CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, hosts Ethan Sands, Chris Fedor, and Jimmy Watkins discuss the Cavs’ historic 55-point victory over the Miami Heat in the NBA playoffs.

Takeaways:

• This win marks the fourth largest margin in NBA playoff history.
• The team’s growth and maturity were evident in their performance.
• Jarrett Allen’s leadership and defensive prowess were crucial in the series.
• The Cavs displayed a championship-level mentality throughout.
• Their offensive strategy is characterized by controlled chaos and versatility.
• The Cavs’ depth allows them to win in various ways without over-relying on key players.
• Celebrating their success is important as they prepare for future challenges.
• The Cavs are seen as a complete roster with high-level talent.
• Future matchups will test the Cavs’ ability to maintain their dominance. The Cavs have a solid core that can be relied upon.
• The Miami Heat may need to make significant roster changes.
• Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future with the Bucks is uncertain.
• The NBA landscape can shift dramatically with trades.

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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.

Ethan Sands: What up Cavs Nation? I’m your host, Ethan Sands and I’m back with another episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. And of course, joining me on this fabulous Monday, Chris Fedor, Jimmy Watkins. And we are here after the Cavs latest win, a sweep of the Miami heat, a historic 55 point victory, 13883 over Miami on their home turf. And I know we have so much to get into, but just some historical facts from Tonight’s matchup. The 55 point win is the fourth largest margin of victory in NBA playoff history. Right. And we also know and we also know that the the franchise playoff record for points was set for the Cavs with 138 tonight. The previous team playoff mark was 137 against the Golden State warriors on June 9, 2017. Sure, there’ll be more facts to go along as we continue the podcast. But Chris, you were in the building and we know that this is the second time in as many games that the Cavs have planted the worst loss in playoff franchise history for the Miami Heat. What was it like to witness a game that was over, probably even could be said by the end of the first quarter. We’ll make it by the end of halftime just to be nice.

Chris Fedor: Easiest game story I’ve ever written in my entire life. Didn’t have to worry about the starters point totals changing in the fourth quarter. Didn’t have to worry about the lead changing or the conclusion changing. Easiest game story I’ve ever written in my entire life. And it was very, very quiet inside Kaseya center tonight. There were a couple hilarious moments throughout the course of the game. One of them where man the port in arena announcer he was trying, he was trying so hard. So the in arena announcer gets, gets on the mic and think it’s the fourth quarter at this point and you know they’re trying to do their thing where they swag surf. It’s the thing that they do every start of every fourth quarter. And he literally says into the microphone if you’re still here with us, it’s time to swag surf. Because he knew so many people had departed by that point in time. There are so many other things that you could do on a Monday night in Miami other than watch your team get boned by the Cavs in historic fashion. So that was a hilarious moment. Then there was another one in the second half where you know, they play all these different songs during these timeouts and whatnot. And one of them that they chose and I don’t Know if they did this on purpose, but they chose Lenny Kravitz. I want to get away. So just think about the lyrics. And it was so fitting for what the game was because it felt like Miami just wanted to get away. They wanted to fly away far, far, far away from Miami. And, you know, I think there are so many different things that you can point to about this game, but the level of focus, the level of professionalism, the level of maturity that this team showed, all of these different characteristics that people thought they did not have, all of these different things that were representative of, you know, champions of the past, that at various points over the last couple of years, you wondered about with these Cavs for them to come down to Miami play with the level of focus, intensity, attention to detail, all these different things, man, it just shows a lot of growth from this basketball team. And I think it starts with the leadership. It starts with Donovan Mitchell. It starts with Jarrett Allen, starts with Max Struth. And a text message that he sent to the group chat one night earlier on the eve of game four telling them to take care of business and make sure that they had the right approach so that they could capitalize on the rest opportunity that is coming for them. This is a group of killers now, guys. They have. They have a killer instinct. They have a championship level mentality. And you know, one series win against Miami, a completely overmatched Miami team that is a flawed roster that is going to get overhauled this off season. Like, it doesn’t say that. Hey, you know, the Cavs are the best team in the NBA. They’re definitely going to win a championship, but it just reaffirms that they’re one of the few teams in the NBA that certainly can.

Jimmy Watkins: The Cavs broke a team’s will tonight. And you could argue that we were talking about this.

Chris Fedor: I think they broke the team’s will in game two when. When Donovan went superhero and Miami kind of looked like, what are we supposed to do now?

Ethan Sands: Right?

Jimmy Watkins: Cal broke it broke a team’s will. And then you saw what happened afterwards. And this is. This is an Eric’s poster called Eric Spolster coached team. That doesn’t happen easily now. It’s a shell of an Eric Spoelstra coach team. They traded their best player midway through the season. These are not the p. This. This team’s gonna look different next year. This is not the team that Eric Spoelstra would assemble if he had his. He had his druthers. But like, guys like Bam Adebayo, that’s not an easy dude to break. Right. He’s. He’s a tough dude. He’s a. He’s a bad. You know what that’s he and he drifted through the final few games of this series. That’s kind of crazy. That’s kind of crazy. Tyler Hero has been through some wars. He’s. I don’t think he’s Bam Adebayo between the years but he’s been through some wars. Broken 4 points, 1 of 10 shooting. He shot as many free throws in the last two games combined as Javante Green shot tonight. That would be four. We can we and we can play many games with Tyler Heroes box score stats and what he should have said and shouldn’t have said between the games. It’s a bad defense to play when they’re top blocking me. Really? Dude, you made one shot tonight. I don’t know. I think it worked personally. We’re not going down 40 wrong again. Maybe pass the mic next time. Lesson learned. Yeah, I think there are bigger challenges ahead. Let’s. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves of that. Everyone who follows this team. Bigger challenges ahead. Out rhyming the whatever’s left of the Miami Heat here. They ain’t showing me where you’re weight at. Okay but man this is such a dominant, dominant performance. Best point differential since at least 1997 after a first round series. That’s as far back as the NBA NBA.com data goes. Some of the other +20ish teams is not like I wish I had written this down. There’s a lot of really good teams that didn’t quite get over the top, which is interesting to me. But. But what? Everything that Chris said is true. We don’t. I don’t think we the Cavs didn’t need this reaffirmation. But after a weird end to the regular season, I do think that the discussion around them had just kind of lost the plot a little bit. I think when things when when a team’s good for so long gets stale and you look for. You look to poke holes. Right. And we that started happening toward the end of the season and I think we all in the back of our minds kind of figured a playoff reset was coming. But this was every question that you could answer in this. In this series, the Cavs answered with an exclamation point.

