Welcome in What's Right with Nick Wright quick reaction pod to last night's NBA playoff games one. Listen, Grizzlies thunder just sim to the end. We'll get to that briefly at the end of the pod. Somewhat interesting momentarily or at least briefly interesting game between the Bucks and the Pacers, a fifteen point lead trimmed to two in the waning moments, but the Bucks not able to get over the top and what that means for Giannis. But the game of the night, which turned into the rock fight of the night Lakers ninety four Timberwolves eighty five. I don't think anyone is actually surprised by the result. Home team loses game one, they are going to come out more urgent, more focused, better in game two, and the Lakers did and blitzed him in the first quarter thirty four to fifteen, and then really just held on the rest of the way, culminating in a fourth quarter where neither team could hit shots, where the Lakers were just kind of limping to the finish line and everyone seemed a little out of gas except for the oldest guy on the court. And we can do big picture stuff shortly. And I understand that some folks will hear this and be like, you gotta be kidding me. Lebron scored twenty one. His jumper wasn't falling. He was eight of nineteen from the field, one of five from three. And you're gonna wax poetic about the game Lebron James had And the answer is yes, I am, because there was one play late in the fourth quarter that to me symbolized who Lebron has been since they acquired Luca, and who he has been is whoever they need him to be. That night, I will mold my game accordingly. Three minutes left Lakers with the smallest lead that they've had since it was fifteen to eight. They are up nine. The Lakers were up at least nine points for the final forty minutes of this game, and the Timberwolves, however, in the fourth quarter, were slowly trying to make it a game, and the Lakers had a bad possession. Luca got caught up in the air through the ball to basically nowhere, and Luca was excellent. More on him in a moment, and all of a sudden, the Timberwolves are in transition. Three minutes down nine, chance to cut it to six or seven, and all of a sudden, all the pressure will be on La and Lebron circles around to where Anthony Edwards is getting the ball at mid court in a semi transition situation, steals it from Anthony Edwards, burst to the basket, lay up up eleven, Game over. And what is to me so remarkable about the best player I've ever seen, if people are being honest, the best player anyone's ever seen this year has been his ability to the instant they got Luke Adancic him saying, Okay, I have to be a totally different type of player because we're a totally different type of team. After for the entirety of my Lakers tenure, which at this point is as long as he has ever stayed with one team consecutively seven years, he had to be on the ball, ball dominant, running the offense. His transition from that to a do it all, jack of all trades player who in this game said, defense is what we needed to lock in on. Defense is what we drastically needed to improve on, and in the Lakers' best defensive game of the year, at least as far as how many points their opponent scored. He was the best defender on the court, and get in where you fit in on offense, crash the boards, try to get other people involved, and lock down defensively to the tune of Anthony Edwards, and not that he was on Anthony a lot. After having nine assists in game one, zero no one other than Julius Randall getting going at all, and the Lakers winning a game they had to have where they only hit six three pointers now the Timberwolves only hit five, where neither team could hit a three because it was their best defensive game of the year, and the best defensive player for the Lakers, by Jared Vanderbilt, was excellent in his very limited defensive moments. He only played eight minutes. But the best defensive player for the Lakers was Lebron James. And you can get away with Lebron only scoring twenty, no one else scoring more than sixteen, and hell other than Austin's sixteen Rui who might have broke his nose in this game, which is something to watch because guys do not like wearing that mask. The only player who seems to not mind wearing that mask Jordan Goodwin, who's been wearing it for months. If he has to wear that mask the rest of the playoffs, that's a concern. But the reason they were able to win that game when no one had it going offensively was because they locked in on the defensive end, led by Lebron, and because they hit all their free throws. Now, I understand folks are going to bitch and moan about the officiating. I thought the officials took too big of a hand in this game. However, it was so physical and so such a slog on offense. I don't know what it would have been if they would have let them play even more for folks that care about the actual numbers, twenty four fouls on LA, twenty two on the Timberwls, twenty free throws by the Lakers, twenty five by the Timbrels. Now, the Lakers went twenty of twenty from the free throw line, which was damn important when the tar Les are trying to cut into the lead late. But I am I have just been really taken aback by Lebron having the opportunity kind of unexpectedly to prove to the world that what he has said his entire career, I'll be whatever player this team in this moment needs me to be Ego aside that that is actually exactly who he's going to be. Usage rate plummets, being on the ball plummets, and he just then can expend that energy in different places. And so I thought, I have thought for the last few years that the fact that there is more commentary about Lebron James's defensive failings than two of the other, probably not two of the other, the two other all time legends in our midst who carry a massive offensive workload for their teams. And because of that, and because of for those guys, their own physical limitations, their downright negative defenders. In Steph