Speaker 1: Hey, sports fans, welcome back. It is the Drive with
Speaker 1: Spence Check. It's here on ESPN seven hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: two NFM, proud to be part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.
Speaker 1: I'm Scott Mitchell filling in for Spence this Friday afternoon.
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic Friday. Fun Friday.
Speaker 1: It's a football Friday for me always because Fridays are
Speaker 1: just every day when you're in the NFL. Every day
Speaker 1: is a Friday, every meal is a banquet and many
Speaker 1: other things.
Speaker 2: So really fun to be here.
Speaker 1: Fun show so far, great conversations with Paul Pugmeyer. Have
Speaker 1: got a lot more to get into, and we I
Speaker 1: believe we have Howard Beck with us now from the Ringer,
Speaker 1: so he joins the show talking about the NBA.
Speaker 2: Howard, Welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm doing Look, Scott, how are you well? You know,
Speaker 1: it's a marathon day today. I'm living the dream and
Speaker 1: it's not a nightmare. So you know, I couldn't couldn't
Speaker 1: be happier at this time. Have to talk about sports. Uh,
Speaker 1: the NBA of course is going on right now. The
Speaker 1: playoffs are happening. What what of all the series so far,
Speaker 1: this round, the semifinal round, what what what's the one
Speaker 1: that you find the most intriguing at this time?
Speaker 3: I mean, there all are, because this has been maybe
Speaker 3: the wildest, craziest, strangest, most chaotic second round of the
Speaker 3: playoffs the NBA has ever had. Took forever for a
Speaker 3: home team to actually win a game. And you know,
Speaker 3: as as we sit here, you know, a couple hours
Speaker 3: away from another you know night of games here, you've
Speaker 3: got you know, the Pacers up two oh and then
Speaker 3: going home. You know, they're now at home for the
Speaker 3: next two games. You gets the Cavaliers team that was
Speaker 3: far and away the best team in the East all season,
Speaker 3: and the Cavs banged up in this series. So that's
Speaker 3: been a huge part of this. Of course, Darius Garland
Speaker 3: out for you know, both of the first two games,
Speaker 3: and then they're missing both Hunter and Kevin Mobile in
Speaker 3: game two.
Speaker 1: I think those.
Speaker 3: Guys are trying to play games three tonight. I'm a
Speaker 3: little out of the loop today, so I'm not sure
Speaker 3: where things stand there. But if the Cavaliers are healthy,
Speaker 3: I can see them getting back in this series. It's tough,
Speaker 3: you know, going down down two zero in a series
Speaker 3: in any round is very difficult. You you, those teams
Speaker 3: didn't generally lose it like a seventy five eighty percent
Speaker 3: rate historically, But you lose the first two at home,
Speaker 3: you know you're in a hole that that very few
Speaker 3: teams get out of. Same thing now with Nixon Celtics,
Speaker 3: and here we have got the Celtics defending champs. That
Speaker 3: series resumes tomorrow at Madison Square Guard and that one's
Speaker 3: got to be the biggest shocker of them all. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've had some really strange twists and turns in the playoffs,
Speaker 3: but I just I don't think there's a bigger shocker
Speaker 3: right now than a Celtics team that is the defending champions,
Speaker 3: that is pretty much healthy, not perfect, but they've got
Speaker 3: all the all the requisite bodies, and they're they're they've
Speaker 3: got the same core group back from the from the
Speaker 3: team that won the championship. Like that, there's there's there's
Speaker 3: nothing you can point to in terms of personnel to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: well they're not the same group. That's the exact same group.
Speaker 3: They're just unable somehow to hold on to leads. They've
Speaker 3: built twenty point leads and blown them in both games
Speaker 3: so far. That's an NBA first as well. And you know,
Speaker 3: the Garden is not an easy place for visiting teams
Speaker 3: to play, but the Celtics have had great success there
Speaker 3: in the past. We'll see if they can make this
Speaker 3: a series starting tomorrow. So I think the two East
Speaker 3: series are the most interesting right now. You know, in
Speaker 3: the West, you know, the Thunder puts such a beatdown
Speaker 3: on the Nuggets in Game two, and you kind of
Speaker 3: expect that that's where that series would go. But I
Speaker 3: could see that the Nuggets because of how great Yokic
Speaker 3: is them dragging that out. The Warriors have a tough
Speaker 3: time now because they don't have Steph Curry. That series
Speaker 3: has tied one one going back to San Francisco. But
Speaker 3: if Curry's not playing for at least the next two
Speaker 3: to three games, which is what it looks like with
Speaker 3: that hamstring, you know, it's going to be hard for
Speaker 3: them to manufacture, you know, enough momentum to extend that one.
