The Ryen Russillo Podcast
Julius Randle’s Playoff Turnaround. Plus, Mike Breen on Where Brunson Ranks as a Knick, His Favorite Broadcasting Moments, and Being the Voice of the NBA.
Thu, 15 May 2025
Russillo starts the show by looking back at the Julius Randle trade and explaining his importance to the Timberwolves down the stretch (1:19). Then, he’s joined by Mike Breen to discuss watching Jalen Brunson play, his early broadcasting career, and the best moments he’s called (19:07). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle (53:58)! Is it weird to wear my friend’s clothes? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mike Breen Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias Get anything delivered on Uber Eats. www.ubereats.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What was the impact of the Julius Randle trade on the Timberwolves' playoff success?
And just another aside, it's just... I don't know how many more Steph playoff runs we're even going to get. So, just awful. Like, it sucks that we didn't get to see him at least out there competing. But I still probably would have picked Minnesota in this series. So...
Those closing stages that I've referenced a lot, as I try to, as I'm sure you do if you're really into it, and you're like, all right, who's been better since the All-Star break? What have you looked like your last 20 games? Is this stuff real? Is it fake? What are they doing as far as their schedule? Are they playing all tanking teams?
Is it a nice close in the East against 80% of the teams that don't want to win games for those last weird stretches of the regular season? Can I be fooled by some of this stuff? Well, I'll get to Minnesota here in a second because we know that they close at 17-4. They close on the 17-4 run, and there's some really good stats in there as well. Well, the Clippers are 18-5 with a No.
2 net rating in the NBA behind only OKC. And when you have that kind of run for a team that feels like it's kind of stuck in neutral for months, you wonder, is there anything specific that's different about this team? Or is the same group of 7-8 guys just playing that much better? Or, again... Is it the schedule? Stupid. But with the Clippers, there was a real definitive thing you could point to.
Kawhi Leonard was back, and he was back playing much bigger minutes. Now, he returned February 2nd, but March was more minutes and far more production. It looked real. That Cleveland regular season win for the Clippers, you're like, all right, and guess what? Out in the first round. The Pacers finished 17-7.
But I think the most important part of it, this is a defense last year for Indiana that finished 18th after the All-Star break. So it wasn't just bad all year. It was bad in the second half where you can try to see if something's getting a little bit better because that is the example that we saw with the Pacers this year. They were eighth on defense after the All-Star break.
They had a really nice record. The East was different because you had teams that felt like they didn't want to win. I don't even know that Toronto wanted to win, and they just played too good a defense the second half of the season to lose as many games as they need to to move up in the lottery.
Probably one of the most impressive things that I've seen from the Pacers, at least in these playoffs, is the fact that they would close out Cleveland at their place, get down big early, and you're thinking, is Cleveland going to finally get this right and be competitive in these games? And yes, that was a very competitive game, but for the Pacers to outlast them once again and on the road,
After being down big, I don't know that it's scary stuff for the rest of the playoff field, but that shows you something. That shows you something where a lot of teams in that spot are like, look, we're still up, commanding lead. They're a little banged up. We're good. We're in their heads. We'll just go back and get this one at home, and let's not try hard tonight.
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Chapter 2: How does Ryen Russillo analyze the Timberwolves' playoff performance and key players?
I think Oklahoma City going in was going to win the series. There have been moments where I've wondered, but now the last couple of fourth quarters and closing those out have gone Oklahoma City's way. There's the clutch stuff that was brought up during the broadcast of Game 4, and you kept thinking, does it mean? Because it sounds really good, right?
Oklahoma City's only played in 24 clutch games this year. That is the least in the NBA. That means they are not comfortable, and the team is younger. At some point, that has to not be true, that they're just always with five minutes to go within five points going to suck. And that was the case clearly in games one and three. It's like, what's wrong with this team?
But I just think when you're this good and every other number tells you that you're really good defensively, you're really good offensively, you have all these different options, even if we talked about it. The SGA part of it where, you know, the players around the league are like, I'm just going to trap SGA. The other guys are going to have to shoot and it's not going to work out.
You saw big grown up moments from Chet and Jalen Williams, specifically that Jalen Williams three at the very end of game five. That makes you go. All right. The Thunder may have figured these things out.
So playing a number right now doesn't feel great because very clearly Denver could win this by 10 at home, home court, the whole thing, heart of a champion, Jokic best player in the world, all that kind of stuff. I do think there's something some value to and talking about like. SGA is probably going to win MVP, and you can go, hey, he had the better season.
I hope no one that watches basketball watches these two guys and thinks for a moment that SGA is actually the better player between Jokic. And being at the Combine, too, and it comes up with other people that work in this world, work in the league, over and over and over again, being like, how is it? You have a vote? Did you vote for SGA? I'm like, relax. Relax. Anyway, let's get to the pick.
So I'm going to go Denver plus the four and a half. I'm going to go Jokic three or more made threes, but I'm gonna have Chet Holmgren in there with a little boost of 10 plus points. So a totally reachable number from Chet. The last one we gave you the only one that missed, um, We didn't want to lay the 10 points, so we were right there.
So we went OKC Moneyline, but we went 15 points or more with Murray and Gordon. And Murray hit it. Gordon ended up at 13 points. So feel good about the process. Feel good about this process as well. Chet's got to be able to give you 10. Jokic, three or more made threes is a little dicer than you'd think, but you still have a huge boost on just not – Straight money here on Nuggets plus 4.5.
You're getting it at plus 4.13. So that is the way we're looking at this. Whether you're betting three-pointers, home runs, or goals, or birdies, FanDuel's got markets across every sport and every game. And the best part, when you win, you'll get paid instantly. So check it out. FanDuel's where your parlay gets paid even bigger. Head to FanDuel.com slash Ryan, R-Y-E-N to get started.
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