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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Locked on podcast network presents Locked on sports today.

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The Pacers missed their chance in game one against the Celtics, and after game two, it's getting late early.

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Also, the Cavaliers fired their head coach, but this was not a scapegoating. And there's a simple reason why the Sons and Lakers should not have gotten multiple players on the all NBA team. I'm Peter McCowski, starting your day with the can't miss stories and biggest debates in sports. You're locked on sports today. Searching all major sports.

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Let's start with the biggest story.

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You just kind of had that feeling after game one, the Indiana Pacers missed their best chance.

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Now in game two, a little injury to the insult.

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A 126, 110 loss to the Boston Celtics.

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They're now down 02.

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And Tyrese Halliburton leaves the game with an injury,

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significant enough that he is reportedly limping to the team bus

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after the game.

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It might get late early in this Eastern Conference finals. Tony East from Lockdown Pacers in Boston joins me now. And Tony, this is just a really tough one, especially with the way that this Indiana team battled and fought in game one.

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Yeah, about time there was an injury in the Eastern Conference playoffs, right?

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But truly as this has gone in the East, and for Tyrese, you know, you could see in the first half at times after battling for a rebound with Jalen Brown, he was holding this chest, like leaning over on some inbound plays. And then came out for the second half. And I was trying to watch him a lot of halftime. He got some treatment and then came out and was on the floor, like warming up kind of normally. But kept getting, like, annoyed or frustrated at something. I had no idea what it was, but it looked pretty normal, just emotion, warm up.And then 344 to go in the third quarter, he leaves the game. And not too long before that, you know, this game was a blowout. People won't remember. It was a two-point game in the middle of the third quarter. It wasn't like the Pacers were getting smoked. And they did get smoked to when Talbotten left.They didn't even go back to their normal rotation in the fourth quarter. And there were a lot of bad stretches from this game. I don't think they would have won even if he did close the game, given how they were playing and how strong the Celtics defense was. But certainly a cloud over this game for the Pacers. Same hamstring he hurt during the season.And really tough, really tough for this conference final series to see where it goes next.

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So with the understanding that they were already heavy underdogs in this series

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and winning without Tyrese Halliburton is going to be, not even Hercules, I think has the power to quantify how big a task it would be. But who picks up the slack? What will be the plan if Tyrese Halliburton is limited or can't go?

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Yeah, the Pacers will say a couple things. One, they'll say, well, we were down to the Knicks and we won that series, and that's true they did. And they'll say, well, we got 10 games of experience of this during the regular season. When they didn't have Halliburton for the stretch when he had the same hamstring get hurt, then and then had to play with him limited, like you just mentioned, when he came back on his line playing 20 minutes a game.So either, I mean, any path forward, if he's fully functional, halfway functional, not at all. They've done it before. That doesn't mean it will go well, but that means they're ready for whatever the solution could be, whether that's, you know, more T.J. McConnell. They didn't start him at first.When Alabama was hurt, but he became a starter and he, as many have known, is peaking at age 32 somehow and has been very good. And that includes the postseason, you know, when him and Siakun were together, the Pacers have a functional offense, pretty age 32 somehow and has been very good. And that includes the postseason. You know, when him and Siakum were together, the Pacers have a functional offense, pretty much regardless for the other three players are. So I bet you'll see some extra doses of him.They're going to need to rely on Andrew Nemhard to actually be point guard. They did that in the fourth quarter and third quarter times tonight. They haven't done that as much throughout the season. But the true answer is, you know, we can talk about positionally who will play the one. They'll have to rely a lot more on Pascal Seaccom, right? They'll need a star to be a star to have any chance.And he was in this game. He was tremendous when he actually was on the floor. And when the Patriots were getting stomped in the second quarter, he had a magnificent solo run to keep him in it. But it's hard to imagine him being able to do that for 40 minutes. So someone else is going to have to step up and someone else is going to have to handle the ball a lot.If they don't have him or if he's limited. And if he is limited, then I mean, the bucks tried to make a decoy. It's hard to use those guys in that way, but they'll hope he can be somewhat effective.

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This was a game where Boston put up what seemed like a pretty effortless 126. They shoot 40% from the three point line. Indiana, and this seems crazy to tell you're like, you know, December 2023 self, but Indiana has hung their hat on their defense for long stretches in this postseason. If they're going to just like buy their time here while, while Tyrese Halliburton gets back to health, they're going to need their guys to shoot and they're going to need to find some defensiveanswers. Where do those answers come? Man, I wish I could tell you. I mean,

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my, you know, my thought, I mean, this is what the Celtics saw, right?

