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.
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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.
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5 identifiedMore from The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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