Hardwood Handicappers: A VSiN Basketball Betting PodcastMitch Moss and JVT recal game 3 of the western conference finals.
Always follow the money.
That's what I always say, you always follow.
Yeah, this is Follow the Money with Mitch Moss and Polly Howard on VSON.
Here we go.
It is Follow the Money on Vson v Sports Betty Network. This show is brought to you by DraftKings Mitch Moss along with Jonathan von Tobel in today for Pauli Howard here on Memorial Day. We are live for the next three hours today. Hope everybody is having a great start this summer right with the long extended holiday weekend, here, busy show lined up. We do have Will Hill on the program today coming up with his best bets on the Memorial Day card. We'll get into some Major League Baseball props with Derek Cardy a little bit later on. We have NFL futures a look at. We have the race for the most wins in May, and Major League Baseball yet another ridiculous sweat here in the final week of the season, and plenty of NBA and NHL playoffs to go over as well. How are you today, Pel, Good to see you here on an early Monday, feeling good.
Usually I'm not a summer guy, but I find myself really excited for this summer. So this is like the unofficial kickoff of the summer season.
I'm fired up.
We get our near one hundred degree weather, I think later today. Yeah, you don't like ninety eight.
You don't like nice weather, You don't like hanging around water parks or going to a lake or anything like that.
Or the beach, the lake of the beach or fine, public water parks are ASSESSMBL of disgusting disease and whatnot.
But everything else I'm totally down with.
Go check out a baseball game or two. Yes, come on.
Like I said, I usually I'm not a summer guy.
Maybe it's a maybe it's because you'll usually i'm a little I'm a fluffy guy. Right, but I'm cutting down, We're lifting weights, we're grinding, we're clanging a bang every day.
I'm ready to find fluffy guy. What does that mean? A little soft little zaftik?
Okay, how much of you down? By the way, since you.
Did this, we're getting to like twenty eight ish.
You're in this contest with another person here on the network, Dustin Sweedelsin.
You're down twenty eight pounds. Yea, how long?
What are we talking about here? Like two months, two and a half months.
Damn, dude, how you feeling.
Feel I wasn't. I don't want to reveal too much. I feel good. I feel overall. I feel pretty good though. Oh yeah, like you can tell it.
There's a big time difference going on in your life.
Oh yeah, put like twenty pounds up on the bench press like added, Oh yeah, man, I'm feeling good.
I'm ready to go. All right.
My little apartment gym doesn't know what hit him.
Is there anybody in there with you when you hit the apartment gym?
Yeah? Actually, and I'm not one of those.
There was yesterday there was a guy I hadn't seen before, but I worked out at a different time that I usually do, and he was like taking it way too Like the guy was like pounded out deadlifts in the apartment gym at like ten o'clock in the morning.
Huh.
You know when you do the deadlifts, you gotta slam it down onto the floor. It's like, relax, man, you got to make people know what's going on. Right, We get it, We see your veins.
You're fine.
Are we going to get two sweeps in the NBA? Is that what's going to happen here.
I am not really surprised by the Celtics, especially that.
I mean that whole thing changed when Halliburton goes down, although.
It changed in Game one when they couldn't take advantage of that.
That uh, absolutely that scenario, and when you look back at it, you know, all these series are different, right, It's all. It's what it could have shown up. Pacers could be sitting here this morning with a two to one series lead. I think that's absolutely fair to say. They definitely blew game one. You could look back and say, well, they also kind of pissed away the game the other night at home in game number three, and then coming on, you know, here we are early Monday, on the heels of what took place last night in Dallas. Yet again, that game's tied one oh four a piece fourth quarter, and it's just it's the difference in shot making, right, they come down, the Wolves do with the ball, Nazri misses a three, Mavericks come back down PJ. Washington with a three one oh seven to one oh four, and that's it wasn't quite the ballgame at that point, but it turned out to be enough, and they pulled away one by nine points, and now the Mavericks are up three games to none.
What over the Wolves.
