Drive & Kick

LeBron James and the Cavaliers have been on a collision course with the Warriors ever since last June and The Finals are upon us! Finally. This should be epic. Was it worth it, though? That’s a trickier question than it appears because the inevitability of this year’s matchup has cast a pall over everything else that’s happened in the league. Even the playoffs were a letdown. We get into that, plus the inevitable LeBron-Jordan question and what we’d like to see from both teams.

Do the Celtics have a path to competing with the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals? Well, sure. Maybe. Ok, probably not because it involves many things going Boston’s way. We get into all that on this week’s Drive & Kick, plus some Popology and combine talk.

Isaiah Thomas captured the imagination of everyone with his 53-point performance in Game 2 of the Celtics win over Washington. Flannery gives us more on the scene from an emotional night in Boston. Gonz is in Oakland for the Warriors series with Utah and he has more from Game 1.

Russell Westbrook and the Thunder were bounced in five games by James Harden and the Houston Rockets. Man, that’s a loaded sentence. Everything about the season of Russ and Harden was condensed into those five games. The Rockets were clearly superior and had far more depth. Harden was excellent for the most part, but other Rockets had moments of glory. OKC was thin and too dependent on Russ, who may have tried to do too much. We get into all that on this week’s Drive & Kick along with Warriors talk, the carnage that is the Clips-Jazz series, and the Cavs' inevitability.

The Celtics dropped the first two games at home of their first round series with the Bulls and looked overmatched in Game 2 by the 8 seed. On the flip side, the Bulls are suddenly connected and confident. What in the name of Paul Zipser is going on here! Out West, the Clippers and Jazz are engaged in a tough, physical, weird series. L.A. got its split but couldn’t have felt too good about it, especially considering Rudy Gobert is out of the lineup. The Jazz did what they had to, but do they have enough to finish the job?

We made it everybody! Another regular season is in the books and it’s finally time put DNP-rest and tanking behind us to concentrate on the postseason. We dove into all eight postseason series on this playoff edition of the Drive & Kick podcast.

Hey, so the Bucks are really good. Led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, they’ve cemented their spot in the postseason picture and will be a chic spoiler pick in the playoffs. The Bucks are playing with house money at this point, but on the other end of the spectrum are the Golden State Warriors. Now that they’ve righted the ship and expect to get Kevin Durant back into the fold, it’s back to championship or bust for this crew.

We woke Gonz in the Pacific Northwest to discuss his recent road trip to Denver and Portland and Tuesday night’s phenomenal Blazers’ win over the Nuggets. That may have been the death knell for Denver’s playoff hopes, which is unfortunate considering the Nuggets traded Jusuf Nurkic to those very same Blazers. Oops. On the flipside of NBA life, what the hell happened to the Cleveland Cavaliers? We get into all this on the week’s Drive & Kick along with a discussion of Lonzo Ball.

The Cleveland Cavaliers rested LeBron James, Kyrie, and Kevin Love for the primetime national television game against the Los Angeles Clippers and everyone got mad. There’s never a good time to rest players, even though everyone agrees that the season is too long and everyone also agrees that the season isn’t getting shortened. So ... where do we go from here?

It’s time to assess where Kawhi Leonard stands in the MVP debate. Leonard has been a two-way superstar all season long and he’s been a fixture in top-5 MVP conversations, so this is not a surprise. What has changed is the presumption that James Harden and Russell Westbrook are co-favorites with no other serious challenger.

Toronto All-Star Kyle Lowry will be out for most of the regular season. That alone puts a serious crimp in the Raptors’ quest to dethrone the Cleveland Cavaliers. That’s unfortunate for Toronto, but it also has a ripple effect on the rest of the Eastern Conference. John Gonzalez and Paul Flannery dive into all the ramifications on this week’s Drive & Kick podcast.

Well, that was fun. The NBA trade deadline has come and gone and while it didn’t yield the huge mega-deals that we wanted it did give us plenty of fodder to hash out on the Drive & Kick podcast. There will be much incredulousness.

We have a trade! Actually we have multiple trades, but we have one really good one to dig into on this week’s Drive & Kick podcast. The big item is that Toronto GM Masai Ujiri finally got his man, landing Serge Ibaka from the Orlando Magic for Terrence Ross and a first round pick. baka fills a huge hole at the four, but will it be enough to get the Raptors back on track?

Phil Jackson threw more shade at Carmelo Anthony with a bizarre tweet that referenced former Hoya Destroya Michael Graham, of all people. Who does this help? Nobody, that’s who. We get into all the Knicks drama, plus the faltering Cavs, the resurgent Wizards, and if anyone has a shot to dethrone Cleveland in the East.

Let's talk about not sticking to sports. It'll be OK. It's a conversation worth having.

The All-Star starters are in and now we must do our basketball Internet duty and obsesses over reserve picks that we have no influence over whatsoever. A lot of this discussion focuses on Joel Embiid, as all NBA conversations do these days. Gonz has him on his team (shocker), while Flanns is more pragmatic about his overall minutes players relative to the other players.

It's All-Star time and Paul has an actual vote. Most of the choices were easy, but two offered some real debate. Will it be Isaiah Thomas or John Wall for the last guard spot in the East, and what about Anthony Davis vs. DeMarcus Cousins in the West? There are no wrong answers, only more right ones.

The Knicks played the Pelicans without Derrick Rose, who was not only missing from the team’s lineup, he was straight-up missing. So, what should the Knicks do? Let him walk and cut their losses, or double down on what has already been a bad bet.

In the midst of the most fascinating Most Valuable Player races in years, Paul Flannery and John Gonzalez debate who the real MVP is this year. Flanns has LeBron, Gonz has James Harden. It's really a five-player race and there are no wrong answers here, friends. Only more correct answers.

The Sixers have a problem. Ok, they have a lot of problems, but the biggest issue the Sixers have is too many big men on the roster. Now that it's coming to a head, Paul Flannery and John Gonzalez discuss how they can rid of their glut of big men. Also: All-Star voting conflicts and holiday gifts for the NBAers in your life.