The Eastern Conference Is Looking at Two HUGE Upsets

I was at game 2, in Cleveland.

Looked like the Cavs had pretty good control of the series.

Harden and Mitchell were playing well.

Evan Mobley was fantastic in game 2.

Toronto, I think we'd all agree, was probably the weakest of the top 6 teams in the Eastern Conference playoff field, probably the weakest top 6 teams in any of the, these, these sides.

Uh, the Knicks were eager to play them in the playoffs.

Uh, Brandon Ingraham couldn't buy a bucket.

Uh, Now here we are at 2-2.

Donovan Mitchell, by his own admission, laid an egg in game four.

James Harden is averaging 6 turnovers per game.

The, the Cavs are committing the second most turnovers of any playoff team right now.

They're just coughing it up left and right.

Um, they've got 2 of the next 3 theoretically at home.

Uh, are the Cavs in trouble in your opinion?

Is this, is anything, what's the biggest cause for concern with you with Cleveland?

I think they'll still win the series.

They have more talent, and that's usually what determines playoff series, but the concern with me about this team all year was they haven't shown me that they are cohesive and tough, and you need that to advance deep into the playoffs.

I'm not saying they aren't tough, but they haven't shown it to me yet, and that.

Here's what we saw in the last couple of games.

They just don't seem to have the guy who will step on your throat, and we're gonna win this no matter what.

And they certainly don't seem to have that team aesthetic from what we have seen so far.

So I'm not willing to write them off.

I'm not willing to say nobody has it, but I still haven't seen it.

And at some point you got to do it.

And you know, look, as good as Mobley was in the first two games, not in the 2nd 2 games, you know, he is like, when I talked to Kenny Atkinson about this team.

He calls Evan Mobley a ceiling raiser, and he's right.

Like Evan Mobley, when he plays like he did in game two, where he was 11 for 13 from the field, 25 points, blocking shots, rebounding, that makes them a championship-level team.

When he plays the way he's played the last couple of games, it lowers their ceiling significantly.

You you couple that with Donovan Mitchell not being able to buy a bucket, 6 for 20.

4 in in game 4 he looked tired too.

I mean, yeah, they, yeah, he did look tired um, hardened, you, you cannot commit 6 turnovers per game.

You cannot, cannot, cannot do that.

Like the Raptors have not been good in these games.

This is what I was gonna say.

And by the way, I do expect Cleveland to have a, you know, breakout game at home because that's typically what happens in these series, you know, these guys go home.

They get right, they want to show off in front of their fans, and they're playing a team that isn't that good.

This game 4 loss, I mean, I'm sorry, it was a little embarrassing considering the Raptors shot 32% from the floor and won the game.

If you are the better team with the more talented players and your opponent is shooting 32% from the floor, there just isn't any way you should lose that.

In the first round, come on, man.

Brandon Ingram has been horrible in this series.

He was 6 for 23 in Game 4.

He's had two games where he was 5 for 9, the one of which he was complaining about after the game.

The second game against Cleveland, he was 3 of 15.

He has not been able to buy a bucket, and they're even right now.

That's, that's the one reason I might have optimism from Toronto.

Like this guy gotta make a shot eventually, right?

Like he's gotta have a breakout game in him too.

We've seen a Brandon Ingraham game, sure.

Uh, I, I'm with you.

I still favor Cleveland, but I don't, I thought after game two, I'm like, all right, Harden's playing like this.

Mitchell's playing like this.

Mobley is ready to raise his game up another level.

Uh, Jarrett Allen has thrived playing alongside Harden as many bigs do, but this, this is just.

They should have, they should be up 3-1 right now.

And look, as I said, I can see a 20 point win in game 5, but then I'm not sure I'm gonna see them win game six.

So it's just, again, they got to show me, and I haven't seen it yet, and that's disturbing for a team that was among the names to come out of the Eastern Conference.

Weird side of the bracket right now.

I mean, we're recording this before Game 4 between Detroit and Orlando, but Safe to say that's a must-win game for the Detroit Pistons who could have a lot of change this offseason.

They, they got all the problems we thought the Pistons were gonna have in the playoffs, and a lot of people that mocked me for saying so often they don't have enough shooting, they don't have enough shooting.

Like Kate Cunningham has been outstanding statistically, putting up numbers like nobody else is shooting.

What is this with, I don't know.

I, I look, I love fans that are passionate about their team, legit, and I like the sort of discourse on social media when it's above board as opposed to below board, but I will say this, when you talk about things like that, I have said the exact same thing.

