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00:00Let's get some insight into the Cavaliers' first-round playoff series
00:03against Toronto and other NBA stuff with Howard Beck.
00:06Howard is from The Ringer, longtime NBA writer, excellent writer as well.
00:10Hi, Howard. How are you?
00:12Howard.
00:13Doing good morning, gentlemen. How are you?
00:15We are doing great.
00:16Good to have you with us. Thank you.
00:17Howard, let me start with one thing here before we get into the Cavaliers.
00:22LaMelo Ball last night, that play on Bam out of bio,
00:25just your thoughts on that, and then we'll get into the game a little bit.
00:27But I'm still shaking my head after watching that.
00:32I'm just glad I was able to watch that play,
00:36given that we just never knew when the screen might go black.
00:40So that was a plus. Thank you, Amazon.
00:46Man, I did re-watch the play a couple of times,
00:50and they've got multiple angles.
00:53The one angle that troubled me most, I think,
00:56was it was a little bit of an overhead camera,
01:00and you can see LaMelo's eyes move toward Bam
01:03as he's grabbing his leg to kind of, whatever, yank, push, pull.
01:08And in that one, it was the one that was the most
01:12potentially indicative of forethought, right?
01:15It is a bang-bang play.
01:17We're watching it in slow motion.
01:18We're watching it in replay.
01:19It's hard to judge, I think,
01:21especially when you start watching it in slow-mo,
01:23because it does happen very quickly.
01:26But in that one moment where he's looking up,
01:28it's kind of like, okay, you do know where he is
01:30and what's going on.
01:32LaMelo's explanation afterward, I thought,
01:34was fair of the,
01:35listen, man, I just got hit in the head,
01:36and I'm just, you know, I'm hitting the floor,
01:38and I'm just trying to,
01:39he's just getting his bearings.
01:41Like, I could see where if you saw something
01:42out of the corner of your eye,
01:43and you're just, like, trying to make sure,
01:44like, a leg or an ankle or a foot
01:45is not going to hit you,
01:47I get that.
01:48Was he actually trying to upend him?
01:51And I don't, you know,
01:54we all become mind readers in these situations,
01:55or we try to be.
01:56I don't know.
01:58Had they had a replay trigger to review it
02:01is the interesting part to me, right?
02:03Because Zach Zarba gave the interview
02:05to the pool reporter afterward and said,
02:06look, there was no opening for us to do it.
02:09Like, you know, the rules do not provide for it,
02:12and the referees are beholden
02:14to the way the rules are written.
02:15They can't just, you know, replay anything,
02:17review anything anytime they want to.
02:19And so it's unfortunate.
02:21What would have happened in retrospect?
02:23We don't know, but we will know soon
02:25because the NBA always reviews plays like this,
02:28and we will get a statement from the league
02:31at some point.
02:31If they decide to retroactively make it a flagrant
02:34or even a flagrant two,
02:36I don't think they'll go that far,
02:39but I could see them retroactively making it
02:41a flagrant, which would then, you know,
02:43gosh, my gosh, does a play encounter
02:45your flagrant foul points for the postseason?
02:48I don't even know.
02:49Your stats don't, so who knows?
02:53Yeah.
02:54If they'd been able to review it in real time,
02:56I know there are people out there
02:57who think he would have been ejected.
02:59I certainly Spolstra felt that way last night.
03:01I've heard others in the media ranks suggest that.
03:04I'm not sure if it went that far or not.
03:07The impact is rough.
03:09The fact it doesn't come back is rough,
03:10and so you start judging it based on the results
03:13as opposed to the act.
03:16But it wasn't great.
03:18Howard, after 82 games,
03:20do you need a play-in tournament?
03:22You know, we know where they're making money
03:24and blah, blah, blah.
03:26Do you need to get 20 teams playing after 82 games?
03:30All right, so let's start with this.
03:32We've had this for a few years,
03:33and some of the playing games have been dreadful,
03:34but then there's a night like last night
03:36where it was like, those two games were really fun.
03:38They weren't the most well-played games.
03:41There was a lot of just like,
03:43the Hornets are just a roller coaster,
03:45so are the Suns.
03:47And it wasn't the cleanest basketball at times,
03:49but they were both really exciting games.
03:51So there's that.
03:52Those fan bases, especially for the 9-10,
03:56Miami-Charlotte, right?
03:57Like, Phoenix and Portland would have been in anyway
03:59under the old format of eight teams,
04:01but this gave two markets another night of excitement last night.
04:05Now Miami is done.
04:06Charlotte moves on.
04:08Do we need it?
04:09No.
04:10We don't need it to settle a playoff field,
04:13but that wasn't the purpose.