Curry, in Nikola Jokic, nobody gives a shit. Everybody just recognized as well. Steph's undersized, and he's expending so much energy on the offensive end, he's got to kind of hide him defensively. Joker is doing everything for the Nuggets offensively and is so limited athletically that you got to just kind of work around that. On the defensive end. Those guys nobody ever complains about their defense. Lebron, who has played twenty some thousand more minutes maybe thirty thousand now twenty thousand, probably more minutes than Steph who's damn near a decade older than Joker, who for the Lakers pre Luca carried the exact same offensive responsibility on his team as those guys did on theirs. Half the commentary seemingly around the last couple of years as well, he's not the defender he once was, and what he is showing you in real time is, yeah, that's been out of necessity. But if that role or responsibility shifts, he can still ratchet it up to not the defense he was in Miami because he's not the athlete he was in Miami, but still an excellent, impactful, disruptive, versatile defensive player, and the Lakers had to have that yesterday. I'm still waiting for the Lakers' offense to show up to this series now. The Timberwolves have done a great job of getting out on shooters, of not letting anyone other than Luca really kill them, of staying connected. They have been able to hide Mike Conley, who had a really rough game, and other than Mike Conley, anyone and everyone they put out there is somewhere from passable defensively, and Julius Randall on the scale from passable to excellent. Jaden is obviously excellent. Rudy is obviously excellent with a few, you know, glaring weaknesses, but his strengths are just massive. Nikhil Alexander Walker when he gets out there as great defensively, Anthony Edwards is one of the best two way players in the league. So this is And by the way, in the next round, you are going to be playing an excellent defensive team if you're the whoever wins this series, no matter whoever wins that series, because the Rockets and the Warriors might be the two best defensive teams in the league not named Oklahoma City. And in Round three you're probably playing Oklahoma City. And so the Lakers locked in defensively, got just enough from the offense, had a first quarter that the Timberwolves were not ready for, and then held on the rest of the way. On Luca, I give Luca an a minus for this game, and the only Luca was really strong defensively himself. Everyone on the Lakers, everyone on the Lakers should feel good about their performance yesterday, honestly, except for Jackson Hayes, who at this point you have to I think you you keep giving him a chance. But that sequence at the beginning of the fourth quarter was just as dumb as it gets a totally unnecessary illegal screen in the back court and then following that up with one of the most obvious goaltends on a shot that had no chance of going in and then seeming shocked by it. That's that's a maddening sequence. He played nine minutes, had five fouls. It was just brutal. But what I was trying to get to before I interrupted myself on Luca Luca. The reason it is only an a is because and you saw bubbling. He almost let the refs take him out of this game. And I'm not saying Luca got a bad whistle. Luca got to the line eleven times, but there was a sequence when he thought he was getting hit, didn't get the call, and then, in a borderline dirty moment, Jaden McDaniels is on the ground and with his own ankles, grabs Luca's ankle and Luca tumbles, and Luca was livid, and I thought he was going to get a technical. If I'm being honest, probably deserved a technical. Maybe the ref knew he had missed it and so he didn't want to give him a technical after the ref missed what was honestly in today's NBA a flagrant foul. That's a non basketball dangerous play, and Luca you saw him starting to unravel a bit emotionally, and the Lakers I think then called time out. His teammates got him under control. But aside from that brief moment, Luca was unbelievable. Now he needs to stop trying so often to just embarrass Rudy Gobert. I think that takes the Lakers out of their offense to a degree. But thirty one, twelve and nine in a game his team scored ninety four points, and he was the engine and the catalyst and the guy that had it going in the first quarter. He had to have almost outscored Minnesota himself in the first quarter. I'm gonna actually check that real quick. That the Timberwolves had fifteen in the first quarter the Lakers in that game. In this game, I should say, let me just go. My friends at Basketball Reference are good with this quarter one Luca had. Luke had sixteen. So he didn't almost outscore the Timberwolves in the first quarter. He did outscore the Timberwolves in the first quarter. And we've now had thirteen playoff games this year. The best one anyone has played is Kawhi's Game two against the Nuggets. The second best one anyone has played, given the context of everything, was either Steph Curry's Game one against the war against the Rockets or Luca Game two against the Timberwolves. Now, Giannis might be like, what more do I have to do? And more on him in a minute, because the answer is I don't know what more he can do, man, and you feel sick for him. More on Jannis just momentarily. But the Lakers now have the opperation coortunity to take a breath. They because of how the schedule falls. They don't play tomorrow, which I think is nice. Travel today or maybe they maybe they travel tomorrow. Actually I don't know who cares when they'll travel. But they play Saturday night. Is that right? No? What day is today? Sorry? Today's Wednesday. They play Friday, So they go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday for the Friday for this series, I'm screwing this up. I apologize it's early in the morning. Point is they get two days between between Game one and two, and two days between games two and three. Game