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If you have an answer, send it to Rick Carlisle.

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Yeah, Rick Carlisle wants it. Every team in the East wants it. Joe Missoula says, good luck.

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You know, Rick Carlisle said it before the first game this year. You know, rare it is for

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this to admit this before the series. She said, yeah, they're really, they're going to be tough for us to guard. Like, you know, just admitting that right away. You know, Halliburton's had to start in the series and who knows what his status is. Like, he has to guard someone that's already a challenge for them. Like, there's always a weak point just given who the Pacers personnel is on the floor. And the Celtics have done very well picking at that in some way. Tatum with 36 in game one.He was not as good tonight. But it doesn't matter. Jalen Brown, who, you know, maybe thought he was snubbed. Maybe just had liked his matchup was sensational with 40. And Derek White had half of histories. And Drew Holiday hit 75% of histories.Like, they just have so many stars that they're really hard to guard. A lot of their losses are they just to have a variance game from three and lose. So, or the other team has a variance game and wins. And the Pacers, yeah, like you said, it can get to at their best, an averageish defense. It's not enough to really stop the Celtics.They're going to need to be better than that. Somehow, I don't know what, I don't think with their personnel, they can really do it. But they have to be about average and just crush it in transition and shoot well the rest of the series because it's hard to be Boston for a reason. They won 64 games for a reason. Like, I, you know, I've seen the Pacers defend better in this postseason. They did well against the bucks at times. They did very well against the next day. I've yet to have a game in this series or even a really long sustained stretch.I thought, yes, that is a defensive thing that can hang their hat on. It might just be prey to Celtics missed because it's going to be tough to guard them.

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Stay up to date on the Indiana Pacers all year by subscribing to Locked on Sports today and Locked on Pacers on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube. Thanks for making Lockdown Sports today your first listen. Coming up, the Cavaliers decided to part ways with their head coach. After making the playoffs, before we get to what possible reason they could have for that, Daniel Jones wants to assure everyone he'll be ready for week one.I don't know if that's supposed to make Giants fans feel better or not. It's winner take all in the NBA and NHL and Fandle's giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 to bet on spreads, money lines, player props, and more. Also, the Mavericks took game one. The Wolves, they're now favored to even a series in game two.Fandle likes Minnesota by five points tonight. They have the overunder set at 207. They hit the over on that in game one. Visit fandle.com slash lockdown and make every playoff shot count. Fanduel, America's number one sports book.If you're catching this episode of Lockdown Sports Today after hearing your favorite Lockdown show, make sure to subscribe to Lockdown Sports Today on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts so you never miss an episode. Daniel Jones has no doubt that he will be ready to play for the New York Giants when the season kicks off.

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You know, our trainers and coaches, train coaches have built a rehab program that, you know, kind of takes a step every week. You make progress, do a little bit more, kind of a gradual process. And I think, you know, because it's built that way, I've been able to, you know, feel good about every, you know, next step that we've, that we've had. And yeah, so the mental part's been good.

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The player, 30% of bets have been on to be the number one pick in the NBA draft may surprise you, or maybe it won't. According to Fandul, almost a third of bets have Brony James being the number one overall pick by the Atlanta Hawks. Not really so much for his talent, but because the team that picks him will have a unique advantage in signing his dad. You may have heard of him, LeBron James. James has consensus odds of 200 to 1 to be taken with the draft's first pick,tied with Purdue for the longest odds on the board. I mean, I would bet it at 201 just because and because this draft isn't very good. I don't know. That's worth a dollar. Over on the diamond, the Phillies showed that if they made it to the World Series last year, maybe things would have been different for the Rangers as Philly got the sweet.

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The years is what keeps on amazing me about this Philadelphia Phillies team. Time and time again, it's the years. When you go back to all the years that we've covered, 1910, 1913, 1976, 1983, all the things that this Phillies team has been able to do in recent months to start this season off, including matching the hottest streak since 2001 with the Seattle Mariners. The years that keep on flying by here, we have another one for you. The Philadelphia Phillies over this stretch of games, 29 and 6 in a 34, 35 game stretchequals their best 35 game stretch since 1892.

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The Giants completed another comeback win on the road against the pirates.

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Should I say the comeback kids pulled out another come from behind win in Pittsburgh as they

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win the rubber match seven to six at PNC Park. And they entered that eighth inning trailing by four runs, but another three run dong from Matt Chapman fueled a five run inning and ultimately led to another Giants win and a series win out in Pittsburgh.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers made their first birth in the Eastern Conference semifinals in six seasons. You can do the math and figure out who might have been in Cleveland the last time this happened. But J.B. Bickerstaff is out as the Cavaliers head coach. Chris Manning from Lockdown Cavs joins me now. And Chris, there have been some criticisms of this move pointing to the injuries in theseries against the Celtics, Jared Allen, Donovan Mitchell, among others. As this being a scapegoating, how do you see it? This isn't a scapegoating.

