13 Rules: NBA Random Thoughts - June 15, 2024

[00:00:02] Alright, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Salvati, editor at thepeachbasket.net. He's Steve Perciello, a longtime high school basketball coach, educator, vice principal, and athletic director. And this is the 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts podcast. The best 15 minutes of random NBA thoughts online anywhere.

[00:00:20] If this is your first time listening, welcome. We're glad you found us. This podcast was born out of the content in Steve's Random NBA Thoughts articles, which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 15 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the NBA.

[00:00:34] Today, understandably, we're going to discuss the only game in town, the NBA Finals. But we also do have a Jerry West topic that we can't ignore today. So with that as an intro, a weak intro, but an intro nonetheless, Steve, are you ready? Ready.

[00:00:52] Let's do it. I'm going to start the timer now. And before we get to the NBA Finals, which are now at 3-1 Boston's advantage, we do need to talk about Jerry West.

[00:01:05] The focus, of course, is on the finals. But the priority in your article seem to be on Jerry West. You actually got to watch him play. I'm super envious of that. I did not. And there's a lot of things we can certainly discuss about him.

[00:01:21] I know we could probably spend the whole 15 minutes talking about Jerry West alone. But is there a player, this is kind of what I wanted to focus on in today's game that comes close to the player West was. You saw him play. I never did.

[00:01:33] Is there a player or maybe if you conflate two or three players that make up who Jerry West was, who was he? It's very difficult to have that because the three-point shot has changed everything. So you can't really do that.

[00:01:48] What you need to understand about Jerry West was he was a tremendous shooter, but also he's a great defender. He was, as I wrote, he was the gold in NBA guards, him and Oscar Robertson at the time. You watched West, he was incredible.

[00:02:03] And again, my memories were the 69 playoffs against Boston. He went for, I think, over 50 in the first game and he averaged 37 points. And let's think about that. That's no three-point shot. We have to keep remembering that. And seven assists. So he's accounting for over 50 points a game.

[00:02:24] Just him alone. And they lost the playoff series, but he was the MVP. The other thing that if you go on YouTube and look it up, you will see the last second shot against the Knicks in, what is that, 1973 from three-quarter court.

[00:02:42] 64, they said. That tied the game at the end of regulation. And if I remember the reaction at the time, the reaction was that was no fluke. That that's Jerry West. Right. And that's how highly respected he was. I have a tough time comparing him with anybody.

[00:03:02] I thought about Klay Thompson, but Jerry West was way better. But Thompson was a very good defender and he can shoot. I'll use some guys back in the day and they're not nearly as good. Lou Hudson, who is a great shooter, played with Atlanta and Sam Jones.

[00:03:16] But he was more of an inside 15 foot type shooter when he banked everything. But those guys were the closest thing I can come up with in my mind. Chris Mullen, but that no, I didn't really think so. I had a difficult time coming up with anybody.

[00:03:30] But the point being Jerry West was just a great, great basketball player. And he was tormented by the Celtics because they lost to them every time they met them in the finals. Right. He great. Yeah.

[00:03:43] And I think that's kind of why I asked the question, because I got this sense that there was no comparison. Chris was a guy before his time. Right. And we did link to those shots that Steve was alluding to in the article.

[00:03:58] So make sure you click that article, click those links and go down that Jerry West rabbit hole highlights and that 60 footer, which in today's game, that wins the game. Imagine. Right. Imagine that's just spectacular. Yeah. RIP to one of the best ever do it in his position.

[00:04:18] Hard to pivot from that, but we need to we need to talk about game four. Everything kind of fell apart for the Boston Celtics in game four. Dallas needed game four. Boston didn't. And the outcome showed they played that way. Right.

[00:04:35] So I got to ask you, we talked a little bit about this before we hit record.

[00:04:39] But how much blame do you think goes on the Celtics coaching staff, if any, for knowing that that kind of outcome was possible and maybe not having their team as prepared as they needed to be?

[00:04:51] I don't I don't put any real blame on coaches. These are these are men. I think Boston thought Dallas was going to lie down, lay down. They didn't. And then Boston didn't know how to handle it.

[00:05:04] They reverted back to the way they played during the season when things go go awry. They all of a sudden, they stopped defending. They stop playing and basically they quit. And it was a very disappointing thing for a team that's on the brink of a championship.

[00:05:25] You don't like to think about your championship teams getting beaten that bad. But they just didn't play. You know, Dallas is if I get into a little technical terms, they're dropping a man into the paint.

