On Sat.'s No Dunks, Solo Skeets recaps last night's two Game 3s: The Cavaliers finally looking like the Eastern Conference's top team, why "Playoff Mitchell" is a deserving (but tricky) nickname, Evan Mobley's defensive presence, Max Strus slowing Tyrese Haliburton, the Nuggets' other championship trio — Gordon, Murray, MPJ — carrying the load, OKC's inexperience showing down the stretch, Nikola Jokic cosplay, and more. Happy Wedgie Day!▶️ Join our Playback room: https://www.playback.tv/nodunks👕 Fix up, look sharp in some No Dunks merch: https://nodunks.com📈 Subscribe to No Dunks on YouTube: YouTube.com/nodunksinc𝕏 Follow No Dunks on Twitter/X: https://x.com/NoDunksInc Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What happened in the NBA games last night?
For one, and if I want to be greedy, two wedgies, because we've got two games on today. Let's get one in each game, and that would get us to 50, because we've been stuck on 48 for a very, very long time now. So let's do it. A Madison Square Garden wedgie, and then a wedgie in the other series that I'm literally drawing a blank on right now. Oh yeah, the Wolves series. So hopefully we get that.
Let's get into last night's games. That's enough of me rambling. And it's cool to see everybody here on a Saturday, again, in the chat. I guess we'll tackle these in order. Yeah, why not? And I'll throw this up for everybody. I am producing here behind the scenes as well. But Donovan Mitchell scoring 43. Cavs beat the Pacers 126-104. So it turned out into a blowout in the end.
They cut the series deficit 2-1. So they still trail. The road team hot in this series. The home team can't win a game. But I thought last night... Cavs looked a lot more like the Eastern Conference's top team for a majority of that game. And I'll get into the guys coming back, but I think you still got to start with Donovan Mitchell, who, yeah, he got some help.
But this guy posted his second straight 40-point game to get Cleveland to the victory. He finished with 43 points, 14-29 shooting, 9 boards, 5 assists, and really, like, the final score does and was a bit of a blowout. But... Donovan Mitchell refused to let another fourth quarter lead slip away. Because the Pacers, despite trailing a lot for a majority of the game, I think they got it to 11.
Correct me if I'm wrong. It was 9 or 11. But, you know, it was reasonable there in the fourth quarter. And Mitchell shut the damn door. He hit a little fadeaway from about 12 or 13 feet. Then he stepped up, hit a pull-up three-pointer. That was huge. And then I think he found Max Struess for another three-pointer.
So making all the right plays and sort of ended any sort of potential Pacers comeback. to get them the win. But this guy, this guy is one of the greatest scorers in playoff history. I believe he ranks like top 10 in terms of points per game in the playoffs. And it was like, I was thinking about it when I was making the thumbnail for this show. It's like, we obviously have playoff Jimmy.
Jimmy Butler, who did some pretty miraculous things in taking some sort of subpar teams and lower-seeded teams and raising his game to the finals. Obviously didn't win the big thing, but he obviously got there, and that was huge. Warranted the nickname Playoff Jimmy. We have Playoff Murray. Or playoff Jamal. You sort of see both with Jamal Murray, who we'll get to later in this podcast.
That one makes sense. Obviously never an all-star. His numbers like balloon in the postseason. He got the title along with Jokic. He's had huge shots and big like 50-point games and all that. But for whatever reason, we don't have the moniker playoff Mitchell or playoff Donovan. And I guess, I think there's three reasons.
The first, as I went through with the other guys, like Mitchell's never made it past the second round. So I think that's part of the equation, right? You got to get to conference finals. You got to get to finals to really warrant that playoff nickname. The other part is, it doesn't sound as cool. Like when you look at it and when you say it, like playoff Jimmy, that's gold.
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Chapter 2: Who is Playoff Mitchell and why is he significant?
Him and his Twin Tower buddy, Jared Allen, who had 19 points, 12 boards. They allowed, especially Mobley, Kenny Atkinson, throw a lot of 3-2 zone at the Pacers. And it made Indiana look pretty stagnant. Took away that zip that we've fallen in love with from that Pacers team. And sort of helped take away the three-point shot of the Pacers as well. Indy shot 9-30 from deep.
Halliburton only one three-point attempt in this game. And I got more to say about him. But Mobley... I mean, that's the difference maker. Obviously, he was like throwing down some lobs as well. He had a few where he fumbled out of bounds. And again, there was maybe a little rust or whatever, but I thought the ankle looked good.
I thought he looked pretty explosive, both offensively, like I said, with the lobs and defensively moving around and taking care of the glass. And he really allowed Kenny Atkinson and the Cavs to sort of implement that zone because you got him in the middle and he's a hell of a good defensive player. I mean, DPOY for crying out loud.