Yeah, you're like, you hit it on the head. It's the difference in the ability to create shots and make shots and look Anthony Edwards is a fine shot creator and maker at times, but he's been very quiet throughout this series. Again, yesterday had an amazing third quarter. Looked like maybe it was it was a jokicchesque third quarter. Right was that Game three where you Oki just came out the third quarter absolutely pummeled them in that series of the Western Conference semifinals.
You thought, maybe this is gonna be it.
He's gonna wake up, He's gonna at least cut this deficit in half in terms of the series. Not the case completely disappears. I think heilli ends up with two points in that fourth quarter. But like you said, it, man the ability to have guys like Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic who are able to create their looks, make their own like a guy like nas Reed as a secondary offensive valve. Like you're a little limited there because he's awesome. He's a good catch and shoot threat.
Yep.
If it's a free lane to the basket, he can put it down on the ground and he can finish if he needs to, But in terms of creating his own shot, that shouldn't be your second best option. And guys like Karl Anthony Towns aren't showing up, and you have two of the most elite isolation players in the NBA on the other end in crunch time, it's gonna be really tough to overcome.
Here.
Here's i mean, the biggest problem of the series from Minnesota, and there are plenty of them, we'll get into those, but the biggest problem cat game one, two of nine from three, four of eleven overall from two game two he was three of eleven from two to one of five from three, and last night he was five to ten from two to zero of eight from three. He is twelve to thirty two from two in this series, and he is nine of twenty two checked got three of twenty two from three, So that's how poorly he's shooting. He's having a horrendous series for the Wolves, like one of the last guys that you could have play like this overall for seven games. And then the difference between what he's doing and what the combination of Edward's doing compared to what you said with Luca and Kyrie.
Great tweet from Zach coom here.
Luca and Kyrie have outscored Edwards and Kat by seventy points in the seventy in the conference finals.
The rest of the Wolves.
Have outscored the rest of the mass by fifty seven points. But when it comes down to it, you know, in clutch time, and these games have been coin flips. They have been great games, right, And Kyrie and Luca, they just the shot making last night was just silly from the Maverick side. They couldn't miss, and when they did, they were calling Minnesota for a foul. And I know that there's a lot of complaining about the free throws. Minnesota hacked them pretty much every single time.
I thought.
Anyway, So when you have the combination of those two guys not missing and then the other two star players for the Wolves are having well, cat anyway, is that's that's the difference?
Yep?
Yeah, Well, when you have a three, when you're down three to nothing, and the entire difference in the series from a point standpoint is thirteen total points in the three games. If you're not going to be able to create on offense, those are going to make massive differences. And I think it's a really good point too when you talk about the way that they're defending, dude, and that in the Western Conference semifinals, I think I saw somebody on Twitter compared to the Seattle Seahawks right where remember in their heyday they were they would commit holding on like every single play defensively. Yeah, but like but when they would do it, they would do it so often it puts you the onus on the refs, like, okay, call holding every time, and if not, then we're going to get be able to get away with this.
They got away with that in the Western Conference semi finals.
There are a couple of games where they were called for a lot of taking tech stuff, and it was during that three game stretcher they were losing three straight. But when they were allowed to defend the way they wanted to, then they were able to get away with it. This series has been called like a lot differently than what we saw in that Western semi Finals yesterday, include like Tony Brothers center stage immediately in that game yesterday, And so if you can't get away with that, you can't depend the way that you're usually used to defending, or at least in these last few rounds, and now all of a sudden, your offense is failing to show up in some of your key players. How about this cat on the floor? They have a negative ten point one net rating in these three games. It makes sense, right, he's it's been abysmal what he's doing on offense.
