I just find it. It's just all limbs to a large degree where it's like, I don't know how you're going to get the passes through. I don't know how you're going to get shots that are going to be fully uncontested. I even come up with the late contest and with trace size, I'm going to be really interesting to see how the Hawks try to attack them offensively.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Oh, anything else before we get to the other one? No, I think we kind of summed it up there. Did we hit the six-minute mark? Are we good? I don't know. Last thing.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I'm like you said, it's going to come down to the matchups. Who's guarding giddy. Who's guarding bazellus. Who's guarding Kobe white, because that's really where it's coming off. Like giddy is having probably one of the most amazing runs post all-star game that we've seen from a young player in a while where you kind of, kind of left him for dead midway through the season.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
When you looked around going like, man, he's really struggling. Doesn't look like this is the trade looked really bad for the bulls at that point. And then he, goes to another level post all-star game. I mean, when you look at his numbers, 21, averaging 21 points, shooting 50% from the field, 45.7% from three, 10.7 rebounds, 9.3 assists. That's like, Pretty solid numbers right there.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I think that's been, his resurgence has really kind of lifted the bulls up. Kobe White's been steady, kind of just the way he's been. This is who we kind of see from Kobe White. I'm excited for Bezelis. The way he ended the last game against the Heat, knocking down a couple of big threes.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
By the way, Tyler Hero pulling up for three when he had a wide open layup with the team down five, with about five, with about like 50 seconds left. I get it, but I'm also like, take the two.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I thought they should have traded him in February when they had the chance before he found out about the trade. And it felt like there was a Miami possibility. He's squash golden state. But I, from what I understand in the second apron, first apron, all of it's so confusing. I think it's funny that you mentioned the Ishby apart where he's like, everybody's digging. I'm zagging.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, no, because the problem is what happened right after that, because then Bezelis hits a corner three and outputs the Bulls. Now you're into just such a six point swing where you're just like, oh, wow, this this one really put us in a hole. I think this is going to be just a fun game, though. I think it's going to be a matter of styles.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
This is going to be the Bulls trying to run up and down the court and then the heat trying to slow them down. It's going to just be it. That's going to be the deciding factor in this game for me. really is just going to come down to if the bulls continue to play fast, I think the heater cooked and going home. And it's been kind of a blast season for them. I think they're ready to kind of end it.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And for the flip side of it, if the heat are able to slow the bulls down, keep this in the half court, I think they'll find more ways to attack the bulls and, and pull off the win and continue this long season for them.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
People are afraid of the second apron. What if you're not afraid? And then you just go off a cliff. Is there a third apron? Yeah. What if we went over the seventh apron? I don't... From what I understand, it's impossible to trade Durant for multiple players for them. They can't take... multiple guys back in a trade, correct?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I think this is going to be a fun game within the no offense to Atlanta, Orlando. I'm kind of hyped for this one because I think we're going to have a fun one. I think that last game was a lot of fun. The battle back and forth. I think this is going to be interesting when you the thing that scares me when you have to depend on Wiggins is that just never seems to go the way you hope. Right.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's the Wiggins has big games and moments where you're kind of like, oh, Yeah, that's right. Okay. Like he can do this. And then on the games where you're like, we need to have you tonight. We have to have you tonight. He tends to not show up, you know, and it worries me. And there's a lot of times where there's games where I just go, I'm watching the heat going like, oh yeah, that's right.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
They have Andrew Wiggins. You know, he's just there and around and it's, and that's the thing. They can't have that. Like he's the X factor for me. I had it written in my notes for the heat in this game, this one game, he's gotta be a monster. He's gotta be the way he attacked the, the,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
warriors in the the miami uh golden state game a few weeks back like that's got to be wiggins tonight or tomorrow that's got to be him he's got to be aggressive he's got to look to take take his shots he's got to look to attack the matchups if he doesn't i think the heat are going to be in trouble hey look it's one game we're doing all this allegedly good analysis of the game
