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00:00It's time to turn the page to Game 2.
00:02We're hoping we can turn the page to Game 2.
00:04The guy who wants to turn the page to Game 2 will be on the call.
00:06Tim Legler, ESPN basketball, NBA basketball analyst.
00:10He's on the Wise Heart Right.
00:11We make a right call, Kyle Wright Hotline.
00:13Tim, good morning to you.
00:15Good morning. How are you guys doing today?
00:17We're doing well.
00:18Don't lie to him. We're not doing well.
00:20We got to do a fist fight yesterday in the opening segment.
00:22That was yesterday. It almost was a fist fight.
00:25It wasn't a fist fight, and we licked our wounds today.
00:27So we're fine now. We're getting ready for Game 2.
00:29of the Eastern Conference Finals.
00:31And Tim, it was a bizarre set of circumstances,
00:34at least a bizarre happening that went down on Tuesday night.
00:38How do you bounce back if you're the Cavs?
00:41Not only do you lose Game 1, but you lose it in an historic fashion
00:45where you basically had the thing wrapped up.
00:47I think all you can do is focus on the one thing that Kenny Atkinson said
00:53in that clip you just played, which is for two and a half quarters,
00:58they really were humming.
01:00And it was on both ends, but I thought their offense was so good
01:03during that stretch.
01:04And so you've got to look at the game.
01:06Obviously, you said that an unusual set of circumstances.
01:10I don't think any of us have ever seen anything like that.
01:13I'm sitting there calling the game.
01:16It's a 22-point lead, and there's just no way in hell you're going to convince
01:21anybody in that building that the Knicks are going to win that game.
01:25So, obviously, that's tough to come back from because you have to get a road win
01:30to win the series.
01:31I don't know.
01:32You're going to be in a better position than you were in Game 1 to get that road win.
01:37So, you leave there dejected after playing really well for a long stretch of that game,
01:41controlling the game, really dominating the Knicks for a large portion of that game.
01:45You don't leave with a win.
01:47That's tough.
01:47That's a very tough thing to deal with that night.
01:49The next day you wake up, you're really ticked off.
01:52You go watch the film.
01:53You get even madder at the circumstances and the situation.
01:56But you have no choice other than to look at the things you did against them
02:01and say, hey, look, we can replicate this.
02:05We know how to operate against them offensively.
02:08We just have to do it for a sustained stretch in the fourth quarter,
02:11and we've got to figure out a way to get it done with the games tight late.
02:14But it's not as if they just came in there, got steamrolled,
02:17and didn't play well throughout the game.
02:18And I think that's got to be the focus.
02:20What else can you do to try to flush this from your memory?
02:23Well, all eyes, obviously, legs after the game.
02:25I think Harden, and there's always some national stuff with that that goes on.
02:29And then Kenny Atkinson, and rightfully so.
02:31So, you know, you're sitting there courtside,
02:33and you guys did a masterful job of calling out way before that lead
02:38got cut to like three or five.
02:40You're like, the Cavs need to adjust.
02:42This is not going to go their way.
02:44Brunson got hot.
02:45Harden, who I thought played really good defense on almost everybody
02:48for three quarters, it was pretty clear he had nothing left on either end.
02:53And no timeouts were called, and there really wasn't much of an adjustment
02:57until it got a little too late, and then they were scrambling.
03:00So, what were your thoughts as now you've had time to listen to Kenny Atkinson,
03:05listen to the teams, and then, you know, watch that tape again?
03:09Yeah, and I re-watched the game this morning again,
03:11just to kind of make sure I could have context over that sequence of events.
03:16And I think, look, here's the thing with Harden.
03:19You know, defensively, in certain contexts, he's fine.
03:23And usually that means against bigger guards when they're trying to get physical
03:27with him, back him down, guys that aren't going to have,
03:30don't have blow-by speed, he's fine because he's strong.
03:33He can keep guys in place with his forearm.
03:36He's very good at raking down with his hands and stripping on guys
03:40when they try to, you know, get into the paint on him.
