00:00so you're visiting the must win well i'm not visiting the must win well yeah uh mainly because
00:04i've just gone too many times but you want to every every fiber in my being says this is a
00:09must win game but i've just been a frequent visitor too often that i can't partake that's
00:13such a chicken bleep thing it's what it is you you want to say it's a what it is you
00:17want to say
00:18it's almost it's it's very adjacent to the basketball guys they just did this last series
00:23they just showed me something last series that down oh two despite the fact that we know all
00:28the numbers attached to this 93 percent of teams historically don't you know advance being up to
00:34oh uh i i you know they showed me that they showed me they can do it they've earned the
00:38benefit of
00:39the doubt they can lose tonight and it's not the end of the world but i think you and i
00:42both know
00:42if they lose tonight it feels like it's going to be the end of the world 216-474-0092 at
00:47nick wilson
00:47says at j peterlin on social media social media reactions on x powered by scheiben jewelers
00:53cleveland's premier jewelry store quick hits coming up at 240 ashleybastock cleveland.com
00:57the orange and brown talk podcast coming up at 320 we'll get into uh meathead monkey and i'm loving
01:04every second of it we're also going to get into the miles garrett situation i don't know what to
01:09call that uh and then cp the franchise creator of nicks fan tv and the nba report he's going to
01:16give
01:16us a fair and balanced take on calves nicks game two anytime you bring on a guy that's called the
01:22franchise you know he's going to call it right down the middle has an exclusively nicks channel
01:26over under one and a half bing bongs in this i don't know man there's enough cynicism attached
01:32to some of these nicks fans that did did jake murren just find the one uh that is going to
01:37go in the
01:38uh ian you know who what who's our guy yesterday in begley in what in begley in begley yeah i
01:45don't
01:45know why that sounded funny to me in my head uh but anyway the guy that like is just just
01:48a born
01:48cynic yeah and it's just going to be like the nicks the nicks aren't that great of a team
01:52they really got lucky with this one they can't shoot right now the layoff was too much time
01:56brunson's not going to be able to put on the cape and save them every single game and oh by
02:00the way
02:00calves didn't really even shoot that great they didn't have that great of a shooting night well
02:03what happens when the calves just return back to normal form i'm gonna guess he he doesn't do that
02:07yeah i'm gonna yeah i mean we didn't find that one i think this this goes back to calves fan
02:12psyche
02:13um we need to win because i think for roughly 42 minutes two nights ago we saw that the calves
02:21were the better team and i know that there's a lot that goes into that and that you can't unlike
02:26the the calves keep going like hey for three quarters okay you can't just discount 44 and
02:30to 11 in that run you played four quarters in another five minutes and the the other ones ended
02:35up winning yeah and jaylen brunson single-handedly outsports you 16 to 11 i do think like it is right
02:40it remains all there for the cavaliers team and like i i think we should be a little bit more
02:47resilient with some of the cynicism i i agree with pete's messaging there i mean i'm ready to
02:52take an optimistic approach tonight uh especially because if they lay down and die tonight tomorrow
02:57is going to be almost like a funeral now speaking of criticism i don't want to do a funeral two
03:01days
03:02in a row no no really no not at all no i'm right there with you and if they win
03:07tonight
03:09tomorrow's gonna be a real ass party you have the series advantage then and then you would have
03:13uh people would be like oh they should be up two games to nine and how about us just punk
03:16in the
03:16knicks and going into a three-day weekend memorial day weekend with uh with a win okay uh that's gonna
03:23be a fun friday show potentially gotta get that win though however marcus morris former cavalier uh
03:28he uh he went on yahoo sports and had some criticism specific pointed criticism for the calves
03:33leadership after their game one debacle two things i see with cleveland they don't have really good
03:38leadership far as player wise like if you look at a james harden team and donovan mitchell team they
03:43always had a guy on the bench somewhere where he was a vocal leader where you call a timeout and
03:48you
03:48could see that guy showing passion and kind of bringing the team together that's what i think that
03:52cleveland is missing but i can't put that on coaching you have two guys that that's going to be
03:57hall of famers at some point up 22 okay now it dwindled down to 15 okay now it's down to
04:0310 them
04:03two guys got to be able to settle the team down to get quality shots and make sure we have
04:07quality
04:08possessions i think that's the big thing that that they were missing and i'm not going to put this on
04:12coaching as a player you know we always want to say well he could have called better plays but he's
