Bobby Manning welcomes Carter Rodriguez from the Chase Down Podcast for a look at Game 2 and what went wrong for the Celtics in a blowout loss vs the Cavaliers, plus they debate whether or not this is a real series now as it turns to Cleveland.
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00:00 Hey, Bobby Manning here. Welcome to a new edition of the Garden Report Friday edition
00:09 between games two and three here. Welcome back another member of the Chase Down podcast.
00:17 Justin helped us preview the series. Now Carter's here to talk about a Cavaliers win.
00:22 Yeah, well, you know, I think it's important that we save the fun pod for me, you know.
00:29 Justin gets top billing. I get it. You know, he's a star. I love him. But, you know, when
00:35 it's time to talk about a little Cavalier shot in Freud, you know, I'm happy to I'm
00:40 happy to join in. It's always great talking to you, Bobby.
00:45 It was a long night in Boston. It was ugly. I would put it up there with probably the
00:54 worst performance I've seen from this group. Just considering the circumstances, Cavs down
01:01 a couple of starters here. Twenty five point blowout in game one. You come into a game
01:06 to twenty five or twelve point favorites. Not quite twenty five, but it felt that way.
01:13 And you end up down by twenty nine points in this game in the fourth quarter. I mean,
01:18 it looked like game six of the finals in some ways, where the Warriors were just running
01:22 them off the court. I don't want to I don't want to go overboard with this, but as much
01:29 as you're probably looking at Boston and saying, like, oh, everybody's overreacting, Celtics
01:33 are still in a good spot here. It's just one one. This is bad. And, you know, the Cavs
01:39 should take some, you know, satisfaction in this win here. And they have a long way to
01:44 go, like talking to Tristan, some of their guys in the locker room, like they're like,
01:48 yeah, these guys are going to bounce back. But man, this was bad. This was really bad.
01:53 This wasn't even that game two against the Heat, where the Heat hit a million threes
01:57 and just rode that to a win. The Cavs just outwilled the Celtics in this one. Yeah, I
02:02 mean, it was I mean, it was pretty shocking, to be honest, especially given the way the
02:06 game starts. You know, it's another nine to run. And Boston kind of completely has the
02:13 Cavs in their clutches. And, you know, I'm like, man, is this gonna be a sweep? Like,
02:18 it just felt so soft. You know, to me, the first six minutes of the game, I was like,
02:26 oh, not only did we not solve things, Joe solved some stuff from game one when they
02:33 already had played pretty well. And, you know, and then, you know, for whatever reason, it
02:38 was, you know, I think the Celtics going to their bench going to the the Hauser Cornette
02:44 minutes, like, I think the Cavs just were able to settle themselves down a little bit.
02:49 They stopped looking so outmanned and outpressed. They started staying home a little bit better
02:54 and and not overreacting, not over helping. And, you know, they just kind of started putting
03:00 the clamps on. And, you know, this team, no matter how much shooting they've added, no
03:06 matter how their personnel has changed, like they are really fueled by their defense, like
03:10 the team looks the most overwhelming when they're getting when they're stringing together
03:15 stops and baiting teams into bad offense. And and that's exactly what they did. It was,
03:21 I mean, a stunning result, frankly. I mean, this is a team that, you know, JB, I think
03:27 had been outscored by an average of 20 points on the road in his eight game playoff career
03:33 and road games up to this point. And all the road games in Orlando were pretty ugly. All
03:39 the road games in New York last year were pretty ugly. So, man, it was it was a stunner.
03:44 I mean, there's a there's a reason it was the biggest win by like a double digit underdog
03:48 since like 1991, because it felt monumentous. Yeah, and I think JB was the big winner. He
03:56 came out with a great game plan here. And I remember him after game one being like,
04:01 this is going to be a long series. I know some Celtics fans were laughing at that after
04:05 that game and saying, you know, we got Tatum held up, but we got to get out to those other
04:09 guys, too. And it's one of those things where you say you're going to do it, but it's tougher
04:13 to actually practice because you could have imagined them shifting their focus from Tatum
04:17 to the whites and browns of the world and then Tatum going off at that point. But they
04:22 held everybody down effectively in this game. Horford hit some shots early. I think he started
04:27 three or four from three. They were clearly shying away from him, but he didn't end up
04:31 hurting them. And this staggering number in this game that really makes it one of the
04:36 all time defensive performances I think I've seen is 77 percent from ESPN of the Celtics
04:43 threes were heavily contested in this game. And they, of course, outshot, you know, in
04:48 terms of total three point attempts to Cavs here, but they couldn't hit them. And Cavs
04:54 did a great job converting theirs. Getting to the rim early, you saw it. They wanted
04:59 to involve Mobley. They want to get the ball in his hands. They want to get him comfortable
05:02 out there because it had been rough for him in game one. And I didn't know how he was
05:07 going to be able to get it going, but they just made such a concerted effort to find
05:10 him. And, you know, the big thing at Shooter on going into game two, Carter, was they like
05:15 we shot 80 percent at the rim in game one. I was like, oh, all right. So they go back
05:21 there again and again and again. And they just took advantage of the Celtics, whether
05:25 it was Horford in their cornet, they certainly took advantage of. And then they try to go
05:29 to Tillman. And that really didn't work either, but more for offensive reasons, I felt like.