Chris Fedor: So they outscored the Heat by 122 combined points over the four games. That is the largest total point differential in any NBA playoff series ever. Ever. Like that’s the level of dominance that this team showed. And look, throughout the course of the regular season, there are various points that the Cavs showed this same level of dominance. There’s a reason why they had a historically great offense, one of the greatest offenses that we had ever seen. And yeah, there were questions about, hey, how’s that going to translate to the playoffs? Or what, what is that level going to look like when they get into playoff basketball and teams are more familiar with their system? And there’s. There’s more detailed scouting reports, and it’s about trying to find some deficiencies and poke holes in those. I think the thing that, that this shows is that even against a great defense, there aren’t a lot of solutions for slowing down this Cavs offense. Like, this thing was a machine during the regular season, and it was a machine in this series against, against Miami. And they played the final two games without their second leading scorer in the postseason in Darius Garland, who was very, very good in the first two games against Miami. So you just start thinking about the possibilities as we move forward. And I just don’t know that there are a lot of teams out there that are going to have the kind of personnel that’s required to deal with everything that the Cavs can throw at an opposing defense and then also have the personnel at the other end of the floor that can find the solutions to attacking the Cavs defense, which, by the way, found itself again in this series against Miami. And I totally understand Miami is a flawed offense. Miami stops itself. There were times where they were just. I don’t know what they were trying to run offensively. Like, Tyler Herro made one cut, got shoved physically off the baseline, and, like, decided that he didn’t want to play the rest of that possession. Bam. Out of bio was on a different planet over the final two games because Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley are really, really great defenders. And dealing with those guys over the course of a series is going to be frustrating.

Ethan Sands: But.

Chris Fedor: So, like, I know Miami stops itself on offense, but the Cavs defense, that, that they had been talking about being. And priding themselves on, like, that defense showed itself again, Miami couldn’t do anything offensively in the final two games of this series. And if that kind of defense, again, every single series is going to be different. But if that level of attention to detail, if that level of focus, if that level of physicality, if that level of competitiveness and toughness and all those different things, like, if that carries over the Cavs are going to be a problem for anybody to deal with on defense as well. Like, defense might have been the area where the slippage happened and where teams might say, we might be able to attack here, here, we might be able to pull Evan Mobley out to the perimeter. We might be able to go at Darius Garland, we might be able to go at Max Struse and stuff like that. Like, that’s, that’s still, that’s still a strength of this team. And they’re still going to provide a lot of problems for various opponents because not a lot of teams have the, the personnel that, that is going to be required to deal with the Cavs 100%.

Ethan Sands: And I think, Chris, what you were kind of getting into is that not only were the Cavs dominating the Miami Heat, but they were also making a point for everybody else that they’re going to face next. Whether that’s the Indiana Pacers or if Milwaukee somehow pulls off a comeback, I don’t see that happening. And then looking even further to the Eastern Conference Finals, whoever they may face, potentially Boston, like, hey, these are not the same players as they were last year, right? Like, like Max Drew, as you mentioned, getting attacked. He was the guy that sent the message before the game. And then, ironically enough, obviously, we understood how dominant the Cavs were on the interior in Game three. So obviously, it’s likely that Kenny Atkinson wanted to go back to that. And then the first play of the game, Jarrett Allen gets a steal on the perimeter to lead to a fast break dunk to start the game off, right? That is indicative of what this Cavs team has been showing this entire season. Sure, you might think what we’re going to do, but we’re going to prove to you that we can do both of what you think we’re good at, or we’re going to prove you wrong in thinking what we haven’t been able to be successful at. We’re going to do that as well. And Eric Spoelscher mentioned it after the game, like, we were confident coming into this series. We understood who we were, but we were humbled, embarrassed, led to the realization that we were not ready for this, this. And sure, he credited Kenny Atkinson, the Cavs talent, and all these things, but the reality of it is, is it feels like the Cavs are going to make this realization apparent for not just the Miami Heat, it’s the teams that they’re going to face next as well. And mentioning Jarrett Allen in that start, I think it’s. It’s important to note that Jarrett Allen, a 6 foot 9 center, finished the game with 6 steals tied for the Cavs franchise playoff record for steals in a game and he had four in the first quarter. And I know we talked a lot about it last year and how great Jarrett Allen was in the first three games of that playoff series against the Orlando Magic. It feels like the 82 games of him playing straight were was not just a formality. It was not just him saying oh I can be available. No, it’s him saying in the playoff environment, y’all remember how good I was, I’mma be that again. And I think it was kind of shown in his mindset just at what he was wearing to the post game interview with Donovan Mitchell. He was still in his tank top after the game. Donovan was in his fitted up trying to go back into the Miami lights. Chris to see Jarrett Allen being this version of himself once again in the playoffs, I know he has this narrative about him that followed him from their first playoff series. It feels like not only last year kind of cracked the armor a little bit on that narrative, but this year he’s trying to just bustin all the way through it.

