A Celtics-OKC Panic Check, Plus the Towns/Porzingis Careers With Zach Lowe
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Coming up, I'm going to talk to Zach Lowe about playoff basketball. Are the Celtics and OKC in trouble? Next. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. What do I look forward to every NBA playoff season? Well, I'm always hoping the Celtics do well. I'm always hoping we have great storylines, great games, great matchups, great game sevens. I just hope for good basketball.

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I was going to tape with Zach Lowe about Townsend Porzingis. And then last night, the games were so freaking good. We just said, screw it. We went live on YouTube and I talked to Zach Lowe about the NBA. Speaking of the NBA, on FanDuel, we are doing a tail or fade concept that we had that we tried last week. I pick a player prop on Wednesday's games.

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All right, we are impromptu live because we were taping the BS podcast with Zach Lowe. It was 9 o'clock Pacific. And I said to Zach, why don't we just go live for the people that are on YouTube that just want my panicked Celtics reaction after one game. I'm actually not that panicked, but we have...

An incredible Monday night. We had this whole other plan that we're going to do for that. We're still going to do at the end of this, but was not expecting all the basketball yesterday. Two fantastic games. I want to talk about the Celtics first, but which team is should be more panicked right now. Celtics are OK. See, in your opinion, I don't think either. OK, let's be clear. I don't think either should be panicked.

I'm going to say Celtics should be a little more worried only because the Hauser injury, we don't, you know, he turned his ankle or whatever, and he's been a zero so far in the playoffs.

And the Porzingis weirdness just keeps right on rolling. Like, I don't it. This has been a strange season. He didn't play the second half. He has an illness again. And so you take those two guys and put question marks beside them for game two. And you're just sort of running low on guys. So I don't think either should be all that worried. But I guess I'll inflict you with a little more panic and say the Celtics.

So the case for the Celtics is what you laid out specifically the Porzingis piece, because you go into this series and you go, all right, am I getting a healthier, relatively healthy Porzingis?

I know I'm getting a healthy Sam Houser. Well, he gets hurt. And then what am I getting from Jalen? Where is he? And then also how much am I getting from Drew? Cause Drew had this hamstring. Well, Drew actually looked, I thought really good. He seems healthy. Porzingis looked terrible in the first quarter, like alarming, like texting people, like what's going on with Porzingis? Then we never see him again. And he has this mystery illness that I never gotten a real answer for what it is. And then they lose Houser too. So all of a sudden now you're basically down to six guys.

Um, the counter would be, they got every shot they wanted for 45 minutes, basically. Right. They, they missed a record amount of threes. Nobody has ever missed 41 threes in a playoff game. They missed 45. There was some crazy stats this morning about how open those threes were, how lost towns looked on the defensive rotations. So I'm sure Missoula is like, look, we just, this is going to happen. Sometimes we're going to miss shots.

We can't panic. Don't change who we are. With that said, I hated the last couple of Tatum shots in regulation. To me, that's the worst of the Celtics when they're just settling, they're playing with their food, they're letting the shot clock go down, and they're not attacking a team that just doesn't have rim protection. And there's specifically that last possession with, what, 20 seconds left. Tatum's diddling around the top. He gets Robinson on him. Diddling! Diddling! He's diddling in the top.

gets down to seven seconds. It's wide open. All he has to do is go by Mitchell Robinson. I'm pretty sure he can do that, and he's going to be able to get to the rim or kick out. He doesn't do either, and he settles for this 28-footer. Misses it. And then Brunson should have won the game, and he missed a shot that he makes all the time. I couldn't believe he missed that shot. I screamed in my seat when he missed that shot out of pure shock. Yeah, I highlighted... I mean, look, what were they, 15 of 60? I highlighted... There were...

Several that I just thought were lazy, settle shots. Three that I highlighted in particular were that one at the end of regulation over Mitchell Robinson, where like, just go to the basket. It's a tie game. Like, get fouled, go to the basket. Nine good things can happen. One bad thing can happen is you take a step back against a seven footer.

Derek White had one in the middle of the third quarter where he drew Brunson on a switch and just kind of dribbled around and hoisted a three from the top of the arc and miss. And it's like, cool, like it's Brunson. I get it. You're hunting Brunson, but hunt with the right guys and Tatum's in one corner and Jalen's in another corner doing nothing. The entire possession, just sort of an aimless one.

And then I thought late in the game, they missed the three, got an offensive rebound and drew Jack that left corner three that just felt rushed to me. Like just to settle, like you're, I know you're behind at that point. I can't remember what the margin was, but like there's three and a half minutes left, like this crazy left corner three.

tough angle right off an offensive rebound. So there were a few of those for sure. Well, and the Knicks succeeded because they got the game in the last five minutes, which is where you want to be against the Celtics in a close game because they might get a little three happy. And their five guys looked really good together down the stretch, except for Towns on defense, who just seemed lost for most of the game. But I thought that was the best

and an OB, certainly against the Celtics game. One of the better games I've seen him play. And, you know, the reality is he was the best wing in the game. I mean, I thought he was Tatum and Brown like he was easily the best guy out of those four. I thought he was the best player in the game. If you want to say Brunson because of the late game threes over Horford, fine. And it would be made every shot they needed him to make. And defensively,

He was like everywhere. And I tweeted this after the game last night. You know, look, the shooting luck is obviously huge and the numbers buried out this morning. This is the Knicks were lucky that Boston missed so many threes and so many good threes. But on maybe so they missed 45 threes on maybe like eight to 10 of them or or even shots that didn't become threes. The combination of Ananobi and

and bridges with a little bit of heart, just kind of shading into the paint, helping, recovering, making Tatum and Brown like see arms and bodies. And then there are like three or four plays where there was one in particular I'm thinking of where Tatum had the ball on a mismatch up top. I know Jalen had the ball on a mismatch up top.

And it OB is on Tatum on the right wing. He begins to slide over toward the middle of the floor to show Jalen another body. And then Bridges, I think, has to zone up between Tatum on the wing and Derek White in the corner. And that's when like Boston has you. You're dead. There's so much shooting there.

Brown kicks the ball to Tatum and it'll be like rushes in this furious closeout bridges like stunts a little bit off Derek White. So they run Tatum off the first three Tatum hits white correct pass in the right corner. White decides I'm going to backdoor cut and drive this into the lane instead of taking a three.

misses a pretty tough layup. Like it's a shot he should make, but it's at least tough. And like, those are the margins that the Knicks are playing with when they help like that. And they helped really well. And it's a great battle against a great offense. And they won enough of them last night. Some of it was good Knicks defense, but the more I rewatched a lot of the mysteries this morning, I looked at the tracking data numbers and

I think luck definitely outweighs Nick's great defense in terms of like why did the Celtics miss all those threes? They also shot badly from two as well. They didn't shoot well from anywhere. Yeah. Dan Greenberg had a, he had a post with four photos of layups. The Celtics missed where you just look at it and you're like, especially that Jalen Brown lefty, the holiday layup under the basket. They had a couple of those. Chris Forsberg had the NBA tracking and,

56 of Boston's 63 pointers were open or better, which means you have at least four plus feet of space, right? So they shot on wide open threes, there were seven for 24. Usually they're 41% on those. And then on the open threes, they were seven for 32, which was 22%. So Missoula is going to look at all that stuff and say,

We always make those shots. We're fine. The thing the Knicks did to them a few times, especially as it got into nut crunch time, they were scrambling. They were shots late at the shot clock. Shot clock expiration plays. And that was about as frazzled as I've seen the Celtics from a crunch time thing. I think a big piece of it

we just gotta be transparent. Like Jalen's not the Jalen from last playoffs. He's not as athletic and as a kind of run you over as he, as he was last year. Like the, the, the Jalen in the Dallas series last year, it's a different version of him. He's clearly not a hundred percent. And he was, I thought bad last night and he could have make a three. And I just think he was easily out of all the wings plus heart. He was the fifth,

I think the fifth out of those five guys. And that's almost more alarming to me than Porzingis because this is the level he's going to be at with his knee the next time I have a chance in the series.

ironically he looked okay playing bully ball in the paint like it wasn't as early for him as it had been but the three is like one of ten from three he says he didn't have the same lift right a lot of them were short yeah like it just like kind of it's like when kawaii doesn't seem like he's 100 healthy and all of a sudden his lift just drops by a whiff so that part worries me and then the porzingis piece they've been dealing with this all year he put 42 games

And it's been a question all year. Is he going to show up in what version are we getting? He did not look good other than I think one defensive game against Orlando. I did not think he looked in that Orlando series and he was awful last night. Like, like as we discussed, it feels like he's missed every three in the playoffs for the, I mean, I know he's made some against Orlando, but he's not shooting. Well, I want to mention one thing you mentioned end of shot clock possessions. That's a Celtics had two things on that. Number one,

We all know what you're doing on every possession. You're finding Cat and you're finding Brunson and you're putting one or both of them in actions that bring them into contact with Tatum and Brown and their cool set plays and all that. We all know what you're doing. You know what you're doing. The Knicks know what you're doing. The fans know what you're doing. Lucky the Leprechaun knows what you're doing. Can you just start doing it before there's 12 seconds on the shot clock? Like just too many possessions. They just fritter away the first half of the shot clock.

