 What's the word, y'all? Amen, I gotta get a lot of love to the gold and stay warriors. Not because they won tonight's game, because I couldn't care less, wouldn't have won it, but because they made it interesting. That's all the brother has been wanting. Look at the last couple videos on this channel. We've talked about nothing, but blow it out, to blow it out, to blow out. And today, we got a game. And this felt like in the very first quarter, of course, you know, this is why you shouldn't overreact to the first quarters. It felt like it might have been a blowout. And I was just this close to turning into the Joker. If we were to have four games in the conference finals and all four of them been a blowout, I would have been done with. And I know it's not smart to have my mental health closely associated with the dribbling of this little orange basketball, but it is. And right now I'm happy because it was good. I mean, it was a single digit game. Ladies and gentlemen, what? A single digit game in 2022? That does not happen, but it did. I wanna quickly remind you about my newsletter, the enjoy basketball newsletter. Three times a week, you get an email that is keeping you up with all things basketball. So right now it seems like we have about 30,000 people signed up, which is dope, but I know we can't get more. And it's free, you get three times a week, and you get the inside scoop when we drop this merch, which is coming very, very soon by the way, but the newsletter people will definitely know first. I need you to go and hit that link in the description, put your email in and you're gonna get those updates. But there is a small bug. Sometimes you can subscribe to the newsletter and you won't get it in your direct Gmail, but you can just pull it over. It should be something on screen showing you how to do it. Subscribe to the enjoy basketball newsletter. We're trying to keep that up and get those numbers higher. So go on here. All right, where do we start with today's game, man? Cause I think we got a little bit of everything, right? Early in this game, the Dallas Mavericks were the best shooting team in franchise history when it came to the first half. They hit 15 threes. And I think they said on the broadcast that was a franchise record. And they went into halftime with like a 14 or so point lead. They had to be on cloud nine. Luca was like, not questionable because we all knew he's gonna play, but he's playing through sickness. And in the first half, he had 24 points on seven for 12, which is insane. They was comparing it to Jordan's flu game, like half-heartedly, you know, they were saying this is exact same, but half-heartedly they said, hey, this might be Lucas flu game. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Jaylen Brunson after game one where he was somewhat stinky had you gave you 20 points in the first half. You had four threes. Reggie Bullock had four threes. Dorff and Smith had three threes. And they were really doing their thing. Even Davis Bertens off the bench gave you some quality minutes in the first half. But this is the thing about the going to say words. If you can please forget about that one game against Memphis Grizzlers, they're gonna fight. And in the third quarter, they did exactly that. And well, you saw like the biggest hole in the Dallas Mavericks game. I guess the two biggest holes in the Dallas Mavericks game. Because in this game, they shot 46% from three on 45 attempts. Insane, they put up 117 points. Muy bien, going against the goal to say warriors, right? But boy, oh boy. And that third quarter, when I tell you, Kevon Looney turned into Hakim Elijah one or he turned into Cream Abdul-Jabbar, a combination of the two because there was no rim protection, no rim resistance whatsoever. Anytime somebody got one foot ahead of their defender, it was a dip off to Kevon Looney and he was dunking or laying it up. It was even a play where Maxi Cleaver tried to wrap him up to foul him. And it was a selfish, wrapped up foul of all time and ended up being an and one Kevon Looney. And the thing that I took away from the third quarter more than anything and they even kind of talked lots of them on the broadcast. I know some people really dislike Reggie Miller. I think Reggie Miller's all right on the broadcast. Maybe that's a hot take. But I think Reggie Miller's all right in his broadcast. And early in this third quarter, once the Golden State Warriors started going that little run, the Dallas Mavericks offense kind of halted away from some of the things that were successful in the first half. And then they were trying to hunt Steph and Curry. They said on the broadcast of the first nine possessions of the third quarter, seven of them, they were trying to get Steph Curry in a pick of roll to have him as the primary defender on Luka Donchich. And guess what? Out of the seven, I think only one of them, they successfully got Steph Curry on the switch. The defense from the Golden State Warriors prevented the head hunting completely. And I want to give a lot of credit to the overall defense. But that's also credit to Steph Curry. You like, Kenny, how's that credit to Steph Curry? If the Dallas Mavericks game plan is to go at Steph Curry, not allowing the opposing team to hunt you is a skill. That real life is a skill. Like Steph Curry has become a solid defender, you know? But he doesn't match up against Luka because Luka's one of the greatest in the game. And he's also like a six, seven power four basically in a guard's body. I would not go as far to say he's a better defender than Jean-Té Murray. I saw that on the timeline this morning, which is as wild as it gets. But Steph Curry not allowing, and the team not allowing him to get the switch that they want could prevent it the Dallas Mavericks of getting any offense whatsoever in that third quarter. I mean, in the third quarter, Luka only attempted five shots, you know? Luka was playing kind of passive in this one. Like I said, the bro was sick. He might've been completely gassed after giving