Man, and then they what a fluke injury. By the way, the emergence of Derek Lively has been something to watch every single game. The guy is fantastic. I told you before the show started. If OKC doesn't make that Draft day deal where they sent Derek Lively to Dallas in exchange for Cason Wallace, and I said at the time, I loved Cason Wallace and him coming up in the future, and I still like the guy a lot. I don't think okayc is out of the playoffs if they don't make that trade. That's how big of an impact I think Derek he's had. And he was going to go off again last night. He was on pace to have a really good game. Yet again, I mean everybody did for Dallas, and his numbers were really really good and limited time there in the first quarter to go down like that where he just he's falling to the ground, he's on the ground, and then the need of the back of the head the next brain. I don't think he plays Game four, that'd be my quick opinion on that or speculation, I guess. But even a guy with that big of an impact on the series goes out, doesn't matter, Wolves can't win the game.
Yep.
Well, I mean, look, I think you're in a position, if you're Dallas, to maybe allow him if he's not one hundred percent to get to give him some rest, right for sure. I mean you just won the game by the largest deficit in the series without him, and he is the most integral piece. I would agree with that. I think it's hard not to disagree and like what he's able to do. And it actually speaks to like the mistakes that the Minnesota Temperles are making, like we were talking about lively, the fact that they won't commit like they're blitzing defensively.
Right, Okay, cool, Well that.
Means is a low guy, you got to come over and you've got to attack the role bit you can't let him get to the basket. And there's half the times where guys will like go halfway. They just let him oh bye. Edwards has done it. Ree's done it. Carl Entay Towns has done it. It's so weird that they're not for a team as good defensively as they are for them to get destroyed the way they are by this Dallas Mavericks team, especially these big guys like Lively. It is amazing to see how poorly they are defending in the mistakes that they're making.
That's why it doesn't make any sense, right, Yeah, I mean, the big guys have clearly had an edge against the three guys that you just talked about.
How does that? Man, It's the best defense that we've seen in a long time.
And by the way, I'm glad EJ called out Charles Barkley on the broadcast last night because Barkley started to go, well, this Minnesota defense it's easy to play against Atlanta in the regular season and is like you just called it the best defense you've seen in twenty years after they beat the Nuggets, what are you talking about? And then you go, all things change, but not like that, they don't change. And I know that you and I have disagreed a lot this year in Rudy Gobert. I have to say this back to Game two, the end of it, and then last night, I think stan venge Gunny was spot on.
He felt sorry for Golbert. How did the he Wolves allow that to happen?
How do they allow go bear multiple times you get caught up with guards on the perimeter and like nobody's coming over to help. That's look, I mean, I don't think Gobert was Defensive Player of the Year. That's a horrible situation for him to be in at that point. Well, especially as it pointed out a lot of them late in the shot clock. Yes, just send somebody over. You're gonna be You're gonna be fine. Help Yep, You're gonna be perfectly fine. And that's the thing that drives you.
I think that's when you watch this is this is a team that was generally like on top of everything defensively, and like the tiny little mistakes that they continue to make, whether it's that, whether it's the way they're defending these picket rolls, not committing when they're blitzing, doing other things, soft switching.
At the end of of course, cat switching there you go, like those sort.
Of things like you're we all know this, we're all watching this, and we're all screaming like, you don't do that.
You don't allow that to happen.
Even go beart again to extend the olive ratchive for further look Game two, when he allows that shot to happen, put him inside the line, it doesn't matter. And like all of them have all made these tiny little mistakes that have added up to a catastrophic result, which is your down three nothing.
I can't believe they're down three. Yoh, it's kind just seriously.
I mean I said on the year, there's no way after Game one and Dallas one, I'm like, well, they're not gonna win. They're not gonna sweep them or win four and Co minnesot is not gonna win four straight.
It's gonna be no.
Okay yep.
Really, by the way, all six games so far conference finals have gone over the total.
Yeah, does that continue? Man?
I think the way they're getting called differently, I don't know about You're, it's we've gone from this sense of like hey, they're not calling anything, yeah, to now all of a sudden, they look like they're back to.
Pre change like pre February.
Yeah, look how many free throws are shot in the game last night yep, sou up. Next, we'll discuss the playoff games on the slate for tonight, and JBT has been monitoring Conference Finals MVP very closely. I want to see what he thinks about the current numbers coming up here on v sin