05:34 So it was a great game plan. JB, I'm sure he's received plenty of criticism on the Cleveland
05:40 side, but this was a good one. This is a big one for him. Yeah. I mean, and like, you know,
05:45 I do think the threes are going to just be the story of the series. And, you know, I
05:49 thought one great bellwether for the Cavs in game one, other than their rim scoring,
05:53 was that they actually outperformed Boston on generating wide open threes. They got 19
06:00 threes in game one. I think they hit eight of them. Boston only got 17 wide open threes.
06:06 And then in game two, down to 12. You know, this is one of the best teams in the league
06:10 at generating those wide open threes. I think they averaged 19 a game. So the Cavs holding
06:15 them to 12. And then the other big change from game one to game two is game one is an
06:20 outlier on these kind of somewhat contested shots. Boston goes nine of 22, which is, you
06:26 know, outlandishly good for that level of closeout. And then in game two, guess what?
06:32 They go to a 15. So not only were the Cavs did numbers kind of normalize, maybe a little
06:37 too far the other way for the Cavs. Obviously, you're not going to expect Boston to shoot
06:41 that poorly, even when they're somewhat guarded. But like, I just think they're winning the
06:45 numbers game, you know, to go from 22, some semi open threes to 15 and 17 wide open threes
06:52 to 12. That just tells me that their game plan discipline was really, really good. And
06:56 something that I think is really important to shout out with regards to the Cavs defensive
07:01 effort in this game was that, you know, I think they have some really hard challenges
07:07 because, you know, it's very easy to say when you're playing the Boston Celtics, stay home,
07:12 stay home, stay home, stay home. They don't like to shoot at the rim. So you can't you
07:15 just don't help. And like the reality is, especially this version of the Cavs, that's
07:20 missing so much positional size in Dean Wade and Jared Allen. Staying home means a layup
07:26 line. And there were times where, you know, I in game one, Jalen Brown had that absolute
07:31 yam on Isaac Okorah, because it's like, no one came and helped. And he got an easy bucket
07:36 as a result. Derek White got a few easy buckets like that in game one. So you can't just say
07:40 that. You can't be that orthodox. And like the answer really is, you just need to execute
07:46 really, really well. And I thought the Cavs players executed their game plan damn near
07:52 perfectly in that game where, you know, they were taking that one step to shade and mess
07:57 up what the ball handler was doing, but not that two steps where then they can kick it
08:01 to the opposite corner and generate one of those wide open threes and get things going.
08:06 So like, I just thought not only was their game plan really good, I thought their game
08:10 discipline was really good, because the reality is, I think their personnel right now kind
08:14 of requires them to have perfect game plan discipline.
08:18 Absolutely, especially when you probably need to tighten things up a little bit and, you
08:23 know, lean on some of the starting guys a little more. You went to the Sam Merrill's
08:27 and George Nyang's at certain points, and it's just not going to work here. You got
08:32 to lean on Mitchell. You got to lean on Garland. And Garland was much better in this game.
08:37 Mobley, much better. LeVert, much better. And you just got those stack performances
08:42 that you needed and got more of them than the Celtics here. And the big thing's Tatum
08:47 right now, obviously. It's baffling. It really is where he's at.
08:54 It's interesting that you say that, because like, it's funny, I'm watching this series
08:57 and I'm like, I don't think Tatum's playing like terribly poorly. I just think, I think,
09:03 I don't know, maybe these are wine and gold colored glasses, but I just think he's being
09:08 guarded by really great defenders, you know. Isaac Okoro is one of the best point of attack
09:12 defenders in the NBA, and he's getting under him. And again, the Cavs are shading a little
09:18 bit of help his way. I'm not seeing the easy opportunities that he's blowing. Do you think
09:23 he's just playing too slow?
09:25 I think that's it. And you saw it in game one. He would get the screen onto Garland
09:30 and he'd be out wide on him. He would just start too far from the basket where a guy's
09:34 able to get there and meet him there in a held position when he gets there. And, you
09:40 know, at that point, he's either kicking it out or taking a really tough shot in traffic.