04:15The purpose wasn't, you know,
04:17hey, if we got the 9-10 teams in,
04:19maybe it'll change the way the postseason unfolds.
04:21Like, no.
04:21Like, seven and eight seeds are cannon fodder almost every year.
04:26That's true.
04:27They exist as a warm-up act for the one and two seeds in each conference,
04:32and then once in a blue moon,
04:33we get a first-round upset in the 1-8 or the 2-7.
04:39So it doesn't really matter anyway
04:41when it comes to the ultimate results of the playoffs.
04:44I think the first, you know, impetus for it is
04:48this has engaged more teams and their fan bases deeper into the season.
04:52It's part of the anti-tanking measures
04:55that kind of haven't worked well enough,
04:57and now we're back to the drawing board.
04:58But still, it has made it more compelling, I think,
05:02in March and April for the last several years.
05:05This year was an outlier,
05:06but most years we've had even teams that were kind of hovering around 11 and 12
05:11have still been in the running for a play-in spot,
05:14and that has kept those teams and their fan bases engaged.
05:16And it has, in other years, not this one,
05:20in other years, it did reduce tanking.
05:22It was an incentive to keep competing.
05:25So that was the first goal.
05:27It wasn't so much, you know, about,
05:28do we need more teams to be in the postseason?
05:31But I think as a commercial element, yeah, sure.
05:34You always, you know, you have more, you know, TV games to sell,
05:40and, you know, there's more interest that way.
05:42So, like, I'm fine with it.
05:44I think on the whole, the play-in tournament has been a win.
05:46In fact, I'll take it over the NBA Cup every day.
05:50I'll buy that.
05:51I'm with you on that.
05:52Yeah, so you've got a full house, or at least a hat-trick on that.
05:56Howard, let's talk about the Cavaliers in Toronto here.
05:59Just your initial thoughts on that series,
06:00because it was so weird.
06:01We thought it was going to be Atlanta,
06:03and then all of a sudden at the last minute,
06:04Toronto, who was in the spot, ends up getting back up.
06:07So, your thoughts on Cavs-Raptors.
06:10Where did you want this to go, by the way?
06:12Where were Cavs fans rooting for that first-round matchup?
06:16I don't know that they really cared.
06:18Yeah, I don't think either team really got everybody all hot and bothered.
06:22I kind of think, I don't know,
06:24there's something about Toronto that kind of scares me a little bit.
06:27So, I was kind of thinking Atlanta might be a better matchup, Howard.
06:31Yeah, and it's funny, because I think, like, I'm in New York, obviously,
06:36and I think Knicks fans were kind of hoping for the Toronto matchup, obviously,
06:41but they were, like, 5-0 against Toronto.
06:42And Atlanta, they've caught fire late, and they're long,
06:46and they're really, you know, like, a lot of really great defenders.
06:49And, like, I think Atlanta would actually scare me a little bit more than Toronto,
06:53personally.
06:54But, you know, a lot of these things are matchup dependent in the NBA.
06:57It's funny, because one of the knocks on Toronto,
07:00or one of the holes in their resume collectively,
07:02is that they've been really bad against the best teams in the East all season,
07:06except for Cleveland.
07:07But all three of their wins against Cleveland came in the first, like,
07:10four or five weeks of the season.
07:11And done by November, end of November.
07:14Yeah, it's, I don't, there are years where,
07:17and series where you put stock in the regular season series,
07:21and there are times when you just can't.
07:22I think Toronto's overall record against the top of the East,
07:26winless against the Knicks, I think they got one win against Boston,
07:31winless against Detroit, something like that,
07:33shows that the Toronto Raptors are basically, like,
07:35a nice, solid, regular season team that I don't consider much of a threat.
07:41Like, defensively, they're fantastic.
07:43Offensively, they're sort of meh.
07:45Not a ton of great playmaking or shot making.
07:49And, you know, they're kind of a funky build,
07:52just the way their lineup is built, and they do have a lot of length,
07:55and they do have a lot of guys who can handle the ball.
07:59But they don't feel, like, greater than the sum of their parts to me.
08:03I guess if I'm the Cavs, if the concern I would have,
08:07and again, like, the season series is over by the end of November.
08:10That's months before they get James Harden.
08:12It's not the same team.
08:15But I think the one thing that would concern me, maybe,
08:17is, like, you're generating so much of your offense out of the backcourt
08:19with Harden and Donovan Mitchell.
08:21And I do think that the Raptors, with all the length and defenders
08:24that they have, starting with Scottie Barnes,
08:26they do have some ability to slow you up there.
08:31But, I mean, I obviously expect the Cavs to win this series.
08:34Howard, back in November of 23, you wrote a piece on James Harden
08:40saying he couldn't win his legacy back
08:42because of all the things he had gone through.
