00:00because they just habitually got down in Toronto and then made even the games
00:04that they lost pretty much games, I actually did think at some point
00:08that they would come alive and that would be a more interesting game.
00:11So I wasn't panicking in the first half.
00:14And once they got to 93-93 with five and a half minutes to go,
00:19it's like, well, this game's over and Detroit just doesn't know it yet.
00:22And then the opposite thing happened.
00:24I didn't really lock in on Rage until about –
00:29and it was a slow build towards pure madness last night.
00:35It was about 90 seconds to go, about the fifth time.
00:38They just let Jalen Duran right back door him.
00:41And then they went down the opposite side and then didn't convert on like simple baskets
00:47where I was like, oh, I'll bleep you.
00:49This is not about the Pistons.
00:51This is about you and your inability to either figure it out defensively or offensively.
00:56It's interesting because I had the same thought you had then in watching the first half.
00:59They went down 18.
01:00I wasn't sweating.
01:01At the half, they were down 13.
01:02And then they flashed up on Peacock, whether it's DraftKings, FanDuel,
01:07whatever sports book it is.
01:08And it's like, oh, it's a 10-and-a-half point line.
01:10And I'm like, well, I would take the Cavs plus 10-and-a-half,
01:13which, by the way, still would have won because they lost by 10.
01:15But that's either here nor there.
01:16But the point is is that no part of me was sweating.
01:19No part of me was worried.
01:19And then you mentioned they get to 93 apiece.
01:22Harden scores 11 points in a row.
01:24You get to 93 apiece.
01:25And it seems like the comeback is happening.
01:27And just nothing.
01:29Just a big nothing burger.
01:31A fourth quarter that Allen and Mobley combined for zero points.
01:35Harden was the only one that really scored in the fourth quarter at any sort of rate.
01:38Donovan at least took shots.
01:40But it was just a disaster of a quarter from about five-and-a-half on.
01:43And it's funny.
01:45Like, again, I think the idea of, oh, they played on Sunday.
01:48It's the biggest crock of crap ever.
01:50Well, it started in Detroit.
01:51It started in Detroit.
01:52And Detroit had the tougher path to win that series because they came back down from 3-1.
01:57So if anyone should be a little exhausted right now, it's the team that literally had to sing for their
02:01supper three straight games to advance to this point here.
02:05And not the Cavs who, I don't give a rat's ass if you call it intensity.
02:10I don't care if you call it energy or effort.
02:14It's all the same thing.
02:16And it's so funny.
02:17Like, Harden's turnovers.
02:19Oh, boy.
02:20A Donovan disappearing act.
02:22Oh, boy.
02:23Evan Mobley acting like he wanted no part of Jalen Duren and gave the guy easy baskets, like four or
02:29five straight easy baskets when the game was on the line.
02:32Yeah, Duren, that was an exclamation point to people like yourself that were saying he's going to be soft in
02:36the postseason.
02:37Yeah.
02:37Duren came to play.
02:38Yes, he did.
02:39And, again, as you can point out, Thomas Bryant getting minutes in the fourth quarter.
02:46How is that opening lineup even possible?
02:48How do you have Thomas Bryant and Keon Ellis in the start of the fourth quarter as your lineup?
02:52I don't know.
02:53How does that exist?
02:54What happened there?
02:54By the way, you can't even have one of those guys in that lineup in that spot.
02:57I don't understand how that is a thing that Kenny Atkinson looked and said, this is the answer right now.
03:02And then as predictable as you would think, it went poorly.
03:04But, like, all of the things that we can take away, and you've got to understand the monsoon of crap
03:09that had to happen for them to lose that game.
03:13Like, and I know Detroit, much like Toronto, probably boo-hooing, no, the Pistons beat the Cavs.
03:19The Cavs didn't beat themselves.
03:21Bull crap.
03:23Awful defense.
03:24I mean, what, 20 turnovers.
03:26That was not the act of a serious team last night.
03:30But it wasn't even a good Pistons game is the other side of that.
03:32Like, if you're telling you, like, in Detroit today, I don't think they're going to sit around and be like,
03:35whoa, that was an awesome performance by us.
03:37Cade Cunningham, superstar.