09:44 He's taking very difficult shots right now. And yes, like you said, you credit the Cavs
09:48 defense for that. But this is what are we talking? Five games to that first round, two
09:53 games into this round where he just hasn't been able to get a shot off. And I know you
09:59 probably look at some of those and say, oh, you miss some open looks. Probably is just
10:04 seeing extra attention and has to play through that. But the best guys usually figure it
10:10 out at a certain point. And I know these are things we were saying about Donovan Mitchell
10:15 a couple of games in the end around one where he had a brutal Nick series and it was starting
10:20 off kind of quiet against Orlando. And you're like, hey, where's our star performance? So
10:24 I think, yeah, these are tough defenses. I thought the heat going into the playoffs were
10:30 playing some of the best defense in the league. The Cavs, you know, they strategically and
10:35 just with personnel are at the highest level. And you mentioned the magic there. They're
10:40 right up there, too, with all these teams. So they're going to cause you to look like
10:44 that. And I agree with the people who defend the Tatum and say he's doing other stuff.
10:50 He's on the boards. He's defending. He's passing. Well, he's limiting turnovers, too, which
10:55 I think is really the big thing. He still only had one in this last game right here.
11:00 But the shooting struggles are just so enormous. He's down to 40 percent from the field for
11:06 the playoffs, 26 from three. And the big one in this one is that he couldn't get to the
11:11 free throw line in the second half. And this is the point, I think, where you said, all
11:18 right, up until now, the other stuff was making up for it. But game two, just it just wasn't
11:24 good enough from him. And. This is the conversation we have a lot of times with these series,
11:29 the best player in it usually wins and there are two games. Who do you feel like has been
11:34 the best player in this series? I mean, it's got to be Donnie, right? I mean, he's been
11:37 unbelievable. I think he is even in game one, which obviously got blown off the rails. You
11:44 know, I mean, I think it's you know, it's some combination of Donovan, Derek White and
11:48 Jalen Brown.
11:49 The Jalen didn't have a very good game either. So, like, I guess it's Donovan in a one on
11:57 one series, you know, but but I don't know that the Tatum thing is just interesting.
12:03 You know, I do think he does have that tendency to load up and like that's just the Cavs just
12:07 love it. When when when you jab step three times like there was one possession where
12:13 he was just digging into a guy, forget who was defending him.
12:16 I think it was Max. I think I know because he really wanted to eat against Max and Max
12:21 was not giving much quarter.
12:24 You got to keep the ball moving. You got to keep it popping. You got to put this team
12:28 in rotation a little bit and just get those extra passing layers off. I thought game one
12:33 they had some really nice three, four pass possessions, you know, where you get guys
12:37 involved, get to some open looks.
12:39 Even early in this, even early in game two, I thought, you know, I thought they did a
12:45 really nice job. And again, this kind of goes back to that kind of game plan discipline
12:48 from the Cavs. But like, you know, that first set of the game, I thought was actually really
12:52 clever for Missoula. And honestly, I was as Cavs fan Carter over here was kind of panicking
12:57 because basically they had Horford on the opposite side of the floor.
13:00 So Mobley couldn't come help. And they just had Derek White set up kind of a pin down
13:05 screen for a post catch for Tatum. And you just have no size on the floor for the Cavs
13:11 right now. And he got a deep, deep catch and drew a foul right away. And it was like, I
13:16 don't know what we're going to do about that. And then they just kind of stopped trying
13:19 that stuff.
13:20 You know, they like they stopped putting they, you know, obviously the Quinnette minutes,
13:26 you can't do that as much. But like with Horford, I felt like they stopped pulling Mobley out
13:33 of the action in making the Cavs play for before. Because I think I think Boston has
13:39 such a positional size advantage in those four before matchups, especially when the
13:43 two small guards are out there. And so I think that's a scab. They can kind of go back to
13:49 picking is like, because the Cavs just don't have any power forwards right now. Obviously,
13:55 Dean Wade really changes the calculus there. But Marcus Morris hasn't been good enough.