The more time you have when you start that first action, the more chances you give the Knicks to make mistakes or miss a rotation or whatever. And the second thing, I want to give the Knicks a lot of credit. When you get into scramble mode and the

And the Celtics will put you into scramble mode, whether you're switching, not switching. And the Knicks switch a lot more last night. Your entire goal as a defense becomes just make the offense, make one more pass, make one more play. And yeah, sometimes that led to, they make another play and another play and another play. And it's a pretty good layup that the Celtics happened to bonk. Or sometimes it's a,

a flyby where the first three they have to pump fake and wait for you to fly by and then they shoot another one and their rhythm is okay but not quite the same and they got lucky on the Celtics missing a lot of those shots but they made the Celtics make one more play and two more plays a lot particularly late in the game and you have you got to give them credit for that was they were flying flying on defense well and we didn't mention Josh Hart yet in in the right way because I thought the uh hmm

My battery saver just went on. What's going on? This is a lot of live YouTube drama here. Yeah. Oh my God. Am I going to have to carry this solo? Just, just fill in, start doing tap dancing. What's going on here? Uh, Josh Hart, as they were coming back,

I just thought he was everywhere. And even it said he only had 11 rebounds. It felt like he had his hands on 28 of them. And it just felt like he was always tipping stuff or he was around or he, you know, just was in the mix over and over and over and over again. And I thought he was good. The Celtics, it was a set. They were 17. And I think they were like,

seven for 30 from three or something terrible. And it's like, man, if we're up 17 shooting like this, this is going to be a really short series. And then I thought Hart and Ananobi specifically kind of took control of that comeback. And then Brunson did the rest. And we even talk about those three, those threes Brunson made. You could hear that, that sound, the crowd makes that sound like, Oh boy.

you know, which is reserved for a rare, small collection of players. And once he got into that zone, you could feel it. You could feel like, oh, this is bad.

How, how annoyed were you, you personally, I just mean you personally, how not me, you Reggie Miller's just cackling delight over how much he loves Jalen Brunson and Jalen Brunson is the best closer in the game. The best four score. They got the like 10 times. He called him the best fourth quarter player in the game, the clutch award winner. Like I could, I could feel you like, no, Reggie, we get it. We, you love him. You love him, but we get it. I liked, I like Brunson. Uh, it,

It's he's a hard, definitely a hard guy to root against because he's such an overachiever. But when I hear that, I'm just like, Jokic is in the league. We can't just hand somebody as this person is the best person at the end of the game when Jokic is at the level he's at right now. If you went and ironically, OKC was the next game. And it's like, I'm pretty sure Jokic is just as good in the clutch. And I feel like he's going to make the right decision every time, too. Can I talk about Josh Hart real quickly since you brought him up?

Super fun game for him. And the Celtics predictably put Porzingis on him to start the game and put Tatum on Towns, which is what they've done every Knicks game, which is why this game felt in terms of experiencing it live, watching it live,

One of the stranger games I can remember because at halftime, it felt like standard issue Knicks Celtics. Like I've seen this game a bunch of times. The Celtics are winning by a lot. They're doing all the things that annoy the Knicks and give them problems. And he just were like, I guess this is how the series is going to go. Like this is exactly what we expected. And then it completely flips on its head. Hart was active setting screens because he had their centers on him. And I thought Missoula,

made a mistake late in the game and I put I have it in my notes I thought he should have switched Horford onto Hart much sooner than he did instead of keeping him on cat and getting that Brunson cat pick and roll which they just switched and Horford ends up on Brunson you could do that with Hart if you want I don't think they would switch if they were on Hart so I thought he kept him um on on cattle too long by the way Josh Hart footnote from Detroit game six just footnote forgotten footnote second quarter of that game Nick's Pistons are on a run

Knicks are walking up the floor. They're clearly calling a timeout. Like Josh Hart has been instructed to call a timeout. Tibbs is complaining on the bench about whatever. And Josh Hart sees everybody stop playing and just aborts the plan, drives into traffic, draws a foul, two free points that the Knicks would otherwise not have gotten in a game they won by a Brunson shot at the end of the game. I texted Josh Hart after the game and I was like, dude, did you do that?

I was like, did you do the fake timeout and steal two points in a game you guys won by three? And he texted somebody back like, yeah, LOL, I was about to call timeout, but I saw nobody was playing. That's a Josh Hart play. That's like a heady and it mattered. They won the game by three points. I don't know if anyone even took note of it during the game. Yeah, this is the dream game for Josh Hart other than he was one for five from three because this is a kryptonite guy for the Celtics for how they're composed.

um, this undersized dude that you kinda, you have to just leave them open. But when you leave them open, um,

he's basically doing the drew holiday version of what drew holiday does multiplied by three. And just, he's around, he's annoying. The Celtics are not a great rebounding team. They're like a team rebounding team. Tatum is probably the best rebounder on the team. And that's the kind of team heart they don't have the, the Durin on the team, you know, they, they, uh, so he was, I thought all over the place, just being frisky and annoying. And

I mean, Ananobi finished with 29 points and he was six for 11 from three. I'm not sure he could play better than that, but I thought what was notable was he was carrying himself like he was as good as those guys. So you, so there, there's a recipe in place because the other thing that's alarming, I mean, they played 51 for bridges, 45 for heart, 43 Brunson, 45 Ananobi, which is just like, this is just what this is at this point, but they seemed healthier and fresher than the Celtics. Right.

Tatum seemed fine. Drew was moving good, white. But for the most part, you got Horford out there playing huge minutes because Porzingis can't play. Horford ends up at 34. I thought, because this became your kind of game where it was like, all right, the Knicks want to get Brunson on Horford. The Celtics want to get Tatum on Towns. And that's just what we're going to do for the last five minutes of the game. We want this match. You want this match. I was wondering...

If Missoula would go super small with Tatum at the five and put Pritchard out there instead of Horford. Do you think that was in play? Maybe. Maybe. Because then now you're switching. Now I guess you would hunt Pritchard in that scenario with Brunson. Maybe. I think I like that matchup more for the Celtics than Horford.

Yeah, I mean, you know, Hauser's injury leaves you one perimeter guy short. So you're really stretching all the guys you have left to play that lineup. But I don't think that's a bad. I don't think that's a bad lineup. By the way, you said Tatum looked fine. He did look fine. Seven of 23, 415 from three. It just has to make more. It was bad. More shots. It was a play with the food settle game. And.

Everyone who's watched the Celtics team in the last couple of years, they've watched the team goes up between 17 and 25 in the third quarter. And then for whatever reason, it just drops and they'd go too slow. And we've seen it. We've seen it 50 times. Yeah. Again, the only thing that was different about this Knicks Celtics game for a half than the other four they've played.

is that the Knicks switched with Towns so often. And I get why. They're trying to be the magic. They're trying to do what the magic did to depress the Celtics' three-point volume. Spoiler alert, they did not. And...

