 What's the word y'all? All right man, every single second round series is completely set. I was transparent about it last episode that I was rooting for Game 7s yesterday and I was rooting for Game 7 today, but the Minnesota Timbers let us all down. They let the world down man. Another game where they were up by double digits in the fourth quarter and they ended up losing. And the fashion at which they did it was crazy. On your home court, Chris Finch calling time out when you got all the momentum. Carnegie Towns taking the ill-advised three-pointed with 18 seconds on the shock locked down by four and a two minute game. Patrick Beverly trying to do a step back three instead of the open three that was given to him at first. They can't get off as a rebound because Brandon Clarke is basically Dennis Robin on the glass. There was just so many things that happened in this one, bro. And I'm not surprised. Literally, we're all in a party. It's me, Mike, Pierre, Terrence, Kyra, like this Friday night, so me and the homies don't got like lives outside of basketball, so we all sit in the party. And then the money line for the Memphis Grizzlies going to the fourth quarter was plus 415. And I told the homies, smash that money line because I know what's about to happen. And exactly what I thought was about to happen did happen. Minnesota won 90% of the series, but lost four games. Think about that. They won like 90% of the series. They had a series where Jaren Jackson's union, John Moran basically were, I won't say nothing, but they struggled to score. This was the first game where Jaren played like 30 minutes, so that's pretty cool. He didn't foul out. And guess what? He had a clutch basket down the stretch. See what happens when you're on the court. But you had a series where you did a pretty good job neutralizing John Moran as far as him scoring the ball, but he made Japan other ways. He found Ty's Jones at open three because they were like four-man thrown at John when he was trying to drive. And that left Ty's Jones wide open. So I'm disappointed in the way it ended for Minnesota, but I still think this was a very good season for them. Of course, this is what everybody's going to remember, the fact that you blew 20 point leads in the series and you blew a 10 point lead in the closeout game. But overall, this is a very good season for them. A team that only made the playoffs a couple of times this like 20 years, 30 years. And you know, you got Anthony Edwards blossoming. You got a McDaniels game, which is pretty cool for them. But man, this last game is hard to look past. But overall quality season, exciting season for their fans. It's just, you know, the ending was weird. And then I wanted to wait to record this video. I have to keep reminding y'all that when I record these videos, it's like right after the last buzzer of the last game. So I would love to see the post game interview for the Minnesota Timbers players. Carthony Towns, because I'm sure he's going to get asked about that shot he took. And it's one of those shots like, yes, it is a bad shot, but if it goes in, he's a hero. But you take that risk, you take that risk, right? And Amy Lennon took a step back three over Paul George. Crushed the boot shot, but it went in to close the series. You know what I'm saying? So nobody really cares. You took that shot, super ill-advised, but it's a shot he can make. Probably it's not the right time for it. And boy, boy, oh boy. Well, my mentions filled with, you know, D'Angelo Russell's stuff. D'Angelo Russell in this series averaged 12 points per game on 29% shooting. And he did not play in the entire fourth quarter behind Jay Mac. Jay Mac, shout out to Jay Mac, Jordan McLaughlin. He's out playing D'Angelo Russell, who was basically on a Max contract. I don't know what's going on there. I don't know what's going on there. But with that being said, let's move on to the second round of the playoffs because we got it. The higher seed in every single series advanced. So that's kind of lame in a way, you know what I'm saying? No upsets. Of course, we got some ones that were pretty close. You know, this one would be the one that was pretty close, but the higher seed advanced. And that just shows you that NBA playoffs maybe not as super dynamic compared to some of the other sports. But still, I think every single first round matchup, except for maybe two of them were absolute bangers. But let's get into it. I want to start off in the Western Conference talking about the 1-4 matchup Phoenix Suns versus the Dallas Mavericks. One thing I try to do is take it to consideration the stuff that I saw in the regular season for sure, but also take a look at what they did in the previous round and how successful with that being the next round. Of course, when you're talking about these teams, a lot of these teams are great coached and because there's going to be dynamic schemes and everything like that. So I'm not expecting the Dallas Mavericks coming to the series with the exact same game plan because they're going to get a different person now. But one thing that was very effective for them and one of the reasons why they were super successful in the first round was their small ball lineup. And I consider when Maxi Kleber's in the game, that's considered a small ball, even though he's like a four or five. Small ball lineup dominated the Utah Jazz, whether they've been Luka Doncis at