three is Friday. They then have one day between Game three and four, and then again in two days between games four and five, and then it's every other day however much longer the series goes, so I think those will be two important days off. I think the offense needs to get rolling. I'm gonna check with our friends at what the updated series price is. This opened Lakers minus two hundred. Then it quickly shifted, obviously after the after the Game one win to the Timberwolves as slight favorites. It is now a Pickham series, so you would expect it not to have shifted a ton from where it was before Game two because the Timberwolves were the series' favorites, despite the fact the Lakers were big favorites in Game two. My if you guys remember what I said, was my favorite bet of the Lakers minus a game and a half in the series, meaning Lakers to win in four. That's off the board. Five or six was plus one twenty. It is now after last night, back to plus two fifty five. I still like I still think a Lakers in six is very on the board. They obviously need to win Friday in Minnesota and then a quick turnaround because they played Friday late night and then Sunday afternoon. We'll see how that one goes. But this was a huge win. I thought Lebron was exactly who they needed him to be. I thought Luca was exceptional. I thought Austin, after a rough first quarter, got it going. Now, Austin's gotta stop trying to throw these lobs thirteen feet in the air, as Dragonfly Jones wrote, he's trying to throw lobs to two thousand and nine Lebron. That guy's not walking through the door. And they got to figure out what gonna do with Jackson Hayes. On the Timbrewl side of things, it is even though I didn't expect him to feature Rudy Gobert offensively, it is remarkable to me how little they will give him the ball when he has a mismatch, and I think that that's good for the Lakers. Dante wasn't able to get into this game really because of foul trouble. Now, the foul trouble was hard to figure out because Reggie kept telling us guys had four fouls, and then the graphics kept telling us they had three. I didn't know who to believe, but nas Reed got in foul trouble as well. Julius Randall obviously was exceptional exceptional strong. Julius Randall was the one guy on the Timbrels that had it going. They as a team had fourteen assists. He had six of them. The rest of their starting lineup had two assists, Jayden with one, Conly with one. And their ability, which is what I begged them to do before the series, to listen ant, you're gonna get to the basket sometimes we'll deal with that. We are not going to collapse on you to all of a sudden leave other guys open. I thought they did a way way better job of that, which made Aunt have a quiet twenty five point six rebound, zero assist game. And so that's the Lakers game. Let me remind you guys, the NBA eighty two game grind is done. Now the real fun has begun. The NBA playoffs are here. 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Just quickly if you didn't those that game was on simultaneously with Ice Timberwolves Grizzly sorry Thunder Grizzlies of Pacers Bucks. I was watching much more of Pacers Bucks. So I don't really have great analysis for you, except for the fact that after the you know, not scoring twenty points for the first time in like seventy five games, scored twenty seven, but on twenty nine shots. He actually has had a rough couple of games start this series, and it does not matter at all because the Grizzlies have no shot and don't seem to have a ton of interest in competing in this series. So that one's done, the question is will the Grizzlies get a game? My answer to that is almost assuredly not. If you look at the Thunder this year against the Memphis Grizzlies, it is start to finish all year long utter domination game one of not this series, but this season Thunder Grizzlies, thunder by twenty four, game two, thunder by thirteen, game three, thunder by seventeen, game four, thunder by twenty one, game five, thunder by fifty one, game six, thunder by nineteen. The Thunder against the Grizzlies this year have scored one thirty one, twenty five one, twenty one, twenty five, one, thirty one one eighteen. So the Grizzlies drawing dead in the series. And then we get to Pacers Bucks, where, if I'm a Bucks fan, I'm really worried. And it's not that I'm worried that I'm going to lose this series. I'm worried about something far more important. And so Dame came back. I was saying on the TV show all week once we heard Day might come back, imploring people that We need to not act like when a guy has missed a month, he's going to come back and look like himself. I know, Dame hit, you know, a couple big shots late, but he's four of thirteen, he's two of eight from three, He's fourteen points, seven assists. He was fine, but it's gonna take him time that they don't have to get back rolling. Kyle Kuzma after the twenty trillion game showed up and Port has played a really good game. Port has had almost thirty off the bench. Not a really good game, a great game. But the Bucks do not have the ability to guard the Pacers, and it's why the Pacers scored forty in the first quarter, won twenty three for the game. And yeah, there was a moment because it was one fifteen to one hundred. I think I have that right. I'm gonna double check, but I was. I think it was one fifteen, one hundred with five minutes five and a half minutes left, and then Milwaukee goes on a thirteen nothing run, culminating in a deep littard three to make it one fifteen to one thirteen. It's like, oh my god, they might steal it. Then Siakam hits a three, nim Hard hits a three in game over, and so here's where I'm talking about being concerned. Janis had thirty four, eighteen and seven. Okay, Yannis in this series is averaging thirty five, fifteen and four on sixty five percent from the field, and they haven't really been competitive in either game. Again, they got this one to two with a few minutes