Cavs just dominated the Pacers on the glass, especially with their two bigs back in the lineup. I think in the first half, Indy had like two offensive rebounds, four second chance points. Cleveland, at the same time, 13 offensive rebounds, 21 second chance points. So, you know, that helped them get the big lead. It didn't get much better in the second half for Indiana.
It was like a little bit better, but they were dominated on the glass. I thought this was, you know, one of Miles Turner's sort of like worst games. Like the box score doesn't look brutal.
i mean actually i take that back it's not good 15 points he got some free throws he hit one three but like no rebounding three boards for miles turner that's going to be a problem yeah he picked up a couple blocks but a lot of fouls as well they were frustrated pacers in this game i think they had five technical fouls um and that was you know credit to the cast obviously it was like do or die their season was on the line if they go down three oh they're not coming back um so they needed this one those guys play they play through injuries
You know, I think they had been getting maybe some eye rolling in the media of like, guys, I get it. Banged up thumbs, twisted ankles. Okay, the toe injury, which I'm sure is very severe and very painful. And I'm saying all these injuries are, but there are other guys going through this stuff. We know of it. We've seen it.
And it's at this point, it's like you might just have to play through the pain a little bit. And just like the mental boost, I think that gives your other guys on the roster like, damn, this guy's going to play through this. We know how injured he is. That may be sort of like spread throughout the locker room. And they contributed too.
I mean, there's still, Evan Mobley at 80% is still better than anyone else on the Cavs bench. So there's that part as well. So it was cool to see those guys play. And I think we do have a series here now if they can continue to play and nobody else really gets all that injured. Back to Halliburton. Four points, two of eight shooting, only five assists, three turnovers.
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Chapter 3: What were the key performances in the Cavaliers vs. Pacers game?
Nothing easy. And a little more physicality from this team. And maybe they were allowed to do that, the Cavs thought, because they had some guys back and some bodies back and some more minutes and you could play a little harder. So I thought Strews did an incredible job on Halliburton. It was weird to see Halliburton. That was a big disappearing act.
And you had like sort of Matherin trying his best to keep a minute at times. Siakam had his moments in this game, but overall, I mean, Halliburton is what makes the Pacers go, even if he's not a guy that's going to score 30 or 40. For him to have one three-point attempt to obviously have... close to as many turnovers as assists. That's just a huge, huge win. So good job by Strews and the Cavs.
My other note, on the negative side of things for Cleveland, despite the win, Ty Jerome struggled again last night. This guy... I think that the minutes, you don't want to lose him completely and you're not going to bench him by any means because maybe he pops off. But he had two points last night, one of eight shooting. I think he only played 13 minutes.
That's got to be one of his shortest stints in a very long time.
so kenny atkinson is pulling that back a little bit because he can't hit a shot he's 10 of 42 through three games so something to keep an eye on whether those you know minutes stay around there diminish a little bit and you know they go to a couple other guys and you're you were helped out by hunter obviously giving you at least 20 off the bench who was fine you know he's again he's gonna out there for defensive purposes he hit one three and
And it was okay. It looked like a guy that maybe had a buggered thumb. So maybe it'll get better as we go on. But good win. Sort of fun that the Cavs got this, I think, because we want these series to go long. How amazing would it be if we get four game sevens in the second round? So Cavs making it interesting.
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Moving on to the second game from last night. Entertaining. Overtime. I was going to say thriller, but I don't think you need to throw thriller on there. Because we had some potential huge game-winning shots at the end that didn't go down. Got to overtime in the Nuggets. It was one of those classic overtimes. We see this so many times where it's like just one team rolls.
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Chapter 4: How did Evan Mobley impact the Cavaliers' game?
And he would have had way more assists if some of these guys could have hit some shots, too. But... He really was, like, confident, of course, the guy is, that he was going to be the one to close the door. And there was, like, two or three guys draped all over him. And he was, like, you know, the whistle was tight for them. And he wasn't getting to the free throw line all that much.
I think he only had five free throw attempts in the game. So good job by Denver to, like, not bite on a lot of things, keep your hands up, move your feet. I'm just double checking. Yeah, three of five SGA at the line. So that's a win in and of itself. But... Yeah, he just forced it. I thought he was just forcing some weird shots. And this guy's like definition of cool and fluid and smooth.
And he was the opposite down the stretch last night. So again, it was J-Dub hitting all the big shots and maybe a little bit more of him. And they pull off game three victory. But SGA walking off the court had the huge smile on his face, sort of creepy. It's like, what does this guy know? He said it was his reaction to, like, taunting from Nuggets fans.