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This had to happen. There's no question. This had to go. He had to go. Like, J.B. Bicker staff as a head coach did the job he needed to post John Bayline, which, like, say that said out loud, he replaced John Bayline as head coach. Like, okay, he cleaned up that mess. He did a really admirable job. Technically, they did improve you over year over a year.But I don't think J.B. Bickerst staff as a head coach, A, was particularly a modern offensive fit. I don't think he particularly was relating to the players well anymore. All the stories that came on after the year told you basically that Donovan Mitchell was out. The locker

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room was out. They were questioning him. And Peter, when that happens, in the NBA, in the

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NFL, in Major League Baseball, and European soccer, it's over. And when that happens, you kind of got

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to change pace. They need a coach who's going to be more modern. And I think particularly with the changes coming to this team this summer that I think are coming, you need a new coach, you need a new voice. And I think it's time for the caps to get someone who's just a little better, particularly on the offensive side of the ball, who can get more out of this team. You mentioned the change is coming.

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There's been some questions about which guard the calves are going to try and build around. What makes the most sense for them? Because there's these rumblings now that, you know, Darius Garland doesn't want to be there. Donovan Mitchell is going to be there. Does Donovan Mitchell going to be there beyond this season? Who knows?So does that mean we have to figure out what that's going to look like? How do they hire a coach before they make those decisions?

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I think there are, I think it's a good question, but I think there are some coaches, and I think a lot of the coaches you can hire with an idea of they will be able to build something around whomever. Now, with some of them, I think, prefer to say coach Donovan Mitchell versus Darius Garland. Yes. I also think it seems like most people in the league feel like things are going a certain way right now. And that is Donovan Mitchell comes back.Darius Garland is traded for X package. Jared Allen is traded for another package. And your core is Donovan Mitchell and Evan Moby's your tent pulls. And then a bunch of other pieces, Max Drews, other role guys, etc. That feels like where it's going. And I think if that is the informed assumptionthese coaches are getting, that feels like a good bet for these coaches you're going to try to recruit. It would feel like to me from the outside. So do you have a name as we sit here right now that you think would make the most senseand could potentially be available? I have two that I really like, one that Adrian Wojernarski has mentioned and one that has not been linked to them exactly yet, but one that I like. The one that Wodge mentioned is Kenny Atkinson, the former Nets coach. I think would fill a lot of needs for this Cavs team.Really good offensive guy. Runs a great motion offense. Is really good at designing offenses. Also really good player development guy. One of the big weaknesses to me of this Cavs organization for years has been player development.Bring that guy in. You'll overhaul the coaching staff around him as well. I think you can build something beyond just right now. I think you could build something really good with that guy as your head coach. The other guy is Sam Kassel. That guy is cut from the Thai-Loo coaching mold of former NBA vet.Going to be respected by any player that he's going to come up against and has also paid his dues as a coach. That guy is going to be a really good head coach wherever he goes. I'd be shocked if he isn't. So that's the other name. There's some other names. You get the Roth of James Barrego'sout there as well. I think it's actually a pretty good coaching market. Certainly there's some other openings out there and we'll see how the Lakers job and some other jobs could break. But for me, I look at Atkinson, I look at Cassell and Borego would be the third.

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How does the coach that they might potentially hire impact the way that they would want to

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build moving forward?

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Because if you mentioned Jared Allen, if he gets moved, if Darius Garland gets moved, it may impact the way that you go, okay, we'd like to get veteran pieces back for these guys or we'd like to get draft picks back for these guys. How do you see that playing out?

