It’s Sunday, May 7 and welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. I’m here with my sister Anne and we’ve got more stories to tell, we’re going to go over the NBA playoff picture and we’re going to update our NBA Playoff Player Pyramids. Anne, happy Sunday night podcast!

The idea for starting off tonight is to come up with some criteria for evaluating the stories people tell you. So if you and I are in the car driving up from Charlotte or I’m at App State waiting for a meeting to start, let’s think about that situation and come up with some criteria for evaluating the story.

Grading / Evaluating Stories:

1. Purpose – to entertain, to inform, to move emotionally, to elicit sympathy or support. (the opposite: why do people seem to tell us things? for company, to have someone to talk to, to fill up silence)
2. Pacing
3. Choice of details

Our stories:

1. Anne : a car trouble story
2. Bill: a North Miami coaching story

Let’s grade/evaluation our stories. How do we like our criteria?

NBA Playoff Update. Anne, take us through it. My observations:

1. Jokic. One of the least complaining superstars. Very difficult to guard him 1v1 and one of the best passers in the game which makes him hard to double.
2. Suns: Booker still getting it done. Durant a level below. They aren’t putting them together in actions, such as staggers. I see what people mean about Ayton. I think it’s just motor, conditioning, and focus. Lots of players like that. Think KD is trending up.
3. Warriors vs. Lakers: I hadn’t thought about how small the Warriors are. Didn’t know Wiggins is among the most athletic in the NBA. Warriors gotta come back to figuring out how to get Curry open.
4. Heat. Jimmy is still doing it. Bam is trending up for the Heat. I don’t see how the Knicks do it if everyone in the series stays healthy.
5. Celtics have more dudes.

Playoff pyramid notes:

1. Top scorers still in the playoffs: Booker 36.9, Butler 34.4, Curry 30.6
2. Top three pointers made still in playoffs: Curry 4.7, Klay 4.3, Harden 3.3, Tatum 3.1 (Harden has worst % of those but still 36% which everyone would be happy for)
3. Free throw attempt leaders: Butler 10 a game, Embiid 8.8, Durant 8.4
4. Rebounds: Jokic 14.3, Looney 14.1, Davis 13.9, James 10.3
5. Assists: Jokic 9.0, Harden 8.0, Draymond 7.6
6. Steals: Booker 2.1, Brunson 1.8
7. Blocks: Davis 4.1, Embiid 3.2, Horford 2.0

Thanks for listening everyone. Have a good week!