Chris Fedor: Well, look, I mean I think the truth is as the Cavs go through this playoff gauntlet, there just aren’t the types of players that are going to bother Jarrett Allen. They’re just not out there. Alper and Shane Goons in the Western Conference, Domas Sabonis didn’t make it and he’s in the Western Conference. So like there’s a type of player that can bother Jarrett Allen that he struggles with physically. It happens. There are lots of guys around the NBA that, that have a certain type of that can bother them, that can make things difficult on them. But it’s not everybody and it certainly wasn’t Bam Adebayo and it wasn’t Khalil Ware and it wasn’t Kyle Anderson when they tried to use him. So as we move forward, Miles Turner’s not that kind of guy either. He provides. He, he like presents different challenges because he’s a five out guy and that means Jarrett’s got to go out to the perimeter and honor the three point shot to a different level than what he had to in this series against Miami and Bam, even though Bam has improved as a three point shooter and it would be Brook Lopez in the same kind of way. And then as we move forward, Christoph Sporzingis, we all know that. So it’s just like this is an opportunity for Jarrett to show his toughness, show his physicality, finish possessions on the defensive end of the floor with these rebounds, and they’re going to continue to get him involved on the offensive end of the floor. But like, I think the main thing that. That Jarrett did in this series against Miami, especially Game four tonight, is he set the tone. He set the tone. He was aggressive. He was physical. He was relentless. He never stopped. He extended his defense out to the perimeter. That bothered Bam Adebayo. That bothered Miami’s defense. He just made things really, really tough on Miami for a majority of this series. And I don’t think there’s any reason for anybody to think that Jarrett can’t continue this into the next round and the next round because the type of player that has a tendency to bother him no longer exists. During this playoff run.

Jimmy Watkins: The Orlando Magic of last year were a really big, physical team. Not necessarily at Jarrett’s position, but they were physical.

Chris Fedor: Yeah. The Miami Heat in Cancun in a day.

Jimmy Watkins: That’s. That’s what the. That’s what the Heat hang their hat on. This is like the Heat are. You know what? Maybe we’re not the most talented bunch, but we’re going to out scrap you. And Bam. You know, Jarrett’s under Bam Adebayo’s underside. So it’s Jarrett. So is Jarrett the Heater playing two bigs? Like, I don’t. I know. There’s no Mitchell Robinson out there. No. There’s no Domas. No. There’s no Helpy Shangoon, who may also be heading to Cancun in a bit here. But I still think that the way Jarrett has responded from the initial Cavs introduction to the playoffs is to be commended for its own. For its own right. For his own role in that. Against that. Yeah. I was looking through the box scores today. Next series, it’s even worse than you remember certain ways. It’s three games where Jarrett’s under 10 points, three games where he’s five rebounds or fewer. What are you doing out there? Yeah, what are you doing out there? Since then, he’s 16 and 12. This is before tonight, 16 and 12, 78 from the floor. And tonight he goes 14 and 12 and six steals and is the spiritual leader. That’s the other thing Jarrett Allen is.

Ethan Sands: It’s not.

Jimmy Watkins: He’s not Evan Mobley. Like, they. You can hear him speak. When he speaks. Then the Cavs aren’t. The Cavs aren’t working with Jarrett Allen on how to use his voice as much, but he is more of a reserved personality. Right. And for. So for him to be. For him to be setting the. The physical tone, the. The level of engagement, as it were tonight. I think that’s another significant breakthrough for him based on where this conversation started two years ago.

Ethan Sands: When we look back to the next series and I don’t want to go through this rabbit hole because a lot of cast fans hate reliving that and understandably so, right? So I think when we look back to that, we see the worst of what was possible and now we’re getting to the point where we’re like breaking the new ground. And I think it’s important that all of the Cavs players that were on that team have now gained that experience. Right? That’s one of the other biggest things with this Miami Heat team, right? Like they have bam, they have Duncan Robinson, they have Tyler Hero. That’s mainly the players from the run that they made in the NBA Finals a few years ago. But now the Cavs have this understanding of exactly who they are and what they want to do do. Plus adding in different pieces like max dress and DeAndre Hunter, who already have that championship level pedigree, whether it’s in NCAA or in the NBA as well. So I also think when we talk about how important this Cavs depth has been and we talk about the minute allocation and all these things, right? This is a game where nobody had to play 30 minutes for the Cavs. And I think when you talk about how important that is, the rest factor and all these things, it’s also looking at how efficient they were, right? If you erased all the Cavs two point makes tonight and only counted their made threes and free throws, they still would have beaten Miami 88 to 83. I mean, that’s utter domination in. In every facet of the word. And when you talk about how this team has grown, I think it’s in multiple different areas that have proven that they can win in different ways. They can change their styles. Their unpredictability has become their greatest weapon. And as we know, the versatility and unpredictability is the biggest thing when it comes to playoff success.

Chris Fedor: Well, that’s the thing. They have principles on the offensive end of the floor, and Kenny Atkinson likes to make that known. But there is a level of chaos to this offense. Kenny likes to call it controlled chaos, and I think that’s true. And it plays itself out. And there are so many different actions that they run within one set. And if a team starts to try and take something away, they have a counter for that and their understanding of what that counter is because they used a lot of their regular season to experiment with different sets with different situations with different schemes on the offensive end and on the defensive end of the floor. So I just don’t know. When you’re playing against the Cavs, you always have to try and pick your poison. You always have to try and see if there’s something that you can take away because you just don’t want to give up everything. But, but I just don’t know what the best formula for success is when playing against this, this offensive machine. I, you know, it was interesting because in game one, DeAndre Hunter was basically a non factor and we talked about that in a podcast and we were talking about how that was obviously going to change moving forward because he’s just too important to everything that they do at both ends of the floor. And there’s a reason why the Cavs went out at the trade deadline and they identified him specifically, not as a missing piece, but as a needed component to kind of help them take that next step. So, you know, game one, he throws up a goose egg and his minutes aren’t as high as what a lot of people expected coming into the series. So he sits down with the coaching staff and they go over film together and they put in sets specifically for DeAndre Hunter. They have a conversation about where do you like your touches? Where do you think you can be most effective within the offense? Okay, here’s what we think. So they put in new plays and new sets specifically for deandre to help unlock him to unleash a different component of this offense on Miami as the series continued on. But that’s just one example. They can do that with a bunch of different guys and in a bunch of different ways. So it just shows the level of versatility that they have. It shows the level of unpredictability within this offense and it shows how right when a defense thinks they’re going to take something away. For example, they sent two at Tai Jerome over and over and over again in game four. And what is it a normal thing now?