08:44Is he in a position to change the way people think about him
08:48with the Cavaliers if he can help them propel?
08:51Would it change your mind a little bit?
08:52I mean, this is an older piece of yours.
08:54You want me to contradict myself?
08:55You want me to tell Howard Beck of November 23 that he was wrong?
08:59No, not really.
09:00No, I just want to know if you can change your mind now.
09:02By the way, his legacy is still pretty much the legacy
09:05you kind of wrote about in that, too.
09:07It's not – I mean, we're sitting around here talking.
09:10Dan and I debate this all the time, and Dan's like,
09:13hey, talk to me about when he's in the playoffs,
09:15and it's at the end of the series when he can't get something done.
09:18So Howard, back in 2003, still isn't too far off.
09:23I mean, the column I wrote there, it was because he had just forced
09:27the trade once again.
09:27And my point then was basically about the idea that his legacy –
09:31forget for a moment the playoff legacy, which is its own mess –
09:35which is that his overall legacy as a star of this era
09:38is the guy who's always discontent.
09:42The guy who's always disillusioned, is always asking for a trade,
09:45and who gets what he wants, gets the coaches he wants,
09:48gets the superstars.
09:50The roster of superstars he's played with is insane.
09:53It's incredible how much talent.
09:54And he sours on relationships and sours on situations,
09:58and then he wants to move on.
09:59And that's how he got to Cleveland, too.
10:01So that part of it is pretty entrenched, that part of his reputation.
10:06And that was mostly what I was getting at in that column from a couple years ago
10:10is just that whatever else he does in his career,
10:13even if he wins a championship – and I think I even stipulated that in the column –
10:16that's not what we're going to remember him for.
10:18We're going to remember him for being the guy who's just always, you know,
10:22souring on situations and torching relationships
10:24and wanting to move on to the next thing.
10:26And that's truly him, and it's even more so him now than it was then.
10:31But to your point, like, if the Cavs make a run,
10:35if Harden got them to the finals especially, you know,
10:37a place he hasn't been since he was a sixth man for the Oklahoma City Thunder
10:40over a decade ago, yeah, it would change that piece of his legacy.
10:45You know, maybe he could at least tamp down some of the
10:47he never delivers in the playoffs type stuff.
10:51But, you know, that's going to require a pretty Herculean effort by him
10:55and the Cavaliers because the East is – we keep saying it's wide open,
11:00but it's also tough.
11:00I think the Pistons are legit.
11:02The Celtics with Tatum back and playing the way he's been playing
11:05are certainly legit.
11:06We know how tough the Knicks can be.
11:09Like, this is – you know, they've got a tough road ahead.
11:13Do you like Harden in the backcourt with Donovan Mitchell?
11:16Do you like that combo?
11:18I think – I think it's been pretty good.
11:20And I think it's been weirdly sort of an upgrade over Mitchell and Garland
11:26just because, like, you know, look, it's still a guard-guard attack,
11:30and I think in the NBA most of the time you're better off if you're –
11:34you know, if you have a star guard who's a ball-dominant score creator type,
11:40which Donovan Mitchell is, which James Harden is,
11:42the ideal complement obviously is more of, like, a bigger wing
11:45or a big, and guard-guard is tough.
11:49It's tougher when they're small-small, which they were with Garland there.
11:54And Harden is bigger and tougher and, you know, more stout in a lot of ways.
12:01And, you know, defensively, like, is he the greatest, like,
12:05shutdown defender on the perimeter?
12:06No, but he could body up guys.
12:09And he's just going to – he's going to score in more ways.
12:12And he can score through contact.
12:13And he's more durable, clearly.
12:16And I think so far the partnership with Mitchell has been pretty good.
12:21But the playoffs are when you actually see, you know,
12:24whether or not that's, you know, built to win or not.
12:29And so I'm curious to see how it unfolds against the Raptors to start with.
12:35Who's the team to beat in the East?
12:37And by the way, I want to remind everybody to listen to your podcast,
12:39The Real Ones podcast.
12:40But who do you – I mean, to me, Boston just is, like, right there.
12:44It's hard not to avoid.
12:45But Detroit, you know, they held their own in the end.
12:47And I think people were looking for him to – or looking for Detroit to drop off.
12:52But they didn't.
12:55I felt like for the entire season – let's just go back to before Jason Tatum came back,
13:00when it was just, wow, what a great story the Celtics are.
13:03Not taking a gap year.
13:05Jalen Brown's been amazing.
13:06He's a potential MVP candidate.
13:08And look at how much they're getting from Derek White and Peyton Pritchard
13:11and Nemius Cato, who, like, you know,
13:13not exactly a household name prior to this season.
