Shedeur’s Slide, NFL Draft Takes, a Nuggets Code Red and Brunson Goes Villain
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NFL draft, NBA playoffs. Yeah. What a night. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by Vrbo, private vacation rentals. With Vrbo, you always get the whole house so you and your fellow fans can cheer on your team in peace. What's worse than watching a game with somebody who's not rooting for the same team you're rooting for? Nothing. But that's why if you book a vacation house with Vrbo, you know all the people in your house.

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go check out all of it. I did some NFL draft here at the top. Uh, I gave my thoughts and just randomly. So Rudy and van joined and we talked about, uh, Sanders and darts. So we talked a lot of NFL draft at the top and then Mahoney, Rob Mahoney and, Chris Ryan came on to talk about all the basketball that happened today too. It was an incredible, incredible, uh, sports night trying to follow everything. Uh, the games could have been better, but, um,

just in general, Thursday, the last Thursday in April. Always a winner. We're going to talk about all of it next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. I was in your mind

All right, so we just watched the NFL draft and three basketball playoff games all at the same time. It was really great. And I wrote down a bunch of notes for the NFL draft because anyone I wanted to have with me in this first segment is all doing another pod for the ringer. So you know what? I'm going to solo. I'm a pro. I can do it. But I did have some thoughts. First of all, the Jaguars trading the second pick to pick Travis Hunter, which was somehow another...

devastating Patriots moment. I had already mourned the fact that we screwed up week 18. We screwed up our chance to have a top pick and to trade down and get all this stuff. And then the Browns had the second pick. They get number five, a second, a fourth, and a 2026 for Hunter. And I just, I almost started drinking, but I knew I had a podcast. It's always disorienting

When the Browns do something smart. That was one of my first takeaways from this. Cause it's just that usually the Browns lose a trade like this. I thought this was insane by the Jaguars. I know everyone thinks Travis Hunter is a one-on-one, all that stuff, but I just don't think you trade huge packages like this unless you're getting a quarterback. Um, I think the Browns were thinking the same thing. Any of us would think if we're in this situation, um,

When in doubt, trade with the Khan family. I think they've become like Vivek and the Kings in the NBA. I think that Khan and the Jaguars, I think that whole family is the same way. It's like, cool, they're going to overpay for second pick. We can move down three spots, take Mason Graham, get a first round pick, get a second, get a fourth. Sure, let's do that. One of the cool things, though, ESPN covered this in the moment.

Like Cam Ward was getting picked. I think he was even going up to the podium and Schefter came right in and was like, we had a trade, blah, blah, blah. And I think, uh, with the NBA, they, they always like kind of wait, you find out the trade happened on Twitter before anything happens. And then, um, I liked how it felt like it was part of the action. They announced the trade when they did the pick. This isn't hard. NBA, just get this shit together. Um, I guess the, the positive for Jacksonville,

If there is a positive for overpaying for Travis Hunter when we've never seen anybody be able to play both sides of the ball anymore. And I can't wait to watch because it's going to be super fun. They're probably like a top seven or top eight. I'm at least intrigued to see what's going on on the multi-view with them for the first four weeks of the season with Hunter and with Brian Thomas Jr., who I loved watching last year.

But the big thing I was thinking when there's those London games, which they always suck when the Jaguars are involved. And now it's like Travis Hunter's in the London games for the next couple of years. That's a bonus. That's, that's worth getting up at six 30 in the morning in the Pacific coast. You're like, all right, get to watch Travis Hunter. Maybe he'll play D back and receiver the whole game. Um,

The big thing for me though, once again, they've overpaid, um, to get Trevor, Trevor Lawrence and toys. So they've spent money on Christian Kirk, Calvin Ridley, Evan Ingram, right? Big money on Christian Kirk. That was a much maligned signing back in the day. They drafted Michael Thomas with the first round pick. That was smart. They drafted Travis at the end, uh, 25th in the first round. I think the same year they picked Lawrence, um,

And then they paid Lawrence huge money. It just seems like they're constantly trying to throw assets at him, hoping he's good. And the thing is, he might not be good. So we'll see. But at least the London games will be fun. But I thought that was a good trade for the Browns. Next thing. So Shador Sanders, this just kept going for weeks and weeks. I'm not

I'm not throwing darts because I certainly talked about it on my podcast a couple of times. It was weird to think that he wasn't going to go in the first round in a league where it feels like a third of the teams always need a quarterback. When teams who were drafting in this first round needed a quarterback, the Giants passed on him twice. They haven't had a quarterback since Eli retired.

Um, Mel Kiper just felt, he just had, I'm going down with the ship energy. Most of the mock draft guys just didn't think Sanders should be a top 20 pick, including, um, Todd McShay, the ringer draft guys that we have. And, uh, and Kiper was just, I, I guess like if Sanders turns out to be an awesome pro, this would be great for Kiper. But, you know, I was going nuts the year Lamar fell because the Pats had a chance to get them and,

Um, you know, and, and it just, with, with Brady's advancing age, it just seemed like a no brainer. But in that case, it seemed really crazy that Lamar was falling with how talented he was in college and how he was clearly something. Everybody has picked apart Sanders to the point that I don't even know what to think anymore. So maybe he ends up in Cleveland tomorrow by the time you hear this.

And if that happens in Cleveland, we thought maybe we'd take him at two and they get him at 33. They desperately need a quarterback. That's a really fun outcome. He got, this is great for, I was thinking this is great for us. This is just great content, right? I root for content. Sometimes Sanders chip on a shoulder. Now everyone passed me. This becomes Aaron Rogers 2.0. If he can ever be even half as good as Aaron Rogers, right?

We get to argue about saying the jet, the giants trade back in and they take Jackson dart, right? They pass on Sanders. That's going to be fun to monitor. I feel like there's going to be some incredible sports media stuff that happens over the next two weeks. You can kind of read between the lines on what some of the angles will be. I think people will disgrace themselves. I can't wait. And it's going to be hilarious if Sanders actually ends up being much better than the Jackson dart, but yeah,

I don't, I think the thing, the legacy today was neither of those guys are even that good that people were able to get that wound up about it. But maybe, um, maybe tomorrow, but look, this is like, I root for, I root for as many good movies as possible. I root for as many good TV shows as possible. I root for as many good point guards as possible. And I root for as many good quarterbacks as possible because I like watching football for 11 hours a day on Sunday.

And over and over again, we have too many shitty quarterbacks. And I hope Shador Sanders is good because we need more quarterbacks, but we'll see. Hopefully he goes to Cleveland or a team that needs him and he gets to play and we'll find out why he dropped to 33. Another angle, Kim Ward. Poor guy goes number one. Usually that's like,

I can't, we're talking about him constantly. Oh my God. What do you think? How good can he be? What's the ceiling? Can he turn Tennessee around right now? Nobody, there were no K more conversations. I think I did multiple draft podcasts. I don't even remember talking about him. He goes, number one, gets immediately overshadowed by this Travis Hunter trade. Then there's the Sanders is falling drama that just over overtakes everything.

And then the Giants take Abdul Carter, but then they trade back for Jackson Dart. So once again, we're not talking about Cam Ward. And plus he's on Tennessee, a team that's not very good. A weird start to your career, but hey, good for you, Cam Ward. I have no idea if you're going to be good. I was reading some stuff where people thought maybe he would have been the fifth or sixth quarterback last year. And instead he goes one this year. We'll see. My guy, Will Campbell, who I talked myself into officially today. I did a YouTube short.

Look, the Pats need a left tackle. This was the case I made in the YouTube short. If they're picking eighths, I would have been delighted to get them. And if you look at how the draft broke down, we had tackles taken four, Membo to the Jets at seven, Banks went to the Saints at nine. Nobody thought Banks was going to go in the top 10. Well, he did because everybody wants fucking left tackle.

And that was why Will Campbell had to be four. And the analogy I made was in 2016, the Celtics took Jalen Brown because Danny Ainge felt like the league was moving toward wings who could shoot and defend and guard multiple positions. Jalen Brown, if you remember, was supposed to be the seventh or eighth pick on every mock draft. They took him third. The crowd thought they were either trading that pick for Paul George in Boston or taking Chris Dunn, who was a local Providence guy.

And there were some boos when they took Jalen Brown and then he turned out to be Jalen Brown. My point is just because you got a guy who probably should have gone six, seven, eight with the fourth pick, what are they going to do? There were two drafts. There were the first three guys, then there was everybody else. And if you look at the way the guys four through 12,

it became one of those beauty is the eye of the beholder drafts, right? Campbell goes to New England. Graham goes to Cleveland. Gentee goes to Vegas six. Membo goes to the jet seven. Uh, Ted McMillan goes to Carolina at eight. Banks goes ninth and Loveland goes over Tyler Warren at 10. And it's just like, you could have done this draft two weeks ago and that order might've been completely different. So I just think with, with Campbell, um,

They need a left tackle. They have nobody who can block. And the most important guy on the team plays quarterback. And if he could be the 12th best left tackle in the league, you got to do it. Now, a couple other Will Campbell things that have gotten me really excited. He talked about, I talked about this with Schrager the other day. Vrabel did put on the pads.

And he did go at Campbell to kind of feel what his body was. And I had been hearing about this for a week or so. And Campbell, I guess, knocked him over. And Vrabel was really impressed by that. But Vrabel, I've got to confirm multiple ways now. He loves putting the pads on, hitting the guys, feeling their body mass, feeling how sturdy they are. So love Will Campbell. Grew up in Monroe, Louisiana, home of Bill Russell, not nothing.

He cried for 25 seconds on stage today after he got drafted. I got a little choked up. He said, I'm going to fight and die to protect them with everything I got when was asked about how are you going to protect Drake May? I repeat, I'm going to fight and die to protect them with everything I got. I'm all in on this guy. There's been a lot of jokes in the Boston area. It's been a pretty polarizing pick.

Um, there was a tweet. I forget who did it. It was one of the, I think W yeah, guys that it was showed a picture of him crying and it was like, well, Campbell's arms are too short to wipe away the tears. We're going to get a lot of that. We'll Campbell. I think it's an inch difference. It doesn't phase me. Um,

I think we get in trouble with drafts when people don't fit the boxes we have for the types of bodies. And the reason I mentioned this, um, with a basketball analogy is because we watched Jalen Brunson on the next tonight as well. Campbell's getting drafted, who has now become one of the, I think 10 best players in the league, 10 or 12 best players. He fell to the second round in the NBA draft cause he was too short. Wasn't fast enough. Like,

I, I, you know, I'm, I'm in my fifties now. We've been doing this with drafts my whole life. What the centers and institution, Draymond green falls to 37 in the draft. Cause what is he? Is the center? Can he shoot? Um,

These guys don't fit in boxes. And if Will Campbell has been awesome his whole career and the one catch on him is his arms might be an inch too short. Like, guess what? We need a left tackle. Hopefully his arms start too short. So I'm in on this pick. I'm going to defend it. I signed off on it. I think they did the right thing. I also think nobody wanted to trade up. So, um, that was it. So Loveland went over Ty Warren to the bears at 10 because, uh,

uh, Ben Johnson. Oh, he needs a tight end. Meanwhile, anyone who spent $30 on Samuel Porter and their draft last year, wanting to, wanted to punch themselves in the face. So we'll see how Loveland does. Um, I don't know. Is that, are the bears fallen victim to, we have Caleb Williams. Let's just keep drafting offensive weapons and not building a right team around him. We'll see. They spent a lot of money in the offensive line. Uh, I didn't love that pick, but, uh, the picks that I did love, uh,

And granted I parachuted into this, but I did really get into the draft this year because of the path situation. I really thought they were going to trade back. So I was kind of looking at 20 guys and doing the deep dives on them. So the picks that I did, like Jalen Walker fell to Atlanta at 15 and he was one of the ones that seemed like he was a fast riser, um, down the stretch. And he was even getting rumored for a second at four and Peter Schrager was doing his whole, um,

to a man, people will tell you that this guy just wows the room. He's one of those like great character wows the room guy. Fell to 15 to a team that never seems to have a pass rush. So I really like that pick for them and it just felt like they got good value.

