Joe, your cap on the Houston Rockets over.

Yeah, I'm thinking the win total.

I'm not as concerned, I think in part because of the Western Conference of it all.

I think the Western Conference is generally a little bit weaker than top to bottom than it has been historically.

Really over the past 15, 20 years almost, the Western Conference has been looked at, especially as a juggernaut.

And I don't think that it's the same.

I think that you have the two teams at the top that you could argue.

Joe, what's your moonshot

It just didn't wind up costing them because of the non-Brunson minutes.

I think that, well, I mean, at the end of the day though, if you look at it, even from plus minus, which is simple obviously, but Brunson was a plus 1.6. Re- OG, I was shocked by this actually.

OG's a minus 3.4, um, plus minus on the series, which surprised me.

Um, but like, I guess on average, which was surprising to me.

Um, Cat was the best, Hart, Bridges, Kelvin Johnson's up there.

Jose Alvarado's up there.

But I think at the end of the day, when it comes down to it and what people remember and what people are voting on is Brunson, at the end of the day, he made, he basically won three of the four games, um, all with last m- s- last minute shots that took the lead.

So to me, the two best numbers are the Pacers 28 to 1 and the Wolves 30 to 1, Joe.

Yeah

... 12 minutes of Wemby sure didn't look that good because I think he just was tired.

And I think it had to do with the way that New York played offense.

New York was putting him in action a lot more and forcing him to work on the defensive side of the ball.

And they were doing it by basically forcing him out of the paint.

The best- the way that the Spurs defense is really constructed is they don't want him covering guys one-on-one on the perimeter, and New York kept forcing him into that action.

So unless the San Antonio Spurs can come up with a reas- a way to, like, avoid that, maybe.

Let's wrap up with, uh, Joe Dalera's under play on the biggest player in the series on his rebounds and assists.

... for him in this game.

So I'm grabbing over 29 and a half points plus rebounds.

Uh, he's got 30 and 34 in the two games this series.

Uh, the big thing for me honestly is that, uh, I think he, you know, he's got four and five fouls in this series, but I think that, you know, he kind of avoided probably one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen in my life, uh, [laughs] l- last game.

And he didn't foul out.

So I feel pretty good about the way that he's controlling himself on the defensive side of the ball.

Um, he's still making some mistakes, but there's, I feel like there are some times where I'm watching the game and I'm like, "Last year Kat would've fouled this guy." Like, he would've done something stupid or like committed a moving screen, whatever.

Let's go to Joe Dalara, uh, for his pick, which is Shamet over eight and a half points.

Yeah.

Like again, like I said before, there's really no excuses on either side for why you couldn't get it done or somebody was in, somebody was out, whatever.

But I think from a game plan perspective and the thing that I'm most curious to see on both of these sides, a lot of it really centers around Victor Wembanyama.

And I know Victor's, his points prop is, I think it's like a little bit high, honestly.

Um, I'm not totally prepared to play an under, uh, 'cause I wanna see how, what New York decides to do.

But at the same time, like his points prop's like 27 and a half.

His series points p- prop is 28 point, points per game, um, and that's like minus 170 or so.

Yeah.

Um, screw you, Julian.

[laughs] So I d- I do like the Knicks to win game one.

I think that this is the best spot for New York.

I think they're coming off of the...

I think there's the rest versus rust debate.

You and I talked about this, Matt, previously.

I don't really think it's so much of a rest versus rust thing.

It's Julian Champagnie over two and a half threes.

Yeah.

Um, so I, I like Mikal Bridges to average two threes per game.

It's plus 175.

You can get that at DraftKings and MGM.

Um, in, in large part I think that they don't really have...

Like, they're not gonna really resort and spend, I think, a lot of effort trying to guard Bridges.

I think that we might see a lot of hedging on, um, Brunson looks, maybe even on Anunoby to a degree.

All right, hit me with your next one.

Right? But like-

GoodI would say it just, it's hard with the injuries that Oklahoma City's dealing with.

I think today you saw almost, you, basically you saw in game four the exact opposite thing that happened in game three, where the bench went bonkers in game three, and then they just couldn't, they couldn't score at all.

They just couldn't do anything.

So I think that's the biggest concern.

That's my question mark right now if I'm an Oklahoma City backer, is like, can I get my bench guys to replicate any of that, like that, what we just did before? Because basically they all were on the one day in game three, and now they're all off in game four.

Which one is closer to reality? Because AJ Mitchell being ruled out a day in advance is probably, is a problem, I think.

Give me your best bet for game four.

I think it's a great

greatI still think it's a great angle.

Um, looking at what he's done against New York this season, a, a lot of these ga- uh, really all these games were without, uh, Max Strus, but he made five, two, and zero.

Um, so I think that there's definitely room for him to lead the series in threes.

Um, plenty of opportunity.

That's just a shot that New York has continued to kinda give up.