14:00 And Yang's been, you know, had an absolutely brutal postseason. And like, I, you know,
14:05 for the most part, Max, Struce and Isaac O'Connor are your power forwards. And I think Boston
14:11 needs to be able to exploit that on the other end, in terms of being a little clever with
14:16 how they attack. I think just attacking those guys straight up doesn't really do much for
14:20 you. But you know, these guard screens and by the way, another person who gets a lot
14:24 of credit is Darius Garland, who in game one, they tried to put him in action and it worked
14:29 in game two, he did a great job of showing and staying connected and not giving Derek
14:35 white those wide open slip screen threes. So I don't know, it'll be interesting to see
14:42 how much of that game was Boston just going away from what worked for them and how much
14:47 of it was the Cavs really taking it away. But I actually had a question for you, if
14:53 I may Bogart your podcast a little bit. Let's do it. What do you think about Horford on
14:57 O'Corro instead of Mobley? You think that's really yielding the dividends that they hoped
15:04 it would? No, I think you need to shut Mobley out of this series and Horford has done a
15:11 great job of that throughout their matchups over the years. I look going into the series
15:16 and I know it's not always the best data, but Mobley was four for 11 in his career against
15:21 Horford coming into the series and the one that especially, you know, rings most recent
15:27 of the course was the 22 point comeback game. And I think he started to for eight in that
15:31 one before he hurt his ankle. So you got to lean on that and Horford's important right
15:36 now. You start to see in this game, the poor Zingas loss and the difference he makes compared
15:45 to the older Celtics teams where it's like, Oh, if the three is not there, they're not
15:48 the same. And you know, you can load up against Tatum and the spacing's not as good. They
15:53 miss poor Zingas right now. And they, they didn't do those first two games without them
15:58 in this spot where, you know, Horford's not as much of a rim protector and you try to
16:02 use them in that role. Doesn't really work. The pick and roll coverage is a little off
16:06 there. They didn't utilize him great on that end, obviously. And then on offense, like
16:11 you said, they're going to him early. They're finding for the open threes. I love that play
16:15 where Mobley's a little late to close out and poor for just kind of upbakes him and
16:19 goes right by him for the finish early. He was so great early in this game. And like
16:23 you said, they got away from that. So you have to find ways to weaponize your front
16:28 court a little bit and at least make them a threat. And that's going to help the Browns
16:33 and Tatums of the world. But this is the problem with your depth right now at that center spot
16:38 is that Horford, he's still amazing. He's still, it's amazing what he's doing at this
16:45 stage. But the one area where he's probably regressed the most is being able to do that
16:51 heavy lifting offensively. Like, can you go to him for eight, nine, 10 threes? Can you
16:56 go to him in the post against mismatches? Those are things he's going to have to do
17:01 if the Cavs are just kind of ignoring him, shying away from them, daring him to beat
17:06 them. And right now at this stage in his career, he's been more of like a, you know, eight,
17:10 nine, 10 point per game kind of guy and like four or five, six shot kind of guy. And that's
17:15 just not enough of a threat right now. The Cavs are going to live with that.
17:18 Yeah. I think they'll, they'll certainly live with what he's doing in the offense. I just
17:22 find him on a Coro to be kind of a waste of resources, to be honest, like, because Oh
17:27 Coro, I think one, it just, even though Coro, isn't a great shooter, he's having to guard
17:33 him like he's a wing. So he's taking that extra step out to the corner anyway,
17:38 Or is beating them a little bit right now, isn't it?
17:40 He's kept them in games early on. And then, and then what else Oh Coro does really well
17:45 is run the damn floor. So Alice having to hoof it back and, and, and try to try to match
17:52 up and not have to cross match. I just don't think they're getting much out of it. And
17:55 the Cavs are doing so well at the rim right now, like, because their rim protectors, when,
18:01 when Horford is out guarding on the perimeter are Tatum and Brown.
18:05 And that's just, you're, you kind of give up your positional size advantage when you
18:09 do that, you know, you're, you're downshifting kind of for no reason.
18:13 Yeah. And there's a, there's a lack of aggressiveness with the Celtics scheming on defense.
18:22 I think it's too cute. They're getting too cute.
18:26 And they've done it in spots. You know, they were the number two defense during the year.
18:29 I think they take a real analytical approach to it. And it was one of the advantages I
18:33 thought they had going into the series because the Cavs don't really shoot mid Rangers. That
18:37 surprised me coming in so that they just don't go to that spot. And so you want to drop back
18:41 Horford, you want to drop him off in O'Corro and just kind of ignore him and have him be
18:46 at the rim. That makes some sense analytically, but then you get no Coro stepping into those
18:51 shots. You're not having Horford as involved in some of the actions and the Cavs are just
18:56 basically bringing offense to the Celtics.
18:59 And that was another thing they talked a lot about after game one was, you know, we only
19:03 had 95 points, but we only turned the ball over like five times in that first game. The
19:08 Celtics just aren't disrupting them right now. And I feel like in this game, especially
19:13 I said this a lot after it, if the Celtics just defended with some real force and you
19:19 know, met their potential on that end of the floor, they still might've lost this game,
19:23 but it would have been close. Like you, this should have never been a blowout. The Celtics
19:28 with the talent they have shouldn't, shouldn't be getting blown out like this. And that was
19:32 a defensive issue I felt like in this game, but they always point to the offense.