them 24 points in the first half. He probably like, man, somebody else picked me up. And nobody else did. But back to the thing, back to the thing. I don't know the exact numbers because NBA.com doesn't have it in front of me. But the points in the paint for the goal to stay Warriors had to be, out there 126 points. Points in the paint had to be like 60 of them things, bro. They were getting to the paint at will and just doing everything they wanted. And that is one of the biggest holes in the Dallas Mavericks game. This is something that the Phoenix Suns struggled to take advantage of with Deondre, Aiden or even the guards. This is something that Rudy Gobert we know he cannot do or has not done in this career so far. It's taken advantage of a lackluster front line. But in this one with Steve Kerr as the coach and Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Draymond Green, we're gonna talk about Draymond Green because bro was ass today. Draymond Green, Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole, they're going to go at the basket even though historically they have been a jump shooting team. They're gonna go at the basket because there's nothing even there. You've been able to get by with Maxi Kleba at the five because he has been such a great shooter and three is greater than two. But in a game like this where you have a smart offense and they know that getting to the basket is easy lay about the lay about the layup, they take advantage of it. And I'm hoping that no matter if the Dallas Mavericks come back and win the series because if you do not remember they were in the same predicament last series end up winning the series completely on whether they win this series or lose this series. Getting an adequate rim protecting big has to be number one thing on their priority list. I don't care if Zach Levin is interested. Go out and get a big because Zach Levin is just in Chicago but go out and get a big that you can trust because Dwight Powell basically tips off the basketball at the start of the game and he don't see the floor anymore and the idea of Maxi Kleba and Doreen Finney-Smith as their bigs have worked to an extent but I don't think it can sustain you enough to win a championship which at the end of the day is the overall goal. We also do have to remember that this is like year number three. You're number three, you're number four of them building around Luca. Still very early in his career bro ain't even making his max contract money just yet if I'm not mistaken. I think it starts next season. So they're still very early on in building the team around him but I think it would just improve his game to have a lot of Dwight first of all but also to have somebody that they can rely on on that back and front line or whatever you wanna call it that can prevent Kevon Looney from being the Western Conference Finals MVP because if you gave me one vote and I gotta give a lot of love to Steph Curry we're gonna do that in a second. If you gave me one vote and I can tell you who the Western Conference MVP has been so far I'm giving that to Kevon Looney and I'm not thinking twice about it. It's gonna be Iggy 2.0 for Steph Curry because I'm giving it to Kevon Looney because they tried to go at him once they figured out that oh man they not allowing Steph Curry to get that switch. We're gonna try to get Kevon Looney again. I mean we did it last game and it was somewhat kind of successful let's do it again. And then this one they were trying to hide Kevon Looney. They were confident. The words were confident and have a Kevon Looney guard whoever it was whether it be Jalen Brunson or Luca Doncis and yes they got him a few times but they were okay with that and he was great. So you got him switching on to Luca and holding his own him switching on to Jalen Brunson holding his own and it also dropped in 21 and 12 with five offensive rebounds again. Come on man that's my Western Conference player of Western Conference Finals MVP. Is that how the hell you said it? The Magic Johnson Western Conference Finals MVP. Whatever it is he's got my vote through the first two games but Steph Curry. Listen Steph Curry was great in this one as well because in the first half like I said they were getting kind of steamrolled but it wasn't through the Steph Curry because in the first half Steph Curry had 20 points he had five threes. He was the only thing that made it relatively close and in the second half he finally got some help outside of Wiggins. I mean Jordan Poole came in and dropped 16 points in the second half. Like I mentioned Kevon Looney turned into the greatest player of all time. Clay Thompson scored some baskets. Otto Porter was huge in the second half and one he got a steel that was very clutch and I think he got hit in his face and I don't know if he came back after that or maybe he did and I just don't realize it. Either way in the second half they look like the team that was there in the entire first game but in the first half they did not have that. Oh the Dallas Mavis got to scrap the non shooter minutes. They got to scrap them. They got to scrap them. I know it wasn't a ton of them today but they got to scrap them because the Golden State Warriors were legitimately let, who wasn't? They completely let Frank Milakina take every shot he wants to. He played three minutes. He was a minus 10 guy ganked and he was like you know what? Let's throw Josh Green in there and they let Josh Green shoot a shot as well. You got to get rid of those possessions or those minutes because I know you want to put them there for their defense and Frank Milakina is a positive defensive player he always has been. If the Warriors can now focus more on Luca or focus more on somebody else because they don't trust Frank Milakina or they don't trust Josh Green and they're just making the game a lot easier for them. So you got to figure out how to defend their offense with the capable players that you have on your roster because Franky Smokes, he can't do it. Oh the Warriors looked terrible in