Jimmy Watkins: It’s just a normal thing now. Each map tiger them on ticket becoming normal.

Chris Fedor: What does he do? He calmly takes that, he gets off the ball, he finds DeAndre Hunter, he finds whoever the outlet is going to be and allows that guy to play in a four on three situation. So there’s a bunch of different things that Miami tried, there’s a bunch of different things that the Cavs saw throughout the course of the series that I think they’re going to benefit from moving forward, but none of it worked.

Jimmy Watkins: To Chris’s point, just A couple of, I think a couple of numbers that hit home the chaos agent that is the Cavs offense coming in today. I think they’re going to Finish this way. Seven guys average double figures in this series. I think seven guys were shooting 40% from three small sample size. I get it, but that’s crazy. But to me, the craziest number, maybe the most under discussed number when it comes to this offense because again, we’re talking a lot of warriors principles here. Same idea where the offense can come from anywhere. There’s so much up on movement and cutting and everyone ideally on the court can pass, shoot, dribble, can trigger the offense. That’s why it’s so hard to defend. Right. So what happens with Golden State? Their biggest weak point on offense for years has been turnovers because they have some ambitious passers. Steph is one of the worst defenders. They have some ambitious passers on their team. They throw the ball around like crazy and when you’re doing a lot of read and react, sometimes you. You miss, you cross your signals. Right. CAVs were top five in assist turnover ratio all year and they were three percentage points lower in turnover rate in this series against Miami, who again, it’s kind of a shell of a Miami roster. But like Davion Mitchell is, is a quality perimeter defender. Andrew Wiggins has defensive tools. When they were able to try Bam Adebayo and Khloe Wear out there, two bigs like that’s not nothing. That’s not, that’s not nothing to sneeze at. Okay. Yeah, I’ve just lit it on fire because they can come and hit that hit you from so many different directions. Now I do think a good chunk of that was due to the idea that because the Cavs defense came alive and was so good, they were playing in transition more and or at least against a less. They saw fewer set defenses from Miami and they could get cross matches and, and that sort of thing. The defense fed into their offense against better offenses. You know, assuming it’s Indiana, you’re going to have to see more set defense. Now Indiana has some. Tyrese Halberton is a guy you can attack. You know, there’s going to be opportunities that. There’s going to be opportunities out there for, for. For the Cavs in different ways. But to me the, the Kenny’s calling it, you know, a chaos type offense, but there’s no chaos. I think there’s actually there’s just. You’re always getting shots up, which is sounds like such a simple thing, but it’s so valuable in these playoff games, especially when, of course, you’re lost. Your roster is littered with great shot makers, great shooters.

Ethan Sands: Jimmy, I think that’s a great point and just because you were going into this a little bit at the beginning, I grabbed some numbers. Donovan Mitchell averaged 24 points in this series, 48% from the field and 46% from deep. Evan Mobley averaged 16 points, 60% from the field, 47% from deep, Ty Jerome 16 points, 52% from the field, 50% from deep DeAndre Hunter 13 points per game, 49% from the field, 62% from beyond the arc and Jarrett Allen, as we know, 14.78% from the field. It has been a dominant showing of the offense that we all have known and have all agreed is one of the best in NBA history. Not just in this season, but guys, as we continue this podcast, I got a couple more things that I wanted to talk about, but I wanted to leave it up to you. Do we have some fun and get into a little bit more sillier stuff or we keep it, we keep it strict to keep it, keep it on the straight and narrow.

Chris Fedor: I’m always up for fun.

Ethan Sands: Okay, so Chris, being in Miami, seeing what Donovan Mitchell was wearing at post game tonight, did the Cavs earn the right to go out tonight after their win to celebrate? Especially with their next game likely coming on Saturday? I don’t know what their flight schedule looks like. There was some speculation on the broadcast about them flying back to Cleveland tonight. Is that the case or are the Cavs getting their party on in Miami beach tonight?

Chris Fedor: Kenny left it up to the players, each individual player, and I think some of them are coming home because there was a flight that was leaving Miami, a Cavs charter flight that was leaving Miami later tonight. But I will tell you that not every Cavs player is on that flight. A lot of them have reservations at restaurants either. Miami Beach, Brickell area, you name it. They’re going to be scattered across. And look, I think the thing about this Cavs team is that they can balance the two. They have shown that they can balance the two. They can have fun, they can joke with each other, they can keep it loose and light hearted. But when it’s time they can lock in. They can balance the two. And I think you have to. It reminds me so much of the Golden State Warriors. Everything about the Golden State warriors was about the joy that they played with, the fun environment, cracking jokes at each other, all those different elements that Kenny brought from Golden State. But they Also won championship after championship after championship. There was a level of maturity. There was a level of professionalism. There was a level of determination. There was a level of competitiveness. There was an understanding of, all right, when it’s time, it’s time. And so the Cavs have no clue who they’re going to play in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The earliest that they would play, unless the NBA completely changes the schedule, which is not going to happen because they don’t usually do that. So I’d be surprised if it happened. The earliest that they could play is Saturday. That is a long time away. So this allows them to decompress. This allows them to relax a little bit. This allows them to have a moment to show appreciation for what they were able to accomplish in this series. Guys winning by 55. I don’t care. I don’t care if it’s Miami and they’re terrible. I don’t care if Miami doesn’t have Jimmy Butler. I don’t care about the fact that they only have one person who can consistently dribble, and that’s Tyler Herro. Like winning by 55 in a playoff game, in a closeout game on the road. That’s not normal. So they have earned the right to celebrate that a little bit. They have earned the right to take a step back and appreciate that a little bit before they start the grind of getting into Eastern Conference semifinal mode against probably Indiana.

