The Zach Lowe Show
Thunder Dominate Game 7, and the Conference Finals Are Set. Full Previews, Plus a Look at Uncertain Offseasons With Howard Beck.
Mon, 19 May 2025
What up, Beck?! Howard and Zach break down OKC’s Game 7 blowout against Denver (1:06). Then they preview the conference finals, beginning with the West (36:45), followed by the East (59:43), before closing with a look at the future of the Boston Celtics (1:30:35). Host: Zach Lowe Guest: Howard Beck Producers: Jesse Aron, Jonathan Frias, and Mike Wargon The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Get started today at HubSpot.com/AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened in OKC's Game 7 blowout against Denver?
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Okay, coming up for those of you who did not catch the YouTube live, shame on you. Just kidding. We got Howard Beck. As always, every other Monday, Howard Beck talking conference finals, fallout in Denver, fallout in Boston, much more. Can't wait for these conference finals. We got some new blood in the NBA. Final four coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show, a podcast.
It's live on YouTube. It's time to say for the millions and millions of people watching on YouTube, the three most anticipated words in niche basketball podcasting on the morning.
After a bummer of a game seven, the Alex Caruso game, the Aaron Gordon gutting it out game, and the morning where we get to think about two delicious conference finals matchup, a seventh NBA champion will be crowned a seven different champion in the last seven years. What up, Beck?
Good morning, Zach. You failed to mention it was also the Jalen Williams game. The J-dub game, lest we get confused. We need a rule in the NBA that you can no longer have two guys with the exact same name on the same roster. It's too confusing.
No, it's the Caruso game because one of the great things about that series was... a little tactical shift in every game. New things tried, old things scrapped, this worked, this didn't. And you had seen glimpses of Caruso guarding Jokic in the previous six games, just glimpses. And that was the card that Mark Dagnall had saved for this game and this moment.
And it was a card that allowed him to play more lineups with Chet Holmgren as the only big man on the floor, which they had feared because Jokic can just beat the hell out of him And Jokic can't beat Dehaan of them if Alex freaking Caruso is guarding Nikola Jokic instead of Chad Holmgren. And it was such an interesting game because OKC gets off to a very skittish start. Everyone's missing threes.
Jalen Williams has a bad turnover, dribbling under the basket, getting caught with nowhere to go, kicks it out to nobody. Kaysen Wallace, short arms, a floater, wide open floater, short arms at almost an air ball. And you're like, oh boy. The moments here and the experienced, tested veteran team looks ready.
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Chapter 2: What are the key matchups in the Western Conference Finals?
I mean, the Nuggets have just gone through almost everything you could imagine, but Since the championship, it's just been this slow erosion to the point where when you are the veteran team with championship experience, but with so few capable bodies left against one of the deepest young teams we've ever seen at this stage of the playoffs in the Thunder, this felt sort of inevitable.
And it's incredible that it got to a game seven at all. And I hope the takeaway... I don't think it will be, but I would hope to take away in Denver, whether it's fans, front office or anybody else is not going to be, well, you know, hey, we got to a game seven. Therefore, we're still that close. Like, I don't think anybody would think that way, but you definitely can't.
I don't I don't think that's a crazy take. They got to game seven against a team that is now, I think, the clear favorite to win the NBA championship. they earned that way to game seven. I think the Thunder should have won in six. Game one was a game they let get away. Game three was a game that they had control of late.
I'm not going to say they let it get away because Denver made some great plays to take it to overtime and then destroyed them in overtime. But this is the second straight year the Nuggets lost in game seven in this same round. One at home, one on the road now.
But I mean, when you consider Aaron Gordon limited at the end, Michael Porter Jr., a total non-factor for six of the seven games of the series, basically playing with one arm. You know, we're going to talk about the future of the Nuggets. The roster has issues, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to say that the core three to four guys are so good together that we are this close.
But we're going to talk about that. Thunder, just you mentioned J-Dub. Great bounce. What a bounce back game. I mean, you want to have the cliche of the young team growing up in the hothouse of the playoffs, responding to the stress that hits them in the face first and getting back off the mat and all that. This was it. This Jalen Williams game was it.
Chet had a decent finish to the series after some shaky games too. And Caruso, I mean, Caruso and Hartenstein, it's going to go down as an all-time offseason for Sam Presti. Those guys, and we've all been saying it since the moment it happened, they were totally additive to this team. Hartenstein especially filled voids that were preexisting.
He took nothing away and rounded out the team and filled holes in their sort of schematic and strategic resume. And Caruso just, I mean, I'm watching this game, looking to the next round and being like, Caruso on Randall is going to be a thing.
And I don't know that they're ever going to be a point where they start Caruso over Hartenstein as they did in the second half of this game for this particular reason. But I don't know how often Alex Caruso can just play a game like that where he's going toe to toe against a giant person and a very physical person. But we're going to see that in the next round.
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Chapter 3: How did injuries impact the Denver Nuggets' performance?
than they were when the Rockets could just be like, hey, Hakeem, go post up. It's either going to be a double team from all the way across the court or single coverage, and that's it. Now Caruso can front Jokic. There can be dudes forming a triangle all around Jokic, blocking every passing angle possible, and they can't get him the ball.
