Minnesota Timberwolves vs Denver Nuggets..New York Knicks vs. Indiana Pacers.. Which team has what it takes to win the crown? Jordan and Peter break down the current state of the NBA Playoffs. Then, they move to the diamond for some MLB Underdogs. Plus, longshot bets for this weekend’s PGA tournament!
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[Music] [Music] under it’s The Underdogs back with you another actionpack show I’m Jordan brener joined as always by Peter keading Peter ready to talk some sports ready to talk some Sports short and I’m ready to go and I want to thank you again for your in-depth analysis of the Westminster dog show last week because we got Underdog results at the dog show was fantastic yeah a poodle one which apparently there were dog rankings which apparently only the New York Times had access to it was a low rank dog and the poodle won Best in Show yeah and for the first time ever a mixed breed dog won something a a a a named Nimble title of my new book won the agility category which is great we love muts here at the underdog show well Peter uh speaking of I’m I’m excited to hear you about uh your Timberwolves having collapsed I’m glad to be here with you yeah yeah so we let’s talk some NBA and then we’re going to get to some cool baseball stuff and we got a PGA pick for each of us which uh you know the fourth major as it is uh begins this week but Peter NBA playoffs I think we we’re we’re we’ve got three really excellent series and then the Celtics and cast yeah Jordan uh if you watched game two of the Nuggets Timberwolves Series where Denver scored only 80 points shot 30% from long range it was easy for enthusiasts like myself to conclude that Minnesota had solved the Nuggets but uh then jokic won the MVP got everybody saying oh it was really funny that he got the MVP in the middle of a series where they were losing and decided they wouldn’t lose anymore and uh in fact it is yic who has solved the Timberwolves specifically Rudy goar Jordan in the in in this most recent game uh yic scored 20 points while goar was defending him shooting eight of nine I lost track of the variety of ways he went to town on goar finger rolls uh Bank shots outside jumpers up and unders and while he was racking up his 40 points he also passed all over the court and got 13 assists and in a way that I’m not sure is true of the Knicks it looks like the t-wolves have given this their best shot but what are they going to do I mean Denver’s starting five is is by far the best we’ve seen in a while over a multi-year period and joic is a great great great player and Mike Conley is hurt and and his Replacements are not as good as I said they were and you know Minnesota’s probably better than they looked recently because Anthony Edwards missed seven of eight shots in the first half and turned the ball over three times that probably won’t happen again but can the TS even compete now Jordan in this in this Do or Die game do I mean do you think they have a shot anymore sure and I want to get into something thing you mentioned which is the starting five in a second um because I think that speaks to a theme I’m noticing in the playoffs overall but yeah sure Minnesota can compete they’ve got a game six home game they’ve already beaten this team twice but they have to figure out now what their counter is to Denver figured out it’s spacing yeah they put the ball in Aaron Gordon’s hands people are making a big deal about it but the bottom line is if their Shooters are shooting well and they’re spreading the floor well that is the antidote to Minnesota’s two big system which we’ve talked about a lot yes so what’s their counter mov is it sitting is goar going to get played off the floor again are they going to play more cat at the five cat with nas Reed what’s there’s got to be a counter this that’s what the NBA Playoffs is about moves counter moves that’s a seven game series so I’m curious to see what Minnesota does next yeah well the answer isn’t Jaden McDaniels well okay so here’s here’s something I want to talk about and I want to lead into it by first doing something that I almost never do and that say nice things is about the Knicks so we’ve talked about my my history as a Knicks fan and then no longer a Knicks fan right sadly yes it makes little sense to me but what are you gonna do well okay so what am I gonna do I should say I grew up a rabid Nicks fan you know love the 90s Knicks even if they didn’t play basketball the way I thought it was meant to be played and then like early 2000s a couple things happened they traded Patrick Ying which was heartbreaking to me this is right after I graduated college I started working at the NBA and then and then at ESPN covering the NBA editing NBA Etc so I had to attempt to be unbiased and while this was happening while they were they started making every move was the opposite of what I would do if I running a team whether it was bringing in Isaiah Thomas to run the front office or adding Jerome James or Eddie Curry or Stefan Marberry or on and on and on and they brought in such a Litany of unlikable players