Playoff Toughness and Harden Impact

0:00What's up, it's Dre my green, back for my 14th NBA season and the new season of my podcast, The Dre my Green Show. I'm filter takes, real hoop talk and big time guests. There's no holding back on the court or on the mic. Follow the Dre my green show wherever you get your podcast. 820 Mariket Cab, we're going to join us on the show. We'll talk to her about miles. Doing Jeff Gordon. We did talk about it. Come at that six o'clock. You can go back and hear that. It's just annoying. That's all. It's annoying that we have to talk about it. Also, Lyma is planting his flag in the ground coming up at 720 this morning about what we'll tell you. At 720 this morning to 1 647 forward to below 92. Pedal and says bring on the pistons. If the calves want to go ahead and tell me for the next 25 games, they're going to try to do whatever they can to take on the pistons and round two. I co-sign. I'm on board with that plan. It's not too

1:01confident. If that's what they want to do, listen, avoid Boston, avoid the nicks, even though I'm not that high on New York. If you want to do that and make that your big run kind of like you did with Orlando a couple years ago, I'll co-sign. That one, it made sense to me. If it blows up in your face, it blows up in your face, but you got you got Detroit's number. You do. I think Jonathan is right. It is a bad matchup for Detroit. They can do what they want. Donovan is when he gets back, I think it's going to be the one that puts him over. I think that if they got in a series, I think my main concern would be chippiness because I think it would be a very frustrating series for the Detroit pistons, but I think it's a series that the Cavaliers would win. That all being pointed out here. Going back to the anonymous quote, JB, I thought he got annoyed by it. When you hear that anonymous quote in the pre-game, you think, okay, well, the pistons, they got Isaiah Stewart and they got a lot of guys to buy his hair as put his shoulders into people. There was a feeling you even said going into the game the other

2:02night, you thought things might get out of hand on the floor at some point. Yeah, just because when you play a team twice like that and we're not talking about a third of the league that's tanking, we're talking about two teams that are trying to ascend at the right time and start to start to put their stamp on those matchups because that could be a series. I pencil the calves in the finals. So it seems like I'm flip flopping when I say, yeah, I agree with Nick that maybe we should calm down on some of the rhetoric here, but that's the calves. That's the calves to me. That's not me. I mean, I could stand up for what I said and I think that, yeah, I'm going to pencil them into the finals. Now, Boston is going to be a little bit scary, but I'm going to pencil them in and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm going to do it. Me talking is different from them talking and I think that it's while it's great that they have been tougher. It's great that they have found more veteran leadership. And it's hard to say that with James Hardin because if you would ask me that two months ago when he was still in LA who knows what I would have said,

3:02that's fair, but so far so good. I think him and Donovan take take this thing very seriously. I think Donovan's taking it up a notch, even though he's been out the last handful of games. I think that there's a seriousness there that I haven't seen with this Cavalier's team since before or after Donovan got there. I think at times Donovan was frustrated because there was that lack of seriousness, seriousness there, tone, but I think that it's still a team that maybe, you know, let's let's calm down on the anonymous quotes. Let's let's step back for a minute because you've been a team that, hey man, one game against Detroit or a nice run at the end of February, that's not going to change everything. The book is still going to be out on you. James Hardin is a respected player. Donovan is too. Jared Allen had a really, really nice nice month of February and obviously was pretty nice the other night. But you still have a moniker that you have to shake being a soft team that when the lights are bright, you go away. When times get tough, you're going to be a shrinking violet. That doesn't go away just during the

4:04regular season. I'm sorry. You have a, you have a time to prove it. So you could be confident. You're NBA players. You're going to be confident. But I've been fooled and I've tried to drag them into toughness so many times or I should say three straight years and we haven't always got that. And so I'm sorry. I'm not going to be fooled again. Not until you go out there and prove it. And the only way they can really prove it is us getting to the postseason. We still have what 19, 20 games, 20 games. I, that's totally fair. I, I just do feel they are different. I feel they're totally different makeup right now. That's what makes it a tough conversation for me to have with you. I, they are different in makeup. But damn, I, I have just been so betrayed in the post season because it's one thing, man, you, I, I, I, real quick, you mentioned the Hardin thing, and the difference. And I need to clarify, if you just get out asked like my old football coach, Keith Wakefield, you should say, there's a difference between being outfought and out asked. You can be out asked if they just got better players. That's one thing. But you cannot be outfought.