left, but the Pacers were in have been in firm control for ninety percent of the minutes played in this series. And if Giannis is you know how after the game guys usually have the box score in their hand. If he's looking at the box score and he's like, Torrian Prince is in my starting lineup. Kyle Kuzma's in my starting lineup. Brook Lopez, who I won a championship with God love him, but was in the two thousand and eight draft and is thirty seven years old, is in my starting lineup. My best guy off the bench other than Gary Trent Junior, who's a nice player, is Bobby Portis. He's thirty years old. We're leaning on Torrian Prince. What is my Kevin Porter Junior has become shockingly important to this team. Ryan Rollins, who played real minutes in the first game of this series because Dame was out. Now that Dame's back is a DMP coach's decision. AJ Green's part of the rotation. Jericho Simms, who was like the number four center for the Knicks a couple of years ago. He's in the road. My roster is not good enough and it's not going to be good enough. And I understand I am not a guy. Listen, you guys know this. I'm from Kansaity, Missouri. I'm not into trying to, you know, force guys out of small markets. And Giannis has two guaranteed years left on his contract with Milwaukee before a player option. But Jannis, if it is, it's been a long time since Giannis won a playoff game. The last playoff game Yannis won was on the court for a win was the twenty twenty two Eastern Conference Semifinals Game four, Game five to go up three to two on Boston. The next year, they lost to the Heat in the first round in five. He missed the one win. The next year he was injured for the playoffs. This year, they're down oh two, and I just I don't know the right places for Giannis. And I'm not saying he definitively is going to ask out, but I don't know how credibly he can feel about the Bucks as contenders next year, when Dame turns thirty five, brook is thirty seven. They they traded a bunch of their stuff to win that championship. They then made probably a trade they would like back, in the Dame trade, if for no other reason, then it facilitated Boston getting Drew Holliday and they're stuck now. I know people say, you know Brooklyn has been preparing for Yannis. I I get that. Why if you're Brooklyn you'd want it. If you're Yannis, how does that make you closer? It probably doesn't. There are not many teams that have the stuff required to get Yannis that then would have enough stuff left to compete for a championship. Oddly, this is where sorry salt in the wounds. I don't mean to do it. If Dallas had played it out this year with Luca and then this summer said you know what, we don't like him, we think he eats and drinks too much, and maybe this year they get popped in round one. I don't think they would have whatever. And in that alternate universe where Kyrie's not playing forty some minutes a game and has this super high workload right before the ACL injury, maybe Kyrie doesn't have the ACL. If Dallas calls Milwaukee and Luca for Jannis won for one, that's a conversation. And if you're honest, you're like, oh, oh, okay, I have Kyrie. We have these good Ciners that that's interesting, but that's obviously gone. So you look around. Cleveland could create a package that they could still compete at a super high level. Boston obviously could, but Boston, I don't. That's not the business Boston is going to be in. The Knicks fired their gun early to get Michale Bridges and Karl Anthony Towns. Oddly, the Pacers are an interesting one. But do we think Yannis is gonna force his way out of one small market for another. There's always the Miami smoke. Miami would have nothing left like Jannis and Tyler hero Is assuming Bams in the trade. That doesn't get you there. So I think it's a weird spot where I don't see the obvious move that puts Yannis in a better position. Than the one he's in right now, So maybe that leads to him staying. But man, oh man, I cannot imagine. Jannis feels realistically like this team is even close to being close. And so those are my takeaways from night What was that? Night four of the NBA Playoffs? Tonight is a nice night to potentially, you know, take your significant other, your kids, or whomever out for dinner and just be like, we just got to be home by around nine thirty if you're on the East Coast. Magic Celtics tonight, even without Tatum, the Magic are not gonna be able to score ninety points nineties certainly not ninety five points. The Celtics will win. Heat Calves is a don't need to watch, and then Warriors Rockets will be awesome. But Magic Celtics heat Calves are two early ones that I think you're safe skipping. And then Tomorrow night, and it is Tomorrow Night's weird in this regard. Nick's Piston seven o'clock TNT Awesome, thunder Grizzlies nine to thirty TNT, Why Nuggets Clippers ten o'clock NBA TV Sure feels like if you can, you should flipflop those two and put Nuggets Clippers on TNT. And again, most people who have TNT at this point probably have NBA TV, but it's still they. I think they misjudged what the real people might be like. Ah, the Thunder deserve a prime spot it once the playoffs actually start for them, they might. But tonight one big game Warriors Rockets, absolute, unequivocal, literal must win for the Rockets. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. We're gonna try to do as many of these bonus episodes as possible. If you're listening to us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever, please subscribe. That helps us more than you could possibly imagine. Greatly appreciate that. See you guys on TV in a few hours or maybe, depending on when you're listening to this, I've already been on TV. Doesn't matter. Right back here Thursday for What's Right with the full regular show. Thursday's What's Right Draft preview show. One of our favorite bits, we break out the fake phones. Demon's will be here for that. See you guys then, What's Right