I loved Hampton to the chargers at 22, who everyone thought was the second best running back in this draft. And maybe some people felt like the distance in him and gente wasn't really even that significant. Um, this guy just seems like a kick ass bang, bang the line, keep, keep the chains moving guy. Um, and they needed somebody like this. And I just thought at 22, that's where you want to take a running back. And then Matthew Golden went 23 to the Packers. Um,

I'm just going to say this. I'm going to make a prediction. I think he's going to be better than McMillan. And I'll get to McMillan in a second. And then I like that. I like that Houston was able to trade 25 for 34 99 and a third round pick because the Giants got excited about Jackson Dart, who might be a career backup. But I thought that was smart that they were loading up on picks because they need stuff. My favorite dumb trade was Atlanta traded number 46 to

number two 42 and a 2026 first round pick to the Rams for number 26. And, uh,

I just, I love having the Falcons with this current administration in the draft. It's like in my, in my vote out draft with Sal and those guys, we have our crazy friend Brad's in there and you just never know where you're getting every year with Brad. This year he took like nine or 10 running backs and it was just like, of course he did. He's Brad. That's basically become the Falcons. Nobody moves up 20 spots from 46 to 26 and gives a first round pick.

In a draft where by the time we got to the mid-20s, I don't think anyone was doing backflips. I thought that was hilarious. I thought it was a very fun draft for glass half-empty stereotypes. Will Campbell has short arms. Jenty runs with his pads too high, apparently. Heard that one a couple times. Membo, you can see this in the ringer draft guide, was called a leaner and a lunger, which I think are bad traits for a tackle, apparently.

But my number one, and this is why I didn't like the Ted McBillen pick was, uh, and I thought that was the worst pick. I thought him going to the Panthers at eight was the worst pick in the draft. We'll see if I'm right or wrong. But, uh, Ted McBillen can't get enough separation was the thing that people were hanging on. There was also the, he loves volleyball more than football. I'm not going to acknowledge that they can't get enough separation.

I think it's a real thing because the Patriots over and over again have drafted receivers or signed receivers like Devante Parker, who the guys are never open because they can't get any separation. And then the quarterback has to make like perfect throws just to get in the ball. You see these highlights of these guys in college making one handed catches, jumping over five, nine defensive backs. And I just I want guys who are wide open.

If I'm drafting a receiver, I want somebody like Golden where you see the clips and he's just like wide open in all the clips. I want guys like that. I don't care about the guys who can make the catches in traffic. It seems like those guys are more likely to bust than anything. So that I would say out of all the half glass, half empty stereotypes, that's the one I might, I might believe in most mainly because I've been burned by 20 plus years of terrible Patriots picks. Another big takeaway from this draft.

which I think people say every year, but I was really thinking about it this year. Why do people go to the NFL draft? I feel like I get 99.9% of the sports fan experience, which is a reason that I think I've had some success over the years. This I don't get. And I was thinking like during the darkest, most interesting, most bored stretches of my entire life, which is probably my mid twenties when I was,

broke and barely employed or unemployed sometimes or semi-employed and then employed again. My mom was paying my mobile gas card, was charging soda, food on it, hoping she wouldn't notice. Even then, my darkest moments, I never would have wanted to go to the NFL draft. I wouldn't have wanted to go if it was in Boston, much less driving to Foxborough to go. I just don't get it.

And I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. I just don't personally understand it. I don't get it. And maybe if Van pops on here in a second, I'll ask him. But everybody seems like they have a great time. But this year specifically, to go to Green Bay, which is a really hard place to go to, to find a hotel. The airport situation is a disaster. I just, I don't get it. I also didn't get why Roger Goodell came out on a bike.

And I don't get in general why he tries so hard to pretend he's like this great, awesome guy when we all know he's, he's, you know, he's, he's a business assassin. That's the reason he's stayed the commissioner of the song, but you're not going to fool us riding a bike and bear hugging, uh, teammates or, uh, draft picks. Um, one other note, the giants, uh,

triple downed on their defensive line. And it's fun. I have a lot of giants fans in my life to make fun of them about this because they immediately default to the first Superbowl win over the paths. Well, it worked out for us in 2007. Um,

It's not going to work out this time because the rest of your team really sucks. And your quarterbacks are Jackson Dart and Tommy DeVito and Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. And I wish you all a lot of luck. And I still hate you for 2007 and 2011. So I just want to get that in. But this is the Mike Lombardi theory.

with, uh, if you have a strength double down on the strength is one of my favorite Lombardi theories. Um, that we'll see this, this giant thing will be a good example. Can we be really awesome at one part of football? And can we be so awesome at it that will actually transfer to the, uh, the rest of football? Um,

Those are all my notes. The only, the only thing about people going in the draft, I did enjoy when, when, uh, the Packer fans booed the bears, Steve McMichael came on, they had the Memorial, the moment of silence or whatever happened there. And the crowd got respectful for a second and then went back to bust them. The bears again, that whole Packers bear thing is really funny. And, uh, and I enjoy that. I still don't know why you would stand there as people got picked. I just don't get it. I'm not,

I'm not trying to sound superior to people. I, I just don't personally understand it. So if anyone can explain it to me, I'd love to, uh, I'd love to know more. Uh, all right. So Rudy, you have, do you have a take on this? I have no idea why people are there. I don't, I don't get it at all. I don't get it. What do they do between the picks?

Yeah, because they you know, it's like I guess the whole point would be like, can you get on TV to be the one Giants fan like holding up your jersey and just yell at Jackson Dart? I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it. And like, you know, maybe we're just really out of touch and like losers. I don't I don't know. Like, I mean, I'm trying not to be like the anti fun guy, but I don't get how I was. I literally asked my wife, I was like, would you rather be in Times Square for New Year's Eve or at the NFL draft? And she was like, I honestly don't know.

New Year's Eve is a good example because I don't get that either, but at least I get it a little bit because it's something to do on New Year's. It's like, what did you do on New Year's? We went to Times Square. We had to do it. Yeah, it seems awful. But NFL Draft seems... Can you drink at this? Do they sell food? They must, right? And, I mean, you're so far away from the state. They were doing the aerial shots, and you're not even close to the stage. I mean, the people close to the stage, I don't even think...

You know, like I would say 95% of the audience was not even remotely near the stage area. You're just like in this parking lot behind it. I don't know. It looks like you're like at a concert at Wembley Stadium. Correct. And you're way in the back, like watching, you know, whoever. Yeah. Do you feel the same way about the NBA draft? No, because it's a little more confined.

This just seems like this massive sporting event that I just don't get it. Do you agree with me on McFillan? Maybe it's just an excuse to party, get hammered, and maybe that's just the sell. Which, you know, it's a rose trip, and you just get there, and you're running Airbnb for a weekend, and you just kind of do your thing. Maybe that's fun. Yeah, that's the thing. I'm not saying I'm leaving the door open that I'm completely wrong, and I'm just not seeing it correctly. Me too.

But I don't see it in any way. Do you think Sanders should have fallen in the second round?

I feel like I like him more than the consensus does. Like all these GMs and anonymous... I love the anonymous thing today. It was like there was people trying to out-anonymous everyone else with anonymous quotes. I don't know. I mean, obviously, it wasn't in any of the meetings with the guy, but I kind of respected him. He seems like he's got a decent head on his shoulders, given who he is, who his dad is. And he got his ass kicked at Colorado almost every single week and really never complained and was just a baller. So...

I don't know. I'm not a talent evaluator, but I respect his game. But clearly there's just I think, you know, it was weird on the broadcast because they they just kind of refused to ever say like, hey, maybe he's just not that talented. And that's why he's not. They kept, you know, Kuyper kept bringing it up. They kept talking about how, you know, about his dad showing him. And it was kind of awkward. And maybe it's just, hey, he's not that good of an arm strength guy. And, you know, why are we taking that guy in the first round? Maybe it's as simple as that.

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Void. We're prohibited. All right. We brought Van Lathan in. He was available, even though it's late at night. I know you're a night owl like us. We're talking about why Sanders fell to the second round. And I had to give you the floor because I know you watched him not just at Colorado, but even before that. Were you surprised that he fell?

in the second round in a league where half the teams seem like they're not happy with who their quarterback is? I was as surprised with his fall as I was with Anthony Richardson's rise when he was going through the process because I had watched so much of him. I watched so much of him and I had seen him like never really play competent quarterback at Florida outside of some moments and a couple of games. With Shador, it's completely the opposite.

I expected that the measurables wouldn't be crazy because when you watch him, you think sometimes is he a noodle arm? He obviously isn't hyper twitchy as far as his movement when he decides to run. However, just watching him as a football player, as a football player,

He won games and he changed programs when he got to, you know, the destinations that he ended up in college football. Now, a lot of people might say, hey, his record at Colorado was mediocre and it was. But if you look at what Colorado was before he got there,

a lot of that offense is on his shoulders and he always made plays. And he seemed like the kind of guy that you would want at quarterback in terms of the toughness, the ability to make throws in big moments, the ability to make big game-winning drives. He's getting his ass kicked. But when it was time to measure out and get in front of people, I guess they didn't like what they saw. Yeah, the two things that don't make sense to me

Big games on the road with crowds, right? Making plays, making clutch plays every once in a while, which he definitely did. He seemed like he had a knack for the moment. And then you mentioned the key thing, how freaking tough he was, which I think when you're at the next level, you're just going to either you're going to stand in the pocket and take hits or you're not. We've seen so many quarterbacks who seem like they're afraid to get hit. I'm not saying he should have gone 10th or whatever,

but it's hard for me to believe once we get in the twenties with how hard it is to find a quarterback that he wouldn't have gone in the twenties, which makes me think they thought he was like Andy Dalton, basically, or like a poor man's Andy Dalton. Well, man, you watch Jackson dart and, and especially the Florida game was not, not a pretty watch. Um, right. But,

you know, he's got the arm strength and I guess more of the ideal athleticism. He, he runs a little bit better than Shador does. I, it, I don't know. Like it's, it's one of those things where, cause you're right. Like he, like Colorado's defense was terrible both years. He was there and he carried them to, you know, ranked to, you know, Colorado being a ranked team for most of the time. He's, he's an impressive dude to me, but clearly, you know, if you don't have a good arm, like the, like the Anthony Richardson thing, like,

Dudes get tricked into that all the time. You know, right. Guys, he's six foot five. He's built like an Adonis. He runs well. The one throw the one throw he had last year off his back foot. You know, they'll show that highlight for years to come. It's like, all right, we'll bank on that guy. It's hard to bank on a guy who. All right. What's his main trait? Like he's tough and he's he's kind of accurate or he's pretty accurate, but he doesn't have a great arm. Like, well, see, this is what I would say about that. I understand what you're saying.