the point or whether it'd been Jaylen Brunson at the point. It was Gribbett Penetration, Fat My Shooters, My Shooters Knocked Down Shots. And in that first series, the shooters did that. Dallas Bertans felt like he ain't hit a shot all season long. He got into the playoff game. I don't remember which game it was. And he shot very well. It's Maxi Kleber. Maxi Kleber had one of the greatest games of his career. And I'm trying to figure out how much of that will be successful versus the Suns. And I think it won't be as successful. And the reason I'm saying this is because the perimeter defenders or the defensive scheme for the Phoenix Suns is significantly better than what you got from the Utah Jazz. Now, Luka is gonna be a guy that can score pretty much anybody in the league. Like, not pretty much. He can't score anybody in the league. But he's gonna get a lot of body strong his way. He's gonna get Mikhail Bridges, who did pretty good job holding CJ McCollum to one of his worst series in his playoff career. He's gonna get people like Devin Booker, who's an improved defender. Obviously, he ain't Mikhail Bridges, who was just top three in defensive player year, but improved defenders there. J. Crowd is gonna get a lot of possessions. We might even see Tori Craig get possessions. And I'm not expecting Tori Craig to come in and lock up Luka. I'd expect any of these dudes to lock up Luka. But they're definitely gonna make it way more difficult than anybody in the Dallas Mavericks did. And one of the reasons why the Dallas Mavericks were so successful was because they were going against Rudy Gobert. And Rudy Gobert, though, I love him. He's not a guy that can make you pay when you go small against him. And I have his ties with Jaylen Brunson was on his back and his teammates didn't even trust him enough to give him the ball. Now, the Phoenix Suns, Deandre Aitner, is way more dynamic on the offensive side of the ball. He will take advantage of your mismatches and he will go against your big players. And that's what he did against Jonas Valentunas. But you can't go ultra small on Deandre Aitner and expect him not to take care of those things. Especially when you've got a point guard like Chris Paul that will legitimately tell Deandre Aitner, get your ass on that block and we gonna get you this ball and go to work. And Deandre Aitner in that first round when he was going against Jonas Valentunas, when they went small and there was Larry Nance, he dominated. He feasted. There I say he dominated Aitner. Don't he got a tattoo on his back that's like dominating? Anyway, he was very, very dominant. So I'm not saying that the Dallas Mavericks small ball lineup won't be successful. I don't think it'll be as successful as it was last series because the dynamicism of Deandre Aitner. But I do believe a ton of the series relies on whether or not Devin Booker is healthy and what percentage of him we're gonna see. Because in this series when Devin Booker was not there, this team struggled. And even early on before Devin Booker got injured, they struggled against this Pelican's team. Now, if we're not getting the full version of Devin Booker, well, we got ourselves a series. But if we get a version of Devin Booker that was all NBA first team, my two all NBA guards are gonna get each other right now. Luca and Devin Booker should be a good matchup. But if Devin Booker is completely healthy, I feel pretty confident saying that the Phoenix Sun should win the series. I don't know, I'm not gonna say it's in five or in four because I think that the Dallas Mavericks are so talented. And when you got a guy like Luca who has been proven to be a playoff player even though this first time got out of the first round, he has been a playoff player for his entire career. It's going to be difficult. It's gonna be a difficult matchup, especially, especially if Devin Booker is not looking like the full version of himself. But it should be a good matchup, man. I mean, I have memories of Luca Dancers being guarded by Paul George or being guarded by Kawhi Leonard and playing pretty amazingly, you know? So is this about slowing him down enough or just making sure the others, whether it be Jalen Brunson, Spencer Denwoody. Actually, let me give y'all X factors for every single team. If the Dallas Mavericks want to win this series, Spencer Denwoody has to play amazingly. He has the one game in game three and then in the closeout game in game six, he had some big-time shots, but other than that, he was wishy-washy. But I do look at game three as a big pivotal part for them winning that series against Utah and he was great in that one. They need him to be the best version of himself just to open up the game way more. For the sons, their X factors legitimately Devin Booker's health. You know, if he's healthy, I'm confident. If he's not, well, this series could get a lot more dangerous than they needed to be. I'm expecting Chris Paul to have another good series like the last one. And even, listen, for Chris Paul, he's going to be going against better defenders. Now, Jose Alvarado and Herb Jones are great defenders. Don't get me wrong. But when I look at Jose Alvarado, he's more of a pest of a defender, the mind games defender, the patch of Beverly's type defender. I think that the Dallas Mavericks who have better, bigger bodies that could give Chris Paul some fits. You know what I'm saying? So they also need