03:39No, Cade didn't have a particularly good game.
03:41Now, when they did the Jared Allen drops, that was an interesting tactic by the Cavs.
03:45Like, of course, he's always going to score there.
03:47He wants to get downhill.
03:47He's going to be able to do so.
03:49But, like, that was not a great Cade game.
03:50It was a great Duren game.
03:52But there wasn't that much that was awesome from Detroit.
03:54But of all of these things.
03:56They hit 10 threes.
03:56All of these things you could choose to gripe from.
03:59As mad as each one of those things individually.
04:02I was so mad last night, JP.
04:04Like, usually I confine my rage to cabin boys.
04:08Maybe my buddy Nate, right?
04:10Maybe one of my brothers.
04:12And, like, that's where I channel it.
04:14Because most of the time, I like people to get my first take on something.
04:20Like, my real thoughts on something when we open the show.
04:23You were crickets in the Jonathan and John Fanta group chat.
04:25I was in Moblin's DMs.
04:28I was in countless other people's DMs.
04:30And if I knew they had a gripe with this Cavs team.
04:33Like, Moblin, who's been hard on Kenny Atkinson.
04:36I hit him up in the DMs and I was like,
04:38Alright, you're right.
04:38Bleep Kenny Atkinson.
04:40That's like, I went scorched earth in people's DMs.
04:43I don't do that.
04:45Why?
04:45But because I was that pissed.
04:47Because I didn't want to tweet something.
04:49One, that would give away how I feel.
04:50And two, just get something that would be in trouble.
04:54Today, you've got a right to be angry.
04:55There's no denying it.
04:56And I think the saddest part of all of it is that the turnovers continue to happen.
05:00And it's some of the same problems you just saw in a Toronto series.
05:03Like, the saving grace for this team was supposed to be brand new series, brand new opponent.
05:08We're going to see them look different than what they just did.
05:10And they just looked exactly the same that they did against the Raptors.
05:13And that brings me to the thing that is my biggest gripe about game one.
05:18Your head coach came out after the game and said, eh, intensity-wise, they were about
05:22a nine and a half.
05:23We were about a seven.
05:24I don't know why he had to put numbers on it.
05:26Doesn't that seem like just patently stupid?
05:27I actually kind of like it.
05:29You know, you're an analytics guy.
05:31You should love it.
05:32No, because it's just a made-up number is all it is.
05:34It's whatever his vibes were.
05:35It felt right.
05:35That's not the opposite of analytics.
05:37That is playing into meatballs more than it is anything.
05:39Like, they were playing hard.
05:41They just weren't playing that hard.
05:43No, we all watched you, Atkinson, sitting down on the couch looking like it was weekend
05:46at Bernie's.
05:47Like, I don't know.
05:49Why is that his demeanor?
05:50And I get it.
05:51It was very popular with Lima this morning.
05:52Are you saying you'd like to change his face?
05:54No, no, no.
05:55Why is he doing the, like, he had the Belichick post.
05:58For Belichick always has his arms crossed and looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there.
06:03Like, he encapsulated exactly everything you think about this Cavs team on the court
06:07in one still shot of him sitting with his arms crossed and looking like he doesn't really
06:12care about the results.
06:14All right.
06:14Fair.
06:16However, we just should not be talking about, you can figure out turnovers.
06:21You can figure out defensive rotations.
06:24You can figure out your lineup and how you want to, when you want to deploy or if you
06:28want to deploy Thomas Bryant.
06:30Everything that caused them to lose.
06:32If you clean one of those things up from last night, you win that game and you're up 1-0
06:36and it's mission accomplished before you even get to game two.
06:40My problem is, the one thing you can't clean up is effort intensity or energy or whatever
06:47we're calling that.
06:49And so, I think Kenny's resigned.
06:51I think Kenny's like, yeah, they played harder.
06:53Like, I actually...
06:54That can't be your answer.
06:55How is that your answer?
06:56Because it's the truth.
06:58Like, that's...
06:59I don't know what it's going to take to get to these guys that they have not won an NBA
07:03championship.
07:04And that while, yes, you are more talented than Detroit, I think you're more talented
07:08than anyone left in the East.