Um, the other thing that I will say with Merrill, though, is if you wanted to...

Joe Dalero, what's your best bet for game one?

Um, but what are your kinda general thoughts on Thunder-Spurs, and how you see the matchup going? What, what do you feel like in the series?

I think it's gonna be a pretty compelling series.

There's a couple different questions that I have, and a couple different things that I'm kind of looking at.

I think we just saw a pretty good, like, blueprint for what San Antonio can do against a more traditional big with, like, Rudy Gobert on Minnesota.

So I'm curious to see if they're able to replicate that success against Oklahoma City.

Um, you know, obviously we've seen now these teams that have success during the regular season doesn't always translate into the postseason.

I'm looking at Troy here.

[laughs]

So I'm gonna take the Cavs -3.5. I'll give you the cap on that in a moment, but in general, do you think that the series is over?

[sighs] I wish it was over.

Sometimes I like...

I'm watching these games and I'm like, "Oh my God, which team, which wants to lose?" Uh, but, uh, I, I don't know.

I don't feel like it's over just strictly because we've seen...

Like, we haven't really seen either of these teams just control the game.

Even, like, the last, even last game, Detroit was way up, and then Cleveland clawed their way back, and there were ups and downs even from there.

That's not when you wanna be slamming overs, so I'm just gonna take him to fail miserably across the board under 14 and a half PRA off game two.

Like, he checks to see where Naz is, and is like, "And, all right, a little bit up, uh, a- and there," and nails him.

Yeah.

It...

I was a little surprised.

Honestly, it's one of the times where you look at it and you're like, "Maybe it's a good thing he's as tall as he is." [laughs] Uh, it's like, yeah, like, I don't know.

Like, it...

I, I think that other players have been suspended for less, honestly.

Joe DeLera, what's your best bet for game five?

Before we get into our bets, what did you see from this game that you wanna pluck out and take with you into the future of this series? And what about this OG Anunoby injury, right hamstring strain? For a guy that's had hammy issues, this feels like a big deal.

Yeah.

To me, this injury, uh...

I think we're lucky in a way because they said he's day to day as opposed to like the Luka Dončić where it was like week to week or something to that effect.

So I think that we are getting maybe out of the woods a little bit here.

I, I would...

Honestly, I would wrap him up.

... it's, uh, it is, it is tough navigating that.

But I'd be curious, you guys, thoughts on big picture stuff before we get to exact plays per se.

Yeah, I mean, the thing with Embiid is just... like you have to factor in that he could just miss a game more than any other player in any series, really like in any series.

Um, and I think that that impacts some of these leader markets as well, because like kind of what you're alluding to, if you look at like the scoring leader market, um, it's Brunson and bead and maxi.

And then there's like a huge, there's like a golf.

Uh, and then the next guy, um, who's I think Carl Anthony towns.

So, um, If you kind of considered it well, Embiid probably cuts into Maxie.

It's kind of one of those things where it's like if Embiid's healthy, he probably cuts into Maxie.

So I'm pretty interested in him, even though in general, I think the Spurs will take care of business if there's no ant or even a hobbled ant out there.

I just don't think they're losing this game.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm with you.

I think that Boston probably takes care of business here, but at the same time, I think what you're kind of getting at from an overarching perspective looking at what Boston's doing is this Boston team is actually, like, the one, I think it's probably more close to a couple seasons ago, where you watch the games and you're like, "This team just can't do anything consistently." There's no other, like, offensive metric there.

There's, they can't do anything else besides chuck threes, and then it's just your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn.

And I think that they got away from that during the course of the regular season, and it's a little bit like Ewing theory-ish, I guess, right? With, uh, with Tatum.

But I think that Tatum is the best player on the team, but you have, again, this situation where you built this entire infrastructure to do one particular thing over the course of the season, and then you bring in a super high-usage player and try to inject him into the middle of it.

Really?

Joe, do you wanna go to, uh, what I would refer to as the tip of the spear play, which is Jonathan Kuminga, and you wanna play an under on him?

Yeah.

So I'm gonna play under five and a half rebounds plus assists, uh, to- Basically, I think adding the assists is kind of like a free, uh, add here.

He hasn't recorded more than one assist in any game, and he's only got three assists on the, for the whole series so far.

So three assists in five games.

So I'll take, I'll take that add on the combo stat, 'cause his rebounds line is at four, or rather four and a half.

So we have seen, um, a couple different spikes sometimes from him from a rebounding perspective.

But Joe Dalara, you are going back to one of the most reliable props performers in these playoffs, and that's Nemes Kata.

Joe, mazel tov.

It's a pleasure to be back.

It's nice to have some adult interaction.

My newborn doesn't give me a lot to work with here, so... [laughs]

Please."

[laughs] I, I feel like all I'm doing is like, I'm like holding my kid.

He's asleep.

It was like, I'm like, "What do you think about this one, buddy?" [laughs]