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Were you worried about getting banned?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Right. So I think what they would have to do is you have a team that's under the cap. They trade Durant. They get a guy coming back who's making like $27 million, but the team's so far under the cap, they can absorb. So that's probably like a Miami situation. But I don't know if you're Miami, like what is trading for Kevin Durant do for you?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, I actually want to lead off with Cade and the matchups because I think that's one of those things. I went back and watched a bunch of his buckets against the Knicks. And Zach, he gave it to everybody. It wasn't just Cat. I mean, they would start out with Mikael Bridges on him. I think that's how they're going to start out when they open the series. I think that's going to be the thing.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He torched him. I mean, we know, listen, Jalen Brunson, Kat, we understand the pick and rolls. We know that he, but then, you know, they put hard on him. No problem. Torched him. They put OG on him, gave him buckets. Like when you're watching this stuff and I'm looking at it.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
can't, can't hang with him in that sense. You know, when you look at the way he's scoring against the Knicks, he's averaging 30 points and it's, this is the crazier stuff. 56% from the field, 52% from three on top of diamond, everybody up with 8.3 assists like that. Those are great numbers. When you're going into the playoff series, you're going, this is we're excited. We have this guy.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
But even then, it's switch and then into the traps or what are we doing? Are we trapping him as soon as he crosses half court? I know there's going to be a million adjustments throughout the course of the series, but I want to know what's the primary way they start out.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Because the one thing we know from what we saw in the regular season is one-on-one, they don't seem to have somebody that can really slow Cade down.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
If you're able to keep Bam and Tyler here on Kevin Durant, are you a top four team in the East? Are you a title contender? Like that's where I really lose the narrative with this. And the only team that really seems like they have a chance, if that can talk themselves into it, depending on how these first round goes. And that's, I think the biggest piece of this is Houston.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah. I think that's an interesting one there. And this is going to be the fun wrinkle stuff that we're going to see through the course of the, the suit. This is why I love the playoffs. Cause it's all the chess match. It's game three is my favorite one through all every playoff game. Cause then we get to see what adjustments are being made after two games.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I think that's going to be the, that would be one of the first adjustments we can expect from the Pistons, right? Is let's adjust the, the cat matchup. We don't like how it's going. with our big on him. And then you kind of switch it around and you're moving guys around with what you have.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It gets really interesting though, because the Knicks top five, like you just highlighted how Hart takes advantage of it. You know, when you put a big on him, I just don't know where else to put during at that point. Right. Like, you know, you put them on heart.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
If Houston, it goes badly. And they're like, oh, we're not as close as we thought. What we really need is a veteran scorer. Then all of a sudden, Durant's looking pretty sexy for them. But that's the thing. I don't think we know who the team is yet because we still have to see how disappointed teams are going to be over how the next three weeks go.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
No, I don't know if you could be a bad defensive team when you have Bridges, OG and Josh Hart playing the number of minutes that they're playing. Now, maybe it might be too much, but like you're you're those are three good defensive players. Like I know they're making up for they're trying to make up for Cat and Brunson. But, like, those are three solid defensive players.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
That's part of the reason why when I was going back and watching the K stuff, kind of shocked, realizing, like, wow, there's nobody that's been able to stop K to kind of put K on another level in my mind. But I think you're in a situation when you're Detroit, it's, okay, then... Do we go small? Like, that's really the next question.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Do we drop down in size and then put, you know, Harris on cat and try to attack that way? I'm not sure that's a matchup. I'm going to be really comfortable with, or that's when cat, that's when cat to his credit this year.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, everything the Knicks wanted when they traded for it, they got from Cat. Like, I don't know the expectations could be anything else. They got exactly what they expected from Cat this season. Unbelievable offense. Oh, questionable defense. I'm going to be nice. And I think that's the stuff that you're getting with him.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