19:36 It's always the spacing and the way they set up their defense on offense. And that's just
19:40 kind of the mindset Joe has. And that's sometimes where I've been a little bit of critical of
19:45 him and his approach. Yeah. And you know, to your point about that forcefulness, I really
19:50 do think that the Cavs guards are like, Oh, thank God Jalen sucks. Isn't here anymore.
19:55 You know, like, and that shouldn't be the case when you're going against Derek white
19:58 and drew Holley, I just think it's a different brand of soda, you know, like, like those
20:03 guys are, they're physical, but they're not, I feel like they use their physicality differently,
20:09 you know, like I feel like more than anyone in the league. Right, exactly. And like Derek
20:14 white is like a Cobra, you know, waiting, he's just constantly springing, ready to strike
20:19 to block your jumper. And, and drew, I think is, you know, much more of a bully at this
20:23 stage of his career in terms of, you try to go into his chest and he doesn't move. Whereas
20:29 sugs was bringing the fight to Garland and to Donovan and making them back up and challenging
20:36 their dribble. Like I haven't really seen them challenge either of these Celtics guards
20:41 really challenged the Cavs ball handling. I think a lot of that scheming. Yeah. And
20:47 I think part of it is that, that deep drop coverage where, you know, I think Orlando
20:52 was much more comfortable playing at the level or even switching that those drops are deep,
20:58 man. There are sometimes underneath the free throw line. And like, when it's horror for
21:01 doing it versus Porzingis, you know? Yeah. So you have to, you have to like, they have
21:05 to like play a little bit more fundamentally, I think, within that scheme. I will say this,
21:11 dude, I think the, if I'm a Celtics fan, the thing that freak would freak me out the most
21:17 is that they were so lost trying to contain the guards in game two, that they went to
21:25 those hard traps. Like that was like, that felt like a, like take go living on one end
21:31 of the spectrum and then just flying to the other side. And you know, the Cavs have been
21:36 begging to get two on the ball in these, in these last two playoff series they've had
21:41 so they can get teams into rotation and let their shooters actually get open shots. And
21:45 what happened as soon as they started trapping, they found Struce in the corner for two threes.
21:50 Like that felt like a way too wide of a swing. And you know, I, I wonder if that's what they're
21:57 going to come out doing in game three or if they're going to try to middle it.
22:01 Yeah. And that goes back to the Moby point when he's that comfortable early and he gets
22:05 the ball that many times early, he's ready to beat you out of those kinds of sets. So
22:10 it all just worked for the Cavs in this one. And you know, that leads to our next question
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23:01 different stats. You got points, assists, rebounds, hockey's going on right now. Baseball
23:04 as well. You just pick more or less on those projections. And it's been fun to see these
23:09 projections for this Celtics Cavs series. If Tatum at 27 and a half points every time.
23:14 And it's just like, what he's looking right now, just go less, but he's going to break
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23:34 daily fantasy sports partner here at the garden report. So this is the big question right
23:40 now, Carter, is this a series?
23:46 I think it's a series until the Celtics prove otherwise at this point, you know, I think,
23:54 I think to some extent, you know, the pressure, well, actually I might contradict my own,
24:01 my own take there because the pressure, I do think the calves have to go win game three,
24:06 you know, because if the Celtics come out and win game three by 20, I think all the,
24:11 all the talk of the last 24 hours kind of just washes away and we go, Oh, okay. They
24:17 just had a bad game. But if the calves come out and, and take care of business at home
24:24 and you know, uh, Cleveland's going to be so loud.
24:28 Yeah. Palo Banquero noted, uh, after, uh, after the series that the crowd really was
24:34 a factor, uh, in terms of their experience, which I appreciated that level of honesty,
24:39 by the way, for, for a first time playoff appearance, uh, out of Mr. Banquero. Uh, but
24:44 like, I, I just thought, I thought, I think this crowd is going to be ravenous. Uh, people
24:50 like playing as Boston. Uh, that's just the truth of it. They like, they love the idea
24:55 of beating Boston. It's going to, and we want Boston, right, right after that.
24:59 They were, uh, and so they are there, this crowd really is going to come loud. And if
25:04 the calves, you know, take a series lead, then it is most certainly a series. Um, but
25:11 if Boston kind of takes over, I think, I think everyone, probably including me a little bit
25:15 are going to sink back into the, okay, well that was a really fun game, but you know,
25:21 you're going up against a great, great team and you know, this calves team just isn't
25:24 whole.