their shooting. Talk about Phoenix. Phoenix also needs their shooting to wake up because in that, the series against the Pelicans, it wasn't until basically the last game or two where the shooting came alive. McHale Bridges had the 30 point game and the last one, the shooting was amazing because Chris Paul, so very good series. I think this is a series that can go seven. It can go seven. I'm picking Phoenix to win it outright, but I would not be surprised. I would not be surprised if Dallas ended up winning it. So out east, we have our 1-4 matchup and I will say I'm a lot less excited about this matchup to date than I was yesterday. I obviously with Joel and B being injured with an orbital fracture. He got hit by Pascal Siakam in the last game, a game six versus the Raptors. Orbital fracture, mild concussion and they're saying he's indefinite. So that can mean he can miss one game, two games, three games. We literally don't know. I don't know. I'm not a physician. A bone, an orbital expert or bone people. I don't understand how it all works, but I've definitely seen times where Joel and B came out with a mask. So I don't know if it's more of the orbital fracture thing or is it the mild concussion that's holding them out? Either way, him missing anytime in a series is detrimental to their ability to win. Again, it could be one game. It could be two games. It could be three games. Who really knows? And obviously this is not breaking any news if Philadelphia wants to win this series. They need Joel and B to be the best version of himself but we're not gonna be able to get that. So I started to do my research if you wanna call it that with Joel and B being healthy. Now that he not healthy, how much of that can I fall back on? I think Joel and B said something very good in this post-game interview at the end of the Toronto series that I think is somewhat true. And in the interview, he said, hey, us beating Toronto is basically like us going against the Miami Heat. They're just the elevated version. I'm paraphrasing or whatever. He's basically saying that the Toronto Raptors in the Miami Heat defend very similarly, which is facts. And the reason I say that is because they don't have that one defender that's going to be on Joel and B to all game and say, this is your assignment. They're gonna guard Joel and B by committee. They got a lot of good defensive players over there. They're gonna switch a lot of different stuff. They have fire hydrants like PJ Tucker, who might get some assignments on Joel and B on switches. They have Jimmy Butler who can get Joel and B on some switches. So it is very similar to the way the Toronto Raptors did it. And they're even gonna be throwing a lot of zone at Philly like the Toronto Raptors did. But with Joel and B not being there, I don't know what Spostra's gonna do. They're gonna make it a living hell for James Hardin. And if Philly wants to win this series or have a chance to win this series, they gotta steal one in Miami without Joel and B. They have to. And I don't know what the likelihood of that is. I know in the regular season, they ended up beating the Miami Heat without Joel. But even now when there were some other people injured, there were some people injured on both sides. I'm not completely sure. But there's a big question mark about Miami as well. Something that people aren't really talking about. Jimmy Butler set out the game five versus Atlanta. I don't know the updates on that. Cal Lares out the last couple games. I don't know the updates on that either. So both of these teams could be missing three or three very impactful players in the series. Could be either injured, playing through injury or out. So how the hell am I supposed to predict some stuff? If Philly wants to win this, James Hardin gotta turn back the clock four years, three years and go be the best version of himself. Taris Maxi gotta stop being, I think part of the series, early in the series for sure. He was super aggressive. He was running, he was hitting shots. And then as the series started to progress, he started to physicalize just a little bit until we got to game six. He needs to have a performance like he did early in this Philly series. They need to buy his Harris to finally step up because to buy his Harris had been a guy that was basically accepting his role. Now that he knows, he's basically the fourth option on the court. Not anymore, my boy. It's time for you to earn them 30 AMs and go have a great offensive series for us. But I just think that Miami has such good defensive schemes. They're greatly coached. And I think they're gonna just throw so many different looks at James Hardin. You're gonna get some Jimmy Butler minutes if he's healthy. You're gonna get some possessor PJs on James. You're gonna get some possessions where it's like Max Struse or it's Kayla Martin. Like they got so many different options. Gabe Vincent did an amazing job defensively last series. And Miami is gonna make you shoot the ball. They're gonna make you shoot threes. So George Nieng, who was big in game six, you're gonna have to have a great series. Four con cork mods, you might need to play some minutes. This is a series. If I'm Doc Rivers, I'm not playing a ton of Matisse Thaible because Miami will legitimately say we give you 15 feet of openness, Matisse. Take your shot. You don't live with that shot 100% of the time. Miami, they're greatly coached. They're