But then that puts Detroit in that difficult position. Like, I know there's a whole push now of like, everybody's talking about Detroit being the team that can create the upset and everything. But it's a really tough, that top five, I like to do when I go to playoff series is look at, all right, who are the best five players in the series and which team has the most, right?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I, you know, just my rankings and you could quibble with it and throw things around. I got Brunson one, K2, and that was really close. That one, I wouldn't even... different mood. I might even switch it. Then I have cat OG and bridges. So the Knicks have four of the top five in the series. Like I don't, and I'm not trying to slight the guys on Detroit.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's just, I would take all those guys before I'd go to the next Detroit piston. And I think that's the challenge that the pistons have in this series is they're, they're deeper, but they're top level talent after Cade worries me.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Golden State could lose the playing game to Memphis and play Oklahoma City and just get swept. And we're going to be like, what's Golden State going to do? Who knows? Yeah.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I guess just two quick ones. You know, one, we got to talk a little bit how Malik Beasley has kind of been the, the, the veteran guy. Yeah. Give me the whole deal, but he's been kind of like the, the veteran fighter for them. That's kind of been that guy. I didn't expect that coming into this season, you know, credit to him in that sense.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I just want the over under on how many altercations are we going to have with Ron Holland and Stuart on the floor with the Knicks? I'm just curious. Are we going to have a couple of fireworks with those guys? I, I,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, is that... I think three other guys we can think of for Houston that would be more interesting and younger than Durant.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Well, I prepped with him not playing, so I'm the pessimist between the two of us in the situation. I want to start actually with not Ryan Rollins, but it's Kevin Porter Jr., right? Like that's the guy that's going to matter for them. You know, we, we know what you're going to get from Giannis and all that, but it's where else does the play creation come from after Giannis?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I think it's got to come from him. You know, I listen to getting Bobby Portis back at the right time with everything. And, and he's been good in his three games back, but when you're watching everything, it's the athleticism that you get from Porter, which is something that the bucks have been missing for a while is just having a little more athleticism on the perimeter and,
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I think just his ability to kind of attack defenses is going to be real critical for the bucks in this series. Cause they're going to need to be very offensive forward in this game. This is going to be a fast paced series because that's the way the Pacers want to play. They weren't as fast as they were last year, but I think they finished seventh this year in pace.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And I think that's just the way they want to go is they want to fly. We've seen it. What's Halliburton gets cooking. They're going up and down the court and they got to be able to run in this track meet. And I think that's why you need to have guys like Porter playing a big role for the bucks. They're really going to be a threat in the series. He's got to have a huge series.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
You know, it's not like Dallas has a ton of picks either. So in that one, you're almost looking at Kyrie, who's not playing next year anyway. Maybe he's in the trade and you give an asset or two. But that's just not enough for Kevin Durant. I'd rather keep him at that point.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah. I think it's, it's not just everything you mentioned with Siakam and the Turner and the Halliburton game.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, and then he's going to – and, you know, he's strong. Like, he does a pretty good job trying to hold up as much as he can against the Greek freak who's rightfully named that. But I think offensively it's finding those other pieces that can make the Bucs hurt.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
in ways that they're not ready for when they rotate, when they, they're going to focus defensively on Halliburton Siakam and the Turner pick and pops. Like that's what you're going to do. If you're Milwaukee, you need these other guys to knock down shots, to make plays smart cuts, work the dunker spot, whatever it is, all those guys, it's knee Smith, it's them hard. It's OB top.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And when he comes into games, it's going to be really interesting to see how the Pacers sort of say, cool, you're going to try to take this away. We're going to hurt you with this. And if they start to hurt them, then how do the bucks respond with like, we're giving up way too much to the other guys. How do we kind of level this thing off a bit? It's, this is a tough one for Milwaukee.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
This is going to be a tough puzzle for them to solve. I don't, I don't know if I'm a, very high on it for them. I think this is a, one that's going to be really challenging for doc in terms of just the equations, you know, when you're, what cards can you play? And I think they're going to run out of cards quicker than the Pacers.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, and I think it's really the one thing I hope is we continue this becoming a rivalry. I do hope we get a couple of ballgates. I do hope we get a couple more issues there. I like this being repeat series sort of become create rivalries, in my opinion. And I think that's something we're hoping we'll get out of this. But I just think it's too much to overcome if you don't have Dame.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He's so important to you offensively. He's your secondary creator. He's your guy that you, you guys, you, you put too much focus on Giannis. He'll drop 30 on you. No problem. You know, and then start hitting you with the Dame time signals and all those things. Like it becomes a really just difficult scenario for the bucks without Dame. It's going to be challenging.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's like half-hearted breaking news. I don't think it was breaking news that made any of us go, oh my God, and drop the coffee cup, you know, Kaiser Soze style. These were two we expected. My question is, is there going to be more after this? Two coach fires, Boone Ulzer, New Orleans Queens house. Is there another one we're not expecting?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