25:25 It's actually a good time. I hate to stack reads, but you're hyping up game three. You
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26:15 over at the game time app. Uh, so it is going to be a raucous environment. It is going to
26:21 be fun. I'm excited to go Carter. Uh, what's the experience like there? Um, I mean, it's
26:29 a playoff crowd in Cleveland is really, really fun. Obviously you have the, the, the, the
26:34 natural stuff that's going to come. You're going to have the scream and you're going
26:37 to have people, Curt, you know, yelling at the refs and all that stuff. But I will say
26:40 something I really love about going to Cavs games, uh, especially in the post season is
26:46 it is a ball knowing crowd. You know, I always think about, uh, in one of the play in games
26:52 a couple of years ago, uh, kick Karis fought off like John Collins for a deep post up for
26:58 like 10 seconds. He got Collins got a seal. Karis pushed him out and really worked his
27:03 ass off and, uh, and, and kind of blew up what was going to be a really good opportunity.
27:09 Got a standing ovation from the Cavs crowd. Uh, even though like there wasn't an action
27:14 on the play, it was just like the crowd saw a guy working hard to dig out of a bad spot
27:20 and they wanted to give him that kind of love. So like it, it's a, it's a ball knowing crowd.
27:25 It's a loud, loud, loud crowd. I couldn't believe how loud it was in the Orlando series.
27:30 I kind of expected a bit of a sleepy group, you know, compared to like going and playing
27:34 in the Knicks, a glamor franchise, you know, like the vibes were rough at the end of the
27:39 year. So I was like, Oh, is it going to be a bit of a, kind of a withdrawn environment
27:43 in Cleveland? And it was not, it was so loud. I couldn't hear the whistle like five or six
27:47 times, uh, in, in games one and two, uh, of, of that series.
27:51 So I think it's going to be a really, really fun one. And, you know, it's just going to
27:54 be a matter of like, are you going to get that kind of performance out of the guards
27:57 again? Cause, uh, they, they go as a, as they go, the Cleveland Cavaliers go most of the
28:03 time. Yeah. And they went four and Oh, of course in that series at home. Uh, so they're
28:08 going to continue to defend that here. Uh, you mentioned the guards and, you know, back
28:13 to the question I asked, it started this conversation. I do think it's a series now just because
28:19 when you look at the house, when you look at, you know, what the calves could potentially
28:23 gain down the line here, doesn't look great with Alan.
28:28 I didn't see him at shoot around at all. Just seems like he's really hurt. Uh, so I, I just
28:33 can't imagine that happening anytime soon, maybe at some point down the line in this
28:37 series, but you do have the hope of that coming potentially for the calves here. I don't,
28:41 I just don't think Porzingis will be back in this series at all, just based on the timeline.
28:45 And then you got Wade who, you know, he looks, he's on the court. He's starting to do a little
28:48 bit more. He's a guy that can really help them here. Uh, and then you mentioned the
28:53 guards, like they're looking good. Like I, I had some worry about Mitchell coming into
28:57 this series because he looked banged up in round one. He didn't look like himself. He
29:01 shot 25% from three and he's just been incredible. And what impresses me most, obviously there's
29:06 a lot of talk around him right now, his future looms, you know, once this season ends and
29:11 they were pretty close, you know, to seeing their season ended at round one, but he just
29:17 seems locked in. And it seems like he's still dedicated to the cause here. It seems like
29:21 he still believes in what's going on here. And how much does that mean long-term beyond
29:26 this year? I don't know, but at least for this moment, it has the calves walked into
29:32 the series and involved. That was a great moment at the end of the third last night
29:35 where he hit that shot, turned around and he actually found like a calves fan right
29:38 in front of him. And the guy had his hand down. I don't think he like knew at first
29:42 that it was a cash fan and he was like, Oh, but he's been great.
29:47 He's been a really cool. I mean, I think him building up Darius Garland in, in game seven
29:55 on the bench after Darius is just having this nightmare kind of first half and seeing him,
30:01 you know, like completely enveloping him on the bench, trying to build him up was one
30:06 of my favorite moments you know, of this era to be Frank. And then when Darius hits that
30:13 backbreaker three to kind of put them up double digits in that game, they, it was the most
30:18 genuine like brotherly hug I've ever seen between two, two players on a team I've rooted
30:24 for like, you could just tell he was so rooting for his guy in that moment. And like, you
30:29 know, I won't pretend to know Donovan Mitchell's heart. I don't know what he wants to do long-term
30:34 or if, if, you know, if this is if this is not really his long-term future or not, I
30:40 don't know. But like, one thing I think I do know wholesale about him is like, I just
30:45 don't think this dude is going to be like one of those quiet quitters, you know, where
30:49 like, Oh, things aren't going great. So I'm going to start distancing myself a little
30:52 bit. Like, no, he's been, he's been bought in wholesale. And that tells me that he's
30:58 a guy who no matter what his like professional ambitions are. And I think that should always
31:04 be somewhat church and state separate from, you know, how you feel about the court, but
31:09 no matter what his professional ambitions are, like when he's here to work, he's here
31:13 to work when he's with the group, he has that he's with, he's here there to lift them up.