too yeah that I just naturally gravitated away from them and and I had such a vital for James Dolan that I found I I have never experienced this with any other team I found it incredibly difficult to be a fan and I’ve abandoned them for about 20 years but Peter this current group of Knicks if you forget who owns the team is so likable they play so hard they are so much better than the Su of their parts I’m really trying to force myself into caring about them again and I know you never gave up on them so you must be enjoying this tremendously well objectively speaking I gave up on them uh you mentioned because they played not just bad but dispiriting horrible like nonte what what do you call the the the opposite of teamwork oriented basketball dysfunctional isolated isolation selfish ball for for the better part I mean for like a decade and you know you mentioned working at ESPN when I was at ESPN I ran something called the ultimate standings where we used to do holes of fans and look at economic data and look at performance on on the field on the court put it all together and see which teams gave fans the most or the least for the amount not just of money but of time and emotion that fans say they invested in their teams and you can imagine the teams that did very well in this teams like the Packers or the Spurs the Knicks were down at the bottom along with the Bengals and the Clippers like every year there was nothing they gave back to their fans but now they are giving superhuman effort and it it’s analytically it’s even hard to to track sometimes because how much is that supposed to be worth not as much as it has been worth to the Knicks right the Knicks are showing how much it can be worth and it shows up in things like offensive rebounds and plus minus sometimes but it’s showing up constantly for this group of Knicks they are fun to watch precisely because they keep exceeding the expectations that any reasonable person has for them and it shouldn’t be lasting this long but it has Brunson shouldn’t have been an MVP candidate but he is and he’s the very tip of the iceberg I mean so yes this is the underdog podcast and they are the ultimate Underdog I know they are the two seed in the East but I’m I was saying to a friend last night any team that’s healthy and talented and is losing to this Knicks team should be ashamed of itself because it means they’re being outworked Jaylen Bronson Jaylen Bronson is the most unlikely Superstar I think I’ve ever seen in basketball there’s there’s nothing about him that screams Transcendent player and yet that’s the way he’s playing they have three starters injured Julius Randall OG anobi who I love Mitchell Robinson plus bonovich and they are still up three games to two on the Pacers they’re and look look look what happened in this last game uh Duce McBride plays 40 minutes scores 17 points with four assists prus shoua plus 15 in 23 minutes Alec Burks I didn’t know Alec Burks was still on the team I remember they traded for him but I thought he might have gone the way of banovich who knew y shooting six of 11 five of eight from three these guys after playing barely five minutes a month come in and they freaking took it to Indiana and these are not like young players who suddenly developed I mean these were guys who’ve been elsewhere no one found a way to use Josh Hart like this right Isaiah harston is a is a revelation as a offensive rebounding machine screener Defender doing exactly what the modern five needs to do okay you mentioned auua you mentioned Duce McBride look devvon chenzo has a championship he was with the 2021 bucks he didn’t play he hurt but but he’s not anywhere he’s another guy who was cast off by multiple teams absolutely so my point is this team is so much greater than the sum of their parts and I want to talk about coaching for a second okay because I keep hearing this nonsense and and Stan Van Gundy mentioned it last night about Tom thibo playing these guys huge minutes and wearing them into the ground first of all nobody averaged more than 35 minutes a game in the regular season second of all what he’s doing with them in the playoffs Is Not Unusual I want to give you a few other team stats okay game four for the Timberwolves all five starters went 35 Plus minutes including Anthony Edwards played 45 minutes and by the way the Timberwolves were outscored by 13 points in the three minutes he set okay the nuggets are basically playing seven and a half guys right now Brown and Justin holiday Off the Bench game four Thunder Mavericks okay the Thunder played four starters 40 plus minutes and the Mavs played PJ Washington Kyrie Irving and Luka Don 40 plus minutes too and the Celtics with a big advantage over Cleveland still played Jason Tatum 44 minutes Drew holiday 43 and their three bench guys are Hower cornet and Pritcher this is not exactly Bill Walton and Kevin mccale Off the Bench the point is it seems that people only pick on Tom fiido for playing starters heavy minutes when it’s happening all around the league and he doesn’t have a Ben all right so look let me say two things about this one