I don't want to, you know, Rich is in the NFL now. He just was the example that popped in my head. But like, I watched him like legitimately struggle

to grasp his offense and to be consistently productive in it. And all year long, there were narratives about whether or not the guy was hurt or what was the reason that he couldn't play. You know, I can't really say that about Jackson Dart. What I can say about Jackson Dart is that there are times in big moments and big games where Jackson Dart wasn't there. And there were weird off games where it seemed like teams kind of had ganged out Kiffin's scheme a little bit.

And they were able to shut down Jackson Dart and render him ineffective. But when you look at the team, Ole Miss' team from last year, they spent a lot of money. Trey Harris was hurt most of the year. That was a guy who probably would have been a first-round pick at receiver. And then Juice Wells, the big transfer,

that came in from South Carolina, he didn't work out. He had a disappointing season. So it wasn't like they had explosion all over the office. They had Ulysses Bentley. They had some other guys in the backfield that were running the ball pretty well. But the team was a little bit off kilter. Dart was shouldering a lot, a lot.

of the load for them offensively because they weren't really getting separation from their wide receivers and a lot of stuff was going on there. Two things I'll say differently, though. He had a multi, multi-million dollar squad. There were dudes or supposed dudes everywhere. The reason why you would say that Shador Sanders, you have to call him clutch, is because Colorado was incapable of dominating anyone. If they were going to win a game,

It was normally going to be by six. It was going to be by three. And Shador was going to have to make plays for them to win. And it was 50 to 40. Yeah. Yeah. He was going to have to make plays for them to win. And I'm just surprised that no one saw when you talk about the intangibles, a lot of people are talking about, well, he's bad at an interview. He's cocky. He's this. He's that.

The intangibles that I saw was a guy who was able to rally his team and get them to really play for him. A guy who stood in there behind one of the worst offensive lines I've ever seen in college football history. Like one of the worst lines I've ever seen. And make plays and deliver throws. And there was a throw in that, not to filibuster or belabor it, there was a throw I specifically remember that

In the North Dakota State game, where he gets drilled and the ball comes out and I'm thinking that's a pick. I'm like, oh my God, that's a pick. No, he floated it to Horn. Horn ran under it and I think that he scored. So I just thought that somebody would say that's a guy that I could build an offense around, particularly one of these obviously dumb teams, but

I guess it didn't, they didn't feel that way. Well, I talked about this earlier, but wouldn't it be amazing if he ended up in Cleveland when we thought there was a chance he could have gone to Cleveland before people realized it was in top three. But now he could go to Cleveland, a team that has been in hell with their quarterback since Baker Mayfield left. And now he goes there. He'd have a wide open runway to be good right away. He'd have a better offensive line than he had at Colorado.

But that's, I don't know. The thing I was, Van, where would you want to see him? Because I was thinking during the draft, I'm like, does he, does he fit well in New York or Cleveland in a cold weather city where like he's got to drive the ball and what could be bad weather? Like I, he's, you know, the Saints in a dome. Like that feels just way, way bad. I don't know what the exact fit is, but I didn't know if he's a big one of those cold weather climbers. Saints.

I would have been into it. I mean, look, at this point, you know, I take Lucifer at quarterback rather than Derek Carr. Like, there are all kinds of people like OJ Simpson could quarterback us. You know what I mean? Kanye West. Like, there are a lot of people that they could put in their quarterback right now that I take over Derek Carr pretty much like anybody. But look, there's no doubt that in the right situation, Shador Sanders has what it takes to be successful.

What I am not, I'm a guy who watches a lot of college football. Like I watched every snap that Dart took this year. I watched every snap that Sanders took this year, right? I just watch every game possible and especially the teams in the SEC games.

I have to watch him. What I can't do is get granular as far as the breakdown of what NFL guys see that makes them go, oh my God, this guy is undraftable. I can only tell you the tape that I saw

like when they were playing games, actual games on a football field and on a football field, it seems like Shador Sanders is a winning player. Jackson Dart is a great big, strong guy. Who's incredibly tough, incredibly tough, but I don't know, man, that offense is, is it's, it's designed to manufacture statistics and,

It's a simple offense because they go so fast. So there's just a lot of things that Jackson Dart might be asked to do on the next level that I don't think he was asked to do at Ole Miss. Handsome guy. Maybe that'll be his legacy. Handsome guy. Coming in and interviewing him seems like he's like Brad Pitt's coming in. Cleveland has 33 and 36. The two teams between them are Houston, who already have a quarterback, and Tennessee, who just drafted a quarterback.

And if they passed on him twice when their quarterbacks are Kenny Pickett and Deshaun Watson, who's out for the year and who everybody in Cleveland hates, that is just damning. And then you go to the Raiders are sitting there at 37 and could they try to move up? Like I can't imagine him getting by at 37.

Then it's like, all right, what the fuck's going on? Van, when does this become one of the most reprehensible sports media people yelling at each other stories we've had in a while? What needs to happen? Jokic versus Embiid for the MVP was the last time it got really dark. I don't know if anything can get that bad. I got drawn into that. I don't know. The cultural story of this one is...

is pretty big as well. Like, I saw Dion get at Dan Orlovsky on Twitter. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody said that Dan Orlovsky is a hater now because he gave a somewhat...

negative opinion about Shador Sanders. And it wasn't really a negative opinion. He said, if Shador Sanders doesn't go in the first round or if a couple teams pass on him, this will be why these are the things that he needs to work on. And someone comes and says, I didn't know he was a hater. And Deion goes, oh my God, he's a hater. The Deion part of this just cannot be overlooked. The fact that Deion is such a gigantic personality that maybe there are some people that have been rubbed the wrong way

uh, by the entire Colorado apparatus. Um, and that is the thing that's going to be gnawing at the talking heads for the next couple of days, because, you know, quarterbacks fall all the time, but this one's going to be seen as a gigantic injustice where it could be just a guy that the NFL scouts don't like, or it could be more. The injustice to me is that we don't have enough good quarterbacks.

So you have to really think this guy doesn't have it. If you're like, we still don't know who the Steelers quarterback is. Sruti, is it like Kirk Cousins now? Like what is it like? Like really? They're going to do the Aaron Rodgers rollercoaster, kind of keep their fingers crossed for a guy who seemed like he was washed last year. But I would say the counterpoint would be,

Every draft expert has basically told us that Cam Ward in last year's draft is going, what, like fifth or sixth of all the quarterbacks? So if you think Cam Ward is better than Shador Sanders, which I think we all probably do, at least as a prospect, that means he's at least seventh

the seventh best quarterback in, you know, and how many times there's seven quarterbacks going round one. So is he just being, was he just kind of being propped up because, hey, we need to latch on to somebody. Quarterbacks are sexy. Usually two to three go in the first round. Like maybe he's up there when like, you know, I guess the statistics would tell you that this draft is just not a great quarterback draft. So I don't know. It seems I really don't know what to believe. Yeah, that's what happens with these clusters with the draft where you're the best looking quarterback

person in your cluster, but it's not a good cluster. And you can fool people into thinking you're better than you are. I thought that was really interesting that people, I saw the same stuff that people thought like Bo Nix would have gone ahead of Kim Ward if they were in the same draft. That's crazy. Jesus. I guess, yeah, I get what you're saying, but I looked at that sort of from a different perspective to where it's a weak quarterback draft.

Like a weak one, right? And he still fell out of the top, out of the first round. Like we watched a draft where Michael Penix with a really questionable medical, like that guy's a stuck quarterback, don't get me wrong. And he ran four or five when he was at the combine. So obviously his legs work. But we watched him get taken. We watched

the JJ McCarthy thing still blows my mind. Right. And it's not, I'm not saying that the guy's not good. I'm saying that we're talking about someone that was in a hand the ball off, make a couple of plays a game offense, right? Game manager, game manager. He is about to be handed the keys to the kingdom up in Minnesota. All of that stuff together. I know that the team won a lot and that's got to mean something, but I'm saying now it just seems like it wasn't that Shador Sanders didn't,

find the right fit in the first round. It seemed like he was radioactive, which it wasn't. It does seem like the interviews were a real thing. Right. So people were being anonymous because they didn't want people coming at them. But it didn't seem like a fake story. It did seem like something that turned some teams off. But can I ask you a question? Let's say that it's not a fake story. The question is, why is it a story?

Why would an anonymous source... You have a bad interview with Shador Sanders. Right. Why are they saying anything? I'm just asking. Yeah. By the way, I'm not casting any type of a person. I'm asking why. You have a bad interview with Shador Sanders. Or you look it out because you want to get him the second round. And you're like, yeah, that guy's a fucking asshole. And meanwhile, you're like, I hope he falls to 33. But it got to a point to where every single fucking thing was so negative. Like, did you hear anything?

that we watched him tie his shoes and it took him fucking five seconds to do the loop-de-loop. Something's wrong with this guy. He's undraftable. It was like the draft day movie. It was the birthday party. It was Bo Calhan.

The whole thing. So I'm just, you know, by the way, I'm not, I'm just saying that this was pretty remarkable for, from a guy. There's that other tweet from Dion where Dion is saying, Hey, my son's going to go top five. It's really like, everyone was saying that he was going to be like a top five draft pick. Some people say, I've been versus word for three months, but that cooled off the last couple of days. It did. You know that it almost last couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it,

It almost feels like, did we just kind of like talk ourselves into something that was never actually going to be real, you know? And I know as a Patriots fan, hoping that two quarterbacks were going top three, you could feel it shifting in fucking February that once the first wave of analysis came in on him, it wasn't, it was pretty bleak. So I don't get it. There's one other thing that, um, that I looked back at it and I was like, these things didn't help.

at least to me. So, Kim Ward and Shadur Sanders trained together. And so, all throughout the last couple of months, there were all of these training videos of them and they were throwing together. And, you know, Ward would step up and he would throw a couple reps and then Shadur would step up and he would throw a couple reps. And I remember watching both of those guys throw and being like, uh-oh.

You know what I mean? Like, don't get me wrong. Chidoto's a pretty football. I think he's a first round quarterback. I think he's going to have a successful NFL career. But the physical difference between the guys was pretty remarkable when you watch both of them throw. Dan, can we go rapid fire really quick? Will Campbell, number four, Patriots. His arms are apparently an inch too short.

