The Floundering Cavs, OKC-Boston Gut Checks, and Lottery Karma Power Rankings With Ryen Russillo
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An action-packed weekend of NBA playoff basketball. Rasul and I broke all of it down. And lottery karma rankings next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new rewatch of what's coming for you Tuesday, not Monday, Tuesday. We did Death Wish with Charles Bronson because it is a big ass 70s month. So the reason it's Tuesday instead of Monday is because I'm going to do a podcast on Monday.

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Rosillo and I, we recorded a bunch of this earlier today, right after the Denver OKC game. And then the top part of the podcast is right after Cleveland, Indiana, which was an absolute debacle for one of those two teams. We're going to talk about it next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. ♪ My world changed on me, man

All right, taping this top part of the podcast here. It is 7.30 Pacific time. We're doing that during the Cavs-Pacers game because that game ended about an hour ago. They're still playing it right now. And James Johnson just came in. The Pacers, 25 assists in the first half, which is a number I did not know was attainable. And they absolutely ran Cleveland off the floor. And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, the third quarter started and Donovan Mitchell was nowhere to be seen because he apparently hurt his ankle.

And the Cavs are now down three to one, heading back to Cleveland for game five. And the Pacers have completely, thoroughly, totally, and unequivocally outplayed them and have momentum. And this is now looking really dangerous, not just for this season, Rusillo, for the Cavaliers, but big picture. If you get wiped out like this by the Pacers, I'm not sure what you do heading into the summer. And I'm not even sure...

what the fixes are and maybe you look at it and you take a breath and you go, all right, just wasn't our round, I guess. Let's run it back. We won 64 games. I find it hard to believe that's how it would play out because this is really bad how this has played out.

Yeah, the assist number at one point, it was 20-2 in team assists. And, you know, they're just flying around. I mean, this game is, like, overwhelming. I'm still a little in shock. Now, look, two things here. If Cleveland goes 82-0 and they lose this series, they go 82-0 next year, no one's going to care because people are going to say there's this fundamental flaw with this team. If you're Cleveland, you're going to probably run it back and you'll start to make excuses, which I think –

I think are worth bringing up. You have game two, we're missing Garland, we're missing Mobley, we're missing Hunter. And you still, if you inbound the basketball, you could win that game. Mitchell leaves. They weren't coming back in this game, even with Mitchell being out. And you're like, hey, Garland was never really right. Now, I know I'm not sitting here suggesting that's the only reason you're here, but that's probably what they would do, wouldn't they? I think you're right.

But I'm also stunned that it was this much of an ass kicking today because usually game four is the, like what we watched and we're going to talk about later in the podcast, that OKC Denver game where both teams kind of realize the stakes in the moment and what needs to happen. There's a level of intensity and there's a caring aspect

that usually exists in a game like this. And from Cleveland, from the get-go, you didn't see it. They weren't rotating on defense. They were just getting sliced and diced on that 3-2 zone. I think the thing that really stands out to me beyond just the talent and whether this might not be a great matchup for Cleveland, Indy's feisty.

They play with a real chip on their shoulder. They've done that all year. They love playing really good teams or teams with great players like they, with the Lakers, the Celtics, like whoever it is, they really come out with their chest puffed out. They try to start shit. They're agitators. They have a real personality to them and they kind of know who they are. They have a real identity.

And for whatever reason, Cleveland feels like it's losing its identity as these playoffs go along. It's like, what is this team? Allen had a 19 and 12 in game three and in game four, he got buried in the first half as that went sideways. But they, they have the, the Garland piece, which I know he's been hurt. He, you know, I know his stats are okay today, but he looks okay. Not great. But you would think like they're equipped to,

to fill in if he's hurt or playing 80% because of how deep their bench is. And then the bench didn't show up. And then Mitchell basically was superhuman in game two and three, right? He did so much, like his body ended up breaking down from it.