We did our sort of playoff brackets on Fox Sports , and I made the point that I just don't see the Pistons having the offensive firepower to be able to come out of the East and certainly at that point, Cade, you know, had the collapsed lung and we weren't sure what was going to happen and I said, look, if he doesn't come back for the first round, they just don't have the offensive firepower.

And there was just a torrent, an avalanche of Pistons people coming out of the woodwork being like, Didn't you see what we did without him, you know, during the stretch run at the end of the season.

The end of the season is not the playoffs.

I'm sorry.

It's just not, and we're seeing the flaws in the roster here.

They got the worst possible matchup playing Orlando, which is playing like this, is like looking in the mirror for them.

OK, but wait, I'm sorry.

They got the worst possible matchup because it's today, right?

Well, they got tomorrow it could be the best possible matchup.

Orlando is seriously the Jekyll and Hyde of, of this league, but they've been, what's the good one, Jekyll, is that the good one?

All right, so they, they've been, they've been that version for what, 4 games now.

You go back to the Charlotte game, which they play at the end of the season.

They have been for somehow, I don't know, I would, I would read.

A long-form story on what the hell happened between the, the Boston game and the Philly game, and then the game against Charlotte, where they just flipped a switch and looked like the Orlando Magic once again because they were lifeless against Boston.

They were lifeless mostly against Philadelphia, and then Charlotte, they go out and kick the crap out of the team that nobody wanted to play in the postseason.

Remember, the Hornets were the ones, oh, too young, too fast.

A lot of athletics.

Criticism on that team.

All of a sudden they're out there doing that, and this, when I watch these games, like this is the, the team I thought I was gonna see.

I thought I was gonna see this.

You were so high on the magic.

I thought they might still live up to my expectation.

I had them in a conference finals .

Like I had them in the conference finals.

They could easily get there.

Yeah, I mean they have the, they have the softer side of the bracket.

They absolutely do, and they can watch the Celtics and potentially the Knicks kick the crap out of each other.

I mean.

Their defense was 14th, I think, in the regular season.

It's 2nd in the playoffs right now.

This is how they win.

I don't expect them to be pretty offensively.

They are ugly offensively.

But if they can just squeeze out like 93 to 97 points, their defense should be good enough to win a lot of these games, especially in the playoffs.

They are built to be a postseason type of team , and it.

It took 83 games for them to figure this shit out, to figure out how to be a, a playoff team like they're supposed to be.

I mean, when Billy Donovan stepped down from Chicago, we were sitting here talking like, oh, is it going after the Orlando job that, by the way, was still occupied and it was just a given at that point.

Oh yeah, Jamal Mosley, he's gonna be gone at the end of the season.

A lot of people were circling that wagon.

A lot of people were circling that Orlando wagon now.

If they win this series, if they take down the #1 seed, he's got to keep this job, right?

Yeah, I mean, there have to be some changes maybe on his staff and just a longer conversation, but you cannot fire the coach that beat the #1 seed, especially if you also go on.

Like if, if we're now putting the cart 7 steps ahead of the horse, but if they go out and beat the Detroit Pistons, I'd probably make them a favorite against Cleveland.

They play great defense.

They can lock you up.

That's, that's, I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying it's crazy.

I had him in the conference finals start the year.

This is what I planned.

This is all, all, it's all.

I figured they'd be an 8 seed, sneak right in.

People who are devoted listeners will remember that Chris was in Orlando like 6 times in the first like training camp and month of the season.

I love the magic.

Oh, I love the magic.

They're, and they're finally, finally figuring it out.

I like to see that.

So do you think the Pistons in hindsight should have made a trade at the deadline?

Uh, it's easy to Monday morning quarterback that.

I don't know who was out there and I don't know what the price would have been.

I know from being out in Detroit a couple of times doing the magazine story and kind of what they're trying to build out there, they weren't looking to give up one of their core young pieces.

They weren't looking to deal draft picks because they didn't know where they were at this point.

Um, they clearly need another scoring option.

Um, and I think they were, they probably recognized that they were going to come to this conclusion eventually.

I don't think they believed it would happen in the first round against Orlando, uh, but I, this, this is kind of just exposing what we all kind of knew they needed.

Like, Duncan Robinson has been OK, um.

You know, Jalen Duran is what he is.

He's, he's a good interior player, but they need that second scoring option out there, and they don't have it.

And that's something, whether it's this round or next round, it's, it's gonna rear its head and, and cause them to be bounced out of the playoffs.