is you’re right tibo gets a lot of grief because he’s known for playing players a lot of minutes in past Seasons but Jordan concentrating your minutes in your very best players is a smart way to it’s not Reckless way it’s a smart way to add risk when every game matters more we see it all the time among other teams we see it other remember Oral Roberts playing everybody for you know the best players for every every minute of every game that’s how they that’s how they won as a 15 seed this happens now look objective speaking analytic show you play a lot of players a lot of minutes it’s going to lead to more injuries that’s the risk you’re adding risk to get significant reward I’ll tell you something else if somebody does get hurt and you don’t have uh you’ve been playing all your starters so many minutes what guarantee is there that the guys who step in will play well well that’s what’s happening with the Knicks if Tibido weren’t as great a coach as he’s looking right now those guys wouldn’t be ready he has players ready to come in now and and I want to say one other thing about Tibido you talk about work management you know how many minutes people play that’s fine it’s not how many minutes Josh Hart is playing that has limited halberton okay to nine shots in this in in a crucial game five and six shots in a crucial game three I mean you know the Pacers had submitted 78 foul calls for review because they’re getting out coached out strategized and outworked that’s why they’re losing this series that’s why they’re a good bet to lose even when they go back to Indiana I want to say one last thing and then let’s move on to some baseball it the what I’ve always said about depth it’s not how many guys you do play it’s how many you can play I think the more important thing about depth is not rest fa yeah fine I just never believe there’s a big difference between playing 42 minutes and 34 minutes in a game what you what depth gives you is outs if your guys aren’t playing well someone else to turn to on a tough night the Knicks don’t have that right now they don’t have a lot of other places to go but if if all these guys were healthy they would so look bottom line Nicks are a fantastic Underdog and they’ve certainly made the case for why you should root for them and by the way speaking of underdogs who should be rooted for we’re going to give you the underdog division in baseball right after this we’re back and Peter I feel like for the past 20 years minimum the American League Central Division has mostly existed as a punchline it’s like it’s been trash Mike it’s been trash it’s sort of like the honestly like in English soccer it’s like the championship division like Yay one of you gets to win and be relegated you know everyone someone’s relegated and you get promoted and play with the big boys but this year we first of all we told you in the preseason that the Kansas City Royals were a sleeper team to watch well they’re they’re 26 and 18 Peter and um firmly in the playoff Chase but they Trail the Cleveland Guardians who are 27 and 16 you also have the Minnesota Twins who are 24 and 17 and even the tigers are playing 500 ball yes so Peter I’m excited I think this division is for real and is going to get multiple teams in the playoffs it’s fun I mean Jordan there are fun with an arrow pointing up 5 00 teams which is the Tigers there are depressing 500 teams right like like Toronto there are bump along sometimes up sometimes down 500 teams like the Mets on a good day right this team is full of this this division is full of teams that may or may not be any good at the end of the season like like you know 95 win teams but which are a ton of fun and which benefit from the wild cards and from having the white socks in their division so that they are all going to be in playoff contention even if they’re only 82 or 86 win teams yep so let’s take it from the top of the standings maybe there’s a couple bets we can make related to this too and figure out you know which of these surprising teams is going to be the biggest best surprise so the Guardians they are um like we said leading the division they are not a fluke they’ve outscored uh opponents by um 52 runs so far so right that’s in between Yan and baltim different right I mean that’s amazing what’s amazing to me is they’re doing this even though five of their top eight players and at bats have on base percentages under 300 Tanner is it BBY or BBY BBY right BBY Tanner BBY Tanner BBY suppos to be a potential Ace starter this year has not lived up to expectations Shane Bieber is hurt and two of their five other starters have eras of 5.30 or Worse Peter how are they doing this Jordan you said they weren’t a fluke but they have the seventh highest OPS in the league while they’re scoring the most runs in the league um their top five players only have about six and six wins above replacement and change so it’s the the talent spread out all over the place but I don’t think they’re going to be able to sustain their level of offense because I mean I think they’ve been really good with Runners and scoring position they’ve been