I've talked myself into the pick, but you loved him. Can you make the Will Campbell case for my Patriot fan friends? All I can say is that the guy faced some of the best, most talented pass rushers in the entire country, and he didn't hold up. He fucking dominated. He dominated. He didn't. He wasn't a, this is a guy who can hold up at tackle for you. This was a dominating pass blocker.

And I'm sorry, man. Actual game shit has to matter. He is a dog. You guys got to go. Did it make you cry when he cried? No, I thought it was actually more interesting that when he was walking up to the podium to go talk to Goodell, that he completely ignored Brian Goodell.

Like that, that freaked me out as an LSU fan. I'm wondering, do they fuck with this guy? Like he completely ignored Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly actually went, gave one of these to him. He just, he didn't have any time for coach. What was your favorite pick in the first 15 rounds? For value slash you think the guy's going to absolutely kick ass for the team? For value slash kick ass for the team. I mean, the value picks are pretty obvious here.

Notice how he's not saying Kelvin Banks to the Saints at nine. That didn't jump out of the tongue. I think the entire time I was surprised that the entire state was surprised that

that they took a tackle. This is not a value pick, but my favorite pick of the entire draft was one that was scripted exactly the way it was supposed to go. It was Ashton Gentry to the Raiders because of all of the excellent players that we've talked about all year long, he is such a fucking dominant football player. He's such a dominant football player and he's going to a team that has some pieces that

where he's going to really get a chance to produce. I think he's going to have a flat-out awesome rookie year. I'm excited to use him on Madden, too. So, Rudy, what was your favorite value slash I love this fit, I love everything about this pick? I love Hampton to the Chargers. What do you think his... Because what do you think he's going to go in an auction draft? Like, P2s are going to lose that. Oh, yeah. He's like a $40 guy. Yeah, like, he's going to be a top guy. And, you know, there's a lot of people that said, you know, Jenty's like...

physically just a freaking special, but that Hampton's not that far behind him. And

I, I, that's like a perfect cause cause all those charges running backs too, we're just like ticking time bombs. Like, you know, with all Dobbins is, you know, just another injury waiting to happen, unfortunately. And Gus Edwards is like a thousand years old, uh, really seems like it, like it just seems like a plug and play guy. That's going to be like an all pro potentially like in a couple of seasons. Yeah. That was one of those. If you took them at 12, it's like, ah, it's high, but that's a nice pick. But when you get them at 22, you're like, ah,

No brainer that I agree with you. That one, uh, the Falcons getting, um, getting Walker. And then, um, I really like golden to the Packers. They just over and over again, just keep getting these receivers. The paths haven't, haven't been able to draft one in 20 years. And, um,

The Packers over and over again are just grabbing these dudes, but I thought that was a good one. The Eagles kind of did it again, too, with Jihad Campbell, right? Great pick. Yeah, they just get another SEC stud who somehow falls, and there's the injury concern, but man. Yeah, yeah. He had the injury, but it's a great pick. A terrorizing player when he's healthy, man. Good guy. Would you have taken Travis Hunter or Abdul Carter if you had the second pick? Travis Hunter.

Okay. Would you have traded all that stuff Jacksonville traded to get him? Probably not. But if, if, if you're there, I take him in, in front of Carter. Cause I mean,

Like if you, what's the best case scenario for Carter that he turns into like a Micah Parsons type of player? He's not quite as good as Micah Parsons, right? Like Parsons, slightly poor man's Parsons, I think. Slightly poor man's Parsons, right? Hunter, though, to me, has the opportunity, particularly if he just decides on one side of the ball.

To me, the defensive side of the ball is where I think he needs to be. He could be everything. He could be the next Deion Sanders, Darrell Revis type of player that locks up a side of the field for a team for X amount of years. That was a very fun pick. All right. Thanks for staying up with us, man. No problem. Thanks to Rudy. Always good to see your face as well. We're going to take a break. Come back with C.R. Mahoney.

All right, we're recording this 9.33 p.m. No Wi-Fi in my house for some reason, so I'm using my iPhone. I think it looks fine. The Dream Team is here. Rob Mahoney, Chris Ryan. Just watched OKC come back from...

At least 55 points. Mahoney, was that the John Morant got injured game or the Alex Caruso? Not quite the Alex Caruso game, but if it was a bigger game, it would be the Alex Caruso game. Why not both? But I think the dark clouds of John Morant falling that hard in the fashion that he did and the way that the game just completely flipped on its head the moment that he left. It's hard not for that not to be the top line takeaway. It's just such a bummer.

Yeah, I mean, he's always somebody you worried was going to get injured in every game because of the way he played. But that was not his fault. That was a pretty fluky. CR, was that dirty to you at all or not really? I actually did do a little bit of research. I did some Zapruder on this. It does feel like Dort's slipping before he even realizes that Ja is there. But I'm sure other people have different opinions.

tough, tough week for guys slipping and then undercutting famous stars in the playoffs. Do you want to get it off your chest early or do you want to save it for later? Not great. Not great. I'll tell you what OKC did show me, though. OK.

It's never good to lose by 30 when you're the favorites to win the title in a game three when it looked like the series was over after the first two games. And then Ja gets hurt, momentum shifts, but it was still like a 24-point game in the third quarter. And then OKC did the thing.

that, you know, I really appreciate if you're going to have some championship pedigree. Can you really crack down? Can you go on a run? Can you crack the defense up another level? And then all of a sudden it started to feel like the first two games. So Rob, weirdly,

I think that game was like a win and something that maybe OKC needed for those last two rounds that they're going to get to would be my takeaway, no? I mean, it's certainly a better context than winning by 50 plus, right? Like these are the kinds of these are the kinds of runs you want to have to make. I think the Caruso point you laid up top is really important. This idea that he is a crucial part of their closing groups.

And I think showed in this case, you got to play that dude off the floor because he will fuck you up and he will end your season. Like the number of just completely disruptive defensive plays he had down the stretch against bigs, against wings, against guards. He just like his defensive range is so incredible. And the only thing you can really do is try to challenge him to hit some shots, try to try to, you know, spate,

I think push him on the other end to the point that OKC has to make some hard calls and they just never reach that point because Caruso was that good. And ultimately, I think because Chet and J-Dub were that good too.

Yeah, it's pretty rare to go into a closing stretch of a game, especially with a comeback that significant. It was like, I think they were down 29 at the most, right? Yeah. And then to have the defensive possessions be the thing you're going to walk away remembering. I know. It's not like, it's not like Corey Brewer and Josh Smith like bombing away. It's like, no, Alex Caruso literally just like stopped the Grizzlies from scoring like 10 times and that swings the game.

CR as, as a scrappy former little basketball player, did you, is there a kinship watching him take on Jaron Jackson? Um, is there anything more fun if we were just going to rank things that don't quite get enough credit? I thought you were going to say as a, as a guy with a receding hairline. Oh, I,

Did you see that? There are many inroads to this metaphor, it turns out. But it's one of those things that's so secretly fun about basketball that we all enjoy, but we don't talk about nearly enough is when the much smaller guy is guarding the bigger guy.

who's just being completely exposed. We're seeing it a little bit in the Golden State Houston series too with Draymond and Fred VanVleet where they're just like, Fred VanVleet's like 5'11". We're going to put him on Draymond. What are you guys going to do? And he can't do anything. But for Jaron Jackson, who I did not vote for all NBA and I think is a frustrating player to watch sometimes, but I did not think that was a good look for him, CR.

Yeah, I thought he had that one nice shot that went high off the glass towards the end of the game. Like every once in a while, he pulls something out of his bag. His handle does not really...

he doesn't have the handle of somebody that you can trust in a fourth quarter in a big game like that right now. I will say that for Memphis, it's probably incredibly difficult to navigate the Jaws here, Jaws not here. Yeah. Because they feel like such a different roster when he goes out. It automatically makes, you know, your canards like that much more important. Your conchar is important. Like, whereas those guys should be additive and not essential. And so I just, I really feel for Memphis, they're probably not, they're probably never going to win this series and they were probably going to get

Maybe not swept, but it was probably gonna be a gentleman's sweep. And now it just seems like this might be a franchise altering night for them. Yeah, I mean, that was like a best case shooting half for Memphis overall. They were hitting everything. It was just everything was clicking into place, starting with Scottie Pippen Jr. having such an amazing game.

For them to have to give it all back like this is so dispiriting, is so crushing. And I think the Jaron Jackson piece of this is interesting to talk about because OKC is a horrible matchup for him. I think his handle is good enough to beat Biggs. It's not good enough to beat the Alex Carusos and certainly to drive into the teeth of a defense like Oklahoma City. That's where you really strain even the more developed part of his skill set from this year. So it seems like John might be seriously hurt. We have no idea as we're taping this, but he came back out in crutches.

Crutch is never good. Maybe it's a hip thing. Maybe they think it might be. Who knows? I don't want to speculate. Honestly, when he took his jersey off coming off the court, he was not responding as if he was going to be coming back out there. You could see he was in a lot of pain. You could say he was in a lot of anguish over that fall. It was a tough scene all around. I hated it, man. It was just like it's the jaw experience in such a

a sick nutshell where he was about to do something incredibly sick. Yep. And you're like, this is why I watch basketball. This is incredible. And then just the freaky, fluky stuff. But I want, I want like guys to try to do stuff like that. That's why you watch hoops. The audacity to hurdle Lou door is what makes job job, but it's also what leads to these plays. Unfortunately, I missed it live. So I went back a couple of minutes. Cause when I flipped over, I flipped over when I saw Verno tweet, like, Oh no. And I was like, this could only be one of three or four things.

So I went back and when I established it wasn't a Cowboys draft pick situation, I was like, oh, let me find when the jaw injury must happen. And I went too far back and you can watch him and you can see like all the life in his eyes. And he's just such the heartbeat of the franchise while he's out there. And like the crowd is feeding off of him. So it was really eerie to go back like even a minute before the injury and then it all changes.

Yeah, when Verno tweets, oh no, the most likely scenario is a jaw injury. Given that the NFL draft tonight, it was probably like I have over two and a half quarterbacks in the first round. Oh no. I mean, there was all kinds of gambling possibilities too. This OKC piece, you know, there's not a lot to learn from this series. It's a, I think pretty much of a mismatch. And if Memphis was going to win a game, it was going to be tonight. But for the most part, this was either going to be four or five.

But it did get interesting down there. Five minutes left. Memphis is playing really hard. Pippen's doing some interesting stuff against SGA. It's like a smaller guy trying to like kind of dive down on his dribble. And, you know, they're throwing like some flash double teams that I'm bouncing off them and just trying to watch them execute. And the big guy was was Holmgren.

where you really felt the stretch five-ness of him. And he was not shy about taking shots. He made one big one. But I was watching that. Did you notice anything down the stretch there? Because that's going to happen to them. They're going to play the Clippers probably in round two, right?

They're they might play golden state or the Lakers who, who knows in round three. And then the Celtics are waiting for them. And there's going to be these little pockets at the end of games, these real crunch time moments when teams are going to be throwing everything they have at them to try to knock them out of their offense. It's like, all right, Jay Williams, let's see it. Hey, check. Can you make that Alex Bruce? Are you afraid of the corner? How about you, Lou Dort? Uh, what did you notice from the last five minutes? Yeah.