Speaker 3: But I think all four of these series have potential
Speaker 3: to be really fascinating and then potentially go the distance.
Speaker 1: So you talk about it being highly unusual and and
Speaker 1: not maybe the predicted outcome.
Speaker 2: Can you point your finger?
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned a couple of things, maybe injuries
Speaker 1: or whatever, But is it?
Speaker 2: Is it more than that? Is it matchup problems? Is it?
Speaker 2: Why is why is this that is so on its ear? This?
Speaker 2: This this year's playoffs, or at least this round.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. It's one that everybody in the NBA,
Speaker 3: I think, is asking themselves and asking each other. Why
Speaker 3: are we having so many upsets all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: I mean, we also have one of the rare times
Speaker 3: that we've got a six seed versus a seventh seed,
Speaker 3: which is you know, Minnesota versus Golden State. Now they
Speaker 3: were not the normal six and seven seed, and the
Speaker 3: West was very tightly packed. So the difference between being
Speaker 3: the two and the three who they beat versus being
Speaker 3: the six and seven was a difference of a couple
Speaker 3: of games and the course of the regular season the
Speaker 3: standings were that tightly packed. So some of this is
Speaker 3: just parody. We are in an age of parody in
Speaker 3: the NBA, So there's going to be more volatility, more
Speaker 3: variants and the three point shot, of course, and we
Speaker 3: are in this you know three point era, this you know,
Speaker 3: this is this three point revolution where you know, a
Speaker 3: twenty point lead, the twenty point deficit is not is
Speaker 3: not as hard to come back from as it once was.
Speaker 3: You know, so teams, you know, teams are never out
Speaker 3: of it, it seems like. And there are no super teams.
Speaker 3: You know, when I talk about parody, it's not just oh, well,
Speaker 3: everybody is within a few degrees of each other. It's
Speaker 3: that you don't have the dominant teams in the past
Speaker 3: where you know, the like the Warriors of twenty seventeen eighteen,
Speaker 3: where Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and Draymond Green and
Speaker 3: Klay Thompson, you've got four future Hall of Famers, the
Speaker 3: Miami Heat when Lebron was there with three future Hall
Speaker 3: of Famers.
Speaker 2: Teams aren't built that.
Speaker 3: Way right now, and it's engineered that way. The NBA,
Speaker 3: over the course of the last several collective bargaining agreements,
Speaker 3: has made it harder and harder for teams to just
Speaker 3: stack up max players, to stack up superstars, and so
Speaker 3: as a result, most teams have won. And then maybe
Speaker 3: you've got a co star, or maybe you've got another
Speaker 3: guy who's like a second to third tier type star,
Speaker 3: but they're not as dominant as in the past, and
Speaker 3: so it does leave less margin for error.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, this is a this is a strategy
Speaker 1: the NFL employed this kind of parody and and and
Speaker 1: clearly it's not necessarily something that's been a part of
Speaker 1: the NBA. Was it a strategy designed because of how
Speaker 1: successful the NFL is that all these teams And do
Speaker 1: you think ultimately that you know this is this is
Speaker 1: a good strategy. Is it going to work? It's a
Speaker 1: parody going to work? Are people going to be okay
Speaker 1: with I mean, I know how I feel. I kind
Speaker 1: of like it personally, but I'm just curious what what
Speaker 1: your thoughts are on this, this strategy and its long
Speaker 1: term impact.
Speaker 3: The people. And when I say people like at the
Speaker 3: public media whatever, have a kind of a love hate
Speaker 3: relationship with this kind of core thing about the NBA,
Speaker 3: which is at the NBA has always been a leg
Speaker 3: of dynasties, right the Showtime Lakers and the eighties Celtics,
Speaker 3: the nineties Bulls, the Shaq and Kobe Lakers, the Spurs,
Speaker 3: you know, the Warriors of the late twenty tens. The
Speaker 3: NBA has always been built in dynasties, going all the
Speaker 3: way back, of course, to the Celtics in the sixties.
Speaker 3: And usually you've got a team that everybody else is chasing,
Speaker 3: or sometimes a couple of teams that are battling for supremacy,
Speaker 3: and everybody else is kind of on the sidelines watching,
Speaker 3: and people will rail against that and say, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: there's only two or three teams that ever have a chance,
Speaker 3: and you know, you know it's not fair, it's all
Speaker 3: these other teams. And then you get financial issues and
Speaker 3: market size issues. Oh well, you know, the small market
Speaker 3: teams can't keep up. They can't pay the same luxury
Speaker 3: tax bill that the big team, big market teams can pay.