The risk of it was made very clear right away is Towns getting in foul trouble. And he got in foul trouble. And to his credit, he stayed out of foul trouble. Yeah. There was a lot of guys all night in both games in foul trouble. And I do wonder what level of switching we're going to see with Towns in game two. Because it's an interesting risk reward that I don't really think paid off for the Knicks. Yeah. Michael Pena wrote about that for the Ringer. That...

they basically just emulated the Orlando strategy and towns in particular, there were, there were plays where he just was kind of wandering around like a, like a drunk guy leaving the bar at two in the morning. And the Celtics were just trying to find him so they could torture him. But listen, what Orlando did, that's basically you're forcing the Celtics into the play with your food strategy. Um, I'm not super nervous yet. I don't know why.

But I just feel like everything went right down the stretch for the Knicks in that game. And the Celtics just, it was a weird game. The Jalen Brown thing makes me more nervous than the Porzingis thing. Cause I think they can win without Porzingis this series long-term. I don't know if they can win four rounds, but if Jalen's going to be, you know, he was seven for 20. He was one for 10 from three. Um,

And I just don't feel like athletically he looks like he did. I think you're underselling the Porzingis thing. They're just such a different team. I know, but I wasn't counting on it. You weren't counting on it. Life is much harder for Towns if Porzingis is in the game. Oh, no question. But to me, Porzingis is a bonus. You know, when you miss half the season...

And you look like you did in the last, in the last series. Like, you know, that though, though, where I was thinking about is, can they get him right? If they get through the Knicks to this next round, because you come off that Knicks piston series and you're like, all right, they barely beat, you know, a, a, a piston seam that doesn't have half as much talent as the Celtics. Like, come on. Um, listen, one of the great Knicks wins in a while.

I know a lot of Knicks fans. I don't think the hopes were super high, but the Brunson piece of it, the fact that this guy can be this great at the end of games, really, you feel like you have a puncher's chance. And this would be, you know, if they could somehow do this, this would be a phenomenal, phenomenal upset, right? I mean, the Celtics were, I think,

They started out minus 1,000 for the series. I think they ended up like minus 800. And I think the general feeling was that the Knicks were going to lose and Tibbs was going to get fired. So now, doors open. Who the hell knows? I picked Celtics in five. I've actually been higher than consensus on the Knicks this year. I mean, when the Knicks were 0-1 or whatever against all the best teams in the NBA, I was talking to people around the league. I'm like, I still kind of like this team.

Just raw talent wise, I think they're a more dangerous playoff team than their record, but I just hated this matchup for them. It was really just about the matchup and how badly it's gone. And it's so fun because we get to live in this moment right now where we're three games into the second round and for at least the next 36 hours.

everything feels like it's been flipped on its head and everything's in play. All the favorites are down. Oh one, like who knows? We could get to 72, 96 hours from now and order is restored. But right now this is like a fun, a fun place to live. Last thing I'll say, and then we'll move on to the OKC game. Tatum, who I think has been spectacular and has been playing the best he's ever played. And I thought he was awesome in the Orlando series. And just in general as a two way guy and as a dominant kind of bully force, uh,

Really went to another level. I don't know if it was a full step up, but it was somewhere between 50 and 75% a step up and you could just watch it day in, day out. I thought yesterday was not a good game for him at all. And I'm really interested to see how he responds because that was three years ago, Tatum watching him and he,

They need him to be the best player in this series to win. And maybe basketball, I was thinking about this actually. Maybe we just overthink all of basketball. Maybe it just comes down to who has the best player who's going to play the best in the series. And that's just all we should look at. Maybe that's what the Denver OKC series is. Maybe that's just going to come down to who's going to be better, Jokic or SGA, and that's it. They need Tatum to be the best guy. Ironically, this was the...

it was not i was not skeptical about boston last year i picked them to win the championship but that was the source of whatever skepticism remained about boston was well they're going to face philly and not have the best player they're going to face milwaukee and not have the best player they're going to face dallas in the finals or denver in the finals and not have the best player and it turned out they were just the best team and tatum outplayed some of those guys when given the opportunity to do it or was it was at their level at least so it's it's funny to to

to bring that up now in conjunction with Brunson and Tatum. Brunson was great, and Ndobi was great, and this is going to be a fun series, hopefully. Well, the other piece of this now is the Knicks have three home games, and if they take care of business in all three, they advance to the next round. And everybody's going to talk about how incredible and amazing and awesome that crowd's going to be, and it will be. But I also feel like the Celtics team, in some ways, I trust them more on the road.

I don't know what happens to them at home, especially when they have these big leads and the energy just kind of dips. But the game's going to be incredible. The tickets, I think, are going to be for this series probably the hardest Knicks tickets since 1999. Right? Yeah, I've had friends ask me about...

about tickets and like people don't understand like i can't get you tickets i don't get tickets right when i go to games i get press passes and i've had like i have a family friend who really wanted to go and i'm like you can go buy tickets good luck they're gonna i bet it's gonna be like a thousand dollars to get in the door like for upper upper deck seats oh it'll be i so what i was hearing from the south side was it was finals level to get in the door just even wow game one like that's how hard it was nix is even harder

And then it has the added thing of the Adam Silver, James Dolan, whatever is happening there. And, you know, I think the Knicks take as many tickets as possible and give them to whoever they want. And just in general, I think for the demand versus, oh yeah, I can help you out. There's no, I can help you out with these Knicks camps anymore. It all comes down to Dolan because he controls everything. And the Dolan-Adam Silver thing is just bizarre. This is the, this is the feud between,

that everybody in the league talks about, but nobody actually talks about out loud. Right. I mean,

Well, you're doing it right now. Stories have been written about it. No, but I mean, like this is... James Dolan writes angry correspondence frequently. I think it's way angrier and weirder. Like at this point, he's just the dissenting vote and basically any chance he can get, he's going to do it. And it's just gotten super weird. So that's this other variable of this. But Boston, New York, amazing. All right. We are in full swing with the NBA playoffs and there is no better place to be part of the action than Phoenix.

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And it smells like victory for all of us. I think OKC should be more nervous than the Celtics. And here's why. That game yesterday, it reminded me a little of, I know we're not supposed to care. What's it called now? The Commissioner Cup? The Emirates. It's the Emirates. The Emirates Cup. Emirates Cup.

And Milwaukee kind of kicked their ass in the last game. And it's like, this means nothing, but just something to file it away. I'm sure, by the way, I'm sure Milwaukee fans can look back at that and say to themselves today, we had a great, you know what? Great season. Great season. We won the Emirates Cup. Awesome season. Everything after that didn't matter. Put the banner up. But that game, there was a big bully on the other side.

And then OKC fell behind and it just became Shea. And is anybody else going to help me? And then nobody was helping him. And the game yesterday, which it felt like OKC was going to win for 44 minutes. And then Denver just hung around. They hung around. They hung around. And Jokic was, I mean, that was an all-timer from him. But as it got closer and closer and it just became...

Shea, anybody else? Is anybody else going to do anything? And they just seemed young. They got out-rebounded by 20. They got a really good Shea game. They got an unexpectedly good Caruso game. I mean, statistically.

They got 20 points from Caruso, but they just gave up a monster Denver game. And Denver's down to five guys. And they're a little like the Knicks. They're like, here are five. And maybe we'll get 15 minutes out of Peyton Watson. Wait, who's the... Are you counting Russ as the fifth or Porter Jr. as the fifth? I am because I think Porter's like legitimately hurt. And, you know, people have been kind of talking about it and whispering about it. But I think Porter...

What gave him away that he's wearing a football shoulder pad during games? Is that what gave him away? He's legitimately hurt and I don't know what they can count on from him. So they're down to five plus injured Porter plus like a whiff of Peyton Watson and a whiff of DeAndre Jordan. Then that's their team and they don't care.

Julian straw their cameo last night. I got really excited. The first I thought, Oh, they're going to give them a shot. And then we didn't see him in a second. We didn't see him in a second half. Can I give you a crazy stat? What?

The Denver starting lineup with Russ in Michael Porter Jr.'s place is now plus 42 in 75 minutes in the playoffs and has attempted 31 more free throws than the opponent in those 75 minutes. That is like an insane number.

free throw differential. And it has a 40% offensive rebounding rate and like an 85% defensive rebounding rate. So it's just pounding the crap out of other teams, getting to the line, winning on the boards. It's a monster number, that lineup, which is really shooting challenged. They found ways around it. I thought Russ was awesome as a cutter yesterday, which they're going to have to be on point on their cuts. But we got to talk. We got this...