03:43When you put him in a one-on-one coverage against a guard that is so shifty
03:49and can change directions the number of times a Jalen Brunson can,
03:52now that's just a formula for disaster for the Cavs.
03:56And, look, I understand you're up 22, and Brunson hits a couple of baskets,
04:01and so I think initially, reluctantly, you know, you're not going to double
04:05because you're saying, okay, a 22-point lead,
04:07they're going to have to have threes to erase this.
04:10They're not going to make that many twos in that period of time
04:14to be able to erase this deficit.
04:16So let's just stay with single coverage.
04:19All right, he made five shots in a row.
04:22So now the lead basically has been cut in half.
04:25Now there's enough time, and this building started to sense it,
04:29the Knicks started to sense it, like, okay, we did the hardest part here.
04:33We took this from 22 down to about 10.
04:35That was all Brunson, all one-on-one, getting single coverage
04:38against the same defender, no adjustments.
04:41At that point, now you're in a tough spot because I was like, okay,
04:45we're going to start running this sort of half-hearted double team at him.
04:49I thought it was weak and soft and passive the way they were doubling him
04:53because they weren't all out blitzing him.
04:55That let the other three defenders know exactly what their rotations are,
05:00who has the first pass coming out of it.
05:02Instead, they were sort of half-heartedly running a defender toward him.
05:06That creates confusion for the other three defenders because they're not sure,
05:11is that guy stunting and he's going to get back to the first pass?
05:15Do I have the first pass?
05:16And as a result, they gave up a three to Shamit.
05:18They gave up a quarter three to Bridges.
05:20And because I don't think they committed either way.
05:24And that was, to me, the biggest problem for them.
05:26But you're going to have to figure out, if they go back into that mode again,
05:31what exactly you're going to do.
05:33And certainly one thing you're going to do,
05:34you've got to be more selective in how Harden ends up on Brunson
05:37because I thought they just indiscriminately handed him off to Brunson
05:40with any brush screen he got.
05:41There was at least three or four occasions.
05:43They did not need to switch it.
05:46But they'd already made up their mind, I was switching everything.
05:48Well, yeah, but not if the guy's 40 feet out getting a little brush screen.
05:51You don't need to switch that.
05:52Dean Wade can stay on him.
05:54First of all, Wade DeStruis should have been on the floor earlier in the
05:56fourth quarter.
05:57You don't let him go that many possessions.
05:59And those guys are kind of sitting over there watching.
06:02There were just so many things they did defensively to contribute to their
06:06own demise.
06:07And they're going to watch it, and they're going to see it.
06:09And the adjustment will come tonight.
06:11And we're all going to kind of wait and see what that has to be.
06:14Tim Legler, obviously a terrific job, a lead analyst right now on ESPN
06:20for the Eastern Conference Finals.
06:21So, you know, part of it, Kenny Atkinson kind of admitted yesterday he was
06:25disappointed in the bigs, and I presume he's talking about Jared Allen and Evan
06:29Mobley.
06:29Earlier in the game, they did such a great job funneling, you know, guards
06:34down there.
06:35Knicks did not play well in crowded spaces.
06:37And so could that have been part of it, that they were saying, all right, we're
06:41okay with Brunson getting down to the painted area because we expect the bigs to
06:45come over because they had done such a great job doing it, and they just weren't
06:48able to do it that late.
06:50Yeah, definitely.
06:51There's no question it was a different look when you go back and take a look at
06:55their defensive possessions prior to that stretch.
06:57It was different.
06:58Brunson was not able to get that last dribble that he was taking during that
07:03run in the fourth quarter.
07:04He wasn't getting that last dribble he needed to create the angle he needed off
07:08the glass.
07:08He banked in three shots during that stretch.
07:11And you can't get to the angle for the bank shot unless you're able to have
07:15enough space to take that final dribble to create that angle.
07:18And earlier in the game, he wasn't getting that additional dribble because he
07:21was being met higher up the lane.
