The Shot Clock Pod - NBA 2024-25 Playoffs 2nd Round cont

[00:00:00] Alright, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Soviati Editor at ThePeachBasket.net. He's Steve Percielo, a long-time educator, vice principal, high school basketball coach, and athletic director. And this is the Shot Clock Pod, the best 15 minutes of NBA Random Thoughts online anywhere. If this is your first time listening, welcome. We're glad you found us. This podcast was born out of the content of Steve's 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts articles, which he publishes weekly.

[00:00:25] Steve and I have exactly 15 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the NBA. Today we'll discuss his latest 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts article, where he shares his thoughts as the NBA playoffs continue in the 24-25 playoff season. Before we get started now, Steve, I want to share with everybody listening and watching that we are pretty excited to share that one of our own creators, John Camacho, who's written articles for The Peach Basket, has written his own book.

[00:00:53] Along with a co-author, Zach Hamilton, the book is called Sports Chaos. The book explores the reasons behind expert business, legal and moral decisions. The book will be available on Amazon starting May 15th and will include a discussion on the wild Luka Doncic trade. I got a chance to read the first few pages. I'm not that deep into it, but it's pretty fascinating and unique sports book. And it's pretty cool that somebody who's written on our site is now writing some books.

[00:01:23] So happy to promote that. Hope you get a chance to check it out. Again, it's called Sports Chaos, and it'll be available on May 15th on Amazon.com. We'll share links as soon as they're available. All right, Steve, you ready to talk basketball? I'm ready. Let's do it. Oh, let me start the timer. All right, lots of interesting conversations or topics to share. We start with the Celtics and the Knicks. You wrote before Game 3 that the Celtics either continue to shoot poorly from deep.

[00:01:53] They've been shooting 25% in the first two games. Or they return to their season norm. I looked it up. It's 37%. So big difference. In Game 3, they took 40% and made 20%. So they shot at a 50% clip. So I've got to ask you a very basic 30,000-mile-view question. Are the Celtics now a classic win by the three, die by the three team? I think the whole NBA is. Okay. The shame of it is if you have an abysmal night like Boston in the first two games, they shot 25% in both games.

[00:02:23] You're going to lose. If you really think about it, if Boston shot 33%, one out of every three, probably going to win both games. So that's what? Eight more threes. So they probably would win both games. So I guess what it becomes is even if you're a better team, and again, I'm not looking at this series as much as if you're a better team, you can run into a bad night and get beat by a way weaker team.

[00:02:50] And that's going to happen if you live with the three, and Boston does. And they do have some pretty good shooters who all went through a slump at the same time. But that's important. And the other thing, too, just talking about that Boston series, 48 times out of the 100 in the first two games, those shots were deemed as open shots. Yeah.

[00:03:11] If you take any NBA player that can shoot and you give them the ball and say, take 48 shots wide open in different parts of the perimeter for three, I'm going to guess they're going to make 30. So you talk about just a cold night. Cold dinner. That was it. I do want to commend Tom Thibodeau because he took the risk. He said, we got to take something away from Boston. They're better. And what he did was take away the dribble drive.

[00:03:41] And he took that completely away and said, OK, they're going to beat it. They're going to shoot the three. They got to beat us with it. And Boston failed to. Yesterday, which was after I wrote this article, yesterday, Boston shot 50%, I believe, yesterday. And that brought him up a little bit. But if you look at the numbers again, they're still at about 31 or 32% in the series. That's not real. That's not real good.

[00:04:09] Well, so they still got a ways to go is the point that I'm making. But you don't know. Again, every night, who knows if somebody's going to hit him or not. Yeah, silly. I don't know, man. I feel weird calling myself a purist. But I've been watching the game before. And I know you have been too, right? Since before the three-point shot came into play. We talked about it with Scott Foster. We talked about it with Kevin Greedy. We talked about this.

[00:04:35] And I got to ask because now it's the game, I think, has gotten to peak performance in terms of three-point shooting. In other words, what I mean by that is 35% has been the league average for the last 15 years. I don't think teams are going to get any better collectively. Some players, they'll be the Steph Currys, right? You're going to shoot 35% on average across the board. It may not get much better than that. But I think we've reached the limit of the three-point shot. Has it? Okay. I'll ask it anyway. I just don't like the question.

[00:05:05] But I'll ask it. Has the three-point shot ruined the game? Is it time to reevaluate it? It's changed. It's changed. It's changed. It's changed. I coached high school. I tried to coach high school basketball many years ago. I always told the team that shoots the least distance in total wins. Okay. Meaning you get the easy shots. Also, you had a post-op player who can score.

