WINNERS: Knicks, Thunder, Clippers

- Knicks: 109 of 118 points from the starting five. Each starter plays 39 minutes or more. Timeouts during the regular season and playoffs are the same length. BUT, timeouts during national TV games are always 30 seconds longer (3:15 minutes). Since all playoff games are nationally broadcast, timeouts can feel longer than what you watched all season. Thibs should get these boys a break and just call preventative TOs.

- Thunder: it doesn’t matter if Ja Morant plays or not. This Thunder team is rolling. They’re likely to stay healthy, sharp and rested between round 1 and 2. Chet balled out yesterday. We’re all wondering whether Jalen Williams is a championship #2. Two years from now Chet will be that guy. For now, he’s just going to have multiple explosion games per round.

- Clippers: A beat down. The Nuggets are entirely cooked. This series could still go 6 with a spiteful Jokic, but the Clippers are moving on. The local skinny is that the Nuggets didn’t want to lose David Adelman to another organization this summer. Thus, they fired Mike Malone. They were afraid of having enough playoff success that it would be difficult to fire Malone. Why were they afraid of winning in the playoffs? They scored 83 points yesterday. Go home.

Young Jimmy James Gladstone (34), new GM of the Jags, swings the night’s biggest trade and moves up 3 spots (5 → 2) to take Travis Hunter. Gladstone cut his teeth with the Rams during the “Fuck Them Picks” era. Their words, not mine. Also my words though because it produced a Super Bowl. Jags traded next year’s first (you better be good…), plus this year’s 2nd and 4th round picks. Trevor Lawrence now flanked by Brian Thomas, Travis Hunter, and new Big Offensive Brain Liam Coen (also ex-Rams).

Everyone knew what Giants Joe Schoen wanted to do and he pulled it off anyway. The Giants Jaxson Dart secret (?) leaked to the point that Schoen threw a chair yesterday (confirmed). Still, they get their QB. Schoen and coach Brian Daboll were both inches from being fired last year. Does a new QB reset the leash they have with ownership?

Shedeur

This man fell too far. We’ll get to that. Why is he sucking up the airwaves? If you (your Dad) run around telling everyone how amazing you are, host a draft party, then fall out of the first round, expect people to point fun at that. The relentless campaigning from Dad Deion did Shedeur no favors last night. The narrative wrote itself. It’s too easy for the media to make this slide into a story. America loves a winner, but we also watch car crashes here (do other countries?). Shedeur crashed out of the first round due more to a lack of obvious fits, than a true lack of talent. 6 QBs went in last year’s first round. That sucked up spots. Are we really suggesting Bo Nix and JJ McCarthy had significantly better pre-draft grades than Shedeur? Both Nix and McCarthy went in last year’s top 12. The gap between them and Shedeur is not an entire round. The Steelers passing on Shedeur at 21 is a crime.