Ethan Sands: Jimmy, have you had a week long hangover before? Because I know like if guys are.

Jimmy Watkins: Going out in Miami, long hangovers don’t exist. Because to have a week long hangover, you have to drink for a couple of days and that’s. At that point you’re. Your hangover is over by about the third beer, in my experience.

Ethan Sands: All right, all right. So. But I’m saying, I’m saying if these guys get to do the rest versus rush factor again, I think. I think having the experience of doing that already is definitely going to be helpful. There’s not going to be this whole hangover effect, literally or figuratively. However you want to point it for them celebrating what they were able to accomplish I against the Miami Heat and then facing whoever they do, whether it’s the Indiana Pacers or the Milwaukee Bucks, obviously, like we said. And like Chris mentioned again, likely the Indiana Pacers with everything that the pucks are going through.

Chris Fedor: Jimmy, right now when it comes to the Cavs. And look, Indiana is going to be a challenge. There are things that Indiana does at such a high level that are going to be different than what the Cavs experienced against Miami. They’re not going to win back to back games by a total of 92 points against Indiana, I can tell you that much because it’s just a different level of competition. It’s a different level of experience, it’s a different level of depth, talent, all those things. But I’m at this point with the Cavs where I don’t think a lot matters. Like we can sit here and we can have the rest versus Russ. It’s not going to matter to the Cavs. It’s not like the only thing, the only thing that stands in their way is the Boston Celtics. If they’re at full strength, that’s it. Like that’s the only thing that I think can prevent the Cavs from getting to the NBA Finals.

Jimmy Watkins: I think Mr. Pacers not respecting the Pacers very much right now.

Chris Fedor: I think they can compete.

Ethan Sands: One of your favorite players, Tyrese Halliburton. Hold on.

Chris Fedor: I think they’re going to provide problems. They might win a game or two, but in the playoffs you are required to beat the team four times in seven tries. I don’t think Indy’s capable of it. I don’t think Milwaukee’s capable of it. I think the only team in the east that’s capable of it is Boston. But I felt that way coming into the playoffs. That doesn’t mean that, you know, Indy’s going to be a pushover where the Cavs are going to bring out the brooms again. It’s just they are playing at such a high level. They have so much depth, they have so much diversity, they have so much skill, they have so much talent. It’s a complete roster that it’s going to take the Cavs being a little bit, a little bit underwhelming to their own standard and a team kind of playing above their heads that that’s what is going to be required. The margin for error is going to be so small because they put that level of pressure on you throughout the course of a 48 minute game.

Jimmy Watkins: Yeah, I think the Pacers are a little like poor man’s calves kind of where they’re Pacers are. Rick Carlos playing ten dudes in the playoffs right now. The Pacers are getting big games from all over their roster. But it’s just like, where’s your high level talent? Cavs like the Cavs Go Donovan, Darius, Evan Mobley. All star level players. Jarrett Allen’s a former all star.

Chris Fedor: Yeah.

Jimmy Watkins: DeAndre Hunter would rank, I don’t know, third. Could be third best. Shot creator on the Pacers.

Chris Fedor: Yeah, probably might be. Might be.

Jimmy Watkins: Can’t start.

Chris Fedor: May 4th.

Jimmy Watkins: Can’t start. It’s conversation. Pacers. The Pacers are going to be relying on a lot of home road role players kind of guys to come through. The Cavs have about, I mean the, I think the core four plus pick a bench guy. You can rely on that being pretty solid for you every night.

Ethan Sands: Right.

Jimmy Watkins: You know what you’re getting out of those, out of those spots. And that’s just a. With you, that’s a, that’s a difficult proposition for the, for the Pacers to.

Ethan Sands: Match and I don’t want to get too far ahead. We will get into it a little bit about the the future series Eastern Conference semifinals. Easy Conference finals.

Chris Fedor: Oh my God.

Ethan Sands: But I do want time for that.

Chris Fedor: Geez.

Ethan Sands: 100 and I want to. We’ll get to our Celtics corner. That will be at the end of the podcast as it always is. But I do want to get into another question that I had for you guys about the Miami Heat since we’re here. Like Tyler Herro in an interview with the Athletic admitted that he needed Jimmy Butler to win. Admitting that like he’s not a number one guy, right? And to me, this series, two back to back games, this was the eighth straight loss at home for the Miami Heat in the playoff series. Right. So I, I think to me it seemed like the funeral of Heat culture as not necessarily like this is the end but like if people were to point to like this is where things start getting broken up. Eric Spouser is not going to be coaching the same guys. Like even Bam out of bio after today’s game said if I know Pat Riley, this is not going to be the same roster that we have. So unless we bring in new guys with the same mentality, with the same will, with the same drive as what we have built here as in Heat culture. It could be a different mentality than what they’ve had for previous seasons. What do you guys think about what was said by Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo and just where the Heat are standing in the Eastern Conference today?

