On The Nba Beat

Although the Hawks put a mighty scare into the Cavaliers after storming all the way back from 18 down, Cleveland ultimately hung on to take the series opener. In a tantalizing rematch of last year's Eastern Conference Finals, our crack guests lead us through this iteration's nuances. Checking in for the Hawks is Atlanta sports expert and NBA.com writer and podcaster Lang Whitaker. And out of Akron, Ohio, we have Jacob Rosen, who's an MBA student at the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. Rosen's also a longtime sports analytics writer for Hardwood Paroxysm, Nylon Calculus and Waiting for Next Year. Excerpts below: Lang Whitaker (5:07-5:23): “[Kent] Bazemore’s a little bit more dynamic offensively than DeMarre [Carroll] was last year. There’s that saying ‘The best defense is a good offense.’ I think if you make LeBron work a little bit harder on that end, maybe that helps you in the long run as well.” LW (5:25-5:45): “[Coach Mike] Budenholzer was trying a lot of different things. He had on