Discussion has to start with Mark Dagnall It has to start with OKC blowing that game At the end, blowing a challenge Which I didn't mind so much And screwing up the fouling up three Strategy, they did it too early And then when Jokic was out of the game And they could not bring him back Into the game to bail Denver out With a foul up three with

with 10 seconds left. Took .1 seconds off the clock. And Jokic off the floor and give David Adelman a chance to bring Jokic back into the game. I wonder if Adelman, with no timeouts, takes Jokic out for defense, they screw up the out-of-bounds play anyway, and Shea gets a dunk out of it to put Oklahoma City back up by three. I wonder if he thought, even if they score here, they're going to foul, and I'm going to be able to bring Jokic back into the game. But I...

I don't know if he was playing chess or if he made a mistake and the Thunder made an even worse mistake to bail him out of it. I hated that. I'm a foul up three guy, but not that early. Is there a support group for this? Do you have a club? Is there a Facebook group? I like it. Like eight seconds is about my marker where I'm like,

I'm cool foul up three or if or if the offense just gives you a chance, they're dribbling around with their back to the basket and there's someone convenient to foul too early and not when the best player on the floor is out of the game, like effectively played out of the game. I couldn't believe they fouled in that situation. I think Dagnall after the game said, that's my fault. I told him to foul. I took the blame for it.

You left out one piece. They fouled the guy 70 feet from the basket. Yeah, instantaneously. Why not let him dribble 40 feet, kill three seconds, and then foul?

So even as you're saying no one came along for the ride with Shea, Chet misses two free throws, a putback dunk and a fast break dunk. J-Dub is five of 20 or whatever he ends up as. Was it five to five of 20? Even as you're saying that they still had the game and they still blew the game with bad clock management. And and like rare, you and I both think he's a top three coach in the NBA. Rare bad coaching game for Mark Dagnall.

I was one of only two people out of 100 that voted him for best coach of the year. You know what I stand by? Have you found the other one yet? I'm not going to be bullied into group think votes. I thought the team won 68 games and was missing one of their two centers for half of the season. You got to find who the other one was and have a little... Why did we just decide it was Kenny Atkinson? I still don't understand that part. I thought there were cases for both sides.

Because they won 64 games or whatever it was. His team was awesome. It looked like a completely different... I think they looked like a completely different team stylistically. Because Darius Garland's face wasn't broken because Mobley's a year older. Because Mitchell re-signed and knew he was going to be there because Ty Jerome was awesome. Like, I don't know.

Man, do you have a photo of Dagnall hanging up in that background somewhere? I do. I used to do this with Popovich too. I don't like for some reason, if you're too successful from a team standpoint, then you somehow get penalized as a coach. Like the sweet spot is there has to be a jump in wins from a year before to the year after. Like Emea Doka got more votes than Dagnall. Dagnall won 68 games.

They beat everybody. Anyway. And yet, what are we going to talk about now? Well, he screwed up. But it was a two-part screw-up. It's whether you foul with Jokic on the floor as one piece, but then the other piece is when you fouled and that you didn't rip off. Foul him with six seconds left or seven seconds left. There were so many great things about that stretch down the last three. Jokic, the bully ball jump hook on Caruso.

was just like, there's just nobody, nobody does that. There's nobody who's like, oh, you have this. I'm at the top of the key. I'm just going to work you down 15 feet and then scoring you. But then the other one, that three he had over Hartenstein, um, the, where he was like doing the pump fake faint, pump fake faint. And Hartenstein's like, you know, he's what? 6'11".

He didn't have like a huge margin of error and he just fucking drained it right in his face. Tough shot. And then the next play, they, they do the right thing. They triple team him. He finds Russ. Russ is open by 12 feet. Mrs. Gordon gets the rebound and somehow didn't score. And then it felt like, okay, so he had the game. And then of course,

They didn't. Well, Jokic has the same superpower as Brunson, just differently sized players, which is all these teams want to help. When you get deep into the paint, they want to save their help for late. And they are elite shooters from 11 to 13 feet, 11 to 15 feet, which is a very awkward spot on the floor. And that that basket you mentioned over Caruso after they switched.

I one adjustment for the thunder, I think is you just got to help more aggressively and sooner. Just force him to force him to make that pass to rush or Christian Brown or whoever, because he's going to make 60% of those 12 foot shots. He doesn't see Alex Caruso. He feels them because you feel Alex Caruso, but he doesn't see them. And, um, but that he's just there. That's their superpower. They make those baskets one-on-one from a range where teams are not ready to just swarm yet. I think you've got to swarm, swarm, swarm.

That was game four Clipper series Jokic in that game too. He was an absolute animal. And the, you know, that clip that went viral today of him just screaming at the entire huddle and, and everyone's just like staring at him. Like they're watching a UFO. Like he has complete command of the entire bench. He, I mean, he,

42 and 22 and six assists in a game. They put that list up of the guys who've done that. It was not a long list and it was all the, some of the best players in the history of the league. I felt like I've watched him do have a game like that 12 times this year. It wasn't like, it was like, whoa, this is a career game from Jokic. I was watching it going,

I wonder what OKC's move is here because Chet, who I think is awesome, I think he's a top 20 trade asset, didn't seem big enough against him. And then Hartenstein. Well, he's not. I mean, we all knew that going in. No, he's not. He really felt it watching.

I was very surprised that they started with Chet on Jokic and Hartenstein on Gordon. I thought they would go the other way around, obviously, like the true sort of what the Wolves did with Rudy Gobert, Hartenstein on Jokic and Chet kind of roving around. And they switched to that at various points during the game. I thought that would be their base defense. And that's one of the reasons I'm like a little disappointed

I'm not worried so far about either of the favorites, either of these two teams. But I felt like this series is more of an unknown because we've barely really seen the Oklahoma City two bigs against Jokic, Gordon, Nuggets. And this was much more of a not feel-out game because the stakes are too high for a feel-out game. But there are too many levers left for everybody to pull in this series. But I thought that was interesting.

interesting and surprising to me that that's the way they chose to match up i i get the theory of it i would just rather have holmgren's shop locking lurking around and he's too skinny for yokich yokich is going to eat him up what do you think about do you think we'll see dort mess around yokich and hoping to get the yokich turnaround elbow in the face flagrant foul every game

He got elbowed in the face. I am always sympathetic to big guys who get called for those fouls, even just regular offensive fouls, because they're just penalized for being tall. Yeah. I did not think this was going to be a series. Yeah, you were adamant. You were adamant. I have to text messages to prove it. I just didn't think with five guys or five and a half or six, whatever the depth that OKC has, it just seemed like a tall task.

And then you watch OKC looking a little wide eyed and young and you, you know, it's the mistake we always make with this stuff is forgetting the playoff experience piece. And they just don't have a lot of it. Like who was the guy that showed up for OKC yesterday other than SJ? It was Caruso who played in a bunch of big games, you know, and that's so maybe maybe this becomes a longer war because there's no way that Denver wins the first one.

They'll win at least one in Denver, right? This is probably two, two after four. And this is going to keep going. And we'll see. We'll see, you know, I pick a young OKC team. What do you got? Because we are now in real sphincter tightening time. Let's go. I picked Oklahoma City in six. Howard Beck picked Oklahoma City in seven. Oh, I had five. And well, I mean, both of us said Oklahoma City should win.

I just can't go shorter than six with Jokic. Like the Nuggets don't lose playoff series by wide margins if the team is healthy around Jokic, if Murray and Porter are healthy around Jokic.

Um, and so I went six out of sort of deference to Jokic because I do think Oklahoma City, I'm talking to an empty chair. What's up chair? Um, Oklahoma City is the better team, the deeper team. They have home court. They're rested, although not a good week for the team rest, um, in rest versus rest. But Jokic is Jokic. Like he's the best player. He's going to be the best player.

And he was awesome last night. He had enough help. And just like, look, everyone's going to focus on the buzzer beater. Second buzz, not buzzer beater, but almost buzzer beater. Aaron Gordon has just become one of my favorite players in the NBA. This is like we all talked for years about how miscast he was in Orlando, both by his own fault and the Magic's fault and supporting everything.