I mean, I think just a lot of optimism from the chat piece of this game, just a monster second half overall that is heartening as far as his piece in that, right? They're always going to have the questions about this sort of secondary offense. They're also going to have those questions, as you say, about what is the best optimal defense to throw at SGA in a playoff setting. And I think Scottie Pippen Jr. does a good job against pretty much every star he's asked to guard, like real yeoman's work.

considering like what he's asked to do. You could say the same of a Chris Dunn matchup. Derek Jones Jr. is one of the few defenders in the league who actually seem to have an effect on SGA in the regular season during some of their matchups. And so the challenge of a team like the Clippers, as Denver is finding out, is the sheer variety of shit that they can throw at you and the way that they can mix up their coverages and their assignments and keep you guessing at all times. And if something is going to throw

the Thunder off their game. And I'm not sure it will in a way that they're going to lose a series, but it would have to be disruptive in that way. Yeah, it's really hard. I said this last Thursday, it's hard for me to imagine them not winning the title. I thought that this was like a real like cool gut check win despite the fact that the headline will be Ja. The chat thing that I noticed down the stretch, Bill with the threes was just like how he rendered Edie kind of unplayable. I mean, he was still out there, but like watching Edie try to like get out to the perimeter, I was just like,

Just got to grab it. Yeah, it's the perfect OKC box score if you're saying what's the blueprint for what their championship clinching box score would look like, right? SGA 31-8. Holmgren 24-8 rebounds. Williams 26-6-5. And then Caruso...

How many steals do they have for 10, six with four, uh, with four steals. But how many deflections? Yeah. Yeah. And just crazy. And had a couple of those Kawhi Leonard. I'm just going to take the ball from you now. Yes. Moments. Yeah. Uh, or it was fun. Uh, he was MFing the crowd as a defender. I've not seen that recently. I remember the first year he started playing for the Lakers, uh,

And it became a big thing because his hair was so weird. He hadn't shaved his hair yet. And he just had one of those like super duper, almost like one of those sports writers at a Super Bowl haircuts where you're like, what is going on with that guy's head? And it became a huge talking point.

On social media where they're like, look at this fucking guy, this white guy, the Lakers have what's going on with this dude. And he had a couple. I remember LeBron broke some sort of record and Caruso was one of the first people that high fived them. And it was like, wow, it's so awkward. This Caruso guy. And then we all kind of realized watching them.

Hey, this guy's pretty good. Am I crazy? Or is Caruso like decent? And then it just kind of kept going. He's a decently big part of that 2020 title team and it's gone and gone. And now I find it hard to believe Rob that he's not a crunch time guy for them. Right. He's going to probably be out there in big games. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

It's good. It is going to come down to whether you can push him and push them in that way where he has to be more of an offensive presence if you can leverage it. But he's such a good playmaker in a facilitating capacity and he's such a smart cutter. I feel like he always has stuff he can do. And of course, if you're creating enough havoc on defense to create fast breaks, you're going to win those tradeoffs. The issue with Cruz was honestly not even really been his offense. Historically, it's been like

Can he be healthy enough to play a lot over the course of entire seasons? And with the way everything is shortened up now, it really doesn't matter. You can just put him out there for 25 to 30 minutes a night if the matchup allows it. And he's going to do you a lot of good. Well, we thought we were going to be leading this podcast with Clippers Nuggets. I talked about this on a pod earlier this week when I had Zach on and we talked about Kawhi for a while. And then at the end, we're talking about this series.

And I felt deep in my gut that there was a chance the Nuggets might really go sideways. Like I bet the Clippers tonight. I just, I don't know if the Nuggets think they're good. I mean, the Nuggets, I don't know if they believe in whatever they're doing. And you can kind of feel it. That game got away from them fast. The Clippers made a bunch of threes. I think Jokic was spectacular in the first quarter. It was, it felt like he was on pace for

30 assists. But defensively, they're just really limited. Their bench today, at one point, I don't know what they finished with. At one point... Well, Russ was out, right? Yeah. A foot injury apparently going on. They finished with six points from the bench. You're not going to win in a playoff game. Not ideal. And they were down 20 points for basically two hours. And now...

Weird schedule, Quirk. This doesn't usually happen in the first round, but they're playing again 3 p.m. PT on Saturday. So it's 40 hours after this game ended. And that is a make or break. They have five and a half playable guys right now. Maybe. Peyton Watson's been like kind of a disaster in some of his minutes so far. I don't know.

If Russ can't play, like, this is the thing about all of the hand-wringing about the highs and lows of Russell Westbrook. Like, they just straight up need his minutes more than anything. Like, they can't afford this much Julian Strother as they're going to have to throw out there if Russ can't go. And overall, like,

The construction of the team, to your point, Bill, does not feel like one that would give you a lot of confidence if you're Nikola Jokic, if you're Jamal Murray, if you're Aaron Gordon with one functional calf. Like, I don't know how you watch the team around you not close out to shooter after shooter after shooter and think, oh, we're just a couple of effort plays away or we're a couple of strategic tweaks away.

This feels like a chasm in the series that's developing. Yeah. I think in part because the Nuggets, they just look shook by the end of this game. They look like a team that fired their coach and GM a week before the season ended. Sure do. Oh shit, I forgot they did that. And there's three guys on the team

who have been the sort of core of this run. And it just feels like the end of a cycle. And these guys are looking around for reinforcements. And the only place they can look is to Westbrook, who's bounced around the NBA for a couple of seasons now. And the bridge to nowhere, like the young kids that they were supposed to develop just are obviously not ready or capable. And Porter, on any given night, you're like, are you on planet Earth or not, man? So it's just... We've got one arm now, too. Like, it's...

It's just not a good recipe for him. After watching these three games, I'm surprised they won one. That's what I'll say. Wow. Chris, do you think they should have hired Vincent Hanna as their interim coach? I mean, Adelman is doing his best, I guess. I don't even know what you would do with a week's prep to become the head coach of a championship hopeful, but

But I think if we were wondering whether or not Cronky was like, Josh Cronky was like, oh, I think we actually have the pedigree to win the title. We just need different voices in the room versus I want to get this stuff at these guys out of here so we can get ready for the draft and the offseason now. I think it might be the latter. Westbrook saying my foot's hurt is like, you fucking get hurt. Walking the doggy.

Be there. Do you just have me here to do heat? Just pulled the string on his back. Well, I feel bad for poor Edelman. I just think at this point they might've been better off just hiring actors to play, to play the coach. Just bring somebody in, bring in Ben Affleck and just tell him to be the way back guy. Wow. Yeah. Just to tell him to look like he had a few the night before and he's just going to yell at the refs and stuff. Um, I, uh,

I have to ask the king of narratives, Chris Ryan. Oh, yeah. If the Nuggets lose badly again Saturday, I think, and combined with OKC sweeping Memphis...

The narratives are going to come shooting left and right like a T-shirt gun, one of which will be you voted for Jokic for MVP and he just he just lost in five. Who is you? Well, trying to figure out who did this. Me and Rosillo and probably about 20 other people voted for Jokic and me, to be fair.

How do you guys feel about that? I feel fine. I feel like it's a regular season award and I will sleep soundly at night with that knowledge. I actually feel better about it because Denver has been so exposed in this series.

That it kind of cements why I voted for him in the first place. I couldn't believe how mediocre his team was. That's right. Bill never surrendered. Yeah. Just put him forward. Now, so what else do we have for King of Narratives, CR, for this one? Just how taxing title runs are. I mean, even I think your beloved Celtics are experiencing this a little bit physically. Obviously, that has something to do with the sort of the elbows and the dives going on in that series. But yeah,

It's amazing to watch just even Jokic and how the tank is kind of like... I mean, it's not empty, but it is certainly half full and maybe has a little bit of accidental diesel in there at this point. And maybe he's looking around and he's saying, I don't have any help. But how do you rebuild this team? I'm asking you because I'm like, what are their moves here? What are their options? Is there like...

You have to take two steps back to take a step forward. I hate to be writing their obituary already, but he's too amazing. It's tough to do the down 2-1, what are they doing this offseason? But it was hard not to think of that during the entire game. They squeaked out a Game 1 win in overtime and didn't really look that in it tonight. Game 2 was a little closer, but I just feel like the Clippers are attacking them from all over the court, like Rob said earlier. The narrative here is like,

Man, like winning a title and being competitive over the course of a three year stretch will really take a lot about a franchise. Well, Rob, you're looking at a Michael Porter, my problem for your problem trade, right? That's probably where it starts.

Do you have somebody you're not happy with? Because we have Michael Porter Jr. What about a swap-a-roo? I would say that would be the first thing they try to do. Or to get two functional rotation players for Michael Porter Jr., right? Like Denver does need depth in such a bad way. They do need shooting. They need the stuff that at his best, MPJ is able to provide. Right now, he's clearly not at his best. Maybe he's not at his best consistently enough for the salary slot he takes and the role you're asking him to fill on the team.

But I don't know, their problems cut so much deeper. Like they're just not going to go on any long runs if this is how they're going to defend. And functionally, the core of the team is not going to get dramatically better in that regard unless you start making some pretty dramatic moves. And it's so hard, right? Because if you look back in retrospect, it's like we've talked, I think everybody's talked about this on their pods and stuff, but like...

And KCP obviously would have been a valuable person for this team to have within the logic of the team's construction. It would have worked, but it's not like KCP set the world on fire as a member of the Magic. So it's like, I can see why they were like, we need to get off these guys. We can't pay guys a little bit out of their prime for past performance. I understand all that, but...

Jesus, when you're watching what they put out there, it's like it's unbelievable that they won a title a couple years ago. It was incredible too, Billy. You were saying Jokic's passing in the first quarter really was awesome, like high-level Jokic stuff. What you would expect from a player of his pedigree. Yeah.

You watch them go on a run. You're seeing him set up these guys with all these no-look passes. You're like, okay, Denver's really got something. You look at the scoreboard. They're up four points. I just think the Clippers have done such an amazing job of just chipping away at all of these Nuggets runs. A lot of that is James Harden in particular who played amazing basketball today. Kawhi Leonard wasn't even that good and it just did not matter as

as far as like the Clippers consistency of scoring went. So they've just been able to mitigate every little bit of something that the Nuggets have put together. And it's when you're in that position for Denver, it just takes all of the wind out of you. Yeah, when you basically have five and a half, six guys and Russ is one of the six and he's not even playing.

The flip side with the Clippers is they can beat you with just their two best guys, or they can beat you from the margins with Powell. If Batum's going to hit four threes, I don't know what the magic Nick Batum three number is for a victory, but it looked a lot like tonight.