07:23And in that stretch, he was not.
07:25And again, I think it was, and we'll talk to Kenny tonight before the game and
07:29just get a little bit clearer idea, I think, of what he was thinking.
07:33I just think it got to the point where they were too worried about overhelping.
07:39And then there's kickouts to corner threes or wing threes.
07:42And this was a night that didn't shoot the ball well from three at all until they
07:45had to, you had them bottled up pretty good from the three-point line.
07:49And I just think they're doing a math equation.
07:52It's 22 points.
07:53It's seven and a half minutes.
07:54They're not doing this unless they hit some threes.
07:56And so we're going to initially give less help on Brunson, make him make some
08:00tough shots.
08:01He was able to.
08:02I think it surprised everybody that he was able to string together basically five
08:06shots in a row with the same coverage because they were all different shots.
08:10One going left down the lane, one going right for a bank shot, one going left for a pull-up
08:15jumper, he went right for a little floater, then he had to step back three.
08:19So it was all different shots.
08:21It wasn't a steady dose of anything going the same direction.
08:25So I think they just wanted to stay home, don't overcommit to this, where there's an
08:30easy kick out three and they can cut this deficit a lot quicker.
08:34That's the only explanation I can have for it.
08:36But by the time Brunson got to his third, fourth basket, you have to now know that this
08:41is going to be what it's going to look like the rest of the way.
08:44We cannot allow James Harden to play him anymore on an island one-on-one because we're not
08:48scoring on the other end.
08:50And this lead is disappearing and we're going to start to feel a lot of pressure here.
08:53And that's exactly what happened.
08:54They got so tight offensively over the last three, four minutes of that game.
08:59I don't mean to ask you to tell tales out of school here.
09:03Tim Legler joining us on the show.
09:04But after the game, Mike Breen had to think that that Sam Merrill three was going in, right?
09:09Like he went to say, and then he stopped himself.
09:13I think we all thought it was going in.
09:14I mean, the ball had a weird spin on it.
09:17Like for Sam Merrill, like shooters like that, that ball comes off when those seams are, you
09:22know, spinning directly, like right back at you.
09:25It's perfect rotation on the backspin.
09:26Like the ball's not going to spin out like that.
09:28So he had just a tiny bit of sideways rotation.
09:31That's the only way you explain that ball not going in.
09:33I mean, it's halfway down.
09:35So we all were kind of, I think, expecting it once it got to the front of the rim.
09:39I thought that ball was going in as well.
09:41So what a break.
09:42You know, the irony of all of that, guys, is you think about all the things we just described
09:46that went wrong for the Cavs.
09:48And there's a lot more than we even talked about.
09:50Turnovers during that stretch.
09:52They missed how many free throws during that stretch.
09:54Any one of which, those things change.
09:56You stall the momentum of the Knicks, and you probably win the game.
09:59And then even after all that, all the things you did wrong defensively, the offense playing
10:04the way it did, you know, Mitchell being so quiet during that stretch, it can all be erased
10:08if that ball goes in.
10:10Now, that doesn't mean, you know, you wake up and you feel like, okay, we played a perfect
10:14game.
10:14There's major adjustments that are going to need to be made based on what happened in the
10:19fourth quarter, but you still would have been bailed out by that ball going in, and
10:23you would have ended up with the road win that you definitely felt like you deserved.
10:26But instead, it doesn't go in.
10:29You have to go to overtime.
10:31You know, the Knicks then control overtime pretty easily.
10:34And wow, what a different feeling both teams have now waking up yesterday and certainly
10:39waking up today going into game two.
10:42Now, we are getting nitty-gritty basketball breakdown from Tim Legler.
10:45This is why he's on the call for the biggest game.
10:47So, the other part of this is you mentioned, all right, they're scoring every single time
10:52down.
10:52Well, in the fourth quarter, I don't know what you thought courtside.