Jokic for the series, 28 points, 14 rebounds, 6 assists, 48% shooting, which is low for him, 54% on twos, 32% on threes. That's mortal. That's mortal great. Mortal great was not going to get it done for a Nuggets team that is paying Dario Saric a lot of money to do nothing. That is paying Zeke Nagy a lot of money to do nothing.
That is paying Russ, the veteran's minimum, to just go completely haywire. And this is the Russ experience. Like, it's good till it's not. And it was not in the first round last year. And it was good in the first round this year. And the Clippers have to be like, I can't even believe that happened. And it was not again in the second round this year.
And it's just not getting anything from the young guys, except for Christian Brown. It feels like Christian Brown has graduated out of that conversation. He's not included with the young guys that Calvin Booth took a shot on. he is one of the young guys that Calvin booth took a shot on.
And that shot has hit so dramatically that we don't lump him in with picket and Tyson and Najee and Strother who had one game Strother, the Strother straights were hopping a grand opening, grand closing in record time for every bar on Strother straights and all those guys. But yeah, It's a good series, but I'm just so tired of this. Like big man X from 1992 would have put this guy in the basket.
Like we're really going to go at Jokic like this. Who's already a three-time MVP already established themselves. One of the greatest players of all time without even having a discussion about like how the rules are different, how little guys, and this is across every team.
If you're an undersized guy and you have the guts to guard a center like that, the refs are going to let you get away with stuff that they don't let big guys get away with. And that's just normal. And this debate is so dumb. And Jokic is so far above that and had a good series. Not a great one, but a good series.
And it's amazing that he's so good that 28-14-6 is just like, whoa, what else could he have done? The story of the series for Denver is that the rest of the team wasn't good enough and wasn't healthy enough. Not Jokic failing to put Alex Caruso in the basket. If Jokic could have put Alex Caruso in the basket without running into 17 arms and risking offensive fouls and all that, he would have.
It's like he can put Chet Holmgren in the basket. He puts all these dudes in the basket.
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Chapter 4: What does the future hold for the Boston Celtics?
And look, Jamal Murray is a great player and you always have to overpay your own guys to keep them happy when they're stars. Even if he's never made an all-star team or all NBA, we know he's an all-star caliber player. And this is what teams do. Like this is what you do. And Jamal Murray was sulking up until the point that they actually gave him the extension and it was an issue.
Overpaying Michael Porter Jr., maybe you could have avoided that one. But once you've made those commitments, pre-apron, post-apron, whatever, you make those kinds of extreme commitments because you're trying to keep together the core of your championship team. When it doesn't work out, if guys don't continue to get better, or if they erode, or if they get hurt, you just get stuck.
And without picks to move, without much... With that much move to operate within the whole system, it's not even just the Nuggets cap. It's the whole 30-team system where, well, if you want to loosen up your cap, find a team that's under the cap, give away a guy, and then you can trade for no returning salary or very minimal returning salary.
There aren't that many teams who are under the cap to do that with in the first place, right? So even if you're just trying to balance the books, just reshuffle things a little bit. Give yourself some more room to operate, to sign guys. I don't even know how they get there. And yeah, Michael Porter Jr., I don't know what the market is for him. That's a negative contract.
Jamal Murray's a great player, but with a contract that outstrips his play. Aaron Gordon is essential. You don't want to lose him. And you probably don't want to lose Murray either, as you noted. So I don't know where they go from here either. I know you can't just stand pat. That's easy to say. You can't just run it back and expect to go deeper next season. But...
What you have to step one is whatever cap exception you have, you need to nail it this time. And you're not going to get a star at whether it's whatever their aprons there. They may not even have any, but whatever. They've got to get a ring chaser in there who can actually play minutes for them and not be a total zero like some of the other guys they have on the team.
Look, Porter is not everyone's cup of tea. And I get that. He is a minus on defense, can be a little spacey, can have games where you're like, hey, can you just play a little harder? It's the playoffs. And then the next game, he'll get 13 rebounds. And you're like, okay, you realize it's the playoffs, right? That should be every game. Yeah. His ball handling has developed a little bit.
I thought he was much better this year attacking closeouts and stuff like that. But it's we're long past the like this guy can run pick and rolls and post up and be that kind of offensive player. But I will say that people can the critics and the critics have a lot of meat to pick at with Michael Porter Jr. I think they underestimate 6'10", A++ shooter on the move against contests.
That is a very rare thing. It fits very well with Jokic. And you have almost no three-point shooting on the entire team other than him and your two best players who are running pick and roll together a lot. Like, if you move that dude, you better get a guy who can freaking shoot. Because I wrote about it at the beginning of the season.
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Chapter 5: What strategies will the Thunder use against the Wolves?
Tyrese Halliburton did the dance. He will not pay a fine. Damn right he won't pay a fine. Do it again and you might pay a fine, young man. Dare to do it again. Do it again if you have a moment. Do it again.