It just feels like if these teams played 20 times, I'm not sure how it would go for Cleveland. So I can't decide is this a bad matchup? Could this have happened if they played Milwaukee? Like what? Big picture, what does this mean? Was this like a mid-2010s Atlanta Hawks type team? Is there a road back for them? I'm just, I'm swimming with questions and I have no answers. Yeah, there's a tweet. I think it's right. I don't know. Didn't double check it. But if you look at

where Cleveland was this season, right? So 14 teams in NBA history that won at least 64 games and posted a margin of victory of nine points or better. 13 reached the NBA finals. The only team that didn't was the 15-16 San Antonio Spurs, right? Zaza, Kawhi.

So that year, the, wasn't that the year after 17, that was the Rance first Warriors year, right? That 16 team, that was that weird NBA season where there weren't a lot of good teams that year. Remember? And they did, they did well, but it was, you know, we, we weren't ever really, so it was always the Warriors year. It always seems like it was going to be the Warriors and the Cavs. It was 17. So yeah. Yeah. Um,

Look, I mean, this is pretty ridiculous that you would be this good. And then all of a sudden, like, is it just a bad matchup part of it? You know, the crazy thing about Cleveland, like going into the year, was how are you going to figure out a way to win in the playoffs with the Alan Mobley piece of it? Well, Mobley got better. Atkinson staggered them.

I always think about that Cleveland comeback against Boston in Boston where they closed with Hunter and Mobley and took Allen off the floor because they didn't like the way Tatum was getting out of the switches. So I was like, oh, because this is something that we'll see in the play. Like all of these basketball things that you would think that are part of the conversation.

It doesn't really apply to them. You're sitting there looking at, hey, are they ignoring any of these guys in the space? It's like, no, Indiana's actually getting anything they want. I think the most impressive thing from this game, which is also part of what I think is absolutely correct is the Pacers have this real edge to them, is whatever they did from Game 3 to Game 4 in preparation of this 3-2 zone that Cleveland runs, they figured it out. And the coaching staff prepped these guys great. The execution of it was terrific. And you could see that Cleveland was scrambling.

because, you know, really the zone stuff that we're seeing constantly throughout these playoff games, everybody knows this. You just got to figure out a way to get it to collapse. You got to get away to attack the middle and then you can attack off of that because you're trying to keep the ball out of the middle. They ran a roller going down the middle and then either he goes to the rim or he kicks it back out and they were doing it perfectly today.

Yeah, they had a pick and roll with Toppin at the free throw line. He rolls and then guess who he's finishing against? Because Mobley was at the top. Like when this thing was working in game three, you're going, my God, Mobley is chasing everybody around and contesting and trapping and screwing up the first thing that you want to do. You have the luxury of having Evan Mobley at the top of a 2-3 zone or excuse me, a 3-2 zone because Allen can play underneath them. Well, in these minutes where Toppin was destroying him in the first half,

Allen was out. So then they switched it to Mobley underneath. Then the Pacers got another good look. And then they brought him back. And then they went to Mann. And then Turner hit a three. And then there was another play where they were like, okay, I think we have this. Again, they're down so big you can't say, hey, now we're settled on defense. We know what we're going to do. And then Neesmith hits an end of a shot clock. So everything that possibly could have worked out, I think, started with them having a much better plan and being way more comfortable with a 3-2 that even T.J. McConnell admitted that

and that screwed us up a little bit there in game three. So Cleveland thinks they have this answer. They have this defensive thing that they can do, especially when it's those two guys. And yet they got destroyed in a bunch of different versions of it tonight. Right. And the Pacers, I say this as the highest compliment I can give because I really love this team, but they look a little 2014 Spurs-ish at times with the way they play with each other and the ball moves around. With the added bonus that

I think they're a really good transition team. And Halliburton, you know, especially in a game like today, when there was one pass he threw, he was at midcourt and he just threw this lob pass in the corner, almost like watching a quarterback throw a lead pass to a receiver down the sidelines. He just casually threw it

And he had a guy running down and caught it like in stride, stopped and had a look. And I was like, this team sees angles that I don't normally see when I'm watching basketball. They really have fun playing with each other. They have all these guards. They pressure full court. I think they're a huge pain in the ass to play. I think you want to punch him in the face after like game two, which we saw today. Matherin, you know, goads Hunter into a thing and then thinks he's the smart guy. And then they review it and they're like, no, actually you're getting tossed.