Speaker 3: So you know, people rail against dynasties, but people watch dynasties,
Speaker 3: and if you love or hated dynasty, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: if you love it or hate it, as long as
Speaker 3: you're watching. And I think the polarizing aspect of a
Speaker 3: dynasty he is part of what's made the NBA interesting,
Speaker 3: at least when it comes to April, May June. But
Speaker 3: for the rest of the season, you know, you need
Speaker 3: markets to all be tuned into their teams. You need
Speaker 3: people to be engaged, you need fans to be interested
Speaker 3: and you need everybody to feel some sense of hope.
Speaker 3: You need, you know, fans in Indiana and Memphis and
Speaker 3: Salt Lake City of course to feel like they've got
Speaker 3: a shot too. And if it feels like only New
Speaker 3: York or LA or Chicago can ever win, that's a problem.
Speaker 3: So quickly you back up. In twenty eleven, the NBA
Speaker 3: had a lockout that you may remember, and you know,
Speaker 3: it cut way into the season. It threatens the entire
Speaker 3: season as a whole. And during that lockout, Adam Silver,
Speaker 3: who was then the deputy commissioner now the commissioner, he
Speaker 3: had a phrase he used so many times it's embedded
Speaker 3: in my in my head, which is that he wanted
Speaker 3: a league and David Stern of course too. They wanted
Speaker 3: a league where thirty teams, if well managed, could compete
Speaker 3: for a championship. That was the phrasing they used. What
Speaker 3: we have in today's NBA fourteen years later is effectively
Speaker 3: that like, if you're well managed, you've got a chance
Speaker 3: because nobody can just soak up all the high end talent.
Speaker 1: Well to your point about the small market teams, you know,
Speaker 1: feeling like they have a chance to win, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 2: I can tell you right now we know we're not
Speaker 2: going to win.
Speaker 1: Like we're in the middle of rebuild, so I know
Speaker 1: that's not gonna happen right now. And of course the
Speaker 1: lottery is coming up here on Monday, and I know
Speaker 1: folks out in Utah are super excited about the odds
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that are placed before us. How do
Speaker 1: we manage expectations as a fan base out here with
Speaker 1: with what happens in the lottery and where where you
Speaker 1: you know you talk can only go as low as five,
Speaker 1: But you know what's what's a reasonable expectation about what
Speaker 1: could happen in this lottery on Monday?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean one quick aside as we talk about
Speaker 3: small markets. If you look at who's left the eight
Speaker 3: teams that are left right now, Oklahoma City small market
Speaker 3: team and favor to come out of the West, and
Speaker 3: they're playing against Denver. Denver's a smallish market. You know,
Speaker 3: the Warriors are playing the Timberwolves. Warriors obviously a big market,
Speaker 3: but Timberwolves, small market, Calves and Pacers are playing each other.
Speaker 3: That's two small markets. And then of course next to Celtics,
Speaker 3: two big markets, but there's a there's a very good
Speaker 3: small market representation here right now. Of course, both the
Speaker 3: Nugget Nuggets and Bucks have both won championships within the
Speaker 3: last four or five years. So when it comes to
Speaker 3: the lottery, you know, look, it's it's a lot of
Speaker 3: ping pong balls bouncing around. There's there's there's nothing you
Speaker 3: can hope for other than you know, you know, prayer
Speaker 3: to the basketball gods and the ping pong ball got
Speaker 3: to shine on you. But if you don't get Cooper Flag,
Speaker 3: which is what everybody's hoping for, who's in the lottery.
Speaker 3: My understanding, and I'm not a draft expert, but this
Speaker 3: is a pretty good draft. It's a fairly deep one,
Speaker 3: and I think anybody who you know, has a top
Speaker 3: four or five pick is probably going to come away
Speaker 3: pretty happy with the talent that they're able to draft.