Welcome in What's Right with Nick Wright quick reaction pod to last night's NBA playoff games one. Listen, Grizzlies thunder just sim to the end. We'll get to that briefly at the end of the pod. Somewhat interesting momentarily or at least briefly interesting game between the Bucks and the Pacers, a fifteen point lead trimmed to two in the waning moments, but the Bucks not able to get over the top and what that means for Giannis. But the game of the night, which turned into the rock fight of the night Lakers ninety four Timberwolves eighty five. I don't think anyone is actually surprised by the result. Home team loses game one, they are going to come out more urgent, more focused, better in game two, and the Lakers did and blitzed him in the first quarter thirty four to fifteen, and then really just held on the rest of the way, culminating in a fourth quarter where neither team could hit shots, where the Lakers were just kind of limping to the finish line and everyone seemed a little out of gas except for the oldest guy on the court. And we can do big picture stuff shortly. And I understand that some folks will hear this and be like, you gotta be kidding me. Lebron scored twenty one. His jumper wasn't falling. He was eight of nineteen from the field, one of five from three. And you're gonna wax poetic about the game Lebron James had And the answer is yes, I am, because there was one play late in the fourth quarter that to me symbolized who Lebron has been since they acquired Luca, and who he has been is whoever they need him to be. That night, I will mold my game accordingly. Three minutes left Lakers with the smallest lead that they've had since it was fifteen to eight. They are up nine. The Lakers were up at least nine points for the final forty minutes of this game, and the Timberwolves, however, in the fourth quarter, were slowly trying to make it a game, and the Lakers had a bad possession. Luca got caught up in the air through the ball to basically nowhere, and Luca was excellent. More on him in a moment, and all of a sudden, the Timberwolves are in transition. Three minutes down nine, chance to cut it to six or seven, and all of a sudden, all the pressure will be on La and Lebron circles around to where Anthony Edwards is getting the ball at mid court in a semi transition situation, steals it from Anthony Edwards, burst to the basket, lay up up eleven, Game over. And what is to me so remarkable about the best player I've ever seen, if people are being honest, the best player anyone's ever seen this year has been his ability to the instant they got Luke Adancic him saying, Okay, I have to be a totally different type of player because we're a totally different type of team. After for the entirety of my Lakers tenure, which at this point is as long as he has ever stayed with one team consecutively seven years, he had to be on the ball, ball dominant, running the offense. His transition from that to a do it all, jack of all trades player who in this game said, defense is what we needed to lock in on. Defense is what we drastically needed to improve on, and in the Lakers' best defensive game of the year, at least as far as how many points their opponent scored. He was the best defender on the court, and get in where you fit in on offense, crash the boards, try to get other people involved, and lock down defensively to the tune of Anthony Edwards, and not that he was on Anthony a lot. After having nine assists in game one, zero no one other than Julius Randall getting going at all, and the Lakers winning a game they had to have where they only hit six three pointers now the Timberwolves only hit five, where neither team could hit a three because it was their best defensive game of the year, and the best defensive player for the Lakers, by Jared Vanderbilt, was excellent in his very limited defensive moments. He only played eight minutes. But the best defensive player for the Lakers was Lebron James. And you can get away with Lebron only scoring twenty, no one else scoring more than sixteen, and hell other than Austin's sixteen Rui who might have broke his nose in this game, which is something to watch because guys do not like wearing that mask. The only player who seems to not mind wearing that mask Jordan Goodwin, who's been wearing it for months. If he has to wear that mask the rest of the playoffs, that's a concern. But the reason they were able to win that game when no one had it going offensively was because they locked in on the defensive end, led by Lebron, and because they hit all their free throws. Now, I understand folks are going to bitch and moan about the officiating. I thought the officials took too big of a hand in this game. However, it was so physical and so such a slog on offense. I don't know what it would have been if they would have let them play even more for folks that care about the actual numbers, twenty four fouls on LA, twenty two on the Timberwls, twenty free throws by the Lakers, twenty five by the Timbrels. Now, the Lakers went twenty of twenty from the free throw line, which was damn important when the tar Les are trying to cut into the lead late. But I am I have just been really taken aback by Lebron having the opportunity kind of unexpectedly to prove to the world that what he has said his entire career, I'll be whatever player this team in this moment needs me to be Ego aside that that is actually exactly who he's going to be. Usage rate plummets, being on the ball plummets, and he just then can expend that energy in different places. And so I thought, I have thought for the last few years that the fact that there is more commentary about Lebron James's defensive failings than two of the other, probably not two of the other, the two other all time legends in our midst who carry a massive offensive workload for their teams. And because of that, and because of for those guys, their own physical limitations, their downright negative defenders. In Steph