10:56To me, and I've seen this at times from Donovan, this is one of the, I don't know if it's
11:00a kryptonite to what has been a phenomenal career, and he has had some of the biggest
11:09productive second-half performances.
11:11I've seen it all.
11:11But he kind of does get gassed at times.
11:14And I thought he was superhuman defensively in this game.
11:17Some of the best defense I've ever seen him play.
11:19To me, it looked like Dwayne Wade.
11:20But I wonder if that contributed to him looking as gassed as he did.
11:24He only got four shots up in that fourth quarter.
11:27Yeah, and they went how many possessions in a row where he was basically either going
11:31up, for the most part, to the right side of the floor, to the wing, or to the corner,
11:35and just sort of camping out and waiting.
11:38And I said it on the air, because I watched it back this morning, sometimes you forget
11:42even some of the things you say in the moment.
11:44And I said on the air in a moment, I said, this has to be a Mitchell possession right here.
11:47Like, he's been too quiet.
11:48And as I was saying it, Strews got stripped.
11:51And so he didn't even get the ball over half court.
11:54But, like, James Harden, it was not a night in which James Harden was, like, cooking as
11:59a scorer.
11:59Like, he still is valuable in nights when he doesn't shoot well.
12:02Yes, he's had some issues in the playoffs.
12:04He's still valuable because of his ability to collapse the defense and break you down.
12:07And it puts pressure on you for the lob threat or one of the bigs for a pocket pass.
12:13Certainly, they have shooters that can kick out three.
12:15So he's still valuable in that regard.
12:16But he wasn't scoring.
12:17And at that point, you needed a basket.
12:20The ball had to go in.
12:22So I'm saying, why is Mitchell not initiating these possessions?
12:26Now, after the game, you hear something like, hey, maybe he hit or his ankle or somebody rolled
12:32up on his ankle.
12:33But he stayed on the floor the entire time.
12:35So to me, it couldn't have been that big of a factor.
12:37He was out there.
12:38You've got to go get the basketball.
12:39And he had a very efficient night.
12:41Like, one of the few guys, you know, up and down both stat sheets that say, hey, this
12:46guy actually had an efficient night.
12:48Why he was not initiating the offense?
12:51Because you would have forced a completely different reaction on the part of the Knicks
12:55if Mitchell was up there involved with a high ball screen or an iso.
12:58Because now you're really worried about the threat level.
13:00And you're going to run somebody at him.
13:02You're going to trap.
13:02You're going to miscommunicate something.
13:04Somebody else is going to get open.
13:06And he's just going off to the wing, you know, and just kind of camping out.
13:09To me, that really bailed out the Knicks defense and the decisions that had to be made
13:14during that time.
13:15And that's where the game got away from on the offensive end of the floor as well.
13:18And he knows it.
13:19He's going to watch the film and see it.
13:20And if they get in that situation where it's tight in the fourth quarter tonight, you're
13:23going to see, I think, a different reaction out of Mitchell.
13:26So in a way, Tim Legler joining us on the show, ESPN NBA analyst.
13:30He'll be with Mike Breen, Richard Jefferson, and Lisa Salters tonight on the call.
13:34So in a way, Tim, if you were a radio show host in Cleveland and you were saying, well,
13:41they were gassed, Donovan was gassed, is that an acceptable thing to say or is that just
13:47an excuse?
13:48No, I don't think that's an acceptable thing to say.
13:51If that team's gassed, I got news for you.
13:53They don't play as well as they did in the second or third quarters.
13:56That's not happening if that team is gassed.
13:59Because they struggled mightily offensively early.
14:01They weren't making shots.
14:02They're down seven.
14:03If that's a gassed team coming out of that seven-game series and one day off, I got news
14:07for you.
14:08That's going to build to probably a 20-point lead in the second quarter.
14:11That's not what happened.
14:12They dug deep.
14:13Their defense was so on point with the off-ball stuff that the Knicks were killing the Hawks
14:18and Sixers with.