Speaker 3: We also know historically that even in New Year's when
Speaker 3: we say that one through five are not all going
Speaker 3: to be All stars or superstars or Hall of famers,
Speaker 3: it just never works that way. There are always some
Speaker 3: misses no matter no matter how much scouting, no matter
Speaker 3: how much sports science has applied, uh, there's there's always
Speaker 3: going to be miss fires. So everybody in the lottery
Speaker 3: is certainly hoping to get Cooper Flagg. He's the one
Speaker 3: can't miss. Other guys, uh, you know, Dylan Harper, Race
Speaker 3: Bailey and some others you know, look really good and promising,
Speaker 3: but you know, I'm I'm in no position to tell
Speaker 3: you that that you could be you know, you know
Speaker 3: that if your future would be set with one of
Speaker 3: those guys, I think the key thing for the for
Speaker 3: jazz fans would be. You know, you've got a very
Speaker 3: smart front office with Danny Ainge and Justin Zanik. You've
Speaker 3: got whatever this you know, draft pick and whatever this
Speaker 3: lottery outcome, you know who delivers, and a lot of picks,
Speaker 3: still a ton of draft picks. They're sitting on a
Speaker 3: as draft capital as trade capital, and so that there's
Speaker 3: a lot of different directions they can go here. And
Speaker 3: I know it's always hard to tell people to be patient,
Speaker 3: but they really only are a couple of years removed
Speaker 3: from blowing up. You know, the Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert team,
Speaker 3: So it takes a while.
Speaker 1: He's kind of staying here in Utah. Will Hardy's the coach.
Speaker 1: His contract was extended. You know, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people here locally are high on will Hardy, and
Speaker 1: I think very impressed with him. What's kind of the
Speaker 1: perception of him around the NBA maybe from a national perspective.
Speaker 3: He was really highly regarded as an assistant in Boston,
Speaker 3: even you know, before he was hired in Utah, and
Speaker 3: it's one of the reasons they pounced and hired him,
Speaker 3: of course, And I think nothing in the last couple
Speaker 3: of years has has changed that opinion. I think I
Speaker 3: think there's a great deal of respect for him. I
Speaker 3: think everybody recognizes that he's going through, you know, a
Speaker 3: rebuild where you know, the best you can do is
Speaker 3: develop your young guys, be competitive, win a few games
Speaker 3: here and there. It's very clear that organizationally, they've set
Speaker 3: this up to not win because you know, they're in
Speaker 3: a tanking mode there. You know, want to call it rebuilding,
Speaker 3: you want to call it something else, it's fine, but
Speaker 3: you know, it's very clear what they've been trying to do.
Speaker 3: They want the high picks, and that's fine. That is
Speaker 3: a you know, I don't want to say tried and true,
Speaker 3: because it's not always it doesn't always work, but it is.
Speaker 3: It is a common form of building in the NBA.
Speaker 3: So when you sign up as a coach for a
Speaker 3: team in that mode, you know what you're getting yourself into.
Speaker 3: And I appreciate the fact that the Jazz gave him
Speaker 3: an extension because it's two things. It is a show
Speaker 3: of faith in him, but it is also kind of
Speaker 3: a recognition that, you know, look, we know your your
Speaker 3: your career and your win lost career when lost record
Speaker 3: has taken a beating because of the position we have
Speaker 3: put you in as an organization, and so you know,
Speaker 3: you you deserve that kind of you know, extension, that
Speaker 3: kind of long window to prove yourself and to be
Speaker 3: there for the turnaround, not just for the teardown.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think Doc Rivers recently mentioned he said, hey, that
Speaker 1: record when you're when you're you're you know, taking a
Speaker 1: bullet for the team, should stay with the team when
Speaker 1: you leave.
Speaker 2: It shouldn't. It shouldn't follow you around, It should stay there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: So I've I had a conversation earlier today about the
Speaker 1: Celtics and now here here there. You know, I could
Speaker 1: you could you could certainly argue a team that's a
Speaker 1: favored to win the whole thing, and of course they
Speaker 1: won it last year and then they're, uh, they're some
Speaker 1: of their top players went and played in the Olympics
Speaker 1: and it was a shortened off season, and you watch
Speaker 1: them where you know, they've been a very efficient three
Speaker 1: point shooting team during the season and been been horrible,
Speaker 1: uh here in this series against the Knicks, And is
Speaker 1: it is it just bad shooting do they? Is there
Speaker 1: such a thing as like fatigue, you know, from and
Speaker 1: the fatigue goes all the way back to last off
Speaker 1: season where you don't have a normal off season, you
Speaker 1: don't have enough time to maybe make that full recovery
Speaker 1: before you go into the season, or or is it
Speaker 1: just that the Knicks are playing great defense? I mean,
Speaker 1: is there I guess, is there any validity to getting
Speaker 1: fatigued from a previous season where you're a champion and
Speaker 1: you play late into into the summer.