super smart. It feel like they don't miss no rotations. But I am a little bit questionable about their offense long-term. If I had to make a prediction right now, I'm going with Miami to win this series. But it's even hard to say because I don't know about Laurie or I don't know about Butler or we don't know how much of Joel and B we're going to get. But it should be very interesting. I think it's gonna be a chess match and Eric Spolster is pretty damn good at chess. All right, I'm gonna talk about Warriors versus Memphis, a series that I haven't been able to like research if that's the... It's not like I'm looking at graphs or even going back and watching old footage. What is my research? I don't really know. But this series literally just ended. The last series just ended. So I ain't had that much time to think about it. Other than like me and the homies were in the party saying like, man, these young teams hooping just to lose to the golden state Warriors in the next round, bro. All know if it's at five. All know if it's at six. All know, but you know what? The Memphis Grizzlies and my little bit of research before this video, I'll beat the Warriors three out of four of the regular season. Now, again, I've told this story before, but the regular season don't mean a ton because my Chicago Bulls were beating the Miami Hedals in the regular season. And then the playoffs came around and it was another story, a flip with Switch. I think they were short on a graphic after this game ended that Clay Thompson only played in one of those four games. So I do believe that, you know, with the series that they just got out of, I mentioned in the last video, we did a recap about the series that like you saw so much of just youth youth youth on both sides, whether it be Memphis or Minnesota. The Warriors don't have that problem. Yes, the Warriors do turn the ball over a lot because there's a lot of free flow and they try to predict where your teammate is gonna go just by knowing them. They're gonna turn the ball over a decent amount of times, but it's still a veteran led team with a ton of experience. And I do think experience is needed in something like this. The Memphis Grizzlies did just win a series where John Merant wasn't the all NBA first team player, all NBA second team player, which is good, but still this Warriors team, I think it's just a little bit, it's just better. I think the one place that the Memphis Grizzlies have the advantage is like overall depth, because the Warriors probably gonna run as seven deep, maybe eight deep, where the Memphis Grizzlies could go a little bit deeper than that. I still feel confident saying Warriors without much research, if you wanna call it that. But I'm excited to see the Draymond Green, John Merant, Trash talk and whatever can come of that. Saving the best for last, at least I think it might be the best. No Chris Middleton definitely hurts the idea of this series a little bit, but I'm still excited for this. I was listening to Zach Lowe and he said on his podcast that report that he's completely out for the series might be kind of not true, that if it goes six or it goes seven, Chris Middleton could come back, which is interesting. Y'all know I just want everybody to be healthy because I want the best product of basketball because if we get the best product, then I give the best videos and that's what I'm really thinking about. Okay, so this series should be very interesting. People are already deeming this to Easter Conference Finals because a lot of people believe that whoever wins this series is gonna go on to beat Miami or Philly. I don't know if I feel that way just yet, I guess we're gonna have to wait and see. But this should be a very, very interesting series because without Chris Middleton, the boss of Celtics, I don't want to say this, can really hone in on Yannis a little bit more than before, right? I mentioned this in the video a couple of days ago that the way of guarding or stopping Kevin Arrant is gonna be completely different than the way you're gonna have to guard and stop Yannis, right? Kevin Arrant is a lot of finesse. He tries to get to the basket, but he's not as dominant as getting to the basket as the best player in the league, Yannis is. So you're gonna have to try to change it up a little bit. And I think the way of changing is like when it came to Kevin Arrant, it was a lot of Jason Tatum, it was a lot of Jaylen Brown, when it comes to Yannis, it's gonna be a lot of Al Horford, or it's gonna be a lot of Daniel, a lot of, you're gonna get Daniel Tyson minutes, Greg Williams minutes, and Robert Williams minutes, you know, it's the bigger guys, it's the stockier guys that can go on here, put their body on the line and just make it difficult for them. The place that the, even without Chris Middleton being there, the place that I think the Milwaukee Bucks have the advantage is that they are a team that similar to the Miami Heat are going to let you shoot threes. I watched the entirety of the Bulls five game series. And yes, I put myself through that torture because four of these games was not, three of these games were not even close. And then one of the games was a brick show for both sides. Basically their game plan had been all season or pretty much the entirety of Coach Budd's career in Milwaukee or even in Atlanta is like, we gonna let you shoot your threes. We not gonna let you get to the