Curry, in Nikola Jokic, nobody gives a shit. Everybody just recognized as well. Steph's undersized, and he's expending so much energy on the offensive end, he's got to kind of hide him defensively. Joker is doing everything for the Nuggets offensively and is so limited athletically that you got to just kind of work around that. On the defensive end. Those guys nobody ever complains about their defense. Lebron, who has played twenty some thousand more minutes maybe thirty thousand now twenty thousand, probably more minutes than Steph who's damn near a decade older than Joker, who for the Lakers pre Luca carried the exact same offensive responsibility on his team as those guys did on theirs. Half the commentary seemingly around the last couple of years as well, he's not the defender he once was, and what he is showing you in real time is, yeah, that's been out of necessity. But if that role or responsibility shifts, he can still ratchet it up to not the defense he was in Miami because he's not the athlete he was in Miami, but still an excellent, impactful, disruptive, versatile defensive player, and the Lakers had to have that yesterday. I'm still waiting for the Lakers' offense to show up to this series now. The Timberwolves have done a great job of getting out on shooters, of not letting anyone other than Luca really kill them, of staying connected. They have been able to hide Mike Conley, who had a really rough game, and other than Mike Conley, anyone and everyone they put out there is somewhere from passable defensively, and Julius Randall on the scale from passable to excellent. Jaden is obviously excellent. Rudy is obviously excellent with a few, you know, glaring weaknesses, but his strengths are just massive. Nikhil Alexander Walker when he gets out there as great defensively, Anthony Edwards is one of the best two way players in the league. So this is And by the way, in the next round, you are going to be playing an excellent defensive team if you're the whoever wins this series, no matter whoever wins that series, because the Rockets and the Warriors might be the two best defensive teams in the league not named Oklahoma City. And in Round three you're probably playing Oklahoma City. And so the Lakers locked in defensively, got just enough from the offense, had a first quarter that the Timberwolves were not ready for, and then held on the rest of the way. On Luca, I give Luca an a minus for this game, and the only Luca was really strong defensively himself. Everyone on the Lakers, everyone on the Lakers should feel good about their performance yesterday, honestly, except for Jackson Hayes, who at this point you have to I think you you keep giving him a chance. But that sequence at the beginning of the fourth quarter was just as dumb as it gets a totally unnecessary illegal screen in the back court and then following that up with one of the most obvious goaltends on a shot that had no chance of going in and then seeming shocked by it. That's that's a maddening sequence. He played nine minutes, had five fouls. It was just brutal. But what I was trying to get to before I interrupted myself on Luca Luca. The reason it is only an a is because and you saw bubbling. He almost let the refs take him out of this game. And I'm not saying Luca got a bad whistle. Luca got to the line eleven times, but there was a sequence when he thought he was getting hit, didn't get the call, and then, in a borderline dirty moment, Jaden McDaniels is on the ground and with his own ankles, grabs Luca's ankle and Luca tumbles, and Luca was livid, and I thought he was going to get a technical. If I'm being honest, probably deserved a technical. Maybe the ref knew he had missed it and so he didn't want to give him a technical after the ref missed what was honestly in today's NBA a flagrant foul. That's a non basketball dangerous play, and Luca you saw him starting to unravel a bit emotionally, and the Lakers I think then called time out. His teammates got him under control. But aside from that brief moment, Luca was unbelievable. Now he needs to stop trying so often to just embarrass Rudy Gobert. I think that takes the Lakers out of their offense to a degree. But thirty one, twelve and nine in a game his team scored ninety four points, and he was the engine and the catalyst and the guy that had it going in the first quarter. He had to have almost outscored Minnesota himself in the first quarter. I'm gonna actually check that real quick. That the Timberwolves had fifteen in the first quarter the Lakers in that game. In this game, I should say, let me just go. My friends at Basketball Reference are good with this quarter one Luca had. Luke had sixteen. So he didn't almost outscore the Timberwolves in the first quarter. He did outscore the Timberwolves in the first quarter. And we've now had thirteen playoff games this year. The best one anyone has played is Kawhi's Game two against the Nuggets. The second best one anyone has played, given the context of everything, was either Steph Curry's Game one against the war against the Rockets or Luca Game two against the Timberwolves. Now, Giannis might be like, what more do I have to do? And more on him in a minute, because the answer is I don't know what more he can do, man, and you feel sick for him. More on Jannis just momentarily. But the Lakers now have the opperation coortunity to take a breath. They because of how the schedule falls. They don't play tomorrow, which I think is nice. Travel today or maybe they maybe they travel tomorrow. Actually I don't know who cares when they'll travel. But they play Saturday night. Is that right? No? What day is today? Sorry? Today's Wednesday. They play Friday, So they go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday for the Friday for this series, I'm screwing this up. I apologize it's early in the morning. Point is they get two days between between Game one and two, and two days between games two and three. Game