04:16not on the court right if i got donovan mitchell and james chart on the court with a 20 point
04:19lead
04:20i feel great about that when i'm saying pointing fingers i'm saying that's the thing where our two
04:24superstars has to be in the room together and take ownership and say yo yo this was our fault man
04:29we can't allow our team to crumble like that up 20 in the eastern conference finals like are we serious
04:34all right so do i think it was a in the moment failure of leadership by literally anybody on the
04:41court to recognize what was happening happening and to stop the bleeding yes do i think that there's
04:47a bigger indictment on calves leadership because of one game no and i think that's where people felt
04:53like it was an overreach yeah um i also it's not that we've ever thought donovan in particular is
04:59the greatest leader in the world there's a reason why uh last year's playoffs max struce was the one
05:03sending that that big group text to try to get everyone all like basically hey this is our time
05:07is now in a weird way donovan almost gets the miles garrett treatment where you just know he's great
05:13you also know that he's not going to be the biggest rah-rah guy but i've never held that against
05:18donovan that way and i don't know maybe i should start doing such a thing uh because like jalen
05:22brunson for instance some of the reports out of new york and what he said in the in the huddles
05:25in particular in being able to get everyone going and understanding the moment it does feel like it
05:30was a miss by either james or donovan in that spot or somebody to at least slap atkinson upside the
05:35head
05:35and tell him what was going on yeah i i'll say this it happened quick though well it happened quick
05:41and they were also again for me this is where i give the players the massive benefit of the doubt
05:47you played a great game you're exhausted you're dead-legged and you're just trying to get anything
05:54going they did succumb to a little bit of panic yes somebody stopping them and saying hey we just
06:02got to get one bucket one bucket at a time somebody centering them that would have helped but to me
06:07in
06:07that situation because they're coming off a seven game series a physical brutal knockdown drag out
06:12series against detroit to me it's got to be the head coach the head coach has to be definitely the
06:17players cannot be thinking hey we're exhausted we're going through all this stuff and oh by the
06:22way i gotta wake us up the head coach has to be mindful that this that was a possibility and
06:28kenny
06:28atkinson could have done in a million ways calling timeouts earlier uh switching up what they did
06:33defensively like there were so many things he could have done differently it is if it's a failure of
06:39leadership in that moment i start again with kenny atkinson and then we start to get to donovan and
06:44james harden yeah i just i and i'm also i'm i you know me i'm not typically the guy to
06:48be like oh i i
06:49need to see my my best players have some win one for the gipper type speech in those moments because
06:54ultimately i feel like a lot of the times those either a fall flat or they just are what they
06:58are
06:59you know i get your talent is what's going to win you out in those moments and uh in that
07:03spot though
07:04they they have to have somebody that is at least centering them and giving them to the idea of like
07:08what
07:08they actually have to accomplish and and maybe they maybe they were trying to actually play out
07:12the directive because it felt like the directive was slow the game down a ton and they just had a
07:16bad directive i also think guys it's it's a freak it's like it's it's a it's a comedy of errors
07:24that
07:25happen yeah so there is an element i don't want to say flukish because the calves have let this kind
07:30of thing happen not just and atkinson used the term unlucky after the post game and that just killed
07:35anyone being able to use that term but when you get that kind of cascade of errors right just
07:39bleep rolling downhill as it were there is an element of like should somebody have sat up and
07:45been like uh hey guys we are we're blowing this game let us go ahead and get back to again
07:51one
07:51basket one stop mentality sure at the same point that is so much easier to say what how marcus morris
07:58is
07:59doing it 24 hours after the fact i guarantee you marcus morris has been a part of games like that
08:04where a good team has lost an improbable loss because quite frankly the bleep got rolling
08:10downhill and just nobody could stop also nick you know the best time to be able to make one of
08:14those
08:14big and passionate uh win one for the gipper type speeches when's that uh maybe during a timeout
08:19yeah which they which they famously at this point did not use well no he likes to hold on to
08:22it yeah
08:23yeah yeah like maybe maybe we're talking about like these like centering moments where you're like
08:26all right hey the game's getting away from us maybe maybe we can calm this down maybe we can i
08:31don't
08:31know get our head around what's actually happening that typically occurs maybe during a timeout maybe
08:35a stoppage in play would have been nice
Comments