I had been so long since we talked since we had that Westbrook trade we had to go about a week but with Danny out exploring the internet less wilds of Montana and Wyoming got one of our favorite guests to join us here a bit of while since we talked to him when it gets thoughts on the playoffs and the top 10 players in the NBA which he recently did a video about the master of the YouTube algorithms been Taylor how you do that wow quite an introduction I'm I'm hanging in there how you doing.

Doing great so in Vancouver right now unfortunately my car is on Vancouver Island where it is getting a flat tire repaired they didn't have it in stock so they had to get it shipped there so we rented a car and continued the trip to Vancouver but tomorrow I will be spending eight hours taking the ferry back to Vancouver Island and then back again this will be like our I think seventh very ferry ride of the trip but will be on dry land the remainder of the way I love I love how every time I come on you make it a point.

Like we just we cut straight to basketball and then we end up chit chatting about something else for a few minutes at the start like Vancouver Island fairies in this case well I do yeah we're not going to talk about that anymore.

I do want to tell people if you're interested in following our our trip on Nate B Duncan on Instagram posting our our route every day and some of our best food options so and I'm speaking of which we'll save this to the end to avoid really boring people but since you're not going to get it.

I think you participated for the first time in the Caesars buffet eat off this year I wanted to to get your thoughts on it and if it's anything like your eating speed I know it's going to take a few hours for you to discuss that so we'll save it to the end.

No I do have some buffet analytics that I want to share with the people okay well don't don't skip the basketball talk and go right to that people it's let's lock in here and so first I want to talk about you're doing a lot of videos during the playoffs.

I obviously was recording every night going to a lot of those games the NBA seems like we may be at a bit of another transition point now with the demise of golden state the playoffs were played in maybe a different way than they have been the last couple of years so what were some of the things that really stuck out to you during these playoffs as overall trends besides lack of sleep.

I mean it was the schedules great but it's it's relentless and then this this free agency period has been crazy so besides those things.

Boy I would say I let's just take a step back I've been sitting around kind of wondering for the last few seasons if we're going to see defensive countermeasures to all of the offensive explosion and expansion we've seen I mean we had the record setting offensive rating I think in 2017

and they basically blew that out of the water this year by jumping from like one away point eight offensive efficiency league average was right at 110 which was nuts I was never sure we'd ever see that so my first thought was really about defensive countermeasures coming into play and the success of teams like a Toronto obviously but Milwaukee had you know some monster defensive moments Philadelphia against Toronto I mean Philadelphia for all of their struggles offensively was a bouncing ball away.

From being in the conference finals and on the doorstep of the finals so that was sort of at high level like my first step back was is is defense are we seeing schemes are we seeing the final sort of stage the final form if you will of length and the implementation of all these athletes and long players and switchable you know etc etc finally kind of taking hold I'll pause there because I really want to hear your thoughts on this.

Yeah that's a really interesting question I think there are a number of factors that at play number one is that Golden State really just changed the league so much with that death line up and they really didn't get a chance after KD went down the first time to play that other than in that game five in Toronto for 12 minutes and then KD tears is a kill so at obviously they look really good in that period it they're also hitting every shot you can't take too much away from that so I don't know and we thought that may be a good match for the game.

Maybe Milwaukee might be the other team that was just on that level offensively because and maybe Houston as well but it does seem like and this is a point I've made before that with the demise of Golden State Golden State not being able to play that unit now if they had another shooter maybe you know the Steph Curry Clay Thompson and during my green at center still would have been totally in supply I tend to think it might have been but they just you know they didn't have that Harrison Barnes type so I don't know if it's just you know Golden State was just so much better than that.

So good and I would have loved to have seen Houston going up against you know some of these other great defenses for the East as well see whether they could have done well I think I have a feeling that you're right there that those East defenses would have stopped Houston reasonably well.

So I think part of is the demise of Golden State and I think part of it is what you're saying that teams have come up with some countermeasure and I think where I was most impressed was Toronto's ability to really cause defensive problems from Milwaukee even though I picked them in that series and the Toronto Philly series you know that one.

I think a lot of that was Toronto just missing shots I mean like fan fleet and daily I mean like nobody could hit a three guys are really good 3.2 so that might be part of that's why I picked Toronto in the next series um but yeah really interested to see especially this Philly team this year now you know I think that could be one of the greatest defenses that we've ever seen I mean that's going to be incredible and Toronto to me this is something you talk about a little bit you might want to elaborate out of just how good that Toronto defense was historically in the playoffs this year well yeah I mean they they finished was.

So if you look at sort of this concept of relative defensive rating that is defensive rating relative to the opponent so in the regular season we can just take league average and it's essentially going to be the average offensive efficiency of your opponents and good teams are you know whatever 5 6 7 points better than league average like Utah or something like that but in the playoffs historically we have only seen a team I think once I think the 2004 the legendary 2004 Detroit pistons held their play.

Playoff opponents like 10 and a half points below their regular season offensive efficiency and the only team to ever do that and the raptors came in at the end of the finals now it's not perfect because it doesn't always account for injuries and things like that but the totality of their playoff defense over the four series they held their opponents to like nine points below their regular season efficiency it was just historically good and to me another one of the big takeaways from the playoffs it was just like insanely impressive how good their defense was like that.

So the first one of the first was not just with the players on the court but the versatility of the schemes from series to series opponent specific schemes and how when you get really smart athletic long players on the court they can just wreak havoc on other offenses.

I think Nick Nurse did a very underrated job I mean the stuff that he did against Steph Curry with the box one that even went for a triangle and two briefly people forget that in the Philly series maybe their best lineup was Gassol in Ibaka together which was kind of anathema to what in theory had been winning before I mean I thought the one thing he could have done was try to match up Gassol with and beat a little bit more a little earlier in that series but you would be hard pressed to come up with you know where things really good.

So I really went wrong for him and you saw in particular you had Mike Boudinholzer and Steve Curry really really searching not part of that obviously was personal limitations in the injuries in the case of the Warriors but you know I thought Nurse was really a step ahead of his opponent most way ironically I would say probably the guy who did the best job of matching up with him was prep brown who I thought it did a pretty good job and he was a roover to be fired coming into the series so yeah I thought that was really good and just having all those smart vets I mean they just don't there's no way to do that.

Nobody on offense or defense for Toronto in their top eight guys who couldn't defend their position passively and hit shots and that was really you know Gassol every once in a while would kind of you know pass up shop as he's still a good passer in a great defender and so yeah I agree with you I mean the lack of weaknesses that they showed and their ability to play multiple

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