13:16And I think for much of the season, there was so much focus on, like,
13:21what the Celtics were doing to overachieve or what the Knicks' latest, you know,
13:25drama and their ups and downs were.
13:27And, you know, the Cavaliers obviously had theirs, too.
13:29I feel like the Pistons were just kind of cruising along unnoticed.
13:32And I feel like no one was really giving much credit to the fact that they were,
13:35you know, leading the conference from basically start to finish
13:39and maybe just not being taken seriously enough.
13:41So I was of the mindset for most of the season,
13:44the Pistons are the worthy favorites in the East by virtue of their record, duh.
13:49But also, like, they had their, you know,
13:52the introduction to the playoffs last year, lost to the Knicks in six.
13:55They could have won that series, the Pistons.
13:58And, yeah, they've got their holes, but everybody does.
14:01And so I thought they weren't getting enough credit.
14:03But then Tatum comes back, and Tatum looks pretty good.
14:07And then he looks better.
14:08And then, you know, he's putting up triple-doubles.
14:10And he's like, at this point, it's hard not to think that the Celtics
14:14are the rightful favorites, even though the Pistons have been the more consistent
14:18team over the course of the season and have a better record.
14:20The Celtics have, obviously, the championship experience.
14:23They've got one of the best one-two punches in the NBA.
14:27And I respect the hell out of the Pistons.
14:30I think they've been awesome.
14:31And I think they can win the East.
14:33I think the Knicks can win the East.
14:34I think the Cavs can win the East.
14:36Like, I do think it's a four-team race.
14:38But if I have to pick a favorite, I think it's the Celtics.
14:41Donovan Mitchell hasn't made it out of the second round of the playoffs.
14:44Team seems primed to do that this year, perhaps.
14:48What if they don't?
14:50What should the Cavs do if this doesn't get to where they want it to
14:55for yet, what, the fourth year in a row?
14:59I was always a little skeptical of, you know, again,
15:02we've talked about this in the past, like, the Mitchell Garland backcourt,
15:05the Jared Allen, Evan Mobley frontcourt.
15:07Like, they've got a lot of money invested in four guys.
15:09They're a little top-heavy.
15:10There's some overlap between their bigs and their guards, all that stuff.
15:15And plus there would be, you know, eventual cap and tax issues.
15:20They've dealt with some of that along the way.
15:22And they did inevitably break up that foursome.
15:26I think if you fall short in the playoffs, if you, you know,
15:29anything short of the conference finals,
15:31I think they have to take a long, hard look at everything again, right?
15:34Like, I don't know where that will leave Donovan Mitchell in terms of his
15:36mindset.
15:37Like, you know, does he see a future there?
15:41Does he start considering other options?
15:43I don't know.
15:44But the front office, I think, if you fall short again,
15:47if you're out in the second round, you know,
15:50you have to seriously consider the makeup of this team, the trajectory,
15:55you know, how to reshuffle this, get the payroll, you know,
15:58more manageable again.
16:00And, you know, you've got a short window with James Harden,
16:03assuming that you're keeping him because of age.
16:06So there'll be a lot of decisions to have to make if this thing doesn't go
16:10well.
16:11I already got about a minute here.
16:12Just how far can the Cavs go on this thing?
16:16Like I say, I think it's a true four-way race in the East.
16:19I don't think the Cavs are quite at the level of the others,
16:21but that skepticism is mostly based just on less track record with this group
16:26as currently constructed.
16:29I think they can go all the way.
16:31I don't know that they're the favorites to go all the way.
16:35I think, you know, the way things line up, I mean,
16:39the way things line up for anybody in the Eastern Conference,
16:42like once you're out of the first round,
16:43there's no easy matchup here.
16:47So you're probably in a second round against the Pistons then.
16:50The Pistons are super tough.
16:53We need to see a little bit more of Cade since he came back from the
16:55collapsed lung to see how good a shape he's in.
16:58But if the Pistons are themselves, they should win that series, obviously.
17:02And then we're in the scenario we were just talking about,
17:04Cavs out in the second round again,
17:06and then it's time for all the navel gazing and hand-wringing.
17:10Between that and Mike Brown in New York,
17:11it's going to be interesting to see who survives this playoffs moving forward.
17:14Hey, we always appreciate talking to you, Howard.
17:16Thank you, thank you, thank you.
17:17We're listening to your podcast as well as always checking you out on the
17:20Ringer, the Real Ones podcast.
17:22Thank you, Howard.
17:23Thanks, Howard.
17:24Appreciate it, fellas.
17:25Talk to you soon.
17:25Howard, back, joining us on the Make It Right,
17:28call Kyle Wright Hotline.
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