Well, this is what I've been saying all year. And I don't, I get it. America's probably not focused on the Clippers home regular season games, but they have a legitimately good home court advantage now. And you could feel it in that first half when they hit a couple of threes, the crowd was delirious and, you know, they got hot when a team's going to make that many threes at home. They're probably learning a playoff game, but man, when Kawhi is as good as he's been, and he, you know, he was,

21 and 11, six assists today. And Harden was probably their best player in the game, but Kawhi was still seemingly Kawhi and just seems so athletic. He had that one play in the first half when he went coast to coast on a steel, did those two long Kawhi steps with Jokic next to him and got it in there. And I, I just think the Clippers are really good. I'm just going to keep saying it. I think people have to take them seriously as a contender. I think with the Nuggets,

You know, Doc was on, when Doc was doing my pod, when, um, Doc did my pod after Denver one, he was talking about how much he loves Porter and how, uh, just how happy he was for that guy and how people don't realize how big he is and he can rebound. I remember him raving about him. I remember filing it away. Like, I wonder if Doc ever runs a team, would Porter be somebody targets? And then you're thinking about Milwaukee in this other series, uh,

And that's another team that's going to be, we're stuck. What do we do? I feel like Rob, we're, we're at peak. We have an awesome player, but we're stuck. What do we do? I think, I feel like we've hit the peak in recent NBA history. You look around these teams, like we have Giannis and we have no chance. Yeah. Um, we have Yokeage and there's no way we're winning three straight rounds with the team we have. I don't remember, um,

Teams with players this good just really not being in the mix. And I think it speaks to how deep the league is now.

It's how deep the league is. It's also some of these teams, especially in more of the mid and small markets, running scared of what the apron is going to mean for them and preemptively trying to get ahead of some of these problems in the way that Chris was talking about. It wouldn't have fully saved the Nuggets. And there's some parallel versions of that for the Bucks where, if anything, maybe they've been a little too aggressive in steering into the skid of their finances. Maybe they've been too aggressive in steering into the skid, certainly of the age curve.

right, of like leaning on someone like Dame Lillard to be Giannis' primary running mate. You couldn't have anticipated the blood clot, but you could have anticipated some of the gradual decline year over year that a small guard is going to have naturally. And so then you end up with Giannis Antetokounmpo, you end up with Nikola Jokic, surrounded by teams that are like

You know, pretty good. And because they are so amazing, will at some points trick you into thinking that they're probably a little bit better than they are. And that's a really dangerous place to be at a team. It's hard to take an honest assessment of who your 6th and 7th and 8th guys are when every time they're shooting an open 3 from Giannis or they're getting a backdoor cut from Jokic. It's hard to take stock of your team in those circumstances. Yeah.

Yeah, and it seems like the theme of all of these teams seems to be losing out on their core role players or veterans that are looking for a new contract. They miss those guys, whether it's the Warriors, the Bucs, whether it's Denver, and then they wind up regretting it because it's so impossible to find that exact guy, the exact KCP, the exact...

name warrior role player. I mean, I guess Iggy Buncey Pody retired. I mean, like it's the person that holds everything together and does all this little stuff. And I just, I don't even, I, as a, I, somebody who cheers for somebody who's not contending, I can't even imagine how difficult it must be. Who's your team? I forgot. You weren't cheering for Toby tonight. I'm cheering for basketball.

I'm cheering for the Pistons. B-ball Paul. Yeah. Toby was 0 for 6 in that Knicks game today and CR was like, burn in hell! He's having a good series. I hope you go for 20. He's been good. Speaking of him, Ben Simmons had a couple moments in the Clips game too. Ben Simmons plus 9. Yeah. Broke out a headband. Yeah.

made a stop on somebody and did a little like stare to the crowd, kind of yell to the crowd stuff, continuing his streak of dribbling hard right to the logo and then skidding to a stop and handing the ball off to a guard. I have a suggestion for you for the last act of your career. You've done a lot with your career, but I want you to lose all your hair. Yeah. Then grow out a crazy sports writer receding hairline and become the poet of the Intuit Dome and just write about Ben Simmons's connection to the wall. You know? Yeah.

This was the day Ben Simmons became a Clipper. That would be... What if we started just assigning pieces like that and telling people to just sell the hell out of them? Like somebody goes in and writes like a really heartfelt, Ben Simmons has finally found a home here. Today he exploded for zero points and three rebounds, but his defensive stop in the first half really made it. Yeah, I mean...

Derek Jones and Batum coming off the bench is a hundred times better than anything Denver has. They have seven guys plus the Simmons thing. Yeah. I mean, you joke about the Simmons part.

The Clippers winning his minutes so decisively is a damning a piece of evidence. Like that, that is really where you are. If you're the Denver Nuggets is you're straight up getting embarrassed by the Ben Simmons zone defense minutes. And Jokic is on the floor for a lot of those, right? And you're still trying to figure it out. You could see them trying to cut behind it, trying to like work some angles. None of it felt sustainable. None of it felt like they ever got into an actual rhythm breaking down. I repeat a Ben Zim Ben Simmons zone defense. Yeah.

That's the series right there. I do not see a path for them. I'm going to game four. I think the only way they win. Well, two things. One, the Clippers could just have a game where they go like six for three. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, anybody can just suck in a game and not make any threes. And if you don't make any threes, you could lose to anybody. The only other guy I can see is Murray.

Like they need like a 38 point Murray game. But when you watch how the Clippers, all these guys, they can throw at him. It's just, I think it's a tall ass. They just have too many dudes. So I think, I thought Russell and I said on Sunday that the Nuggets were up on nothing. And both of us were like, haven't changed my opinion at all. I still feel exactly the same. And I think it's going to be really hard for Nuggets to win now. I don't think they can win. Let's take a, let's take a break and talk about, uh,

The malice at the palace part two, Knicks, Pistons, Pistons, Knicks. I thought this was a potential Steve Kerr game, which is what he gave me this theory years ago. And I always monitor it. The young were so psyched to be in the playoffs again, playoff team hosting the game three and the energies through the roof. Yeah. And everybody's like, oh my God, they're going to go ape shit in this game. The crowd's going to be amazing. And then they come out and they lay an egg. They did not lay an egg.

The Knicks were really good. And I think that the thing that jumps out to me, CR, the shot distribution, which was a big topic the last couple of days, because you have all these really good offensive players and you have Jalen Brunson in game two, shooting 27 times and taking 12 free throws. I went on Terminator Eddie's show yesterday and we were talking about like,

Hey Brunson, you had 37. That's not necessarily a good thing for your team. If towns looks like he, you know, wants to go listen to Morrissey after the game and, and, uh, you know, OG and nobody has 10 points, like maybe get maybe a little more distribution. And it's basically the Isaiah Thomas bid 80s pistons rule of, yeah, I could have scored 35.

But I scored 23 and three other guys on my team had an awesome game. So the shot distribution this time, 20 Brunson, 18 Towns, 17 Ananobi, 13 Bridges. All four guys had 20 points and up. And that to me feels like the balance. So my question you see are intentional or unintentional?

I think it was probably intentional. I don't think you can have a roster so overly committed to this starting five and this core and just be like, but it's still a one-man show and you guys just stand in the corners. And also, I mean, like Brunson missing time over the course of the season. I think tellingly when he missed some time in this last bit of the regular season, that's when Bridges kind of blossomed a little bit. I mean, I know that Knicks fans have a love-hate relationship with him, but he needed to be a little bit more featured and a little bit more set up

to be a future player. I got to admit, can we talk a little bit about the Brunson experience? Yeah, let's go. I'm so excited to do so. Don't dislike Jalen Brunson. You are coming to this with trauma, I will say, given last year's playoffs. If I was a Pistons fan, I would hate Jalen Brunson. And I want to like him.

It's hard right now. I'm not enjoying this. Are you guys enjoying this? How much of this has to do with the Knicks Sixers series last year almost torpedoing your friendship with fantasy? We're fine. We're good. Fetched it up. 26%. What's your take, Rob, on Jalen Brunson, one of the league's most unlikely underdog stories ever, now getting the backlash? Yeah.

I'm becoming a little radicalized. I got to say, I have a quite high tolerance for James Harden-esque theatrics. I'm mostly fine with it. He makes Harden look like Bronco Nagurski. This is the thing. And I think the juxtaposition of him specifically against Asar Thompson in the series, who's just playing good, wholesome defense, but with a hyper-athletic frame. And you're just seeing him get baited into sometimes dumb young player shit. Yeah.

and sometimes inexplicable non-calls that Jalen Brunson gets the benefit of. I will say, I thought the first half in this game, Jalen Brunson was participating in every version of that possible and trying to steal every one of these calls. I thought he cleaned it up a lot in the second half. And I thought that some of what we were talking about in terms of the shot distribution paid off too. Like he just looked really fresh and was such a huge part of them rebuffing all of these Pistons runs in part because he wasn't trying to sell these dumb fouls every single possession and hitting the floor every single time.

At some point, you are allowed to just play basketball. And I like when Jalen Brunson just plays basketball. I like when he draws some fouls too. But we need a little bit of shame. Just a modicum of shame. The Pistons fans were trying to show him some shame. They were chanting F. Jalen Brunson or F.U. Brunson. And it obviously kind of fired him up a little bit. He closed really well.

I think it's probably his size throws me off a lot because he goes in there like a bowling, like a pinball really. And he just starts flying around the lane. The head snap thing is like jarring. I think as to watch visually, um,

I think it's the stuff on the perimeter that bothers me the most. The diving in, like, you know, diving into guys when there's like there, he's being defended outside the three point line and just shoulder dropping, going into them or, you know, flopping down after he's coming down from a shot. Cause he thinks somebody is in his landing zone. But yeah, I think that, go ahead. Well, I, I went to a Celtics Knicks game, like maybe January or February. I can't remember.

and was talking about how I just, I hadn't realized that he'd become the best, you know, flopper extraordinaire in the entire league. And, and a lot of the Knicks fans got mad about it. They're like, fuck you. How dare you? He's worse than James Harden. It's like, yeah, because it's not just him like driving in the basket and flailing to get a call. It's all the stuff he's doing off the ball. It's when somebody sets him a pick and it's just a lot of him throwing his arms up in the air. But,

It's gamesmanship and it works because it gets the crowd fired up, especially in a playoff series. I thought the crowd was awesome. And there was this great moment, the first of many altercations in this game when it got heated and you could hear the crowd.

the decibels of the crowd, everyone was so excited there might be a fight. It was like, I was trying to think, is there an arena that is more ready to see a battle on the court than Detroit? Ironically, they had the biggest one of the century, but they were just like, let's fucking go. Let's drop the gloves. They thought it was like a Red Wings game. We're not allowed to fight in basketball. Wait, uh,

Towns got into it with who's the piston he got into it with that was Paul Reed Paul and then they they pinned Isaiah Stewart on the bench oh yeah and he's wearing like a full suit and he's just like shit like I'm gonna show it out there

Isaiah Stewart's like, I should have just worn my jersey because then I could have gone on the court easier. The funniest part about this game to me was that there were more dads in the crowd than a California youth soccer match. It was like Bridges was fighting with...

Tim Hardaway Sr., Rick Brunson was fighting with Cade Cunningham and with Jalen Rose. Yeah. I was just like, this is an amazing testament to like, to like what's going on with the amount of kids in the NBA. That's true. You know? So if I'm the, if I'm Detroit, I thought the Knicks were going to win this in four or five.