really good at little things you know like like uh getting hit by pitches like getting runs driven in by sacrificed flies but they’re only six in the league in home runs you know and so I actually don’t think this is going to last I love some of these players you know uh uh statcast in MLB just came out with new data about bat speed measuring how fast hitters swing bats for the first time this data is available Stephen Quan has the second slowest bat speed after Lis arrives in all of baseball but he always squares up he always hits the ball in the nose it’s almost like he swings the bat so slowly that he can control what he’s doing through the Zone he I would I would love to put a bet on him to win the AL batting title and I think he’s extraordinarily valuable uh I’m not sure that and also Jose Ramirez is gonna come back I mean he’s not gonna have a 290 on base percentage all season but um you know enjoy it now this this may be close to the high water mark for the Guardians I think oh does that mean you’re leaving room for my Kansas City Royals the team I picked as my sleeper team before the season and they’re right there outscoring opponents by 45 runs Bobby junor Salvador Perez with a huge back bounceback season is this sustainable so you mentioned the two big what’s amazing about the Royals is after being so bad for so long is they’re doing it with big stars their top five players unlike Cleveland total about nine wins above replacement because they’re they’re getting great performances from Bobby Wht from s Perez um and from a couple of pctures right um now now now you you would like the fact that they brought in uh Michael Waka who’s not having a great season but we mention him because I’m you know I’m responsible for the pop culture content on this show and you really want to say wakka wakka w we make well we make fzy the bear references we also make sh we also make Shakira references waka waka but it’s not due to Michael Waka it’s due to these these big stars that are having great seas um Cole Reagan who I love I mean devastating slider works all around the Zone he has a FIP of 2.64 Jordan while his ra is 4.22 he’s going to be even better better the rest of the season he’s plus 1300 to win the sa Young Award I I I’d like looking at him and I think Michael Massie you know they got R of Whit marfield they handed Michael Massie the job he had a 163 on base percentage in the month of April but he has been patient they’ve been patient with him his walks are up his strikeouts are down he’s driving the ball more I think he’s a player to watch so I think they actually have talent to supplement the big performances they’ve gotten so far and I I like their chances sure well we’re not even talking about they’re they’re starting pitching beyond beyond uh Reagan Seth Lugo has been what an unbelievable acquisition 166 a whip whip below one they’re getting the Brady singer’s best season so far an RA under three and Alec Marsh is pitching to a 250 ER so that’s a I mean there’s a lot of pitching there they need look if they’re going to stay in it they have to add another bat or two Renfro is not been what I hoped he would be MJ Melendez your boy is still struggling they need they need one or two hitters in that lineup but Peter there’s still I think what plus 500 to win the division you know it still feels like a great I I liked it before the season I don’t even remember the odds were a lot longer than that but I still think that’s a good bet to make at this point don’t you agree we will know we will know if the world has truly turned upside down and the central is on top if the Royals decide to add payroll or add a big bat imagine if the Royals are buyers in a month or two that’d be amazing wouldn’t it that would be that’ actually be really exciting maybe they can add they can rent Pete Alonzo for for the rest of the season oh yeah that hurts doesn’t it well speaking of pain um there’s your off injured Minnesota Twins the third member of this Trifecta they don’t have the Run differential the other two teams do they do have Ryan Jeffers uh this a playoff team they’re hanging in there Jordan they’re hanging in there and I think they are look uh you mentioned a lot of pitching for Kansas City uh the twins have four starting pitchers whose FIP is 3.2 or better plus Simeon wood Richardson who replaced uh Louis varlin so they have an entire rotation of excellent starting pitchers and here’s the deal they’re going to get Royce Lewis back and they’re gonna get Byron buckson back now I will they Peter I advocate for these two guys every year these are the only two guys I think in baseball who could simultaneously be eligible every year for the MVP and comeback player of the year but there but there’s a lot of talent there that’s just waiting to join the team and Yan Duran who who hasn’t given up a run since he came back so I think that’re you know they’re they’re what they’re three games out what couple of games out now um plus they’re still plus 135 to win the division I think there’s a value bet here which is that there’s a a future special where you can pick a