Chris Fedor: This is a players league. This is a stars league. They don’t have one point blank period. Tyler Herro is not Batman. He’s never going to be Batman. It’s a really good Robin. Really good Robin. Bam. Adebayo is not Batman. He’s not never going to be really good Alfred. Is he? Is he Alfred and Tyler hero is Robin. All right, so either way, neither one of them is Batman. Neither one of them is an alpha. And like we talk about he culture and that’s true. Like, there is something to that and Pat Riley is a big part of that and Eric Spolster is a big part of that. But this is a players league, and players set the culture. In a lot of ways, the culture of the Cavs changed when Donovan Mitchell arrived. It gave them confidence, it gave them hope, it gave them a new standard. It gave them somebody that can do the things that we have seen Donovan do throughout the course of his time with the Caps. So if, if Miami goes out this offseason, they trade for Giannis, he calls hers back, right? If Miami goes out and they trade for John Morant, then he culture is more back. You know what I mean? Like, it’s hard to sit here and say, heat culture, heat culture, heat culture. Like, that thing’s true, but like, a lot of the people that were so part of building that heat culture and like making it synonymous with my are gone. Like, Alonzo Mourning wasn’t walking through the door. LeBron James is playing in Los Angeles. Like, Chris Bosh wasn’t walking through the door. Dwyane Wade wasn’t walking. Like, yeah, that’s a big problem when you don’t have guys that can uphold a standard and play to that standard that you want to set. So Eric Spolzer is part of it, Pat Riley’s part of it. Miami and the tradition that it has is part of it. But. But you need players that are good enough to carry out that culture. And Davion Mitchell is not. And Alec Burks is not. And Nikola Jovic is not in a. Jaime Hawkez is not. So they do have to make changes this offseason. Everybody inside that organization knows it. Everybody that covers the Miami Heat, they know it too, because otherwise it’s just going to be a team that’s fighting for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference again, just like it’s been.

Jimmy Watkins: Yeah. Tzmihi culture is the ability to sustain relevancy across multiple cores from Wade, LeBron Bosch to, very briefly, Wade Bosch to Jimmy Butler. And now we’re on to the next iteration of whatever that’s going to look like. And to a lesser extent, like you’re, you know, you’re finding your Max Druces, your Haywood Highsmiths, your game princess, Caleb Martin, Caleb Martins, etc, which will be. Which you’ll notice more once you get the next guy.

Chris Fedor: Yeah.

Jimmy Watkins: And who you. Who you always believe that they can. That is within their grasp because of what they’ve done. Because of the precedent they’ve set, because Pat Riley can dump the rings on the table still, because people recognize Bolster as one of the best coaches in the league. Now, I gotta say, the honest football in Miami, Giannis, things real interesting to me. It’s real, real interesting to me. I. I say my. My first reaction to last night’s game was, man, this sucks for Damian Lillard. This is at. At best. This is the beginning of the final chapter of his career. Maybe he can have another good year or two, but, I mean, that injury at this time, this point in his career, man, for that kind of player, you know, just hope he makes a quicker cover, first and foremost. And then if you’re Giannis and the Bucs, you’re both looking at each other like, look, dude, what are we supposed to do now?

Ethan Sands: I mean, Giannis is on the bench. Like, I. I don’t know if y’all all seen the little cutaway to Giannis just, like, thinking and looking into an abyss.

Jimmy Watkins: I think Giannis has too much pride. I think he’ll come out playing like a madman for about eight minutes tomorrow. After that, I really wonder. I really wonder what it’s going to look like if, you know, if they’re. If he sits for. If we go. If it’s a classic, like, Giannis needs 90 seconds of rest and the Bucks go minus seven during that 90 seconds. If he’s out, if he could. If it starts to snowball, I feel like we could see a similar situation to what we saw tonight with the Heat. Just a group acknowledgment of, yeah, this ain’t happening. Does.

Ethan Sands: Does Doc Rivers pull a reverse JJ Redick and play Giannis the first 24 minutes to see how far they can get?

Jimmy Watkins: Giannis needs to play 50 of 48 minutes tomorrow for them to work.

Ethan Sands: That’s what I’m saying. And I’m sure he’ll.

Jimmy Watkins: And I’m sure he’ll. If again, if they’re in it, he’ll implore Doc to keep him in the game at all times. He’s. He’s an S tier competitor, Alpha of the Alphas. If they lose particular, they lose the way I kind of think they’re gonna lose. I mean, how can he not look around and start surveying his option? And if you’re Milwaukee at this point, I know you’re out your picks. At this point, though, what other options do you have? Like, at what point does it stop becoming productive for the Bucks to chase the fifth seed with Giannis every year with no real possibility of getting it. Like you have to pull a real rabbit out of your hat here or you need to look reality hard in the face and say, okay, what can we get for this guy?

Ethan Sands: I mean, back to back first round exits is ugly, especially after trading for Dame and ideally thinking that that was going to take you back to a championship. But Chris, I, I know you have a great grasp on how the NBA landscape looks, not only now, but for the future. And it. If Dame’s career ends this year, like if that’s. Is that the wrap? Because we know he’s a family man, right? And obviously this is more talking about the people rather than the game itself because we have to do that as well. Like if that’s the case and Dame’s career comes to an end on an Achilles tear, obviously he’s going to try to work its way back because he is a competitor as well. But I think Giannis is looking around like, who else can I look to? Y’all got me. Kyle Kuzma of all people.

Chris Fedor: Look, I mean, I think there are six or seven players in the NBA that teams, teams that are hoping to get a star are eyeing and some of these aren’t established stars yet, but they’re worth, they’re at least worth watching because you feel like that guy is better than what you already have and would improve your team to some kind of level. Who knows what level exactly. Ja Zion, Giannis, KD Devin, Booker, Lowry Markkanen and Domas Sabonis. Those are the main ones that teams are really paying attention to. And obviously some of those are better than others. And I think you could probably throw Embiid in there too, given everything that Philadelphia has had to deal with, related to him and given everything that happened with their franchise this past year. So obviously some of those impact in a different kind of way. Some of those are more high level players, but some of them also change the landscape of the NBA. And that’s the beauty of the NBA to me. One off season, you think you know something about the NBA. You think you know how things are going to play out and who the contenders are going to be. And then the trade dominoes start and then all of a sudden the league looks different. I mean, think about the domino that fell the minute that Damian Lillard got traded and what that led to. So one domino falls, what else happens? And it’s going to be fascinating to watch and you can believe that these Miami Heat are going to be involved in a lot of those conversations. There are other teams certainly that are going to be involved in those conversations.

Ethan Sands: Go ahead, Jimmy.