If I'm Detroit, I feel like I'm in the vicinity of this series. It's the opposite of the Denver game. Even if you look at the box score, they got a really good hardaway game. They got a solid Cunningham game. Typical for him. Some turnovers.

They had a really good Schroeder game. And I continue to wonder why Miami didn't want Schroeder. I'm just going to ask that in every podcast. Miami's like, we're good. Now they don't have Terry Rozier. They don't really have a point guard. But Tobias was the one. He had five points, two for nine. He was the one that had the bad one. They're in these games. I think all of these games are going to be close. I don't see a blowout either way. I like the matchup of the two, but it feels like Detroit's

What do you think, Rob? Like two hairs below? Three hairs below? They are close, but I came away from this game, which is a two-point game, feeling pretty confident about the Knicks margin for error because everything you laid out is true. Like those are all elements of the game. Some went well for Detroit, some didn't. It kind of all came out in the wash for them. For the Knicks part of it, I thought the Knicks just straight up bought it.

botched their pick and roll defense for a huge portion of this game. Just were not on the same page at all. They got nothing from their bench through the entirety of this game. They got outshot from three. They got out offensive rebounded.

And they still win, squeaking it out. But down the stretch, it really did feel like I trust Jalen Brunson to make these plays. I trust even like Carl Anthony Towns to make these plays, who he had a tremendous game overall. And to the idea of whether, you know, the shot distribution was intentional or not. Cat coming out super aggro. You can usually tell really quickly kind of what's in his head. He kind of has it all out on his sleeve. And his intention to make his presence felt on this game, I think, changed a lot of it early. And that

then opened up for Jalen Brunson to do a lot of the closing late clutch player of the year. Jalen Brunson. Oh, yeah, I forgot a real award that exists. I did not vote for, you know, I voted for Jokic because he's the best offensive player in the league. And that's the ball of the time. I did see the guy. I did see we discussed previously, Bill, Jason Tatum third on your ballot for clutch player of the year. Yeah, he's been a bunch of late game shots. You didn't like that pick?

He's only 19. He's only 19. I'm not disputing it. I'm just saying I saw the full voting and there was exactly one third place vote for Jason Tatum for Clutch Player of the Year. So congratulations for working your way into voting history. The Boston fans are mad because I didn't vote for Pritchard for sixth man of the year. So am I a homer? Am I an anti-homer? Who's to say? I don't know. I'm all over the map. The Schroeder piece, CR...

When can this guy just find a home? I love having him in playoff series. Is he just like, he's like automatic QB and Thanksgiving. He's just going to bounce around every playoff. He's like Woody Guthrie riding the rails. He's just, yeah, you know, he's just a vagabond of the NBA. I mean, I think that the problem for the Pistons is that they're relying on Schroeder,

Tim Hardaway Jr. and Beasley. Although Beasley had an awesome season. Those guys can't be your second options, third options. Cade needs one more guy. I think they're hoping or hoped it was Jaden Ivey. I love Jaden Ivey, even though he hasn't quite realized his potential tough injury. I have to ask you guys,

Durant? Oh, I thought you were going Durant right there. Oh, no. No. Don't do that. Don't do that. Why not? No, come on, man. Why couldn't we go Durant? Why not? Yeah. I wanted to know whether or not when you watch the Knicks, Rob,

Does this look like a team that can go very far with this style of basketball? And with this, like, this just feels very much like we have now pushed this to the limit of what this team can do under Tibbs and with this roster construction. That's what it looks like. The Tibbs part is the key part.

Is it the roster or is the roster plus Tibbs, Rob? Yeah. Well, even what we were talking about as far as Jalen Brunson overextending in the previous games, some of that is a Tibbs style of offense as well. Some of it is Jalen Brunson. Some of it is a guy like Kat who can sort of ebb and flow in these games. It doesn't always like claim his spot as far as his role in the offense goes if he's not really, really focusing and thinking about it.

I think Tibbs is such a weird coach because he cleans up so many things for you, but he also so clearly leaves all of this other low-hanging fruit that some other coach could come in and do and make your team a little bit better in these particular ways. For example, I'm just like, I remain stunned by how little 1-5 pick and roll the Knicks run. Like Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns are your best players ever.

It almost doesn't matter who is guarding them. You can do that anytime you want. And certainly every second that Jalen Duren is guarding Carl Towns, which was a lot of the second half after the Pistons kind of switched that matchup. Why are you not running pick and roll at Jalen Duren every second he's on the court? Also, why aren't you doing it with Bridges and Towns? Like it doesn't just have to be Brunson. Bridges is good at that too. Lots of options. I'm with you.

So, yeah, so I respect him a lot. I think he brings a lot to this team. But there is something to the idea of the formula maxing out at a certain point. CR, who is when Townes does the thing where he intentionally starts some sort of altercation and then does the evil laughing thing? Is that Garcia in Internal Affairs? What movie character is that for you? Cobra Kai person? Who is that? What movie villain? Yeah.

It's just more like it is the guy. It's like the guy in Trainspotting who throws the pint glass over his shoulder and doesn't see where it's going. He's not quite Begbie, but he has like a little bit of like, who started the fight? Yeah, this is weird.

I do enjoy it. I don't know if he's ever actually been in an NBA fight, but he's always like getting around it in the mix of some of these. It's pretty funny. I thought Paul was trying to get ejected. Like what was that? But he was pissed. I mean, like, do you think, I think, I think the thing is that Brunson's whether or not you like watching it, it clearly works because it drives other players nuts completely. And yeah,

You know, like I don't really have like the rule book in front of me to judge whether or not that was a backcourt violation in the last second there. But he was doing a lot of stuff to just get during during was going nuts after for a while there. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like during this series. It towns was the full town's experience. I thought it had a really good game.

But then, of course, he couldn't resist having the terrible foul at the worst possible time. Yeah. Two minutes left. Don't don't forget. I have to. It's almost like when when my dog jumps in this little fountain thing we have every once in a while, I get super excited and he jumps in and then he looks at us like I had to guys. I'm sorry. I just it was sitting there. It was cold. I had to do it. Towns has to like he just can't help it. He has to have the one foul.

In the last three minutes. And he has to almost get it out of his system. I think this series goes six. Six? So you think Detroit gets one more here? Yeah, I think I'm going to lose. One of my bets was Nixon four or five. And I think Detroit gets one more, right? They get a game where they shoot really well. Towns gets into foul trouble. We haven't had a foul trouble game. That's the other thing with these game fours. The league can get a little...

Creative. With some of this stuff. Lakers-Wolves, game three. CR, can I have your animosity rankings for round one? Okay.

Certainly, Luka and Rudy are pretty high up there. I was asking a couple of people last night. I was like, what is the Rudy original sin against Luka? And I guess he did punch him in the stomach or hit him in the stomach a long time ago. Yeah. But I always laugh. I was at the game one. He's shit-talking Rudy the entire game with true hatred.

hatred in his eyes and nobody from the T-Wolf stands up for Rudy it is one of those things where it's just like you know what man go ahead you know if you want to waste energy telling this guy to go fuck himself that's fine so I would definitely put Luca and Rudy up there pretty high team wise um can we can I have a couple other candidates for the oh yeah please

I think Dame Halliburton has to be riding high, right? I was going to say Bucks Pacers just straight up. Oh, you're going straight up team versus team. Yeah, there's a lot. I would go Dame Halliburton, but also team versus team. And then, you know, it's bad when they just cut to James Johnson randomly when he's not even really playing. Like he's over there. Just lurking in the corner. That guy's a fucking maniac watching over James Johnson. Yeah.

He'll kill you. Yeah, Bucks Pacers is way up there. I think Celts Magic is starting to, like, they've made Al Horford mad, which is almost impossible. KCP versus Al Horford. Yeah, they made Al Horford mad, which happens like three times a year. I was kind of shocked by that. I don't know. One of the most popular nights of Celtics, probably the most popular Celtics team made in the last 15 years, and he was ready to hit KCP with a two-by-four.

His sister's going at Magic fans on Twitter. Pretty amazing stuff. What about Draymond with each and every rocket? Yeah. Completely separate arguments and frustrations with all of them somehow. And I appreciate his ability to compartmentalize personally. Well, don't you feel like that has a chance to go up a notch?

Cause clearly the way they're guarding him with Van Vliet. Well, Van Vliet, we haven't really seen him have a moment with Dylan Brooks yet. There's going to be no Butler in game three. So Draymond is going to be in that mode. Like I've got to do more. Um, yeah, that's a good one. Oh yeah. I think Bucks Pacers is the most inexplicable one though. I don't, it's just a bunch of nice guys on both teams and yet they hate each other and it feels like it's going to be the anchorman brawl every time, every time it gets heated. Um,

I'm trying to think of anything else. Maybe some Lou Dort Memphis game four. Yeah, they were getting in his ass a little bit. And I saw Draymond put up an Instagram story that was like, that's a dirty play. But I think when you go back and watch it, it's really hard to see Dort like, oh, I'm going to tackle John Midair here. He's slipping as Pippen turns around. Well, I told Cerruti and Kevin Clark...

Go ahead, Rob. I would challenge any human being to try to move fast enough while rotating their body to beat Ja Morant to a quick twitch spot in order to even try to undercut it. It's just not a realistic human thing to do, even for Lou Dort. I told Cerruti and Kevin Clark that I had worked up a proper amount of hatred by basically the halftime of game two for the Magic and for KCP. And

They said, don't worry, we also hate KCP because he's been, I think he was like one for 100 at that point in the series. That's the funniest thing is you getting really cranky because you're worried one of the Celtics is going to get, you know, mortally injured during this. Well, they've hurt too. I know. They hurt Tatum and... It's a contact sport, Bill. Porzingis got split open like it was a fucking steel cage match against Roman Reigns. It's like, oh my God, he's busted wide open. Well, they tagged in Gogo Batase. That's what happens after he comes into the game.

Yeah. My dad was so upset. He sent me some of the funniest texts just about Patadze. He was like, who is this guy? He just comes in and fouls people. I don't think he's been logging a lot of Orlando magic. It would be funny if after the Pacers get eliminated, you give James Johnson your dad's tickets so that it just pans up to James Johnson anytime a Celtics player gets targeted.

Well, I mean, we always talk about movie coolers, right? Like Swayze in Roadhouse was the best one ever. And then we've seen people try to rip off that gimmick over and over again in movies. And James Johnson's the real life cooler, it seems like. Well, he's the same Elliot at this point. He's aged out of Swayze. Yeah. But he's still wearing a uniform, right? I guess. Or did he become an assistant coach and do it that way? It's practically what Rick Brunson did tonight. It was true. So tomorrow we have...

Boston, Orlando, Indiana, Milwaukee, Lakers, Minnesota.

Which one are you more excited about out of those three, CR? Me? Lakers-Minnesota. That's been one of my favorite series so far. Same for you, Rev? Yeah. I would like to think that Pacers-Bucks is going to be fun and competitive and maybe have a spin on that series. I just don't really see what levers the Bucks can pull to really change things there. They kind of are what they are, and Giannis is going to be amazing, but how do they really make anything happen? Versus we clearly know how the Wolves make things happen, and it's hit a fuck ton of threes.

make really sharp decisions with the ball and counteract at least some of what the Lakers have going on on the other end. Yeah. So when I was talking to Eddie in Germany yesterday, Eddie was thinking, thought Giannis and Milwaukee can come back and they're going to win the next two and this is going to be a long series. Mm-hmm.