31:18 You know, first thing he does post game last night was shout out Evan Mobley and, and kind
31:23 of try to celebrate him. So I think, I think he's been an unbelievable leader for this
31:29 team through these post-season, through this post season so far that has had some real
31:34 ups and downs. And like, I'm really glad to have someone like Donovan both on the floor
31:40 and off the floor.
31:41 Yeah. And shout out to Mobley. I didn't know he had that in him. What he showed us. I just
31:46 thought he was going to continue to struggle in this series. It's been a bad matchup for
31:50 him. It didn't seem like they could get him the ball in his spots. And you know, I know
31:53 talking to Justin before this series, he prefers him at the four a little bit more, but he
31:58 was just awesome in this game. And again, I go back to that game plan of empowering
32:02 him early. It was so clear. That's what they were trying to do.
32:04 Well, he got like a running start in the fourth too, you know, he had a brutal first three
32:10 quarters then had, had 10 points in the fourth quarter. And then I just felt like he kind
32:14 of used that momentum to launch. Yeah. And then, you know, he hits the foul trouble in
32:19 the third quarter of this one and Tristan picked them up, which was huge too. Those
32:23 are some important Tristan minutes there. And Bobby, there's happy about that. There's
32:27 death taxes and Tristan Thompson dominating Al Horford's team in the post season.
32:35 I didn't think I'd see it in 2024, but there is.
32:40 We've there's been a long running history of Tristan Thompson is Al Horford's father
32:45 jokes in Cleveland, literally coming up on a decade of those kinds of jokes. Obviously,
32:51 obviously, you know, jokes aside, super cool to see Tristan just keep them alive in that
32:56 stretch. They were plus three in the five minutes to in that third. And I thought in
32:59 a lot of ways that kind of settles, you know, settled the game. Yeah. Tough, tough moment
33:04 for my guy, Luke, who was so good in game one. Yeah, he was amazing.
33:10 So I have a tough read on this because you're right. The Celtics might just come out and
33:13 blast the Cavs in game three. Everyone forgets this game. It's what happened in round one.
33:18 This does feel a little different to me. I had five games. I thought with some health,
33:23 this Cavs could push the six and it's looking like straight up, you know, especially without
33:27 Porzingis in there, they might be able to push it six, especially with these two home
33:31 games ahead here now. And that's actually where I'm kind of leaning on this one. I do
33:35 think this series will go a little longer than people think, just because I think the
33:38 Cavs have a lot of respect for them and, you know, what they're able to do in the series
33:42 and the defense and everything else here. But game two might have been more about the
33:45 Celtics and just that let down. And it's the question I keep asking everybody right now,
33:51 because sometimes I just feel a little skeptical on it myself. And it feels good to see Denver
33:56 in this hole now, because I feel like they're probably the toughest matchup for the Celtics
33:59 that they could see on their way to a title path here. But Minnesota, like they're the
34:06 highest form of that defensive, physical, big team. And the Celtics saw it in round
34:12 one. They're seeing it again here in round two. They might have to go through the Knicks
34:15 in round three who are kind of in that mold now, too. I don't know. Does it feel like
34:21 the Celtics are a championship team to you when you watch them, when you just kind of
34:25 consume what they do? I think there's just I think their thing that's always going to
34:31 be weird is that and I don't know if your fans, if your listeners will like get grumpy
34:36 at me for saying this, but like, I just think they're they're so hard to parse because they're
34:41 a historically good team without a top five player. And like, I don't know what that means,
34:48 you know, and like and like even if Tatum, even if you have Tatum top five, like which
34:54 I think is defensible, like I think everyone agrees there's like a tear between him and
34:58 like Yoke itch and Yanis. At least an inconsistency factor with him, too, because he'll get to
35:05 that level and then he'll have stretches like this with the shots not falling and you're
35:08 like, who is he? And that's like, I can't believe we're still asking that because he's
35:13 a little bit of a way into his career here. But who is he? I was talking with Justin about
35:18 this earlier. Like, is he the passing rebounding defense do it all guy? Is he the big score
35:24 like Kobe? You know, as the comparison often goes, is he Durant, you know, who can just
35:30 get a shot off from anywhere and hits a bunch of, you know, mid Rangers? They haven't really
35:35 allowed him to be that. Yeah, he might be as Paul Pierce. Like, I don't think it's either
35:41 because like you see him at the end of these games. That was Pierce's thing is he would
35:45 steal games at the end. And this was a tough year for Tatum in the clutch. He's under a
35:50 microscope unlike anybody in the league right now. And I don't know if it's because he's
35:54 on the Celtics. He's on a historically great. He's the best player on a historically great
35:58 team, you know, and like and like he's probably the difference between this being a because
36:05 the reality is, let's say he is a top three player like if he were in that Jokic Giannis
36:09 kind of tier Luca tier, I think everyone be like no shot the Celtics don't win the title.