Chris Fedor: Maybe Orlando, maybe Orlando gets involved in those conversations. The Knicks are always going to be involved in high level conversations like that. Atlanta could get involved in those conversations. So it’ll be fascinating to see how this all unfolds. But the landscape in the NBA, it can change quickly this off season, there’s no doubt about that. And the Giannis thing, jeez, what a stick of dynamite that would be.

Jimmy Watkins: I’ll tell you this, I don’t think they are best suited to acquire him. But don’t let the Miami get you on this. That is a perfect match of culture and star and that is just the kind of reignition that Spoelstram Pat Riley would need. Because if that happens, everything else is on the table. Now you, now you’re on. We’re on another big three watch. We’re on low. Every, every minimum contract value, minimum contract guy wants to go there like it’s, it’s summer of 2010 all over again. And, and I think you want to maybe say there’s some awkwardness with the fit of Bam and Giannis, but Bam’s already starting to shoot through. I don’t know why it took Bam this long to start shooting threes, but I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad he’s shooting them with confidence. It’s like a, regardless of what the next iteration of the Miami Heat look like, I think that’s a swing skill for that franchise. If Bam can become, hilariously, if Bam can become Evan Mobley from three point range, that could transform the Miami Heat’s entire reality. Even if they don’t get a super duper megastar like Giannis, even if they just continue doing their usual Miami Heat thing of making, you know, small good roster decisions here, finding good draft picks, digging up a second round pick from Kalamazoo that turns into a 10 year NBA veteran, just that sort of like Bam, shooting threes could change. Bam shooting threes consistently in this series could have been maybe it. When you wins you a game and keeps you, keeps you engaged long enough to not embarrass yourself twice in front of your home fans. I think that’s a fascinating thing to monitor going forward.

Chris Fedor: And the other team, I failed to mention them. Houston is primed to make a big move this off season. They have the assets certainly to pull it off.

Ethan Sands: Jimmy, I love your full circle moment and I gotta give you credit for it because I remember having this conversation with you in the summer about Evan Mobley’s growth And needing to see it before you could fully become. And Evan Mobley, like, oh yeah, he’s gonna shoot threes. He’s gonna do his thing. So seeing in the playoffs and now comparing it to Bam, I think. I think that’s brought you over the hump, my guy. I think we’ve seen it in, in person and all these things and I just thinking about the Miami Heat potential starting lineup. This is me just in my head thinking about it. Like Davion Mitchell, Tyler hero, Andrew Wiggins, Bam out of bio. And Giannis Ontad combo. That’s not horrible.

Jimmy Watkins: Free agent, that it?

Ethan Sands: Yeah.

Jimmy Watkins: I don’t know who Davion Mitchell’s agent is, but he’s going to be sending the first two games of this series to every GM in the league. Every GM in the league. You know, he shot 40% in three last 30 games of the season. Sort of legitimate three and D piece. What’s that? You don’t have cap space either. Okay, cl.

Ethan Sands: I think that’s a great point. And obviously we have to wait and see what happens in tomorrow’s game to do a full dive into the Boston Celtics for our Celtics corner. But obviously they play against the Orlando Magic in their fifth game of that series. They have a three to one series lead. Chris, you shake your head. I. I know the series is not competitive as. As we know it not to be, but they held. The Orlando Magic held the Boston Celtics under 100 points the other night. I’m not saying it’s anything to keep an eye on, as we have all predicted that the series will wrap shortly.

Jimmy Watkins: I have a legit question about this. Do we think the Orlando Magic have discovered something of a formula to. To slow down the Celtics offense? This idea that if you’re big enough, you and switching up, you can bait these guys into the bad stuff.

Ethan Sands: 100. You definitely can. You definitely can bait them into the bad stuff. I do want to. I did want to point out beforehand that Drew Holiday is out for tomorrow’s game and Jalen Brown is questionable for tomorrow’s game. Those are two big factors for how the Boston Celtics operate. Obviously, Jason Tatum is still dealing with the bone bruise, but he’s played well enough afterwards to show that he can play through it. Chris, what do you think about what Jimmy’s question is?

Chris Fedor: I think in theory, yes, but you have to have the personnel to do that. When the warriors were going through their dynasty and they were winning these championships, small ball became the big thing. Right. But only one team had Draymond Green to play the small ball five. So the idea of it always made a lot of sense. Sure. The idea of being a switch heavy team against the Celtics and forcing them into isolation and maybe making them settle for mid range jumpers and take them out of their comfort zone and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean the idea of it certainly I think there’s merit to it. The problem is only one team has that group of personnel, Right. It’s Orlando. Like there’s a reason why Orlando is a top five defense in the NBA. There’s a reason why Orlando. Well, there are a couple of reasons why Orlando neutralized the Cavs offense last year and took them to seven games in the playoffs. Part of it was they were coached by JB Biggerstaff and not Kenny Atkinson. The other part of it was they didn’t have Ty Jerome. The other part of it was Evan Mobley wasn’t the same kind of player and Darius Garland wasn’t the same kind of player. And the other part of it was they have the kind of personnel that bothers you. Like that’s who they are. They’re annoying to play against, they’re pesky, they’re physical, they can’t score, they can’t shoot. So they got to muck it up, they got to ugly it up. They got to find a different kind of way. So I commend them for the way that they have defended Boston in this particular series. It’s gotten them a 31 series deficit. But, you know, moral victories, they’ve done some positive things on the defensive end of the floor to make Boston’s offense a little bit more mortal, let’s put it that way. So if you have all of the players that Orlando has on the defensive end of the floor to be that level of switchy and be that productive switchy, then have at it. But not a lot of teams have that kind of personnel. The Caps kind of do kind of.