[00:05:35] Post-op players are obsolete. Now, the big man maybe could hopefully shoot a three. But his job is to screen up high and keep the spacing good and roll. So he's going to... Luca needs a guy that can do that because he can throw the alley-oop to them. That's where they do get the big man nowadays. It's Luke Cornett. Luke Cornett, who came into the league, was not a bad shooter. But he doesn't shoot anymore.

[00:06:01] Only time he shoots is follow-ups and dunks and lobs. So that's what the NBA has done with that. So the game has changed 100%. I don't know if it'll ever come back, but that's where it is. And three points are better than two points. Again, 33% from three is 50% from two. And not a lot of what shoot 50% from two who are shooting regular shots, not layups.

[00:06:29] I think this is where we are. I do think the shooting has gotten better percentage-wise over the years. I might be... You might... I'm not sure on what you're saying. I think it's around 36 or so now, the average of the league. So it's gotten more. But the other thing, too, you have guys shooting over 40%. And that's almost... If you're shooting over 40, that's pretty good. You get them open, they're going to kill you. There's a lot here.

[00:06:59] I think this might be a great topic to explore during the offseason because I got thoughts on it. But interesting, great conversation, I think. And I love your response. I just think it's time to reevaluate the three-point shot. Okay? That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. And again, I'm not going to go down the router hole because we got eight minutes. The clock is ticking. We got to talk about it during the offseason. This is what they call a teaser in the industry because I do think there's a lot to talk about. I'll share. I promise. We'll talk about this again.

[00:07:29] But we got to talk about Steph Curry. We got to talk about something else that you wrote, which I think is, again, very interesting. Steph Curry's been out for a few games. Might be out for the series. We don't know. Path looks a little clear for the Timberwolves, but the key for them is Anthony Edwards. You wrote about it. What do you think they're going to play in this series? Obviously, game four is the whole series for them because naturally you want to get it done quickly.

[00:07:58] Curry doesn't come living back into the scene. So if the Timberwolves are okay, I'll tell you, probably after the next game, that's big. It really is because once you take – first of all, and I wrote this, that Draymond Green said they were going to win it after they got better. And I'll tell you what, it was a lot of fun because the old guys rise again. And that's what it was. You get Curry back and he's got health, it's not easy.

[00:08:26] And so I guess what I'm saying is if Minnesota's going to do it, they've got to do it before Curry gets some health. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they've got to win the next game in Golden State so that they don't go back tied 2-2 to Minnesota. I think that's key for sure. All right, let's go back to the East. The Cavaliers, they found themselves in a hole. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit too. But they're not at 100%. Nobody still playing, I think, is collectively as a team.

[00:08:55] But they needed all hands on deck after going down 0-2 to the Pacers and two wild games, just incredible games. Now everyone's back, albeit, again, not at 100%. Are the Cavaliers, with all of their players, all the players back, are they the better team? They're in an interesting situation. It's built like Boston. They shoot threes. If you run into them like they were in the first game, you might have a problem.

[00:09:23] Are the Cavaliers the better team? No question. The problem becomes also the three guys that got hurt. They came back. They wouldn't have come back during the regular season. They're playing again today, or tonight, or today, whichever it is. But they're playing. But you don't know how healthy they're going to be. And right now, the way the schedule is, it's every other day they play.

[00:09:48] So recovery and body are going to be interesting in the next couple of games to see if they do play. One of the things that would help the Cavaliers, Ty Jerome has not played well, and he was great all season. They need that. They need other guys to pick up some of the slack. That would help them. A lot of having a bad night, that's major, because he can do so much on the court. He's rapidly becoming one of the best 20 guys in the league. And I think he will, if he continues to advance, he will be.

[00:10:18] Now you got Mitchell and him. My goodness. And Allen and Garland aren't too bad either. There's something to be reckoned with, but it's rough because you play the coin you got. And this is what they have right now. The beat-up team. Yeah. And specifically, those three guys who didn't play the first two games came back and looked okay. DeAndre Hunter, Hunter rather, Darius Garland, and Evan Mobley, you called them out. Mobley, Defensive Player of the Year. These guys, they're needed. But again, this is a 60-win regular season team. You think they're going to be okay?

[00:10:49] Yeah, I do. I do. And by the way, you said Mobley, Defensive Player of the Year. I think that he's deserving. But I think we forget Liddort. I just think Liddort is without question the best defensive player in the game. He can guard anybody. And he's just good. But I'm going away from that. That's just an opinion. Mobley is great, though. Mobley is getting better. He can shoot a three now. Really, he's just getting better and better. All right.