But they just want to get under your skin. And I think they're annoying to play. It's no surprise to Celtics fans because this is a team that has come every time they played the Celtics, they brought it. They start shit. They're really hard to play. They have a deep bench. They're really good at home. They get a good crowd.

And I think they're for real. I thought they were for real all year. With that said, I'm shocked that Cleveland could look this bad in an important game. And I don't know whether Mitchell, it took so much for him those first couple of days with, you know, such a burden. I'm not sure. I just think basketball is really hard now in 2025. You know, it's, it's when you have those games like that game that he had when he was literally dead at the end of the game,

And you're doing everything, all the running and all the contact and the amount of times he was bouncing against people and finishing. And I don't know, I, I, I hate to shit on the old generations cause you know, I love all that basketball, but I just think it's harder. I think these games are harder. I think they're more physical, they're more taxing. And it's a lot to ask from these dudes to put an offense on your back like that, you know?

Yeah, I mean, that might be, I mean, I'm open for anything, but to come out that flat and to let it get away from you that much. And, you know, you still felt like the frontline depth Cleveland versus Indiana, like at what point would you have gone?

I think Miles Turner is going to be able to hold up here. Every backup center minute for the Pacers this year because they lost so many guys injuries. How are they going to ride this out with Turner? Because it still felt like Turner was somebody that you could attack. Granted, the shooting that he gives you in the spacing opens up a lot of the stuff that you're talking about and how they're able to attack. But it's just crazy to see

48 hours later, this looked like a completely different series, especially when the Cavs should be able to win a game on the road, which we saw. They've got to be kicking their ass still from game two for allowing that to happen. So there's part of me that still thinks like, man, if they just inbounded, okay, then today happens and then it's 2-2. So where are we going with all this stuff? But I mean, Cleveland, if they don't win this series, which it doesn't look like it's going to happen down 3-1 now,

they are going to be like completely written off. And if they run the same group back, which is usually the default of what a GM would do, be like, Hey, we're really good. This is what we did to the regular season. We had our hiccups that we mentioned at the top, which I'm safe. I'm sure they would say internally with each other, but this was just alarming to start a game that matters this mode. It matters this much. And just at note, like, Hey, it's 20. Okay. Well now it's 30 and then it's 40. It just was an ass kicking.

Um, and I'm, I'm still kind of shocked. Me too. Well, then if you're the Celtics, you win this game and Saturday you have this Knicks game on Monday. That's I think one of the biggest Knicks games of the century, but now you're looking at, Hey, if we can just, we've outplayed the Knicks for 93% of this series. Let's take care of business. Win three more. We're going to have home court for round three, potentially with Indiana. Yeah.

Right. So it goes from, let's say, let's even say it goes to seven and they're able to hold on and beat the Knicks in seven and game one of the next series is in Boston on a Wednesday, you know, and you get the game seven potentially at home too. It's an amazing turn of events when you consider a team won 64 games in the conference and,

You know, I really believed in Cleveland. I thought this was going to be a really hard series because I'm also, as we've talked about many times, I just really thought Indiana was good. But I really was sold on Cleveland as a team. I thought they had a bench. I believed in Mitchell as a guy who could be the number one guy in a potential finals team. I thought they were there defensively. But the signs that were there, if you're really looking back, we talked about it some with the net rating for the last 25 games, last 30 games and

They just were better the first 30, 35 games than they were the rest of the year. And the defensive stuff was the stuff that I think there were some subtle red flags. They just weren't a top five or six defense anymore, really from the all-star break on. And the question was why, what was happening? And then you see like today,

you know, there he's, when did he put a court? Yeah. Cora was in there a bunch, but he's, I almost felt like Atkinson was grasping for straws a little bit in this game. Like he's just trying lineups and players. I'm saying the first half, like, ah, I hope a coral has something. It's like, wow, you guys are at that stage.