Jimmy Watkins: This is why I’m bringing it up. This is why I’m bringing it up. I just think as we go, I mean we’re getting that we’re per usual, we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here. But I just think these, the offense, defense decisions for Kenny are going to get really interesting as we get deeper into the playoffs. Because Chris just said right there, one of the reasons that the Cavs offense looks so bad against Orlando last year is because it didn’t have. They didn’t have tied Jerome. Celtics are going to treat tied. The Celtics are going to treat Ty Jerome like the Cavs treated Tyler Hero in the first round in the Eastern Conference finals. When they. If they see each other, that’s what it’s going to be. And I, I just. These are the kinds of things that I’m. These are. This is. So to try to bring us full circle here, the Cavs looked so freaking awesome. It looks like they could never lose another game the last two games. Oh, and oh, by the way, they didn’t have their all star point guard.

Chris Fedor: Yep.

Jimmy Watkins: But it’s not this, like, going forward. The. The challenges that you’re going to. To have to solve are going to be a little bit more complicated. And the Cavs are at the point.

Chris Fedor: Right. I’m.

Jimmy Watkins: So here’s what I think when my, My point here is the Cavs are at the point right now where everyone else needs to adjust to them. That’s not going to always be the. And I’m not. Maybe Indiana might not make them get there. I don’t know. But we get to Boston, it’s just going to be. There’s going to be a lot of interesting either ors.

Chris Fedor: Another thing about Orlando is. So Orlando switches, right. Like, who’s, who’s the targeted guy? Is there one for Boston’s defense?

Jimmy Watkins: Cole Anthony?

Chris Fedor: If he’s out there, yeah. But he hasn’t been playing much.

Jimmy Watkins: Right.

Chris Fedor: So if Austin is on offense, Orlando is going to switch on defense.

Jimmy Watkins: Like Corey Joseph.

Chris Fedor: I don’t know that there’s like a glaring, targetable player for the Magic when they do that. And I think that’s part of what Boston has run into. Like, what’s the easiest path to success offensively? What’s the matchup that we prefer when we’re on offense? When they go to that switch. Heavy approach. If we’re talking about the Cavs, they don’t have the same personnel, they don’t have the same makeup. There are guys. Right. The easiest answer is Darius Garland. The other possible answer is pull Evan Mobley out to the perimeter and see if you can beat him off the dribble. Kawhi did it. James Harden did it for the Clippers. Jason Tatum’s capable. Jalen Brown’s capable. So that’ll be fascinating for me to watch if, if the Cavs and Celtics meet in the conference finals like a lot of people expect. And that’s part of the reason why, you know, I wonder about the Cavs with that. Maybe it’s Max Struz. By the way, it was in a recent game between the Cavs and the Celtics. But, like, you’re not Picking on Kentavius Caldwell Pope, you’re not picking on Franz Wagner at the very least. Paulo Banchero is long athletic and he’s strong too. Like you’re not picking on Wendell Carter Jr. And not picking on Anthony Bike’s been good too. Exactly. Yeah. So I just think if, if the Cavs go switch and they’re not going to just switch everything, they’re going to mix their defensive coverages, they’re going to change things up because that’s what they do and they have the personnel to do that. But if the Cavs go switch heavy, there are more attackable players than what Orlando has and it makes, it makes it easier for Boston to potentially find more success on the offensive end than what they have found in this particular series against Orlando. That’s just my opinion, Jimmy.

Ethan Sands: I’m glad you brought it up, man, because that was a great portion of Celtics corner looking into AS even though it is looking extremely far ahead. And obviously we expect Indiana to dispatch of the Milwaukee Bucks tomorrow. But looking all the way to the Eastern Conference finals, I think that kind of scheming, that kind of defensive matchup, that kind of outlook and principles that the Cavs will have to adjust to is an important thing to look at. And it only would have been talked about if we’re talking about the Orlando Magic series because I feel like frankly those that’s the only other team in the east defensively that switches the same way that the Cleveland Cavaliers do. But before we get out of here, I know we just hit the hour mark. Chris Jimmy, tonight was a historic game. Is there anything that you wanted to add before we we got out of here?

Chris Fedor: No, not a thing. I think we covered it all.

Jimmy Watkins: Yeah, I’m good. Talking about the 37 win. Miami Heat enjoyed it was enjoyed my time. I enjoyed my time analyzing their terrible offense and I will look forward to watching Rick Carliles going forward.

Ethan Sands: And obviously, as Jimmy tweeted out earlier today, more than likely Miami might have had their bags packed to Cancun before this game got started. At least it looked that way.

Chris Fedor: But cavs won by 55. What else is there to talk about? Can’t believe they didn’t reach 60. Well, they did at one point but they couldn’t maintain the 60 point lead. Slackers.

Ethan Sands: Well, they had, they had their bench in I, I, I think that’s, that’s a good portion as to why Chris, but to the fact that the, the Cavs bench was able to extend their lead as much as they did. Shout out Jayla Tyson, Javante, Green, Chris Thompson, all of them. You know, we gotta show love.

Chris Fedor: But I brought up, I brought up to one of the Cavs players what the record was and that it was 58 is like, what was our margin? I said 55. And he jokingly said, damn it, Jalen.

Ethan Sands: Damn it, Rook.

Chris Fedor: Damn it, Rook. What are you doing? Go score another basket or two.

Ethan Sands: Forgot. Forgot the donuts. Forgot to hold the 60 point lead. I hope they don’t fill his car with popcorn this time for that. But maybe, maybe they take him out and he has to buy the first round of drinks at Miami beach tonight. Maybe that’s what the punishment was will pay for not holding a 58 or 60 point lead.

Jimmy Watkins: It was caught with something else. Miami. Oh boy.

Ethan Sands: On that note, with all that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. But remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to Subtext. This is where you can send in your weekly questions for our hey Chris episode of the podcast. Join the cast community. It’s only 3.99amonth, and if you subscribe, you can sign up and get a 14 day free trial. That’s great for the playoff coverage that we give y’all on a daily basis. Or visit cleland.com cabinets Click on the blue bar at the top of the page and join for $3.99 a month. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. All you have to do is text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast, it’s your podcast. And the only way to have your voice heard is through something. Y’all be safe. We out.

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