This is one of those trades where like he was born to play with Jokic. He was born to play this role. He should never leave. I think he knows he should never leave. It's just absolutely perfect. He's so goddamn tough. Like he gets down inside.

and just beats the hell out of people. And he's patient and he pump fakes and he'll jump through you. And he's gotten so good at finishing tough shots around the rim. Seven offensive rebounds. Deaked Jalen Williams on a free throw offensive rebound, which is one of my favorite things that he does every once in a while. Just an awesome, awesome player. Awesome player. And I think somebody who takes real pride in being a champ and being part of something special, because I could feel it in those Clipper games I went to where...

especially game four where him, Jokic and Murray all had that attitude of, we are not fucking going down. We are not losing this team. And, um, and you know, who's becoming like that Christian Brown, just like talk about a guy. I all of a sudden trust in any big spot, even on threes, only one of four from three last night. I don't mind when he shoots them 13 rebounds, a couple of big putbacks. Like he's just awesome. He's ready. He's ready for all of it.

I think this is an amazing story because they fired their coach with like a week to go in the season and their GM. And they basically, you do the, you're basically announcing, we don't like how this team was coached and we don't like how the roster was put together, which is usually insulting to about half of the roster. Right. But somehow I think they're in the course of that Clipper series. They found something, you know, but I look back at that series, like the Clipper should have won game one. They just didn't.

threw it away in a bunch of ways. And then game four, they had it. They had it in the last minute. And it really felt like that series should have been at least three, one Clippers. And then the Nuggets flipped it. And by the end of it, then James Harden decided to become James Harden again. And that was that. But I feel like the Nuggets have found whatever identity. I also feel like watching Jokic last night, it really showed how well the Clippers were able to defend him those last couple of games. Like Zubats, Zubats has to be like, see,

See how well I did? Look at all the stuff he's doing in this game. I was trying to hold him down. Same for Batum. But anyway, that was a nice little prepping for this OKC. That was a war. And by the end of it, they had really conquered that Clippers team. The OKC is minus 320 to win this series right now in FanDuel. And the Celtics are minus 370, which I think is notable. So they think

The Fando and the betting community think Denver has a slightly better chance. There's more of a recipe, in my opinion, for them. The Celtics-Knicks thing seems to hinge more on injury stuff, health. Can the five Knicks guys keep playing big minutes like this and seem as athletic and competent as they did last night? And the Denver one...

This is more of a look in the mirror for OKC, it feels like. All right, you guys ready for this? Because this is a team that won the title two years ago that has the best player in the league, and they are up for this. So what do you got? You don't see a lot of Thunder losses when they double up the other team and force turnovers. Nuggets had 18 turnovers. Oklahoma City had nine. That's usually like Oklahoma City wins by 20. That's their formula. That's how they win.

there are a couple of things I think they could do better. I don't think they punish Jokic enough defensively. And they let Michael Porter Jr. off the hook. If that dude's going to play, I'm going at him every single possession one way or another. And I don't think they did nearly enough defensively

There's other things they can do, but I, you know, I can't wait for this was the series. I guess the common denominator is Denver. Denver's like always in the series that I'm most excited about. I think part of it is Jokic. Part of it is that they're sort of the basketball nerds team. And the Thunder are, you know, in a lot of ways, a basketball nerds team as well. I cannot wait for game two of this series. It still feels like an unwrapped present. Like there's a lot of mystery to it. I can't wait for it. Well, we didn't even talk about the Westbrook piece yet. There's this great video. Oh my God.

The Nuggets studio announcer is watching the Gordon three and they inbound the Paul. They get the rebound. They throw it to Russ and Russ is dribbling over midcourt. And all three guys are like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then he passed it to Gordon and Gordon hit the three. But that's that Russ rollercoaster ride, especially like he is now prominently involved in this game. And he's been really good for them.

I got to hand it to him the last couple of games, the right amount of energy. He hasn't done like a lot. I got this. It's like, okay, I guess I've got this shots, but not a lot of,

clear out like guys i figured it out like even him passing to gordon i thought was a win because two years ago i think he just tries to go the basket well brown gets the rebound and he has an immediate choice of do i bring this up myself or do i kick it ahead to russ on the wing and i'm watching him like i wonder what he's gonna do here and he kicks it ahead like i talked a lot about russ on my pod yesterday i don't want to repeat it the one thing i didn't say

that has been different about him this playoffs versus last playoffs. And this is to your point about his steadiness defensively. He's not playing wild defense. And again, like last year, he was just gambling, doing crazy stuff, flying all over the place. He's been doing his role, sticking to his guy, getting rebounds, but he's just been playing within himself defensively.

On both ends of the floor, which for Russ is not an easy thing to do by his own admission. He's a force of nature, quote unquote, liable to do anything at any time. But he's been steady on defense. And I think that's all like a lot of it with Russ is eliminate the loudest mistakes, eliminate the loud gambles on defense that go bad, eliminate the loud misses at the rim when you fall over. And he's like kind of done that. He Gordon hit the three. And I don't know if you noticed in the video.

Russ like just screams like, like an absolute maniac. He wanted it so bad. Cause you forget about the OKC piece where he's, I would say the most popular, popular player in the franchise history. Even now, SJ is probably in the process of taking it. But, um, and then he goes back against this whole team. Like he's been on so many teams now. You forget that he kind of belongs to OKC. What's your favorite memory of him with the wizards?

Joe House talking himself into him. I think that's probably my favorite. It's more like a friend memory of Joe has been like, look, the guy plays hard every day and he's inspired bill. I mean, what else do you want from me? Um, so if you had to pick one team to lose and be upset between Boston and OKC, I'm telling you right now, I came from the future. I'm like, one of these two teams is going to lose. Who do you think it would be? I'm still going Boston just for the health uncertainty. Um, I would say OKC, but maybe, uh,

Maybe I'm too optimistic on young Jason Tatum, who I thought was awesome this year and I fully expect. But man, if OJ and Anobi is going to play like that. All right. Taking one more break for the podcast and then we're going to do our town's Porzingis thing. This episode is brought to you by Vrbo Private Vacation Rentals. With Vrbo, you can save over $200 on select homes when you stay for a week or more. Say you want to go catch a few baseball games in Boston. Take some time off work, fly into Beantown.

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There's a shoe for everyone. It's comfort. You have to feel to believe. Try Ultra for yourself with a free 30-day trial and free shipping at ultrarunning.com. I asked you because we've been doing deep dives on Tuesdays, which was the original plan today before those two games were awesome. And Towns is kind of unlike any other player in the history of basketball for...

What the perception of his is, what of him is, what his career achievements are from like an all NBA, hasn't made the finals, two 13 all NBAs, that's it. Seems like he's going to be second team this year. Pretty frustrating. I would say he's probably the Knicks fans probably have a love-hate relationship, just being kind.

Um, but then you see stuff like, all right, how many players in NBA history have averaged 24 and 11? And it's like Kareem, Wilt, Bob Pettit, George Mike and Elgin Biller, Towns, Embiid. And that's the entire list. What is this career? We've seen 10 years of it. What is it?

It's a very strange career. It's been a different career in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. His playoff points per game is still only 19 points per game on average. It's a big drop. 19 and 10 in the playoffs. But I will say, last season, I wrote a piece for ESPN about him after that Denver series about how he finally had sort of chilled out in the playoffs. And I think a lot of that has...

somewhat persisted beyond that Denver series. Um, and, and even in the, if the first round last year of they crushed Phoenix with Minnesota crush Phoenix, the crazy like hook pass turnovers to nobody are, are kind of gone from his game. His fouling got under control. It's back a little out of control. This playoffs. It's, um, he's just a really, he's just a really interesting player because the Timberwolves made a gigantic bet that, um,

We can't win big with Towns as a center. It's just defensively, it's just never going to work. And we're going to bet everything on it. And we're going to get Rudy Gobert. And then the Knicks...

bet not that much but a lot of salary cap space at least on actually we can win big with carl anthony towns as a center now maybe they planned on playing mitchell robinson with him much more than they had because of mitchell robinson's health injury and so we've seen these like is cat a four is he a five do we still not even know what he is if he is going to be your five do you have to have the

perfect ecosystem around it where teams can't do this thing where they guard him with a wing. Do you have to have just all incredible shooters around him? So they have to put their five on him and they, the Knicks can't get to that place as often as I think they would like. He's just a really, and the defensive limitations are still kind of as stark as ever, I think for him, but offensively, the shooting is just incredible.