[00:05:38] They're they're big man and they're really taking away the dribble drive from Boston or making it more difficult. Boston went into hero ball, which means going to the basket and just shooting the ball instead of getting the Dallas in rotation and making it.

[00:05:55] It also goes with it. They have to make the threes. Boston shot terribly last night. Every possible part of the game, Boston was was horrible at last night.

[00:06:04] That's why you got the results you got. You got to hope that Boston comes out of their malaise and comes back and plays better basketball. If they don't, there could be a problem. I expect a close game Monday night.

[00:06:19] I don't know what to say. I think the home court Boston could win or should win. But I think Dallas opened themselves up to something and they figure something out. And unless Boston adjusts, they're going to have a problem adjusting.

[00:06:35] I'm talking about also Dallas's what Boston has did the first three games to win. They played straight up man and they allowed those dribble drives by Luca and Kyrie to go one on one with their defender.

[00:06:50] Last night, they killed it. And what it does is Boston thought they take away the lob, take away the three from the other players on Dallas. Well, last night because they killed it, it kind of just left Boston confused.

[00:07:03] And all of a sudden, Dallas began to hit their threes. So everything kind of fell apart on the defensive end, the offensive end. And consequently, you got the game you got. The other thing was they were out rebounded, out hustled, as I wrote, out played.

[00:07:17] Every play, they put up a pathetic effort. Yeah. They were out everything in that game from the tip. And I appreciate that you said adjustments, right? Because there is some responsibility on the coaching staff to adjust, to make those changes, to have the team ready.

[00:07:40] You may not be able to get the team mentally prepared. These are grown men and they have choices to make. But giving them the right game plan, that's on coaches. I agree. That is true. I thought over the series, Kidd made a couple interesting adjustments.

[00:07:59] He saw that Boston was pressuring Luka all the way up the court. So he brought E.J. Washington to bring the ball, taking the wear and tear on Luka. He did a lot of little things that changed it.

[00:08:10] Now, Boston could have countered that by overplaying Luka to make it hard for him to get the ball. They didn't do that. There was nothing that made it difficult for Luka in that game.

[00:08:22] And that's part of the problem because Luka has shown until the other night, last night, he wore down. He wore down because of what Boston was doing. He didn't have any reason to wear down last night.

[00:08:36] There was nothing going on that was making him work harder than he would have to. So he wouldn't wear down, down the stretch. It was a stretch, obviously, when it's a 40-point game. Right. Right.

[00:08:50] And I hate to belabor the point, but obviously it's the only game in town. So we got to keep asking about it because you kind of alluded to this, but I'm going to ask you straight up here. Has Dallas' defense figured it out? Right.

[00:09:02] Or was this more a lack of Celtics effort? Right. We talked about the Celtics coming out with no effort and we talked about the Lakers. Sorry. We talked about the Mavericks defense. Yeah. Feroidians left. Which is right?

[00:09:17] Has Dallas figured it out or was this just a momentary lapse from the Celtics? I think it was a combination of things. That's the easy way out. But the combination of things was Boston didn't shoot the ball well to start the game and that got him frustrated.

[00:09:31] Dallas got better as the game went on, defending and so on. So with those kind of things working together, Boston, as each minute went by, they got less engaged in the game.

[00:09:44] But I do give Dallas a heck of a lot of credit, although they didn't really change what they've been doing in the series. It was more Boston just didn't execute and really didn't get anything going.

[00:09:56] Again, hero ball, you don't get the defense in rotation when you do that. And you're allowing two guys to guard one man. And that's not where Boston was until last night. Yeah. Well, again, there's only one game in town, so that's where the topics lie.

[00:10:20] There's a lot to nitpick. We've done a lot of nitpicking even today. I want to draw your attention to a tweet. Tom Haberstrahl said this, and I thought it was interesting. I'm going to ask you this question.

[00:10:33] No NBA team has ever won a series after going down 0-3. We know that. I think it's 156 and 0, right? Conversely, or maybe the right word is alternatively, no NBA team has ever won a series after losing by 38 in a finals game, which obviously the Celtics just did.

[00:10:53] So one way or another, history will be made. So I got to ask you, is Dallas going to be the first team, this would be monumental, historic, to come back from 0-3?

[00:11:06] Or will Boston be the first team ever to lose by 38 and come back and win the finals? That's a good question. First of all, I believe the Lakers we talked about before busted the Celtics in 85 in the first game by 34. So there's not a lot of difference.

[00:11:24] And the Lakers won that playoff. So I don't know about that. I think it's very difficult to lose four games in a row, especially against a team that hasn't lost more than two games in a row. So I think that's difficult. You never say never.