the first half. We kind of talked about that. And they were doing the thing that frustrated the hell out of me back in the day when Derek Rose was on my team and I love Derek Rose, don't get me wrong. But he had one major flaw in his game and that was that bro always left his feet to throw a pass. And because of that, if you leave your feet this is something my freshman year, freshman year B coach, Coach Lovik taught us if you leave your feet to throw a pass there's nowhere to go. You cannot change your mind. And that was a lot of the turnovers from the goal to save Warriors in that first half. They figured it out in the second one but I just, I just was watching it like damn they go Derek Rose turn over. That's what I got. There's a Derek Rose turnover but in the second half not that many of them. Oh yeah. Do you remember the timeline where people were like the Warriors, they got a tray for, they got a tray for Miles Turner or they got a tray for DeMonte Sabonis because they got like all the young guys in Kaminga and Moses Moody who Steve Kerr played in the second game of a Westercovers final. Moses Moody had a nowhere he was getting PT and was looking pretty good in it but they have Moses Moody down to the Kaminga. James Wiseman been sitting on ice for like two seasons now and everybody was like, hey, go, go get Sabonis or go get Miles Turner because you're gonna need some center play. It was Kevon Looney spent there the entire time. I don't think Kevon Looney's missed the game in this season. Nope, not one game, if I'm not mistaken. He is that, he is that Kevon Looney man. And you know what? I hope this is not just us gasping Kevon and then him getting exposed if you wanna call him that later in the series or in the next series whatever it may be. But he's been incredible in the minutes that they gave him because there was a time where they were going ultra small those ones on the Kaminga was in the lineup when Gary Payton II got injured and you kind of forgot that Kevon Looney existed in a lot of those times but now that he's getting the PT that he deserves, it's the same. Draymond Green, Draymond Green's foul trouble was one of the greatest things to happen to this team. Because as good as Draymond can be, we didn't get that today. He is a guy that plays with a ton of emotion as you know and that emotion was getting the better of him. This is me as an outsider looking into this game. That emotion was getting the best of him all over the place in this one. He was playing like a, I don't wanna say no words but he was playing very bad. So when he went to the bench with his fifth foul or whatever it may be, him trying to get that steal on Luca on an in-bounds pass when your team had all the momentum and now you gotta sit on the bench but hey, that opened up the game for Kevon Looney to come back in and dominate. So Dray has to be better. Again, you win this game. We've with him not being great but imagine if he was, you know what I'm saying? Imagine if he was. It has to be demoralizing for the Dallas Mavericks to again, like I mentioned shoot 46% from three making 21 of those things and not playing a bad game of basketball but because in like 75% of the second half you got outscored that was the game. You know what I'm saying? But again, they were in this position again last series and they completely figured it out and they won that series. So anything is possible but the Warriors look not unbeatable obviously but they look like they're gonna be super hard to beat. And then when they were wrapping up this game they said in the broadcast that the Warriors have not lost the home game yet this playoff run which is crazy. I've been in a chase center. It was dope. It was a regular season game versus the Knicks. So it wasn't that full capacity. Playoff chase center is kind of nice. It's not the Roracle. It's not the Roracle but it's pretty damn good, man. It's pretty good. We talked about this on our, we did like a live stream for Bleacher for a little while ago. We were trying to, we were ranking the home crowds in the playoffs and I think I put TD Guard at number one and then the chase center number two. And I don't know if that's right or wrong. I guess we'll find out tomorrow because we have game one in Boston at the TD Guard. But those two are just so very close to me but I think I put TD Guard number one but you saw the chase center today rocking, rocking. That was even when, you know, they were down by I don't know the biggest lead in the BN, I think it may be 19, 20 points. It was still rocking. I cannot imagine how expensive these tickets are. You know, like I said, we went to a random game against the Knicks and a game where somebody very important didn't even, RJ Bear didn't even play in that game. Like I said, it's very important to the Knicks. Maybe not in the grass, keep a basketball but to the Knicks, RJ Bear is very important. And they were hell expensive in that random regular season game. So I cannot imagine how expensive they are for the conference finals game two or if they make it to the finals, how expensive they would be. And I'm not checking because C-Geek does not pay me on this channel. They pay me on my main channel, but not on this channel. I think those are all my notes. How do I see the rest of the series playing out? I've went with Warriors before it started off. I still feel good about that pick just because they look so very good. I do believe that Jason Kidd is gonna make some adjustments. This is not about to be a sweep by any means. If this ends up being a sweep, I'd be disappointed. Not in Luca per se because he gave you 42 points, you know what I'm saying? But as a whole for you to even get this far and then just get swept in the conference finals to the Warriors, it's very Portland Trailblazer like. You know what I'm saying? Remember when Portland Trailblazer got to the conference finals they went against the Warriors and it was like, oh, that was a cool little run that we did. But we ran against the Warriors and once you do that is wraps.