14:19And that's been all this talk about, you know, they kind of recalibrated their offense to
14:24put Carl Anthony Towns out more as a facilitator.
14:27And they had a lot of fronts and baseline setting screens and coming up to receive the ball.
14:30And all this action and weak side slashing and cutting was creating a lot of problems for
14:35defenses.
14:36A push came to shove.
14:37They just went right back to Brunson, like the original Brunson offense when he first got
14:40to New York, which was just let him go to work with high ball screen or ISO in the middle
14:44of the floor and do it.
14:45But the Knicks, the Cavs, for the entire stretch in those two quarters were so good defensively
14:51with their communication on switches, with their taking away the weak side slashes, their
14:56bigs were stepping up, and then the guards were sinking down so there couldn't be a drop-off
15:00pass to Towns or Robinson.
15:02And they were just so on point and connected.
15:04A gas team does not play that well for that long in that game.
15:08I'm sorry.
15:09They don't.
15:09For me, that wasn't about being gassed.
15:12That was more about they started to see something slip away that they had thought they had in
15:18hand, and now it was almost like a panicked reaction to that, and they wanted the clock
15:24to run out.
15:25And rather than continuing to play with the aggressive mindset offensively, it's only going
15:29to take two baskets probably in that entire seven-minute stretch.
15:33If you give me two baskets, two different possessions for the Cavs during that stretch,
15:36they win the game.
15:37But all of them collectively sort of tightened up because they wanted the game to end.
15:43They wanted the time to run out and hold on.
15:45If you play that way mentally in basketball, you're in trouble.
15:49You've got to maintain your aggressiveness.
15:51I don't think it was fatigue.
15:52I think it was mentally they started to feel this thing caving in on them, and they looked
15:57around at each other, and they all were just trying to hold on rather than someone take
16:01the reins and go make this happen.
16:03Typically, when James Harden has a game like that, the season's over.
16:06Because we know about the game sixes, game sevens, where he's had collapses.
16:10But this is game one.
16:12How do you think he will respond?
16:14This is so early in the series.
16:16Obviously, the competition just goes up every round.
16:19He's also 36 years old.
16:21Yeah.
16:22Your guess is good as mine because we know that he has had incredible playoff performances.
16:27But he's also...
16:28And that's one thing about James Harden.
16:30The floor and the ceiling are pretty far apart at times in the same series.
16:35We've seen it time and time again.
16:37I mean, I can go back to the series he played a couple years ago in Philly, where they played
16:40Boston seven games, and Embiid was banged up a little bit.
16:43So he has 40-something in game one, Harden, on the road in Boston.
16:47They get a win.
16:48He had 40-something in game four, and they get a win in Philly when they were down 2-1
16:53in
16:53even the series.
16:54Like, two incredible playoff performances.
16:56The other five games in that series, he averaged like 11 points a game.
17:01So your guess is as good as mine.
17:03I do think he's going to challenge himself to come out and be aggressive tonight and try
17:07to get his shot going.
17:08If he hits a couple of, you know, his patented couple step-back threes in the first quarter,
17:12I mean, you could be in for a 25, 30-point James Harden night.
17:15That's very possible.
17:16So I wish I could tell you how I knew exactly how he was going to react.
17:20I do think he's going to try to be aggressive.
17:22But if he comes out and goes 0-4 in the first quarter, that could typically lend him to
17:28taking his foot off the gas and being less aggressive the rest of the game and put more
17:32pressure on some of their other guys to pick it up.
17:34Tim, I don't mean to ask a stupid question.
17:36You are on the call of all the games in the series?
17:39Yes.
17:40I got the whole conference finals and finals.
17:42Excellent.
17:42Well, enjoy the game tonight.
17:43We look forward to you being here in Cleveland, and hopefully you'll enjoy your time here in
17:48Cleveland as well.
17:50Appreciate that very much, guys.
17:51Yes, sir.
17:52Tim Legler, ESPN on the Wise Heart Right.
17:55We make a right call.
17:56Kyle Wright hotline.
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