They know each other so well and it's

physical, but and what I like about

it is physical without being chippy. And but it was, and I mean, no one's going to call this a pretty game. I do like the score finishing in the nineties. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, honestly, in hindsight,

being 2020 up one one zero, maybe Kawhi could have used another couple days to recover because he did he looked bad. Well, this is my question guys, because we just watched game two. We also got game one. No, Kawhi, my question about this series come game three. Should they think about bringing Kawhi off the bench? I mean, he's been out for a month. They've got some chemistry. He's clearly not like

he's, I don't know whether they call it rust or just lack of condition. I think they do do something there.

Um, would it be better to just ride the lineup that you've been running with and try to work him back in? Or do you think just, you know what? This is our best player. We need to get him out there and we need to get the bonus.

I think they needed to do that starting game two. Once you set the precedent now, I don't think you can go in game three and try to change the starting lineup again, like in that opportunity, like I, I, I think now it's like, all right, look, we're committed to him starting. Then you're committed to him starting in this instance. And it's, it's weird to kind of now start sort of going up and down with his minutes. And part of it too is then it becomes, you know, if he's not starting, now you're playing with rotation minutes, because you still need him to get his 35, 36 minutes a game. It's, uh, I think he played what 38 tonight. It's hard to get to those types of numbers. And 35 tonight, 35 tonight. It's hard to get to those kinds of numbers with him coming off the bench. And I think so, like if that's what they're going to do, that's fine. Personally, I probably would have had him come off the bench. But I think now that you've kind of done that in game two, I don't know if I would change that for the game.

You also get, I think you get a better warm up.

Um, I think, you know, the, the, the, you know, getting

someone knowing, all right, the game is going to start at this time. So we go through all these things and he's

going to come in at the six minute mark.

There's a range of 15, 20 minutes where that can actually be. And I think that makes it, you know, for someone coming back, I think, um, you know, hitting that, that, okay, we know tip tonight is, is

7 17 local for TV and we can, we

can aim for that.

Um, how much of this loss tonight? I mean, for the Clippers, Mo, would you put on just the, the poor shooting? I mean, they were eight of 30 from three. They shot 37% from the floor. Um, or would you credit the Mavs defense?

I'd actually go the other way. I'd actually go. It was there. Uh, there, the Clippers defense that I think really kind of let them down. Both teams couldn't score, but then you had a few possessions down the stretch where Luca has James Harden and in somewhat of an ISO situation and you have for us one pass away, guarding Kyrie and comes to double. And that's an easy pass for Luca and Kyrie drills the three. Um, on another possession, Russ is on Kyrie, excuse me, on Luca. Gambles for a steal. Doesn't get it. Now he's on Luca's back. Luca drives in kicks it to PJ Washington for a big three in the corner. You know, Cleva had a big three. I think there were just defensive breakdowns. Um, they kind of hurt them down the stretch of this game. I mean, their offense was bad, but so was the Mavs for the first part of this. I mean, for, I mean, really for almost three and a half quarters. Yeah.

Well, Daniel

Gafford had to leave the game pretty early. Um, I didn't see what happened with him, but it looked like he started having back spasms or something. There was, it was early in the game. There was like a collision. Okay.

Uh, on a, on a play where he, he, he, he didn't get back into the play, uh, right away. Um, and I think that's where it happened.

It was going to end the game. So they, they lost Gafford pretty early in this game. That gave me a lot of concern about their defense. I mean, he's been huge for them, uh, defending in the paint and then they lost Tim Hardaway, Jr. Um, so they didn't have those guys for the majority of this game. So, um, huge win for them. But like Seth, we start looking ahead to game three. That's,

that's a starting center and a major rotation

score for them. Um, this is, I mean, the Clippers seem to just have these wing guys. I'm worried about the Tim Hardaway part because they need his shooting. Um, but Daniel Gafford, losing him in the middle, that's half their identity.

I mean, if they get the Maxi Kleva who played, who showed up down the stretch tonight. It may be, it may almost be like, Oh, that, that look what we found. Uh, but yeah, I mean, he's been such a key part of, of sort of their second half of the season run.

Um, that if they want to continue to play that way,

um, yeah, I mean, I think, but that's probably

him being limited tonight, probably contributed to the griminess of their offense because, you know, the, the, at least you start, but you start possessions off with a, you know, a simple Luca Gafford pick and roll, at least create some motion

that they weren't otherwise getting. And so it ended up being a lot of,

you know, uh, a step backs or go with five seconds, draw a

quick, double kick to someone in the corner and they made just enough of

them,

uh, P.J. Washington, you know, made, made some shots down the stretch, which I think goes a long way to mitigating, uh, the hard way absence. Yeah.

Um, all right guys. Good feeling. This one's going seven, right?

I, yeah, I had this going seven the whole time. I think, you know, and, and I'll, I'll even go a step further. I'm going to go Mabs in seven. Ooh.