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I think it's more about Donovan Mitchell, right? I think if you're going to keep Donovan Mitchell, the trades you're going to pursue for Dary Scarlane, let's say, are going to not be about picks and young players with upside who aren't on new deals yet, right? It's going to be about trades that are going to give you more pieces now. It's going to be about pieces that can help you win you more pieces now. It's going to be aboutpieces that can help you win basketball games right now that fit salary-wise in those molds. Those can be hard trades to do in the NBA. It's walking a tight rope of are we sure this is right? Are we just moving deck chairs around? It can be really tricky. But I think those trades are kind of where they're going to skew regardless, right? I don't think we are going to be in a place with Cleveland where it's going to be, like other trades of notable players we've seen,where it's picks in exchange for ex-player. It's going to be, you know, people have been saying the Lakers could be interested in Garland. If it's Austin Reeves and Rui, it's not going to be like picks from the Lakers.It's going to be those two guys for Garland. And you say, okay, like we, and it's Kenny Atkins as a head coach, let's say,we believe Reeves fits here. We get a big forward big forward in in Ruby that we didn't have around Donovan let's go we believe this fits us better and stuff and like I think that's the kind of trade no matter who the head coach is if it's me if it's you if it's if it's Kenny Atkinson and by the way I think Peter I'll just say I think we're available we'll take a million dollars apiece and we'll get fired day one, but we get the full million dollars still. I'm available, just saying,it's like half a million dollars. It doesn't matter who the coach is. You're going to make those kind of moves because of Donovan Mitchell. It isn't really about the coach in that sense.

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Stay up to date on the Cleveland Cavaliers all year by subscribing to Locked on Sports Today and Locked on Cavaliers on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube. Coming up, the Sons and Lakers did not deserve multiple all-NBA players. The all-NBA teams contain multiple Lakers and Sons. As Jake Madison tells John Corrales on a recent Locked on NBA, there's one reason why that should not have happened.

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This is like almost mirrors what I thought it was going to be. I would have had sub bonus on the second team and Durant on the third team. That's like the one thing when I look at just these guys that I kind of have an issue with. If we're taking just this group being like, would you change anything? Flip those two and I think it's it's dead on. But also should the Phoenix Suns have two people on here? Should the Los Angeles Lakers have two people on here? Those are by the way, the only two teams that have two peopleon there. They also got bounced out in the first round, both also fired their head coaches. I don't know if they're deserving of having two guys on there. And at that point, it just becomes nitpicky of who do you put on there we know who you're

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going to say john we can look at the the teams that got the two a play in team getting two guys that's i know i know oh you can't leave lebron off can't you can't you can like it's definitely

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possible why can't you uh okay fine though fine you know You absolutely can. Like, it's definitely possible. Why can't you?

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Okay, fine, though. Fine. You know what? He probably deserved to be on a third team. That, that's fine, right? Anthony Davis, just because those two guys were great and the rest of the team kind of sucked, fine. Whatever. The Phoenix Sons, did they deserve two? They struggled all year long. And Booker missed a lot of time. So you could easily make the case that Booker did not deserve to be honest.

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We know why the Lakers and Sons got two players on the all NBA teams because people know Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, and LeBron James. The Lakers were a playing team. The Sons were just above a playing team. And it doesn't matter. It can't matter that those teams did nothing in the postseason.But it does change our reference point. They did nothing in the postseason to validate their selections on the all-MBA team. The teams are set before the playoffs start. So that's just an aside part of it. But they didn't prove, oh, yeah, that's right. We put these guys on because when it's most important,these are the best players in the league. The all-N-B-A team is about the best players in the league that season. How do you tell the story of that season without those players? Well, the Lakers weren't also ran all year. The Phoenix Suns, they weren't an also ran, but they certainly were not contenders at no point in the regular season. Did they look like one of the best teams in the Western Conference? And in a year where the West especially is so loaded,we would be treating these players differently if they were on, if they had different names on the back of their jerseys, putting up the same exact stats, the same exact score line, all of it. If it wasn't LeBron and Katie and 80 and Devin Booker. And we know that because other players did put up those kinds of stat lines. And they didn't make the All-MBA team.If you're going to get multiple All-MBA players, you better be really good. You better be the 64-win Boston Celtics or the 57 win Oklahoma City Thunder or the 57 win Denver Nuggets or the 56 win Minnesota Timberwolves. Winning isn't everything, but it has to matter that your team is good. If you're an all-NBA player and you have two all-NBA players on your team, you damn well better be a good team. And if you're not, then maybe those players aren't as good as their stats are suggesting. And maybe they don't deserve to be all NBA.And certainly not just because you know their names. And finally, Dan Campbell is ready to bring a Super Bowl to Detroit. In fact, if you ask him, there is no alternative. Nope, literally. He sees no other outcome this year. I don't see Bust. I see Super Bowl, Campbell said Thursday.I don't know what Bust is. I'm going to leave that one alone. If you're catching this episode after hearing your favorite Lockdown show, make sure to subscribe to Lockdown Sports Today on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode. Coming up on the next Locked on Sports Today, will we know who our NBA finals teams will be? So at least until tomorrow, stay locked on sports today.

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Locked on Podcast Network presents Locked-on Sports Today. For more episodes of Locked-on Sports Today, go to our video on-demand.

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