basket. The Chicago Bulls, when an entire game where they shot like two free throws in the first half or no free throws in the first half, they do not let you get to the basket, but they'll let you shoot. And Boston has a pretty iffy shooting cast. Great, hey, great wins in that corner, pretty much money, but they got a pretty streaky, I should say, shooting cast. Marcus Smart was great in that first series when it comes to his shooting. I don't even know the numbers, but just the eye test, what I remember from him shooting this series, he was great. I don't know how much of that will be true in this next series because he is a streaky shooter. They're gonna allow you to shoot. And Boston doesn't really have the super high volume, super efficient three point shooting that maybe some of the other contenders or teams in the playoffs have. But even then I say that, now I'm just thinking about the cast in Boston, they do have good shooters, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they're a bad shooting team because you can go find some numbers and they're approved that they're not. But I think it's the volume and the streakiness that I don't necessarily trust full time. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up being like a in the top half when it comes to percentage amongst teams, but it's something about them when I watch that just makes me feel like I don't know how much I could trust that in a seven game series where it matters the most, you know? There's room for error in the last season because they were so dominant on the other sides. But in the series it's not a ton of room for error. So I know Peyton Pritchard gonna go out there and shoot a little bit. You're gonna need Derek White to hit more shots and he hit this season. But I think this is gonna be a great series even without Chris Middleton being there because the Milwaukee Bucks is others. This is something we talked about on the podcast. And when I mentioned anything being the others, I'm talking about anybody that's not a star player. So when I talk about the Boston Celtics or the Milwaukee Bucks others, I'm talking about anybody not named Chris Middleton, Giannis Drew Holiday, because in my mind those are the stars of the team. But the others of the Milwaukee Bucks are dramatically better, significantly better than the others on the Brooklyn Nets. When you watch that series, Boston versus Brooklyn, it was like, hey, Nicholas Claxton, we don't really care what you do. Bruce Brown, Wheeling, you open every time. When you put up 25 last game, don't care. You can shoot those shots. And Milwaukee, I mean, I guess you can still have the same plan, but like, Grayson Allen will torture you. Bobby Portis will torture you. Pat Kahn to shot has not come around but he can have his moments. You know, they have players that will torture you if you just say, we gonna let the others win the game. You know? So that's one thing that they gotta figure out, man. It's just a better cast around Giannis and there was a better or a cast around Kyrie and KD. If I were to make a prediction, I think I'm sticking with Boston in this one. Of course, when I'd be surprised if it goes the other way because the best player in the world is on the other team. But I think that in order for the Milwaukee Bucks to win this series, I think that Giannis legitimately has to be, he's already been generational, right? He talked about a two-time MVP. It's not saying anything about being generational. He has to be undoubtedly just, he has to be as dominant as we've ever seen him. Without Chris Middleton and the way the Boston Celtics have defended for the last 75% of the season. They need Giannis to be 50, you know what I'm saying? Like game six Giannis from last year. That's the type of Giannis they need pretty regularly and they cannot afford to have the games where Drew Holliday struggles because early in the Chicago, not white socks, Bull series, Drew Holliday was struggling. They cannot afford that. They need Drew to step up. They need Giannis to be generational and they need like Bobby Portas or the Grayson Allen game, the others to really, really do their thing. And if they don't have that, then I don't think they're gonna win this series. But if they can hold on and make it a six or seven in the reports by Zach Lowe's true and Chris Middleton can come back, anything is possible. And I truly mean that. Of course, I gave you all my winners of these series, but I think that what we're seeing right now are eight really talented and good teams. It's like a lot of them are cornflip. Again, without Joel and B, I find it very hard that Philly is going to make extreme noise. But the other ones, like the Dallas Phoenix series, bro, I know Phoenix was the best team in the league in the regular season, but that last series got me scared. They were my overwhelming favorite. That last series was not super convincing for me. Again, no Devin Booker for a lot of it, but hey, Devin Booker's back and he's not looking the same version of himself. The Memphis Grizzlies do not, I'm just looking at the over, like the team that was better in the regular season. The Memphis Grizzlies did not convince me that they are a really solid enough team to make it to the conference finals based on their lad. You know what I'm saying? Anything can happen in these. The Minnesota Timberwolves had tons of leads in their series and lost. Insane.