He does have a case as the greatest long range shooting big man of all time. He probably is. It's just the Knicks haven't been able to leverage that skill as much as I think they would have liked to. Tries really hard. He can get in little funks sometimes if he's not getting the ball is the one thing you could ding him on. If it's a game where he's a stretch five afterthought, he can get a little sulky. The fouls are still really bad.

Um, he, especially at the end of games, he's, you know, he's going to have one. You're just kind of waiting on it. I was looking up his, his playoff game log, um, in the last 18 playoff games he's played that finished in single figures. So we're assuming they're close or relatively close. He's had five or six fouls in 11 of the 18 games. So you, you know, like if it's a close series with a lot of up and down stuff, he's either going to foul out or be in foul trouble or be lingering around, uh,

that is he going to be able to stay in this game for the last three minutes? His first few series, I remember writing about this, he had an alarming number of games and even more if you include play-in games

Which like, it drives me nuts how the playing games just vanish from like basketball. Like I can't. Let's make this our mission. Can you get off the foul by three Facebook group and we can start this instead? I can't find him, but he had like a lot of 11 points or under games. And part of it was foul trouble. Just always getting taken out of the game. Part of it was there would just be these games where

It was this sort of push and pull of, are they not calling enough plays for him to get the ball? Or is he just like kind of passively accepting not getting the ball in a way we don't want our superstars to be? And he just doesn't get the ball. And you're like, why is he not getting the ball? It was a very strange and like that's gotten a little better, particularly last season. And I remember the Denver series season.

the Minnesota Denver series that Denver won in the first round going up 3-0. I thought in the middle of that series, he kind of figured out some stuff. And that's why you, even when a series is 3-0 and kind of boring, you still got to keep an eye on it because you never know. And like, I thought he kind of turned a little bit of a page in that series. Was that when he said afterwards that other than losing, what was his quote about other than we lost, I still thought we had the best team?

I think he had some crazy. Remember that? I feel like that wasn't him. I feel like that wasn't him. And I don't remember who it was, but that's the year that Jada McDaniels punched a wall and Nas Reed was hurt. And they were kind of a mash unit. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this. I probably gave up on him as somebody who could be part of a possible finals team two years ago after that five game Denver series. And then last year,

Clearly there was more there. And the fact that Edwards was so high on him and really seems invested in building him up and trying to turn him into somebody special and a running mate, like that, that wasn't nothing. I do think the Knicks traded for him partly because they didn't have a center and they had this window after the Bridges trade and they had no idea when Robinson was coming back and they had no idea if Randall could play with those two wings. And it was a little bit of a fuck it trade combined with, we know this guy because he

Wes was with them in Kentucky. It was a little bit of a roll of the dice. I think it's turned out about as well as you could have guessed. For what their options were in September, not knowing if Mitchell Robinson was even going to play 40 games and who else was out there, we just saw Phoenix got completely submarine by the fact that it's hard to find a center among many other reasons. I think the trade was a success. I still wonder...

Is there another level for him or is this it? It feels like this is it. Year 10, I don't... Do you see him becoming all of a sudden the most imposing guy in the Celtics series? I don't. I think we are where we are. Yeah, I don't... I mean, defensively, I don't think much of a leap is ever going to come. I think he just is what he is defensively, which is a liability on the pick and roll and someone that you've got to kind of scheme around. Offensively, it just sort of...

If the team context were ever perfect around him, I could see him becoming like a like a oh my God, what am I supposed to do here kind of force, but it just. Yeah. So what kind of team is that? It's never going to if like Josh Hart could shoot threes to a point where people guarded him like but no one that that context is never going to exist. If he were Porzingis on Boston surrounded by Derek White, Drew Holiday, Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, then

He would be unguardable because you would have no choice but to put your five on him, which is why Porzingis lives such a great life when he plays in Boston. But that's a very hard needle to thread. And neither Minnesota nor New York have been able to thread it quite yet. Can you remember another player since you've been covering the league that people seem to be more out on but in on at the same time where people he's frustrating, but everybody seems to think he's a good guy?

Usually you'll get like when somebody is polarizing or up and down, or maybe I can't trust this guy in a playoff series. There's some character stuff you hear about. I don't really hear like everybody seems to like towns and be rooting for him. But at the same time, they don't really trust him to come through in a series. I just can't think of other guys like that. I'm racking. I'm racking my brain. He's it's unusual, right? He, he occupies this and he was the number one pick in the draft and he

I went, I, we're going to talk about the draft quickly. Like if you did the draft over again, either he or Booker would be the number one pick, right? Yeah. The, uh, the two to 13 span of that draft is rough. Unbelievable. So that draft for people who don't remember it, Towns is one, uh,

If you're going tiers for the redraft, Towns and Booker, who would you have Booker at Towns if you could go back in a time machine and pick one of those two? I'm like Russillo. I'm a big Booker guy. Yeah. I think it's probably Booker. I would take Booker. It's a 1A, 1B though, at least. Yeah. I'm happy with either, but I like Booker. Then the next two picks are Porzingis and Miles Turner. Porzingis went fourth. Turner went 11th. And then if you're thinking next four picks just for what the career success was, Norman Powell, number 46. Yeah.

Bobby Portis, 22. D'Angelo Russell, number two.

And Terry Rozier, number 16. So we've just immediately gotten wonkier than wonky. And then after that, guys who played were Oubre at 15, Richardson at 40, Looney at 30, Nance 27, Lyles 12, and Campaign 14. And then there was a Justice Winslow at 10 that I want to talk about. But the bus you mentioned. Of course you want to talk about Justice Winslow. That's a big one for you. That's the sliding doors of the last 10 years of the Celtics. The bus. Jaleel Okafor, third.

Marizonia, fifth. Cauley-Stein, sixth. Moutier, seventh. Stanley Johnson, eight. Frank Kaminsky, nine. Wow. Five through nine are out of the NBA. And have been. Five through 10. I mean, you have six, I would say busts in seven picks. And you also have Danny Ainge frantically offering all his picks because he loves Justice Winslow.

to Miami at eight to hang up on him. And then Charlotte at nine. And I think it was like three or four picks. I think at least one of the Brooklyn picks was in that. So that's basically Brown or Tatum. It's just not on the team. If Michael Jordan says, wait, you're giving me four picks. I guess I don't have to take Frank Kaminsky, right? Not Stanley Johnson was Detroit, not Miami. And then Miami's at 10 and they're there. They're like, fuck you. We're taking justice Winslow.

This is one of the weirdest drafts of the last 20 years. Looking back in Detroit, the debate for Detroit was and this is one of those things that I learned afterwards. I actually believe it's true. It's not just spin. It's because it's actually more embarrassing for them. It was Stanley Johnson or Devin Booker was their draft room debate and they chose Stanley Johnson. And it was either the year before or the year after it was Luke Kennard versus Donovan Mitchell.

And they chose Luke. I remember Denver traded the Donovan Mitchell pick to trade down. And it's one of many...

You go back and look at Denver's management of first round picks from like 2013 until now. Gobert too, right? Yeah, Gobert's out. But took Jokic. They dumped a pick to get rid of Farid. They dumped a pick to get rid of Nurkic. Like it's not, it's not awesome. But when you get Jokic. When you get Jokic at like number 42 or wherever that was. So yeah, so Porzingis was fourth and he was the third best guy in this draft. And he's another one. Like for his career, he's 20 and eight.

He's 46, 37, 83 for the percentages, which is fairly close to towns. He's missed 218 games and played 501. Last four years, he's missed 31, 17, 25, and 42. And he's hurt again. And he turns 30 in August.

And next year is a $30.7 million expiring. And a lot of people have been talking about how this Celtics team is not going to look the same next year because of the tax. I liked how that became a big story this week. I thought we've already been talking about this for like 18 months. Six month story. Yeah. This is part of the sale, the whole thing. I would say Porzingis would be, if this is the final run for him and he gets traded in the off season and he'll be a cult hero in Boston forever,

I also think it might be hard to trade him because this first, second apron and nobody has cap space. And when people say like, oh yeah, they'll just trade one of those guys. It's like, where? Nobody has cap space. You're just getting back a salary that then makes as much money as the guy you're trading. But you got a window. You got a window when the off season starts where the apron situation at least becomes more palatable for a lot of different teams. Right. But there's still, if the goal is to save luxury tax money,

There's no like Chris Paul, his contract expires on June 30th and you can trade it, trade for it and then waive it. I don't think there's a guy like that this year. So they're looking at stuff like John Collins on Utah for Porzingis. Utah wanted to get Porzingis two summers ago and they weren't able to get him.