This is one of those things where you were talking about it, where, Hey, a team's really good at this, but the other team doesn't focus on it. Like that's kind of the opposite for me with the Pacers and the bucks, like all the stuff the Pacers want to do actually already hurts the bucks, you know, and they can take stuff away from Milwaukee.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I think the switching of the four or five pick and roll with the honest and, and Lopez and stuff, not great, but, but they're probably better equipped to handle it than most teams in the league with Siakam and Turner. And I think that's the stuff that you're going to have to really deal with. And then your wear down Giannis would just appear effective. He's got to do everything in this series.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
He's got to be a monster on both ends of the court. He's got to create for everybody on top of getting 30 each night. At a certain point, that wears you down. And then with this game being a fast-paced series, you know, in my opinion, where the Pacers, if they control the tempo, you're really struggling.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And then, you know, I, I just don't know how the bucks really can fully compete, especially if they don't have Dame.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I mean, that goes with the transition defense, right? That's how they cut down the frequency of transition defense. Yeah.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
I got a whole lot going on now, Zach. I have my Twitch stream, which will be mostly Monday through Thursday in the mornings. But if we get some great games through the playoffs, which we will, I might just pop on live in emergency one. I will be doing the for the play in tournament. I will be doing a pregame show on the NBA app with Alexis Morgan and Zach Harper.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
So, yeah, so we'll be doing that all this week. And then I'm actually jumping into the podcast game again. I'm just starting a podcast with Jared Dubin. Our first pod will come out later this week, Drive and Dish. So look for that wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, that's a year and a half injury.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And you have Daniels. They got him. Oh, no.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Yeah, it's weird. I remember when we were at Grantland, Denver was like this. But Denver was more successful than New Orleans. But Denver had all these assets, but the roster didn't totally make sense together. And there was no real trade for them to make because they're basically just slightly upgrading every position they had where they had solid guys. But you also knew it wasn't a title team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And New Orleans was a version of that. But they just, you know, they got decimated by injuries. The Daniels trade is really, really rough. You know, and maybe it made sense because they had Herb Jones and they had Trey Murphy. But they're in this weird spot that happens sometimes where you have a lot of assets, but the assets don't make sense together, right? And what do you do at that point?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
Well, you keep your fingers crossed that Zion's going to play. Well, there's no more unreliable playing risk in the league other than Joel Embiid. And they kind of tied themselves to him. And combined with the Danos trade, that was it for Griffin. But you go back. Rossell has always talked about this. You go back and look at all the drafts they've made, the drafts.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
They've drafted probably as well as any team in the league. Misi is going to be a good pick.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And then Daniels, they got at nine. That came from the Lakers trade. But the big one, the big... carrot in that trade was like, we're going to be able to have this pick in 24, 25. LeBron will be gone by then. Nobody's played that long. The Lakers are going to be irrelevant. So then they have the choice last year to keep it or not. They roll it over, which I think was the right move.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
It's like, I thought the Lakers, I didn't think they were going to be a playoff team this year. And if David, if they hadn't made that Luca trade and Davis had gotten hurt, like he did midway through the season, I don't think that would have been a playoff team, but I think the bets were right. And it just didn't work out. And then the Lakers get Luka Doncic.
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
And now, you know, they're the third seed. So you had this pick that you were like, this would be one of the best parts of the Davis trade. what's it going to be like 23rd?
The Zach Lowe Show
Zach’s Mega-Playoff Preview! Reaction to Breaking News, Plus All the Action Out West With Bill Simmons, and Eastern Previews With Mo Dakhil.
like really legitimately critical about them, about big picture. How are they handled? Why are so many guys on the team getting hurt? But then also you look at stuff like the Trey Murphy extension last year, where they don't do it when they should have done it. So then this happens over and over again with any NBA player who's eligible for an extension.