36:15 Yeah, you know, and because he's not everyone's like, can he get there? Can he do it? Can
36:21 he get them there? And it's going to be a really interesting kind of thing to see. I
36:26 mean, this calves team is kind of tailor made to bother him and make it hard on him. And
36:31 you know, I think you're going to he's going to have a lot of things to learn from coming
36:36 out of the series, which is to his credit something he does. Like I'll say this as someone
36:41 who doesn't watch as many Celtics games as you or your listener base. Every time I do
36:45 watch the Boston Celtics, I go, man, those guys are all working really hard at getting
36:51 better. I hate him. Footwork is bad, especially in the in the kind of the mid post. And when
36:56 he when he attacks and in catch it, you know, kick attacks right off the catch. I'm like,
37:01 man, he does some stuff that he was not doing two years ago. Same with Jalen Brown. Like
37:07 those two have gotten better and better and better incrementally year over year over year.
37:11 And I imagine being a Celtics fan, sometimes it's hard to see that stuff. Because it's
37:16 like, you're just so in it. But like, as someone who parachutes into watching the Celtics,
37:20 I'm like, those guys are getting better. It's just, you know, there's just levels to this.
37:25 And he might not be where you want him to be. But the cool thing is your team so good
37:31 that might not stop you from winning a championship anyway.
37:33 Right, and he can lean on the other guys. Sometimes I think that's perfectly fine. Game
37:38 one is a perfectly fine way to go about it. If he's not going to shoot well, if the stats
37:43 aren't there, rely on the other guys set them up. I think he's done a much better job with
37:47 that along with all the stuff you mentioned, like his passing is just kind of increased
37:52 year by year. And I think he reads the game well. And I think he can be patient and make
37:56 the right passes against pressure, you know, the team type tries to throw at him. And that
38:03 might just have to be what he does the whole way. And if he finishes the playoffs, and
38:07 he's raising the trophy shooting 40% and 30 from three, but he does all these other little
38:12 things. I don't think anyone's gonna care at that point.
38:15 Like a lot like a Zydal Kobe in that capacity.
38:20 That's a good thing about him is he does have something he can go to in different spots.
38:25 And when he gets knocked in this MVP race, that's where I do defend him a little bit
38:29 because like, Brunson can't defend like him. And Luca can't either. And, you know, most
38:36 of those guys aren't the rebounders that he is. And he can just play a little bit of everything.
38:41 But you do end up in that territory where like, you can do it all. But you're a master
38:45 or none. And yeah, he is a high, high level. Some of his he is a some of his part superstar,
38:51 right? But that's exactly who he is. But basketball isn't about being the sum of your parts. And
38:56 that's, that's what makes it complicated.
39:00 I can't wait to see how the series goes. I think we're at like an inflection point right
39:04 here. Oh, yeah, gonna be Celtics just roll the rest of the way or we're in for a surprisingly
39:10 tough series here in round two, which is how it should be. The Cavs, Celtics, they play
39:15 a game three at a nice 840pm start time that I'm sure Carter's I'm gonna be so tired Sunday
39:23 morning. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's Saturday. I'm excited to see Cleveland.
39:28 Got some tips from Carter. I'm gonna check everything out there. And, you know, enjoy
39:33 my three nights there. So I'm off tomorrow. Heading that way. Shoot around coverage. Check
39:38 us out in the morning. Check us out postgame as always here on the garden report. We'll
39:42 have coverage and we of course, brought to you by our final sponsor here PXG great golf
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40:13 He's Carter Rodriguez. Check them on the chase down podcast when you guys go on live again.
40:20 We'll be live tomorrow night after the game. All right, you got both sides there then check
40:25 us both out. Carter, thanks so much for being here. Enjoy the game tomorrow and we'll talk
40:30 some time later in the series. Thank you, man. Appreciate you having me on.
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