07:10You can't just out-talent everybody in the NBA playoffs.
07:14And what's weird is...
07:14You have to match people's intensity.
07:16For like three minutes to start off the game, I actually thought they were doing that.
07:19Like, the first three minutes of the game, they were grabbing all sorts of offensive
07:22rebounds.
07:23And even the broadcast...
07:24We can talk about Noah Eagle at some point.
07:26He sounds different and I'm happy for him.
07:28For a while, it felt like he was doing an impression of his dad.
07:30Did they drop?
07:30Yeah, for a while, it sounded like it was an impression of his dad.
07:33Now it sounds like that was big boy stuff.
07:36I like that out of Noah Eagle.
07:37But the broadcast kept just kind of referring in the first three minutes of like, oh, if
07:41this is how it looks for Pistons, it's going to be a long night for Detroit because we
07:44were grabbing every re-round.
07:45We were doing everything.
07:47And then it just stopped.
07:48And then it just went back to everything we'd been watching in the previous series and
07:52the intensity and everything that comes with it.
07:53We got a solid like three minutes out of the gate and then that was it.
07:56Well, and listen, there were a couple stretches where they picked it back up.
08:00But how in the hell do you go through everything that you went through in Toronto?
08:05And the central lesson wasn't we have to maintain a requisite amount, a specific amount of intensity.
08:12And if we do that, this will be a much easier series.
08:15How is this not the lesson?
08:17Because when you don't learn your lesson, one, the NBA is going to teach you that lesson
08:22by bouncing your ass out in the second round of the playoffs for the fourth straight year
08:25if you don't learn that lesson.
08:28And am I on one or two?
08:29Or three.
08:30One of the three.
08:30You made one point.
08:32Two.
08:32There we go.
08:33But potentially also three.
08:37At some point, I just have to question your heart.
08:39And I know these guys have heart.
08:41I know Donovan's got heart.
08:43I know Tyson's got heart.
08:44I know Schroeder's got heart and balls.
08:46I know Jared Allen has heart.
08:48I know.
08:49But they can't get it together to figure out how to play with that intensity and that focus
08:55together.
08:55And it's just, it's the one thing.
08:58You can fix every other thing I saw last night and every other thing I saw in Toronto.
09:03And I have no doubt that they can.
09:05Again, it's not a talent issue, but nothing scares me more when yet now into another series.
09:11I'm not just talking about, well, guys, guys playing together, or sorry, playing hard
09:16and playing focused together.
09:19That's not even about time on the court together.
09:21That's just about everybody buying in and doing the things it takes to win.
09:26And none of these guys are kids anymore.
09:28None of that is acceptable.
09:30I can accept you losing for so many reasons, including stupid turnovers.
09:35Which are just, like, bottle it the hell up.
09:38Right?
09:39But I can't, I cannot excuse your losing because you're getting out-efforted.
09:45Consistently.
09:45I just can't.
09:46That's just so, that's infuriating.
09:48And one of the tropes going into the series was Detroit's going to be more physical and
09:52they're going to make it harder.
09:53And they were.
09:54They were more physical.
09:55They did make it harder.
09:55And the Cavs didn't have much of a response there.
09:57Yeah.
09:58And here's the thing.
09:59The next time you say, I know what people say about me and I want to win, I no longer
10:05believe you.
10:06That's all I've heard from anybody in that locker room at any point, no matter who the
10:09coach was, no matter whether Darius was here, no matter how many years you're into this
10:14with Jared and Evan, like, no, I hear the same things.
10:17Yeah, they're very quick to take the responsibility of it all.
10:19And it's like, guys, I just, just show us.
10:21Yeah.
10:21Yes.
10:22Hey, man.
10:22They played harder.
10:25Why are we throwing that away cavalierly and then, pardon the pun, and not then turning
10:29around and being like, maybe we should play harder.
10:31But this is part of, again, where a lot of people are getting on Atkinson, even with that
10:34fourth quarter lineup we talked about, is like, he's treating that like it's game 47.
10:39Like, you do that stuff in game 47, you don't do that stuff in game one of the semi-file.
10:43Like, that's not, this isn't the time to do that.
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