[00:11:40] So I don't see it. How about you? What do you think? Do you think that can happen or what? It can happen, absolutely. Anything can happen. That's why we love sports, right? Listen, someday somebody is going to be down 0-3 and come back and win.

[00:11:54] It's going to happen, right? Boston Red Sox did it to the Yankees, right? It happens quite a bit in hockey. It will happen in the NBA. And I'm excited to see it. It's not going to happen this year.

[00:12:09] My prediction straight from the beginning was Dallas in five, Celtics in five. And I think that's probably what's going to happen. This was an aberration.

[00:12:19] This was a team that, you know, I don't want to say they didn't want to be there, but they didn't care about the game.

[00:12:29] The danger for the Boston Celtics is can you get your mindset to flip right from what you had in game four and treat game five with urgency? You're not going to win if you don't come to game five with urgency.

[00:12:44] So if you're asking me and you are, you did, Boston is going to win in five. I think Boston came in the idea that they were going to win and play. Yeah.

[00:12:55] They just they got a little opposition and they realized Dallas was serious tonight and they didn't, you know, and they weren't things weren't going great and they just didn't play. That was the end of them. I think they also understand they're coming home.

[00:13:12] If they lose this game, you might be looking at game seven. So I would think you're going to get their best effort. If you don't, then there's something really wrong.

[00:13:21] But, you know, Dallas, I think has got a little bit of swagger now and they think they can play with them. Yeah, we'll see. The other the other little factor is Kyrie playing in Boston. He struggled over the years. So we'll see what we'll see. Yeah.

[00:13:38] You know, we're going to finish on this note. This is not something we had scheduled to talk about. We've talked about your article and a little bit more, but you've called out Jason Kidd, right? And making some good decisions as a coach.

[00:13:52] You and I think in shows past, I talked about me personally, you know, my lack of appreciation for Kidd as a coach for whatever reason, I just never saw it. I when I think of the elite NBA coaches, I don't think of Jason Kidd.

[00:14:08] Has he proven folks like me wrong? I mean, has he done enough for you to think, yeah, this guy's elite. This guy's a really, really good NBA coach. I think it's a staff, a whole staff, not just a coach. Don't forget teams one or two guys special.

[00:14:24] They take different teams to scout over the year. And so there's some preparation there. I think the realization with Luca by by having him do what he was doing, meaning not bringing the ball up anymore. That was just common sense. He saw him wear down.

[00:14:39] I think he's made some good adjustments. I don't think Missoula has had to. We're going to find out about that. But I think I think he's done the proper things. I don't think he's the defense. They were playing the same defense they played in game two last night.

[00:14:54] They weren't making a lot of changes. If you watch game two, if you go back and look at it, any time Boston got the ball on either wing, there was a defender. But there was a guy in the paint on that side on ball side.

[00:15:07] So they were ready for the dribble drive. And that's to take away Tatum and Jalen Brown. But Brown does more of his work out of the corners. But even that, they slid that the defender over the big man over to the block to take him away.

[00:15:25] So Brown was facing up with two guys too on any dribble drives. So once you take away those two things, it changes. The other thing that I don't see, I don't see Drew Holliday having a game as bad as he did last night.

[00:15:39] He was minus 38 for the game. He's too good a player to do that two games in a row. It was like the perfect combination of everybody just playing terribly. Again, I'm not going to say they're going to win, but I would think it's going to be closer.

[00:15:54] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so much riding on this game. Obviously, game five for Boston. I don't think maybe I'm overselling it here, but I don't know that any team that has been up 3-1 has ever been in that position. And I'm sure it's probably happened before.

[00:16:13] But there's a monumental amount of pressure right now on the Boston Celtics because as you point out, they lose game five. The likelihood of game seven goes up.

[00:16:23] And if you make it, if you're Dallas and you've beaten the Boston Celtics three times in a row, you go into Boston feeling darn good about yourself. That is that's nobody wants that if you're a Boston Celtics fan. Well, you heard the timer go off. That is it.

[00:16:38] Our time is up. We are so grateful that you heard us, that you listened to us, that you found us. Please make sure to read Steve's entire article, which we will link below.

[00:16:48] Make sure to click on the links within that article and go down at Jerry West rabbit hole. You will be pretty impressed, I think. But yeah, thanks again for listening. We appreciate it. Please consider subscribing as well. Hit like, leave comments. All of that stuff helps a lot.

[00:17:04] And make sure to join us next week on the 13 rules random NBA thoughts podcast. The best 15 minutes of random NBA thoughts online anywhere. We'll talk next week. Thanks, Steve. Take care.