And, you know, again, he's a cool cucumber, this guy. And he talked about it in the postgame comments, stuff like that. So his confidence I don't think is going to waver. You know, both of these guys, Yo Kitchen, SGA, you know, you should never gamble because you'll probably just lose. But whatever their line is in terms of points or totals for points, rebounds, assists, like,
I feel pretty good hitting the over in the next game, despite the defensive effort from both teams and trying to just take those guys away. And maybe this is going to be a series where it is the other guys that have to come through. One of the guys that did, Aaron Gordon, game time three, 28 seconds left. Did Chet just fall asleep and just lose him?
Like took his eyes off him and Gordon wisely went to the corner. It got swung over to him. He was wide open. Holmgren obviously tried to close out, but way too late. He bangs it home because the guy can't miss. You know, just everybody go live in a basketball gym and we'll all make the NBA.
Aaron Gordon's third game tying or go-ahead bucket in the final 30 seconds of the fourth quarter during these playoffs, including the game winning three in game one of this series. Guy's clutch right now. And it's at the point where it's like, when that got swung to him and he was wide open, it's like, that's it. Like, what are they doing? Like, this guy, he's got all the confidence in the world.
So, Gordon, Jamal Murray, and the one-armed man, Michael Porter Jr. I thought they all rose to the occasion. They carried Joker. Michael Porter Jr., in the first half especially, was the one scoring. He finished with 21 points, 8 boards. Gordon, 22, 8, and 5. And then Murray... Jamal Murray. Playoff Murray. Playoff Jamal. 27 points, 8 assists, 4 steals. He had some beautiful plays in this game.
That jelly layup that he had in the third quarter, I think it was. A thing of beauty. He hit a jumper late in the game. I think it was a rule to two, if I remember correctly. It was close to the three-point line. He had Hartenstein on an island. And he banged that one home in the corner. And then probably the biggest play, sort of like...
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Chapter 5: What were the struggles faced by the Pacers?
And it felt like Jamal, I know he did it, I'm exaggerating, but it felt like he switched hands like five times and then finished at Dort over the rim. And that sort of was like the one that I think sort of was the nail in the coffin at that point in the game, especially with how the Nuggets defense was locked in in overtime. So great game from those three. These are all champions, man.
They're all champs. Like, yeah, Jokic is the man, but they don't win that title without all three of those guys contributing, you know, in different situations, in different series and stuff like that. So that trio, again, AG, MPJ, and playoff Jamal, 11-17 from three-point range. So huge stuff from them. Really, really, I thought, entertaining game. And this entire postseason is just unreal.
I was at a friend's party last night before the first game. Or at least I got back around halftime and caught up. And these are some casual NBA fans. But man, everyone was like, how awesome are these playoffs? Like, how sick are these games? All these comebacks, huge shots, feels like every night. And a lot of talk was like, this feels wide open too.
So there's like, you know, again, we went over this on Friday's show. It's like, could you make the case that all eight teams could win the title? I think you can make the case for sure, legitimately, that all eight teams could meet in the finals. You know what I mean? There's a path for all of them here. And I think a lot of people get a kick out of that.
So that idea of parity, I guess, right now, at least at this stage, is great. And I'm sure we were helped out by some of the 60-win teams losing a couple games at home. I'm talking Cleveland. I'm talking Boston. You got OKC here, flirting with 70 wins. They now trail in their series, so they got to face some adversity.
Obviously, the Wolves, the Warriors, that sort of, you can convince yourself it can go both ways. Can Curry get back in time? Does he even come back? Because Minnesota, can they take care of business? Anyway, it's awesome. The buzz is real. The casuals are locked in. And it's a great time to be a basketball fan right now. I'm very excited for Game 3 today in Madison Square Garden, Celtics-Knicks.
$2,000?
I'm not probably even exaggerating. It's very expensive, whatever it is. I would be a little fearful if I was a Knicks fan dropping $2,000 on this game. I'm scared. You've got to be a little scared that this is suddenly, maybe like we saw with Cleveland last night, a bit of a beatdown. Maybe the Celtics' three-point tsunami drops. But the Knicks are scrappy, so hopefully it's a close game.
That one's on ABC, and then we've got Wolves-Warriors, Game 3, series tied at 1-1 tonight on ABC. Nice little schedule here. Rainy day here in Atlanta. Won't be doing a whole lot, not hitting a patio or anything, so we'll be locked in for this one and then two more games on Sunday. But we'll call it there. We'll keep it quick. Appreciate you all joining me for 20 or 25 minutes.
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Chapter 6: What happened in the Nuggets' game against the other team?
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