5:08It's great quote, by the way. And if you get out asked, that's, that's fine. But man, when, when, when the Knicks really punk you, when it feels like Indiana does it, when it definitely feels like it's happened so many times over, that makes a fan base, it makes a fan base pretty cynical over you. This Cavs conversation brought you by the fine folks at Surfside Hard. I still remind you to please enjoy responsibly. And the fans, the fans have let us know that. Like they, they've told us, Owen has been big all year on kind of wake me up on the playoffs start. But then they made the trade. Right. And what did you say? I said, I'm in. I'm all in now. Like I'm, I'm ready to pay attention because they finally did something different. They gave me the same roster for three years. And now they've done, they've done something different. And look at that. It's me excited. Look at the type of guys they brought into and also part of that elevating somebody like Jalen Tyson, like 12 playoff minutes last year. I don't even think he got in the Indiana series. Well, think of what a difference maker. That guy is not scared of anybody. You're right. We know earlier this

6:11year, the stuff he said about Donovan and Cleveland. That's, it's his city. Um, he doesn't back down from anybody, not LeBron James, not Kate Cunningham the other night. Like that guy is, is gonna be a thorn in the side of a ton of, of really good players come playoff time. And I love that key on Ellis. Another guy, you know, don't let his size fool you. Like we, we've been worried about how slight some of our guys are. This is different. Like that guy again plays way taller, way bigger than he is. He is a mess to go up against. Obviously, Dennis Schroeder. Same thing. Doesn't back down from anybody. And yeah, James Harden, not going to be a rugged defender. He's not going to fight anybody. That's not hip. But what he does is you could see he exudes confidence. Yeah. That guy's never rattled. He finally had his worst shooting, a bad shooting night. And it was a bad one the other day, but still impacted the game in many ways. And he's not going to be rattled. Notice he kept shooting. Like he's, he wasn't worried. He knew Donovan wasn't

7:12there. So he knew if he had to keep shooting, he would. So I think that's important. The fabric of this team has totally changed. And so while everything nixed as everything you say, I totally get that. But I do think they have a confidence about them. It doesn't seem like a front running confidence that I thought the team you feel the last four years. That's, is it just because I know you picked on Darius yesterday. You called him a little darius. You catch a bunch of hell on line over that little bit. Okay. Thought you would. A lot of people who really like Darius Carlin. Just because Darius isn't there. Is that because I, is that why you feel the way you feel? Well, it's a, it's a big. Because Darius was accused of being a front runner in terms of being interrupt emotionally in the past. You and I both know. And, and, and Donovan is not that guy. Like Donovan doesn't talk. He lets his game do the talk. I thought there were times when, when Darius, he talked a lot for a guy who hasn't really accomplished all that much in the NBA. Well, okay. I, yeah, I, I, I think that's guilty is charged. That's guilty is charged for

8:17someone who's supposed to be a star. He doesn't have any kind of a resume in the post season to warrant that. And, and it, and it should make me feel more confident for this team. And again, that's why, that's why I pencil them in. But when I hear what Nick say and I go, yeah, you know what? I can see where Nick's coming from. That stuff just doesn't just go away a couple of weeks after a trade. And I do think that there is a group of fans like Owens interested again. That's awesome. I'm glad Owens interested in the calves again. I know I sound like I'm being, I'm being ridiculous here. I'm glad that he's interested again. I'm glad that their people are interested again because okay, now maybe they take it more seriously. But it still doesn't change the past. They can't do anything about the past. And I'm stuck in a spot where you can only go for life. Life can feel overwhelming, but on my podcast from the heart with Rachel Brayton were in it together. Every Friday a new episode brings you a new story with topics on motherhood, wellness, self-love and more. Listen to from the heart with Rachel Brayton wherever you get your podcasts.

9:18What's ahead of you? What's ahead of you? There's the postseason. There's a couple of, there's a couple of games that are our previews, but that's about it. But they've taken the opportunity to try to forget the past by making these changes. That's true. Then they hadn't done that. They had for they just said, just wait, right? When you bring, we're going to do the same thing, but wait, it's going to be different. And I have like listen, I have respect as people. James Hardin is a player. You're talking about two extra years of playoff experience throughout two extra seasons of playoff experience with James Hardin. That's a different animal than Darius Garland is going to be able to go tonight. He's still young and how many games has he actually played on the 20s or that knows he can score the ball when it's time to score. Exactly, but that puts up that much more pressure because there's plenty of people outside of Cleveland going, uh, do you know about James Hardin postseason basketball? And we go, yeah, we know it. We know it. He has 90 wins. He's eighth. He's eighth currently right now of all the NBA guys. He's eighth in wins. He's third in scoring. He's second in assists. Exactly. He's actually been a lot better in the farce than people think because of what's happened in game sevens when he's tried to when he's

10:22either had his disappearing acts or whatever the good news is, it's got down to the Mitchell now. And I've seen, I've seen Donovan be able to handle himself in clinching games. They, they, they've got the scoring part down. I'm not worried about that nearly as much as maybe some of the other teams, but I will say like it's still a question until proven otherwise. You're exactly right, but you talked about they still have their past. Well, they think they traded part of that past that was holding them back. Greg, good, good, good. Williams coming up at nine 20 this morning, which by the way, before we get on Greg later on, I, we have some audio about Anthony Richardson. We got to play where I think it's going to tell everybody no to him, even if you were probably saying no before two one six four seven four to below 92. You're extremely cynical about these coaches. That's a very good thing. And I want to bring up one guy very quickly. No, guys, we're not the place that's going to fix them. Who is it? I'll tell you in five on the fan. XT Andy AV.com extend technology celebrating 25 years of being able to help you out with home

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12:29cutting-edge technology for you and your family. X-T-N-B-A-V.com. Gone South has been a podcast about crime in the American South. But for our new season, we're widening the lens. Follow and listen to Gone South Season 5, available now on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.