The Fatal Flaws of the Eastern Conference Contenders! Plus, Awards and TV Talk!

LoweInteresting.

LoweTurner for Zubats, obviously not a direct trade, but that's the indirect transaction they made, I think is a defense first trade and maybe an offensive rebounding trade. That's an ingredient they haven't had. And a defensive rebounding trade, too. Like, Zoo will kick it ahead and get that fast break going and get the chaos machine going.

LoweAt the expense of some spacing with now Siakam has to learn how to fit without a stretch five, I have zero issues with Pascal doing that. He's going to be awesome no matter what ecosystem you put him in. But that's an interesting concern to raise is, like, how good can they be defensively?

LoweI'm going to take the under on the Pacers as a top five offense in the regular season. They were ninth in the year they made the finals. And then got, well, I mean, like, one of the kind of sneaky things about the Pacers is like, they have made a lot of hay as an offensive team, both in the regular season.

LoweI mean, ninth ain't nothing to shake a stick at. Like, it's pretty good. They had a ton of injuries that year. If you remember, like Nembhardt and E Smith were out a lot at the beginning of the year.

LoweAnd then in the playoffs, they took off like a rocket ship.

LoweThey're an incredible shooting team. Like they have been when they've been rolling to like outperformed their expected field goal percentage by leaps and bounds. They're an incredible shooting team from everywhere. Mid -range, floater range, threes. Can they, can they hit that stride? Can they hit that rhythm again? Obviously Halliburton went on, I think probably the greatest run of crunch time shooting maybe in the history of the NBA.