Anyway, continue.
Sorry.
The rivalry part of this is real. It doesn't matter that none of these players had anything to do with all of the wonderful moments in the 90s that you just took us down memory lane on. It's memory banked. It's in the DNA of New Yorkers and of Indianapolisians.
East Coast versus no coast. Big City versus Midwest.
Hicks versus Knicks. Was that the... Everybody, by the way, as preparation for this series, your homework, everybody, is to go watch Dan Clores' film. God, what was the documentary? I can't remember the name now. On Reggie and Spike? Yes. Incredible. That should be everybody's preparation, including mine, because it's been too long since I've seen it and I've forgotten too much of it.
It was awesome.
For the non-YouTube people, it's me doing Reggie doing the choke sign at Spike Lee.
Tyrese Halliburton, I looked up my story from the elimination game last year. Tyrese Halliburton wore that on a t-shirt to his post-game interview after the Pacers eliminated the Knicks last spring. So that was phenomenal.
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Chapter 6: How will Minnesota's offense adapt in the series?
up to the level of the screen and pray that Carl Anthony Townsend has a trip over his own feet and can help and recover without a crisis. And while you do that, if Miles Turner is open, well, someone's got to fly off of Josh Hart. Carl Townsend's open, rather. Someone has to fly. No, if Miles Turner's open, someone has to fly off
Josh Hart and Cloud Miles Turner's line of vision, and then Tyrese Halliburton can pick that apart. We've seen all kinds of defenses. I suspect in this series, that is going to change. That one of these teams, if not both of them, are going to sell out to stop Towns shooting threes and Turner shooting threes.
That the Pacers will, at times, much more than they have, mimic what the Celtics and many other teams have done and put Miles Turner on Josh Hart and put someone else on Carl Anthony Towns. And I suspect that even the Knicks...
The stodgy, stubborn, fibsy Knicks, who adapted last round by switching a ton, more than ever, more than anyone could have expected against Boston, are going to do either that, their version of that, and I don't know what their version of that is because one edge the Pacers have in this series is I think it's easier for them to move Turner around
onto Hart than it is for the Knicks to move Towns around. Like, who's Towns guarding? Aaron Neesmith? You want to risk Aaron Neesmith picking pop threes? Maybe. Siakam? That might be the easy answer, but then I'm going right to the Halliburton-Siakam two-man game, which might be just as dangerous as the Halliburton-Turner two-man game and seeing how you do that.
Or they will actually try to switch towns a little bit more than you would expect onto Halliburton and see if Halliburton, if and when Halliburton can punish him with step back threes, try to make Halliburton a driver. The Knicks have really kind of wanted to make him drive, prod into the lane, make him take floaters, make him go all the way to the rim. He wants to pass. He wants to shoot threes.
Something is going to give on both sides of the ball where I think Both teams are going to be dragged out of their defensive comfort zones, if not very quickly than at some point in the middle of the series. And that's pivot point number one. And everything else kind of flows from there.
You know, the Knicks weren't the greatest defensive team for most of the season, the regular season. And they have found another gear in the playoffs. And some of that, I think, has just been, you know, the teams that they have faced, right? Obviously, the Celtics are elite. The Pistons, not so much. But I think, you know, as I was going over things...
Yesterday, something that struck me with regard to the matchups so far, I don't think the Knicks defense has truly been tested to the limit. You would think they would have been by the Celtics, but the Celtics really got bogged down in their three-point shooting and iso ball and stalled themselves out to an extent.
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Chapter 7: What role will Julius Randle play in the upcoming series?
Chapter 8: How will the MVP race unfold between SGA and Jokic?
Tyrese Halliburton might tear you apart. Like, yeah, don't either end of this. Don't let it be close. I think if you want to win any game in this series, you're best served by being up by 20 or 30 points because these are two of the best clutch players in the league right now. Jalen Brunson, literally the clutch player of the year. I think he was top of my ballot.
And Halliburton has just had some incredible moments. And they've both, both these teams got here in part by like just you know, shaking off 20 point deficits, just wiping them out. And they both are great on the road. Um, the Pacers won game four at Milwaukee to take the three to one lead in that series. They won games one and two, of course, in Cleveland. Um, and then five to close them out. Um,
They were... I looked up last year's series. Last year's series Pacers-Knicks is not very helpful considering how many Knicks were not playing and also the Knicks having since swapped out a few guys. But the Pacers were 0-3 at the Garden last year in that series. And then, of course, won Game 7 there when the Knicks, of course, also had no bodies left.
But the Pacers are just... The point being Pacers are not... daunted by anything or anywhere or anyone. Uh, I love that about them. They've got a swagger that's, that seems to like go just far, far, far outstrip their, um, their resumes. Um, they, they strut around like a team that's won three championships.
They did. He did. Tyrese did the Cassell dance.
He did the big balls dance.
And my favorite thing about that was the NBA just quietly deciding, uh, Okay, we're just going to warn you on this one. Didn't they find him?
Did they find him? I thought they warned him.
I think they find him. No fines for that dance. I'm looking it up now.
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