three is Friday. They then have one day between Game three and four, and then again in two days between games four and five, and then it's every other day however much longer the series goes, so I think those will be two important days off. I think the offense needs to get rolling. I'm gonna check with our friends at what the updated series price is. This opened Lakers minus two hundred. Then it quickly shifted, obviously after the after the Game one win to the Timberwolves as slight favorites. It is now a Pickham series, so you would expect it not to have shifted a ton from where it was before Game two because the Timberwolves were the series' favorites, despite the fact the Lakers were big favorites in Game two. My if you guys remember what I said, was my favorite bet of the Lakers minus a game and a half in the series, meaning Lakers to win in four. That's off the board. Five or six was plus one twenty. It is now after last night, back to plus two fifty five. I still like I still think a Lakers in six is very on the board. They obviously need to win Friday in Minnesota and then a quick turnaround because they played Friday late night and then Sunday afternoon. We'll see how that one goes. But this was a huge win. I thought Lebron was exactly who they needed him to be. I thought Luca was exceptional. I thought Austin, after a rough first quarter, got it going. Now, Austin's gotta stop trying to throw these lobs thirteen feet in the air, as Dragonfly Jones wrote, he's trying to throw lobs to two thousand and nine Lebron. That guy's not walking through the door. And they got to figure out what gonna do with Jackson Hayes. On the Timbrewl side of things, it is even though I didn't expect him to feature Rudy Gobert offensively, it is remarkable to me how little they will give him the ball when he has a mismatch, and I think that that's good for the Lakers. Dante wasn't able to get into this game really because of foul trouble. Now, the foul trouble was hard to figure out because Reggie kept telling us guys had four fouls, and then the graphics kept telling us they had three. I didn't know who to believe, but nas Reed got in foul trouble as well. Julius Randall obviously was exceptional exceptional strong. Julius Randall was the one guy on the Timbrels that had it going. They as a team had fourteen assists. He had six of them. The rest of their starting lineup had two assists, Jayden with one, Conly with one. And their ability, which is what I begged them to do before the series, to listen ant, you're gonna get to the basket sometimes we'll deal with that. We are not going to collapse on you to all of a sudden leave other guys open. I thought they did a way way better job of that, which made Aunt have a quiet twenty five point six rebound, zero assist game. And so that's the Lakers game. Let me remind you guys, the NBA eighty two game grind is done. Now the real fun has begun. The NBA playoffs are here. 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Just quickly if you didn't those that game was on simultaneously with Ice Timberwolves Grizzly sorry Thunder Grizzlies of Pacers Bucks. I was watching much more of Pacers Bucks. So I don't really have great analysis for you, except for the fact that after the you know, not scoring twenty points for the first time in like seventy five games, scored twenty seven, but on twenty nine shots. He actually has had a rough couple of games start this series, and it does not matter at all because the Grizzlies have no shot and don't seem to have a ton of interest in competing in this series. So that one's done, the question is will the Grizzlies get a game? My answer to that is almost assuredly not. If you look at the Thunder this year against the Memphis Grizzlies, it is start to finish all year long utter domination game one of not this series, but this season Thunder Grizzlies, thunder by twenty four, game two, thunder by thirteen, game three, thunder by seventeen, game four, thunder by twenty one, game five, thunder by fifty one, game six, thunder by nineteen. The Thunder against the Grizzlies this year have scored one thirty one, twenty five one, twenty one, twenty five, one, thirty one one eighteen. So the Grizzlies drawing dead in the series. And then we get to Pacers Bucks, where, if I'm a Bucks fan, I'm really worried. And it's not that I'm worried that I'm going to lose this series. I'm worried about something far more important. And so Dame came back. I was saying on the TV show all week once we heard Day might come back, imploring people that We need to not act like when a guy has missed a month, he's going to come back and look like himself. I know, Dame hit, you know, a couple big shots late, but he's four of thirteen, he's two of eight from three, He's fourteen points, seven assists. He was fine, but it's gonna take him time that they don't have to get back rolling. Kyle Kuzma after the twenty trillion game showed up and Port has played a really good game. Port has had almost thirty off the bench. Not a really good game, a great game. But the Bucks do not have the ability to guard the Pacers, and it's why the Pacers scored forty in the first quarter, won twenty three for the game. And yeah, there was a moment because it was one fifteen to one hundred. I think I have that right. I'm gonna double check, but I was. I think it was one fifteen, one hundred with five minutes five and a half minutes left, and then Milwaukee goes on a thirteen nothing run, culminating in a deep littard three to make it one fifteen to one thirteen. It's like, oh my god, they might steal it. Then Siakam hits a three, nim Hard hits a three in game over, and so here's where I'm talking about being concerned. Janis had thirty four, eighteen and seven. Okay, Yannis in this series is averaging thirty five, fifteen and four on sixty five percent from the field, and they haven't really been competitive in either game. Again, they got this one to two with a few minutes