Speaker 3: Broadly speaking, when teams go to the finals year after
Speaker 3: year after year and have these long runs in the spring,
Speaker 3: I think there is you know, a sort of attrition
Speaker 3: and a fatigue that can build up over time and
Speaker 3: causes injuries and all that. I don't think that's what's
Speaker 3: happening here right now? The Celtics are generally healthy, and
Speaker 3: they had a pretty great regular season, not as many
Speaker 3: wins as a year ago, but most championship teams lose.
Speaker 3: You know, you're you know, win at a slightly less
Speaker 3: rate the next year. They're fine. They're also their core
Speaker 3: guys are young or they their two most important players
Speaker 3: are are you know, still young and in their prime?
Speaker 3: And Tatum and Brown? What's happened in these first two games?
Speaker 3: All the tracking data indicates that they are that they're
Speaker 3: Their shot quality was super high, right, and then by
Speaker 3: shot quality, we mean you know, not hard, not not
Speaker 3: well guarded.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: They had a ton of open shots. For the most part,
Speaker 3: they're missing open threes. Missing open threes is something that
Speaker 3: happens because there's high variance in three point shooting for
Speaker 3: most people not named Steph Curry, and you know it
Speaker 3: when it goes bad, sometimes it goes really bad, and
Speaker 3: sometimes there's no explanation for it. Now, Jalen Brown's had
Speaker 3: some injuries that maybe have affected his lyft a little bit.
Speaker 3: I don't think Tatum has that excuse. They've just missed
Speaker 3: a lot, and then they've consisted on continuing to take them.
Speaker 3: So you know, this is one of those cases where
Speaker 3: the Celtics are so all in Joe Mizulaz coaches so
Speaker 3: all in on a three point strategy that when it
Speaker 3: goes bad, they really think themselves. And it's not that
Speaker 3: they're incapable of doing other things. They've got plenty of
Speaker 3: guys who with you know, quality mid range games, that
Speaker 3: can play in the post and can attack the rim.
Speaker 3: And for whatever reason, and maybe some of it is
Speaker 3: just that, you know what, both these games they had
Speaker 3: twenty point leads. You get a twenty point lead, you
Speaker 3: stop attacking, you get a little lazy. It's easier to
Speaker 3: shoot a three than it is to drive into the
Speaker 3: paint and take some contact. And so you know, again,
Speaker 3: like they've been good enough to have twenty point lead
Speaker 3: in both of these games. So it's it's not like
Speaker 3: there's something fundamentally wrong. You can't say it's fatigue if
Speaker 3: they if they're good enough to build a twenty point league,
Speaker 3: and you can't say it's just a three point reliance.
Speaker 3: If they've been good enough to build a twenty point lead,
Speaker 3: it's what they do with that lead and what happens
Speaker 3: in third and fourth quarters lately, and it's it's hard
Speaker 3: to explain. I think there's some tactical stuff here that
Speaker 3: they need to clean up.
Speaker 1: Last question for it, let's go here. Who do you like?
Speaker 1: Who do you like coming out of the East? Who
Speaker 1: do you like coming out of the West.
Speaker 3: Before the season, I said it was going to be
Speaker 3: Oklahoma and Boston with the Thunder winning. And my rationale
Speaker 3: for the Thunder winning was just, you know, they're younger
Speaker 3: and deeper, and I figure the celt we're gonna you
Speaker 3: know that there would be some actually fatigue by the
Speaker 3: time they got back to the finals again, especially with
Speaker 3: the Eastern Conference being a little stronger. You know, as
Speaker 3: we sit here right now, you know that's not looking
Speaker 3: as great. Like Oklahoma still looks like they're they're a
Speaker 3: good bet to come out of the West. But the
Speaker 3: Celtics are, you know, on the ropes, and if they
Speaker 3: lose tomorrow, they're basically done because no one's ever come
Speaker 3: back from three zero in the NBA. I'll stick with
Speaker 3: Oklahoma and Boston just for the sake of consistency, but
Speaker 3: I don't have a whole lot of confidence in the
Speaker 3: Celtics right now. And if they do go down. You
Speaker 3: know now, it's it's probably you know, it could very
Speaker 3: well be Nicks versus Pacers in the conference finals. And
Speaker 3: I mean that was a toss up. I mean, these
Speaker 3: teams are both very capable, but I'll stick with Boston
Speaker 3: Oklahoma for now.
Speaker 1: All right, great stuff, Thank you for joining me. Really
Speaker 1: appreciate your time. Enjoyed the conversation. Howard Beck from the Ringer,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Have a great day, Howard, My pleasure you two.
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