[00:11:17] Let's see how things play out for the Cavs and Pacers series. Lots of good basketball going on right now. We'll finish with something that popped for me as I read your article this week. You pointed out that all four home teams in the second round lost their first game, which is really weird. And then you followed that up by saying, does the regular season even matter? And again, that popped for me. We've been hearing that a lot before. So I got to ask you just, again, 30,000 mile view question.

[00:11:47] Does the regular season even matter anymore? I'm going to get my age into it if people can't see it. But I'm from the Red Auerbach school. He believed that you get off to a fast start, get your players in better shape than everybody else, get off to a fast start, have the best record, and have the home court. He believed very big in that. I don't think it's as important now.

[00:12:11] So saying that means that if you finish in the top six and everybody's healthy, who cares? And you don't want to finish seventh or eighth because it's a play in and who knows? You don't want to play like that. But if you finish in the top six, why not? You're okay. As long as everybody's healthy. So the new goal of the NBA teams, of course, is to win games during the season, regular season.

[00:12:37] But more importantly is make sure players are healthy. Go back to what we talked about a minute ago about the Cleveland Cavaliers with those three injured guys. They wouldn't be playing right now in the regular season. Sure. Or you might lose a few games. And that's what we, with the health situation, teams need to be healthy for the polls. So does the regular season matter? I don't think it matters as much as it did.

[00:13:06] I do think it's hard, of course, to go into a place and win a game. Not that they're getting there, but to go to L.A. and play the Lakers in the seventh game. I think that's difficult. But fortunately, they won't be around that in a couple of years. But that's a difficult thing. But I think teams would rather be healthy and deal with that the other way around. It's interesting. We pulled it back a little, but we started talking about my thoughts on the three-point shot.

[00:13:34] And that's something that we can certainly revisit because there's a lot to unpack there. At least from my perspective, I have questions. I also have questions about the regular season. After the COVID year, the NBA shortened the season, if you remember, from 82 games to 72 games. I honestly thought that was going to stick. Just like the play-in tournament, which again was a byproduct of the COVID years. But the NBA went back to 82 right away. And it dawned on me without going down this rabbit hole too deep. Like everything, it comes back to money.

[00:14:03] The play-ins around more games, more teams, more excitement, certainly more money. Turning it from 82 to 72 was impactful, beneficial, but it cost money because there's less games. So I'm a proponent, again, of re-evaluating the three-point shot and re-evaluating the regular season. I think it's too long. And I think these back-to-backs are problematic. And the healthy teams are the teams. Do you know who was the healthiest team out of all 30?

[00:14:31] The two healthiest teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Oklahoma City Thunder. You think that's a coincidence? No, the healthy team were better teams. So slow down. No denying that. There's the buzzer, but we keep going. But they were the healthiest teams. You mean to tell me that if... I'm not going to say any particular names, but pick any of the other teams. If they were all healthy, they would be better. Of course they would be. I'll give you something to think about.

[00:14:58] The regular season usually ends the second weekend of April. What if you open the season up maybe a week before, although you don't want to get into there with football, but you open it up a week before and you ended the season playing the same amount of games by May 1st. Okay. And start playoffs then. The draft back to mid-July and so on. And I would think a lot of executives in the NBA, because they do all their work after the draft,

[00:15:28] the free agency, and then they're pretty much ready to go. Not a lot goes on. And so the executives might not like that, but it might be better because now you're going to get rid of back-to-backs. And now you're going to give more in game. So there's other ways to do it. The players will never give in to a less... For this, this is a no-brainer. Look, keep it at 82 because they'll just sit out.

[00:15:55] But if you go to 72, I'm going to get less money. I want my money. And so they're never going to want to go to 72 or any other number that you can think of. But there's nothing wrong with going into the summer and the last piece of it. If they went longer into the summer, they're not competing in football. They're competing with baseball. I grew up liking baseball and still do. But of the three major sports, that's the one that's dying.

[00:16:23] So them competing with their playoffs with Major League Baseball, I think that's a win-win for them. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. All right. So I think we've got two off-season topics that we're going to dive into. Three-point shot and just the regular season as a whole. Lots of interesting conversations there, I think. You heard the buzzer, though. Our time is up today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read Steve's entire 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts article. We'll link it wherever you're watching or listening to this today.

[00:16:53] Get more of his thoughts on the 2024-25 NBA playoff season as it continues. Join us next week as Steve shares his thoughts after the fourth week of the playoffs. As things start to... The dust starts to settle. We'll find who our Final Four teams are. And of course, please consider subscribing and join us next week on the Shot Clock Pod, the best 15 minutes of NBA Random Thoughts online anywhere. Thanks. We'll see you next week. Thanks, Steve. Take care.