And I just don't see it. I just think Indiana is just significantly better than them. And the way that Milwaukee wins game three, Giannis has a big game, but you could almost spot him in the big game. And I still think Indiana wins. But the game that's looming that hasn't happened yet is the Indiana fucks up the game in the last four minutes game. We have not had that yet. Oh, this is your boosters. Well, combined with...

You know, Milwaukee home for game three. Sure. That's a game where you're probably going to get some calls.

And I could just see this one being like, man, I can't believe we're not up 3-0 right now. How did we lose that? It feels like it could be one of those. It's possible. They're not that bad in crunch time, for the record. I know. I just, I don't trust that. They're probably about average. Well, so game two, what are they up? 17? And then all of a sudden it's a two-point game. Like they just have a lot of those. Yeah. Where it's just like, how did you let this team back in there? Lakers, Minnesota, would

What I'm watching for after going to game two is just, um, is Edwards going to get involved earlier than he did? Um, there was some interesting go bear. It didn't feel this way at the game, but there was some interesting go bear actually defending one-on-one against LeBron Luca. And, uh, I think it was LeBron. Maybe it was LeBron and Luca, but they were like basically four and 13 when four for 13, when they went at him, Reeves had, I think a little more success. I felt like Minnesota did not ever want that to happen.

And they were in complete panic every time Gobert was, you know, in isolation with those guys. But I'm going to be interested to see if they just keep doing that or if there's an extra wrinkle. I didn't like what I saw from Connelly at all in game two. So is that just hard for him to play two games in three days? What do we have with that? There was some interesting Shannon minutes in that game that I wonder, like, could he swing it from an energy standpoint?

I still, Rob, I just still feel like the Lakers are really limited, man. That's like a team. That's a team that has five and a half guys. They have no rim protection at all.

And they're just putting this incredible burden on LeBron and Rui to basically protect the rim and rebound. Yeah. That I don't know is sustainable. But wait, are you seeing anything else? I mean, their defense was pretty incredible with that group. Yeah. Yeah. The more times you have to do that repetitively and the more times you're doing it and giving and a chance to look at it and see how to break it down and they're going to film sessions in between is going to get harder and harder. And there's no alternative. Right. There's not the option to just play Jackson Hayes 35 minutes.

you can't do it. So all they have to do is stretch out Dorian and Rui and LeBron as much as you possibly can. And I thought LeBron was awesome on defense in particular in that game. He was great. Ultimately, the Lakers, I mean, they didn't light the world on fire with their own scoring. They won that game because they locked the Wolves up and they forced a team that's a little shaky in its decision making to make some characteristically Wolves mistakes.

Bill, did you notice it was the loading up on Ant? Because he said after the game that it felt like a zone and that he has to go watch the tape. But in game one, they were loading up on Ant. And I didn't necessarily think it was zone, but they were definitely cheating onto him.

And he was there. I thought they were moving the ball really well in game one. The Wolves were obviously they had threes coming out of their ears that game, but it didn't feel significantly different on TV watching it. So I was kind of surprised that Ant was like, well, that was a new wrinkle. I hadn't seen that yet. Yeah, I didn't see it at all. And I thought he was just too tentative. And I talked to somebody involved with the team at halftime and I was like, what's up with Ant?

He said his shoulders bothered him and seemed like he was tentative. Because he was swinging a lot. He was kind of like moving his arm around. There was one time he came to the table to go back in the game and he had one of those giant Norma Tech kind of straight jacket things on. And it almost seemed like demonstrative. Like, my shoulder hurts. Look, I'm wearing this giant contraption. It was just weird. I thought it was a weird game for him, but I don't see him doing that in Minnesota. I could see him...

Coming back hard. So if you, is there any 0-2 team you think could come back, Rob? I don't think so. Is there any? Yeah. I don't think the Heat are coming back. Like, I mean, who else would we be talking about? But the Heat. Doesn't look very promising. Is Rozier, is he just like, we're never going to see him again? Like what's, what's, what was Rozier's injury?

I mean, he's out for the year, right? Even if you had him, would you play him over Davion Mitchell, who I think is just a better player at this point than Sir Rozier is? Like, this feels like it should be a bigger story, this whole Rozier thing, like how, I don't have to talk about some of the stuff he was involved with, but this guy went from, they traded a first round pick, he was averaging 25 a game on Charlotte, to now, he just has disappeared and nobody even talks about him during the games. It's just, I mean, I think he's in a, I think he's in a,

He's still pretty injured, I believe. Yeah, he's hurt. I think he might be out for at least a round or two. But meanwhile, home prices on the Davion Peninsula are just, they're shooting up, man. I mean, it's a really competitive market. Cerruti told me two nights ago that if Orlando paid $100 million a summer for Ty Jerome, he wouldn't blink. That was what he said. He said, if it got that high, fine. At least we got our guy.

Kind of how I felt about Milton Williams and Patriots CR. It's like 26 a year, whatever. We needed a nose tackle. But Ty Jerome and Suggs. So Rudy's already moved mentally to the Ty Jerome, Suggs era for the Magic. Honestly, pretty sick. You drafted a guy with dinosaur arms. Are you excited? Little T-Rex arms? You know, I've heard the jokes and, you know, he's...

We root for underdogs in New England and Boston. Yeah. You want to get an underdog. Yeah. I just want to know how an inch became so important for the left tackle. So 33 inch arms, he's fine, but 32 and three eighths, he's not fine. We'll find out. That's how we're going to go. I remember a guy when a guy named Jalen Brunson dropped to the second round because it wasn't tall enough. If you remember that one. All right. Any last things here? What's the thing you're most excited about this weekend, Rob?

I'm trying to think of like which of these series can get I feel a little disoriented because the series that we were loving are now also stilted. If Jimmy Butler doesn't play, if the Clippers keep like really accelerating into the series. Is there anything else in this first round that we're like really psyched about other than I we've already talked about a little bit, but I do want to see the Wolves counterpunch. I do want to see what they've got. I think that's probably the most interesting next step for me.

I thought, yeah, I thought like, I agree with Rob. Like I think wolves Lakers is the best remaining series. And the one that I feel like has the most chapters. I don't know how many games it's going to go, but after game one, I was like, Holy shit. These guys have more athleticism than the Lakers. Like this is crazy. And now I'm a little bit more measured about it. I would not count out Milwaukee in game three. No, I don't think they're very good. New York Detroit feels like it might have some legs. Yeah.

And then Orlando do pulling a rock fight routine against Boston, maybe stealing a game. But yeah, this, we might be the Clippers. Denver seems like it might headed to head might be headed to being a bust. Um, so after a week, what's the team you're most impressed by?

It's got to be the Clippers, I think, right? Yeah, I think the Clippers. Because they should probably be up 3-0. The Thunder were impressive today. The thing is, they were already so impressive. The Clippers, we wanted to see how they stacked up against a team like Denver so much. And they've had all the answers. The fact that they're dictating all the terms of this series so far is really demonstrative at this stage in the playoffs. I would say out of the eight series, the only one I don't have a handle on, and part of it is the Butler injury, but just the matchup is just...

I don't think either team is happy with how they're playing the Golden State Houston. It's just, it's a weird one. I don't like Houston's offense. I don't like anything Golden State's doing. If Butler's not out there, I just don't think, I don't think they're good enough. And a lot of it seems to hinge on how each game is being officiated, which I never really like.

And then the Rockets just had these wild cards where it's like, all right, Jalen Green made a couple of threes. So is he good now? Cause I think he could go one for 11 tomorrow night. You know, yeah, I don't trust basically anyone on their team. Um, and then what they're getting away with defending Curry, not to be a Curry defender, but, um, the, the league's in a weird space right now because they've been really good about, you know, letting defenders be able to letting defenders be able to, uh,

Basically make contact when somebody's driving to the basket or whatever. I don't think they've done a good job of cleaning up the stuff way off the ball and some of the holds and just, and conversely, I don't think they've done a good job with the moving screens either, but it just seems like all the stuff off the ball is worse than ever. And then the physicality of guys going to the basket has actually been handled really well. But yeah, I just think the Rockets are getting away with crazy shitting and stuff. I don't like it.

I don't know that I've seen a minute go by in the series where someone's arm isn't around Steph's hip, just like locked in, holding him in place as he tries to cut around the court. It's just, yeah, he's always had some of that where defenders are allowed to get away with things with Steph that they wouldn't be in any other context. Or if he had the ball in his hands, as you're saying, it would be officiated completely differently. Um,

Somehow he still busts loose as long as they have enough bodies to make their lineups work. And without Jimmy Butler, if that's going to be more than game three, I just don't think they have the bodies to make the lineups work. You'll be happy to know that folks on Warriors Twitter are doing collages of Emei Udoka coach teams diving at other guys' legs and making dirty plays. So there are watchers on the wall making sure our refs are accountable. We're in a very healthy place. I'll say too, the Pistons-Knicks game today, it was refreshing to see the game end.

And both teams are just furious with the officiating. The backcourt violation for Brunson, as you said, Chris, was cited chapter and verse. Well, what about the rebound where no time went off the clock? And then the guy ran the baseline next to the next bench and batted the ball, which I haven't seen in 20 years. Just something for everybody to be pissed about. It really warms the heart.

All right. Well, Rob, I know you're going to be excited. What do you have for TV this weekend other than the basketball? We got The Last of Us going on. We got your friends and neighbors going on. There's some pretty solid TV happening right now.

Yeah. CR, have you still stole from your neighbors at all or you haven't crossed that line yet? No. You're a Birkin guy? I'm worried a little bit about some of their security systems that they got here. No cameras in any of these houses in your friends and neighbors? Nobody has any nanny cams? He's got a device that turns off the Wi-Fi. We got to address this pretty soon. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks for staying up with me. Thanks, Bill. You got it, Bill.

All right. Thanks to Saruti and Gahow. Thanks to Van and CR and Mahoney. Don't forget about Celtic City. Eight episodes on max right now. Ninth episode is coming on Monday night, 9 p.m. HBO. It is the final episode of a series that I am really proud of. So please go check it out. New rewatchable is coming Monday as well. We're still in our going live on Sunday again on this podcast on YouTube. So you can subscribe to the Bill Simmons podcast.

YouTube channel. By the way, FanDuel's ringer player performance double profit boost token has moved to Sundays during the playoffs where you can claim a 30% boost on one of my favorite betting markets. I'll do a tweet that day. And if you don't know about those, you got to check them out. Two Leg Parleys.

You take an NBA player pop, combine it with a bet on that player's team to win and go nuts. So potentially like Minnesota Lakers, you could take Edwards for threes points, take Minnesota to win. And there you go. This Sunday, be sure to claim your profit boost on Fandle Sportsbook before you watch the action. I will see you on Sunday with Priscilla. Enjoy the weekend. I want to see them on a wayside.

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