Well, that would save the Celtics 4 million plus all the tax stuff that comes with the 4 million. So that's God only knows. And now you have John Collins instead of Porzingis and you're not the same team. You don't get there. There'll be no cookies and cream, cookies and cream. You're looking at what the Lakers want to do. Ruing Maxi Kleba's expiring. The Celtics and Lakers can't trade with each other. I'm just saying it's, this is way harder than I think people realize not to mention he's been hurt. And I don't,

I think he's probably going to be on the team. When you think of him, though, because we were doing the whole unicorn, that was a whole narrative with him and Giannis and some others in 2017. Is his career slightly better than you thought, slightly more disappointing than you thought, or right around the same? It's way more disappointing, but mostly just because he's injured so often. I mean, I think back to, I remember vividly when he got traded to Dallas, right?

how most of the reaction and part of it was Knicks fans had grown so attached to him. Finally, we have a homegrown player, a homegrown star that we can build around. We nailed this pick. He does all these crazy stuff. Durant calls him the unicorn. Then he gets injured. Then he gets traded. But the reaction was fury.

fury from Knicks fans that they gave up on him so early and got what looked like so little in return. And then of course, Dallas has to go and trade him for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans a couple of years later. But there was that, there's always these windows, right? Like there was that for the bubble playoffs where for a little bit, he and Luca look legitimately like, oh, I get this. This is dangerous. This is like a really dangerous one point, whatever point forward center combination. And then injuries undo that and you get straighted.

Then Boston, perfect compliment. Team raises to another level when he's out there. He was the superpower. He's not out there enough. Even the finals last year, he plays game one. When you say cold hero, it's about game one and game five of the finals. Game one, he comes out like a house of fire. Post up, post up, three, block, chase down, block, post up. Then he gets injured. Then he comes back for the clincher and plays like, okay, the emotional lift. He comes out of the tunnel. Couple of big plays.

And now we don't. I mean, I don't know. Do you know? I don't know. Did they say anything after the game? I don't even know what the illness is. That's been tight-lipped. I've never gotten an answer on it.

So it seems like the legs were covered, although I don't love the way he's moving. I thought there was that one play when Josh Hart was under the basket around him and Porzingis just like misread it. And he stumbled in a way that I was like, it's usually he's not stumbling. Yeah, I think his rim protection has been largely consistent, even when a shot. Yeah, that was weird because in the Orlando series, I think it was game two, even though he didn't make a shot for three games.

He still really impacted one of the first two games. I think it was game two. And he looked like Porzingis defensively. And it's like, all right, the shot's going to come. This guy's a 40% three-point shooter. The guy yesterday, I guess we'll find out. But, you know, it just has this dramatic effect.

on everything because now Horford has to play more. Now your rotation shorter. Now you're really relying on Sam Houser, who of course sprains his ankle. But it messes up. Who's your next guy in line? If they have to go deeper into their rotation beyond the regular rotation, who's the guy you trust the most out of the next group of guys? Well, there's going to be more Cornette.

I'll tell you, man, Luke Cornett's good. The guy's a good basketball player. I think it's as simple as that. I think he played 17 minutes yesterday. So you think nobody else... But I'm asking you, if forced, and you've got to go beyond the Cornett, Pritchard, Hauser, Horford, like I just got to steal minutes. Are we dusting off Torrey Craig? Who do you actually trust? Shireman? No, I don't trust Shireman. Torrey Craig? I mean, played a little and then we haven't seen him.

And I'm not really sure why. Maybe he just didn't crack. We only had five playoff and six playoff games, but I guess it would be Torrey Craig. It's whoever you don't want the Knicks to just be like, oh, this guy's in like Shireman comes in. The Knicks are going to be like, let's let's just get him in a pick and rolls and get Brunson on him. And let's go. Kata? Kata time? Maybe a Kata versus Mitchell Robinson. I'll tell you. Mitchell Robinson's out there. Maybe maybe Kata it up. I swear to God, this is true.

In my notes, I have a whole sheet of notes previewing Nick Celtics.

I had a little thing in the margins, and I looked at it while I was podcasting with Howard, and I was like, you know what? We're running out of time. This is too crazy to say. I didn't mind the precious of two minutes in that game. If we're talking about guys who don't play and I think could have a role to play in this series, if you're going to switch, that's one thing he can do. And I know he was only in because they had foul emergencies and Mitchell Robinson can only play so many minutes.

I actually liked his minutes and it's in my notes like, hey, maybe just like maybe he's a guy who can play in this series. I wonder if Tibbs goes back to him at any point to try to steal some minutes. Well, what do you think the Knicks ultimate goal is in this series? Because I think it would be, can we just...

get the Celtics to play one-on-one basketball and have as many people as possible playing many minutes as possible where we're not just getting torched playing one-on-one defense. So if that's the case, then that means Precious would play more, I would think.

Maybe. I mean, I think their goal, their goal is not what happened yesterday. They are not going to be able to win if Boston takes 63s. Um, even if I think that's too many and you probably think that's too many, although ironically, when they finally went to the rim late in the game, instead of kicking out for an open three, Jalen Brown missed at the rim. It's like, this is why they don't go to the rim, I guess, is because the kickout was there. Um,

I think every team's goal is try to sucker Boston into Tatum and Brown taking a bunch of 18 footers and just bog down the offense. Don't let them run. Don't let them get the blender going. It's just much easier said than done. Orlando did a pretty good job of it. They have better personnel for it than the Knicks do. But I think that's every team's goal.

Well, it's weird to me that the Celtics don't look at the metrics of when they walk it up like that, when you can feel the pace go away from the game and how it just seems like it's bad for them. I mean, I'm sure they do. Joe Mazzulla is a very smart coach. Their staff is very smart. But he's not on the sidelines going, push it, push it, stop walking it up. You want him to do the Spoh arm wave? Spoh is the best arm wave in the NBA. So it starts and ends with Spoh. Who is the worst arm wave?

I was going to say Doc, but Doc will get out of his crouch and throw an arm wave in there every once in a while. I don't see Ty Lue do a lot of arm waving. Ty Lue. It's off the top of my head. Poor Ty Lue. How many times do you think he's just been staring out at the ocean or wherever he lives just thinking of, I can't believe James Harden tricked me. I can't believe I bought in. I can't believe I believed. Why didn't I listen to all the people in my life who have coached him or played with him? Why? Why did I trust this?

I can't, it's just, I don't know. It was not, it was not good. It was not good. Well, you talked about, you always talk about the doc face. Yeah. Um, in some of the playoff games where it'll cut the doc and doc just has that frozen look like, Oh God. I always say his face looks so tight that it looks like his skin is going to crack open into pieces. Harden. It's tougher because he's got the beard. It's more of like a hardened demeanor.

Where he's just like, look, man, I'm just, I am not going to shoot. I'm not going to look toward the rim. I, uh, we don't need to, we don't need to do it. I know it's over. It's over. Like there's no, there's no debating left anymore. Just like, that's it. We've closed it. Last take. That'd be a good new show. Last take. Just everyone looking at each other. Like, uh-huh. Yeah.

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That's betterhelp.com slash Bill Simmons. So Porzingis, a lot less to discuss, but how long do you think he's... Is he playing when he's 35? I would... I mean, I would... What is he now? He's 29. He's going to be 30 this season. I would say no, but I mean... I worry about these tall dudes, man. It's not... The history's not great. Like the people like Kareem, you know, are real outliers when you compare them to...

Some of the other people we've had, the Ralph Sampson. I mean, even somebody like Embiid. It's just, it's, you see them in person. It's just a lot of legs. You mentioned Embiid. I haven't listened. I've listened to part of you and Ryan from Sunday. When did you, I guess it must be toward the end when you bring up Embiid to the Lakers. You're going to have to take me through this one. Like you got aggregated. Was there, there was really an Embiid to the Lakers. You know what I was doing? I was aggregating aggregation hunting.