team to win the division and the American League this is at DraftKings yes at DraftKings they are plus 950 for the twins to win the whole league after winning the division and if you believe in them to have a much better rest of the year and be competitive in the playoffs I love that bet that’s a that’s that’ be a fun bet to make well I love you unfortunately you can’t do this as DraftKings but you can at another book you could parlay those three teams to all make the playoffs which is possible with the six playoff teams now I actually don’t think the odds are good enough you only get about plus 520 because it doesn’t really I guess the parlay generation doesn’t take into account the fact that if one makes the playoffs it immediately decreases the next team’s chance so right but but it might be since we’re rooting for our underdogs it might be a fun show bet to make where we just throw $10 on all three of them to make the playoffs but Peter if you had to R who would be your who would you take two teams out of the East all three in the Central and then whoever wins the West maybe that might be the way to go that could be fun that would be it’s hard for me to not see you know now that I think about it I I think the Mariners and Rangers are going to make plays I don’t know but Peter if you had to rank these these three teams in terms of ultimately at the end of the year who the best of them are how would you put how would you you know when we look back who’s going to be the best second third I’d say twins one Royals 2 Cleveland three all right and I’m going to I’m going to go Royals Cleveland and the twins all right we should mention we should mention one other player from the Detroit Tigers who isn’t even the major leagues yet but we like to do that Jackson job their first round pick third overall pick in 20121 like Paul skes in Pittsburgh he’s going to come up big league sometime this year and he’s going to be really impressive 100 M hour fastball four good pitches outstanding athlete keep them on your radar screens well you know what else is on our radar screens right now Peter the PGA Championship which as you know starts Thursday morning like all golf tournaments do Peter’s like I’ve got a great pick I really think he’s gonna win I’m like oh awesome a long goes yeah Xander Schley I’m like really Peter the second or third best player in the world quite a long shot so now that I made you throw that one out gr Valhalla in Louisville second major the the year give us a true long shot to win the tournament all just to be clear I said I think he’s going to win as in picking one guy out of the whole field as opposed to a top five or 10 finish because schley’s long irons are perfectly suited to this course meaning pick him to win outright okay which is plus 1400 what we’re trying to do here but it has to be a long shot okay all right well not a long shot pick Scotty sheffler great no it’s not Scotty Sheffer who’s the best golfer in the world it’s a golfer whose particular approach is suited to this course Jordan you know it’s hard to pick golf champions because there’s so much Randomness you you wrote a whole piece about this for the Masters right I’m wearing about you can’t predict baseball Susan tshirt but really can’t predict golf yeah right exactly but we do know this okay you know I like to go back to basics Valhalla is a long course 7,600 yards it has the third smallest screens it’s going to reward guys who can drive the ball but with accuracy the metrics you want to look at are things like um proximity of approach over 200 yards or um Strokes gained on approach and so I’m going with Windam Clark plus 4,000 that’s my long shot pick how about yourself well it’s funny we were looking at very similar things not driving as much but again approach shots so I look at approach shots from 150 to 200 yards away from the Fairway those shots will be at a premium this week also Strokes gained approach as you mentioned and there’s a guy who is a super duper long shot who might be fun to put 10 bucks on to win and maybe 10 bucks on to finish top 10 that’s Keith Mitchell he’s plus 13,000 to win plus 900 to finish in the top 10 he ranks sixth at data golf in approach shots from 15 yards to 200 yards from the Fairway he’s also in 10th in Strokes gain approach he also he’s playing well he’s made the cut in eight of his last nine tournaments including six top 20 finishes so this is the underdog podcast let’s take a true long shot give me some Keith Mitchell baby plus 13,000 all right well I like his approach and I like your approach it’s all I can say thanks Peter it’s made my day um I wish I were in Louisville this week to to to watch the golf and you know obviously the big story lines are going to be can Rory and the 10year drought he’s played well at valala in the past can Scotty Sheffer continue to cement himself as the next Tiger Woods but there we go Windam Clark we had him last last year Keith Mitchell we’ve got him this year bet with us we’re going to be right here watching the Knicks Rangers and your Minnesota Twins there you go
1 Comment
Gotta Bench Rudy 👎