I picked

clips in seven before the series and I'm kind of, I'm, I'm still staying there. Um, I think that, but Kawai will almost certainly

be more physically

able as the series progresses. Um, and I think that'll be a big change, um, in large part because I

think some of the, the, the, the stickiness of

the Clippers offense was a little bit. Oh, Kawai's here.

Oh, he can't actually move. Uh, what do we do now?

And he looked better by the way as the game went on. I thought he had a little bit more energy, especially when he was handling the ball, um, on the wing, like in the fourth, it just looked like he was moving a little easier than he was like earlier on.

I think the second half that he, he started to have more of a concerted effort, but I also felt like it was weird because it was like, I didn't feel Paul George a lot in this game. You know, like again, I felt like one of those things like what Seth was saying, like, I think trying to get Kawai going actually cost them some other, some other guys getting going and really kind of hurt them. Yeah.

Um, all right. Uh, Pacers and Bucks, we've had two games.

We've had

two bull outs.

The Pacers get one back. They steal that second game at home tonight. 125 108, uh, Halliburton had a much better game after his. The other night at 12 points, 12 assists. Big number I'm looking at from Halliburton is he took 10 shots instead of only seven. Seven. You beat yourself. Um, Pascal Siakam was awesome. 37 had 11 rebounds. Um, the, the, the Pacers in this game guys, they got running, which is the story of their season and they hit shots. And that's the secret to them when in this game. Yeah.

Basketball, I mean basketball, but it's also, I think that, that, um, Yannas is a pretty big, obviously a pretty big swing, swing piece because Halliburton is so far, he's taken a pretty, he's, he's sitting in not just the, the backseat, but the third row to Siakam so far in this series. And I kind of think that trying to do Siakam, trying to feed Siakam as much as they're doing looks a little different. If the defender is Yannas instead of, you know, Bobby Portis or

Pat Conantan or whoever else

would make you think that, Seth. I don't know.

So I mean,

it's, it's, I don't know. Maybe this is going to make me sound like a, like, like a home or something like that, but this game felt almost like a, like one where the road team stole game one. It's like, Oh, Yannas is out. We got to get one of these two. And that's the situation. We didn't have any of them this year because the whole team, home teams won all of game one, but the, like the average margin of victory for that, for the, the, the, the, the home court team in game two after the road team wins games one, something like that. And there was a little bit of, we got the one we needed. And, you know, and, and nobody outside of like Lopez, Dame and Middleton did anything offensively for the box. And as has been the case with them from much of the season, the biggest impediment to their defense was often their offense.

Yeah, which, which killed their transition. Like their transition defense was quite awful. Like there is a possession I put out there where Dame runs back and doesn't guard anybody. Like literally for about three seconds is standing at the bottom of the block and nobody to guard and Halliburton gets a layup out of it. And you have a lot of different possessions in that where they're just their transition defense wasn't there. Cause again, offense does affect that. And I just feel like they, their defensive intensity was down this game. I felt like it was really up in game one in terms of how they wanted to attack defensively. I felt like this one, they, they kind of let it let it slip quite a bit.

Uh, David Lillard had 26 points in the first half of this

game. So he's got what?

Oh, he's up to 61 first half points and only eight second half points in two games so far. Now the first game, I don't, I don't really think it matters all that much, but only eight in the second half of this game.

And, you know, this is where not having, you

honest, you, you just, if Middleton's only going to give you 15, you need 40

from day, you know, and, and maybe not, it was not,

it was not a sustainable, you know, maybe, I mean, maybe it is because, you know, we've seen Dame make, make tough shots, but it was, they were not a lot

of, he was hitting some really tough pull up shots and they

went in and then they stopped going in and, and, and it ends up bouncing out to a decent night. But if you get, if you get most of that in the first half,

I mean, you just, that the, the well sort of runs dry in the second half

and it has on both games in the series so far.

I mean, if Milwaukee's game plan for this series, and this is assuming Yannis doesn't come back at all, is like Dame will just carry us and score at this pace. You're losing. There's, I mean, it's just not a sustainable thing. It's not a, and, and no offense to Damian Lillard. He's no spring chicken. And, you know, we struggled most of this season. It was, you know, in a lot of the way he's played and the wild things he's done. Like I would just be scary with that. And, you know, you need the other guys to contribute. You need the Bobby Portis got going a little bit in game one, nothing so, so much in game two, like you need, you need all those role players to fill in the void to help kind of make up for the fact that Dame's not going to be able to drop, you know, 35 and a half or 27 and a half and, and things like that. Like you need to really make sure you get those guys involved and get them going. If their game plans just, hey, Dame will carry us. Good luck.

I was struck

at various points in this game about how reminiscent it was of some of the Warriors playoff games or, or, or playing games the last couple of years. And it's just sort of a team that has been a contender for

five, five, six years. And,

you

know, maybe the Dame carries us works, but for

that to work, there's got to be, you've got to have three, four, five guys

who are, are sprinting around, you know,

making athletic plays around him.