left, but the Pacers were in have been in firm control for ninety percent of the minutes played in this series. And if Giannis is you know how after the game guys usually have the box score in their hand. If he's looking at the box score and he's like, Torrian Prince is in my starting lineup. Kyle Kuzma's in my starting lineup. Brook Lopez, who I won a championship with God love him, but was in the two thousand and eight draft and is thirty seven years old, is in my starting lineup. My best guy off the bench other than Gary Trent Junior, who's a nice player, is Bobby Portis. He's thirty years old. We're leaning on Torrian Prince. What is my Kevin Porter Junior has become shockingly important to this team. Ryan Rollins, who played real minutes in the first game of this series because Dame was out. Now that Dame's back is a DMP coach's decision. AJ Green's part of the rotation. Jericho Simms, who was like the number four center for the Knicks a couple of years ago. He's in the road. My roster is not good enough and it's not going to be good enough. And I understand I am not a guy. Listen, you guys know this. I'm from Kansaity, Missouri. I'm not into trying to, you know, force guys out of small markets. And Giannis has two guaranteed years left on his contract with Milwaukee before a player option. But Jannis, if it is, it's been a long time since Giannis won a playoff game. The last playoff game Yannis won was on the court for a win was the twenty twenty two Eastern Conference Semifinals Game four, Game five to go up three to two on Boston. The next year, they lost to the Heat in the first round in five. He missed the one win. The next year he was injured for the playoffs. This year, they're down oh two, and I just I don't know the right places for Giannis. And I'm not saying he definitively is going to ask out, but I don't know how credibly he can feel about the Bucks as contenders next year, when Dame turns thirty five, brook is thirty seven. They they traded a bunch of their stuff to win that championship. They then made probably a trade they would like back, in the Dame trade, if for no other reason, then it facilitated Boston getting Drew Holliday and they're stuck now. I know people say, you know Brooklyn has been preparing for Yannis. I I get that. Why if you're Brooklyn you'd want it. If you're Yannis, how does that make you closer? It probably doesn't. There are not many teams that have the stuff required to get Yannis that then would have enough stuff left to compete for a championship. Oddly, this is where sorry salt in the wounds. I don't mean to do it. If Dallas had played it out this year with Luca and then this summer said you know what, we don't like him, we think he eats and drinks too much, and maybe this year they get popped in round one. I don't think they would have whatever. And in that alternate universe where Kyrie's not playing forty some minutes a game and has this super high workload right before the ACL injury, maybe Kyrie doesn't have the ACL. If Dallas calls Milwaukee and Luca for Jannis won for one, that's a conversation. And if you're honest, you're like, oh, oh, okay, I have Kyrie. We have these good Ciners that that's interesting, but that's obviously gone. So you look around. Cleveland could create a package that they could still compete at a super high level. Boston obviously could, but Boston, I don't. That's not the business Boston is going to be in. The Knicks fired their gun early to get Michale Bridges and Karl Anthony Towns. Oddly, the Pacers are an interesting one. But do we think Yannis is gonna force his way out of one small market for another. There's always the Miami smoke. Miami would have nothing left like Jannis and Tyler hero Is assuming Bams in the trade. That doesn't get you there. So I think it's a weird spot where I don't see the obvious move that puts Yannis in a better position. Than the one he's in right now, So maybe that leads to him staying. But man, oh man, I cannot imagine. Jannis feels realistically like this team is even close to being close. And so those are my takeaways from night What was that? Night four of the NBA Playoffs? Tonight is a nice night to potentially, you know, take your significant other, your kids, or whomever out for dinner and just be like, we just got to be home by around nine thirty if you're on the East Coast. Magic Celtics tonight, even without Tatum, the Magic are not gonna be able to score ninety points nineties certainly not ninety five points. The Celtics will win. Heat Calves is a don't need to watch, and then Warriors Rockets will be awesome. But Magic Celtics heat Calves are two early ones that I think you're safe skipping. And then Tomorrow night, and it is Tomorrow Night's weird in this regard. Nick's Piston seven o'clock TNT Awesome, thunder Grizzlies nine to thirty TNT, Why Nuggets Clippers ten o'clock NBA TV Sure feels like if you can, you should flipflop those two and put Nuggets Clippers on TNT. And again, most people who have TNT at this point probably have NBA TV, but it's still they. I think they misjudged what the real people might be like. Ah, the Thunder deserve a prime spot it once the playoffs actually start for them, they might. But tonight one big game Warriors Rockets, absolute, unequivocal, literal must win for the Rockets. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. We're gonna try to do as many of these bonus episodes as possible. If you're listening to us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever, please subscribe. That helps us more than you could possibly imagine. Greatly appreciate that. See you guys on TV in a few hours or maybe, depending on when you're listening to this, I've already been on TV. Doesn't matter. Right back here Thursday for What's Right with the full regular show. Thursday's What's Right Draft preview show. One of our favorite bits, we break out the fake phones. Demon's will be here for that. See you guys then, What's Right