I was trying to get aggregators in a switch so I could go one-on-one. What was the trade? We were just talking about if the Lakers, obviously they need to find a center, right? There's not a lot of centers. So you can talk yourself into the Quinn Capella type of guy, or you could be like, well, fuck it. LeBron's 41. Let's take a swing. Could we talk Philly into, here's a bunch of expirings.

And here's a first round pick and maybe a conditional one more first round pick. And we'll take your Embiid problem. And we'll be the ones that as our fingers crossed that he's ever going to play again. And you guys can just get out of this. You'll draft, you know, you're hopefully have a top five pick if the lottery works out your way. And by the way, the Bruins yesterday in the NHL lottery, Zach, fifth pick supposed to be there in the fifth spot.

Worst case scenario, they could move back two spots. Two teams jumped them, finished seventh. It was the Phillies' sixer scenario. I thought the Bruins were good. Are they not good anymore? They were bad last year. Yeah. Okay. So they had the, you know, the worst case scenario happened and it just made me think of Philly. Like, this is it. Two teams jumping Philly and they dropped to seven and OKC gets that pick. Is Cam Neely still involved?

He's a little involved, yeah. You throw me on Sega Genesis 1993, 94. Oh, that was your guy? Cam Neely and Ray Bork. I was smoking people. Very fun teams, the 93, 94. I would always trade for Peter Klima just to give them one more wing.

In the NHL 94, yeah. I'd always try to cheat. Craig Janney taking face-offs. So you think Embiid has zero trade value? It was just the thought bubble for the Lakers. No, it's interesting. So I was thinking if Daryl Morey made that trade, like if they got expirings and an asset, you said a first-round pick, right? They're not getting Reeves. They're not getting Reeves, right? Just a pick. What would the reaction be?

in Philly and would, would Daryl, Daryl would have to have the courage to say, if he gets healthy, I'm going to look like an idiot. Yeah. My basketball hoop just fell back there. Uh, but I'm looking like 51, 55, 59, 64, $69 million player option in 2029. I think you'd have to do that trade if you were Philly and it were offered to you. Yeah. But what about the Lakers? I, you know, I, I mean, I, I shouldn't say that so flippantly.

Oh, I'm going to say it flippantly. You do that trade. You get out of that contract. Because we all know how great he is, but the evidence is just is what he is. And it's so long. It just goes on forever now. I think you'd probably have to do it. And with the fans riot or with the are the fans at this point, like whatever, like we've seen enough of the whole fans would be OK. Be my guess. Don't you think?

Yeah, it's just like, I guess we're going Maxie McCain and, you know, you got to keep, you better, better do well in the lottery this year. Better do, better not have the scenario you just laid out. By the way, I can't wait for the lottery. That's going to be an exciting lottery. Every lottery is exciting. This is a good one. Well, we had, it's an insane group of guys in the lottery. And then there's a couple of teams that have been completely irrelevant forever. Right. Right.

in Charlotte or Washington gets flagged. And it's like that nobody's thought about those teams for a hundred years. I can't, I can't, I gotta say, I gotta admit it.

I spent my daughter's swim practice lesson. I was the carpool guy last night. And when I'm the carpool guy, there's a little conference room. You're a solid carpool guy. I've heard that about you. I'm a great carpool guy. Snacks. It's like a party back there. But I spend the practice and there's a conference room with Wi-Fi. I watched a solid 30 minutes of Ace Bailey tape. I was like, I got to see what everyone's talking about with Ace Bailey. It's...

Very exciting lottery with the Philly subplot, with Houston getting Phoenix's pick. Lots of stuff going on in the lottery. Ace Bailey is a little unicorny with just how unusual of a prospect he is, where he's like 6'9", 100 pounds, and is just this crazy one-on-one player. I've just started getting the lottery. I'm trying to figure out how Rutgers was an NIT team with two of the top three players in a loaded draft. That gives me the little Ben Simmons...

you know, retro, like, huh? Why are we so sure Ben Simmons is this good when LSU didn't make the tournament? How about Markel Fultz? It's another one. What was he like 10 and they went like 12 and 20 when he was there. I mean,

I don't know that you have two of those guys and you can't, you can't be like a 500 team. So that, that part makes me nervous. Flag's going to be unbelievable. Um, the OKC parts, the biggest, in a weird way, the biggest part of the lottery though, if they get just the seventh pick with all the other assets they have, what's the, what's the, what's the, uh, I watched some film on Malawatch and can nipple. Is it can nipple? What?

What's those guys like? I don't watch any college basketball. What's the book on Knipple? What are we thinking? Oh, I'm already locked in. He's going to go five spots too late and he's going to be a good rotation guy. And he's a pretty good athlete with the ball. He's a pretty good athlete with the ball. I guess the concern is just laterally. Can he slide his feet on defense? But he's got a little shit to him.

People are going to talk themselves out of him, and then he's going to be just... He's one of those guys. You're going to put him in NBA games and be like, oh, yeah, this guy belongs. So Duke started... How many lottery picks? At least three lottery picks? Well, the 7'2 kid. Malawach. He's gigantic. I don't know if anyone knows what to make of him as a prospect. You could tell me he could...

Going to the top seven, I wouldn't be shocked. That's the thing. I think when we get closer to the draft, I do think there's going to be some moves. But yeah, they had a bunch of... That's why it was so devastating when they couldn't pull it off because it seemed like they had by far the most talented team. And sometimes that doesn't matter in college basketball. I'm glad this is rare for you to study draft tape. Well, because I'm going to the lottery next week in Chicago.

And for some reason you've always loved the lottery. Cause it's ridiculous. It's completely ridiculous that, uh,

I can't, it's intoxicating that all these brainiacs come in this room. They've devoted their entire lives to getting an edge in this competitive business. And they're at the mercy of this stupid freaking machine that's spitting balls around like it's the local news lottery. It's the stupidest thing slash most awesome thing in sports. But I just was like, I got to get a little familiar with who's going to be on the board. That's all. I thought you were going to miss the lottery with your sprained MCL, but so you're going to play. You're going to go. I don't know.

I'm good. I'm going, I'm going to gut through it. That was a LeBron joke. He missed the Met, LeBron missed the Met Gala yesterday because he sprained MCL. Yeah. I, uh, yeah. Um, I was, I was also wondering if he was going to be at the Met Gala. You know what the NHL did yesterday? They did the lottery. Like it wasn't done. And then they announced the cards. They just did it live. Almost like mid eighties, David Stern style. And I was wondering if the NBA would ever want to do that. Just make it a longer show.

Like actually do the actual ping pong balls? Yeah, like bring the fucking ping pong balls out. Just do it that way. Why wouldn't they do it that way? So they broadcast the actual lottery afterwards. Like right when the show ends, they do. I think, I don't know why. I think it's out of, I think the TV partners prefer the show. It's, I don't know why. I don't know why. What would you prefer? I think I would want to see the ping pong balls and the guys reacting. There is something about

a guy being on stage on national television, having his heart ripped out. That is just, it is, is just pretty good television. It's pretty, it's pretty great. Unless it's ML Carr in 1997 with the frozen face smile. Jerry, was it Jerry West in 2003 for the Grizzlies? I mean, a top seven. What if in the history of the league, because they lost the pick completely and then it went to Detroit who then screwed the pickup regardless. But yeah, that could have been LeBron in Memphis. Yeah.

I don't know what happens to Cleveland at that point. I guess maybe they take Carmelo. Yeah, that's, that's a, there's sliding doors all over the place. All right. Your next podcast is going to be Thursday. Thursday morning. So we come off these two games on Wednesday night. Oh yeah. We'll see what happens. Zach Lowe, thanks for joining us. Thanks to everybody who joined in on the, the YouTube live feed. And thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach and Gahal and Eduardo. Thanks to everybody at the Rewatchables crew who put up our three and a half hour Star Wars podcast. Go check that out on the Spotify video feed or on Ringer Movies where you can watch both parts all at once on YouTube. But don't forget Celtic City. We did not have a new episode this week because the series concluded, but

Now you can binge all of them. So go check out Max for Celtic City. I will be back on this podcast on Thursday. Hopefully the Celtics show up on Wednesday. We will see. Until Thursday.

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