I hope Okoro can give us an offensive boost stage of the season. When Okoro got in there, it felt like it was kind of already over. Yeah, they were down 30. Ty Jerome comes in, and you're hoping he can kind of... He's been awesome. And even in the game where he had a lot of points, I mean, he took 20 shots. You're like, man, a playoff game with Ty Jerome taking 20 shots? We like him, but I don't know if I like him that much. And you would have thought, can he at least...

you know, not to be TJ McConnell, but can he be somebody who gets you into some really good stuff as you're trying to figure out the Garland situation with him being out? And then that turns into a disaster. Hunter today, five points, five fouls. So that acquisition hasn't paid the dividends that you'd expect it to have. The rebounding numbers, like granted, Indiana didn't miss. So there weren't a ton of potential rebounds, but 47 combined minutes when I wrote it down, when it was 98, 64, those guys combined had seven rebounds. Again, it's,

also speaks to how well the Pacers are shooting the ball. But I'm going to ask you this because as much as we're talking about the Pacers, like, hey, they're a feisty team. They're going to be a tough out. Defensively, you're right. Like, you start looking at the defensive rating as teams are closing the season after the All-Star break. The Pacers were eighth. You know, it's a team that went 20-9. Yeah.

some of the Cleveland slip off. I think at the time we were like, all right, is that real? Or is this a team that's just been cruising to the one seed the entire time? Yeah. So, I mean, there's, there's ways you can look at that saying, Hey, the Pacers number feels more real because they're closing and they're kind of fighting for everything in the paint and the calves and the other side of it, like whatever. But let's just say the Pacers get through the East. Okay. I mean, have you ever thought of Halliburton as a top 10 player in the NBA?

I don't know if I still would, even if they got to the finals. So it's kind of like whenever I looked at the Pacers, I'm like, man, there's a lot of stuff to like. I don't know if they're really going to go with this rotation. Are they really going to play this many guys? And the answer is yes. The defensive part of it has been real in the way that they've closed because last year I just thought they were complete. Like, all right, whatever. Like, cool. You're in the Eastern Conference finals. But I mean, I don't really take you seriously defensively. They got some luck. Right. Yeah.

This would be unlike the blueprint that we have all the things that you think are real in the NBA. Yeah. You go, all right, well, who's your best guy? And like, who's your second best guy? The Pacers, even the biggest Halliburton fan, like don't check that box. And I think that's the thing I'll circle back to. But that's why the 2014 Spurs, that's what made me think of.

That's what this feels like a little bit, if that's how it played out. Because remember, Duncan's at a slightly different stage of his... He's at the telltale end of a really great career as a guy who could be a 35-minute-a-game guy for somebody. Kawhi wasn't Kawhi yet. Then Parker was probably the most talented guy in the team in terms of where he was in his career. D. Al's there. Ginobili's older. But the team made sense when you saw everybody together.

And I think Indiana has a little of that. The team kind of makes sense when you watch them. And I do think they have, even though they're not a traditional awesome defense, they do like, Neesmith's a really good defender. Like if you're just throwing him on whoever the best perimeter guy is on another team, you can feel pretty good about that. You know, they hit threes and they're deep and they really like to play with each other and they really,

I feel like have an identity, which is all I'm looking for when we get to mid-May. Do you have an identity? And that's what's weird about Cleveland is what's your identity now? Because you're not great on defense. You're very Mitchell heavy. I'm not positive who your best five guys are. Yeah, but we know who their best four guys are. That was the whole point of this team is we know who their four were. But who's the fifth guy though?

It's a kind of a big thing because you have two bigs and two smalls. And then it's like, I don't know that I'm ready to audit the calves and that those four guys just aren't that good now. I mean, who cares who their fifth is when those are your four? I wasn't saying they weren't good. I just don't care who their fifth guy is when it's that good of a four. Or at least it's supposed to be that good of a four. I think you're right about the Mitchell part of it. Do you love the Allen part?

I mean, he sucks now. How long is the list? Do you love him though? I think every team would like Jared Allen. Yeah. I don't know. I watched him toe to toe against Indiana and I just, it's not like I'm like, whoa, there's so much talent. It's not like the Celtics Knicks series where you're like, what's going on? The Celtics have a better team than the Knicks. How is this happening? I don't know if I feel that way when I'm watching Cavs Pacers.

I don't know how you could feel any other way after what we just sat through for two hours. So, you know, I didn't expect you to start sitting here and be like, you know who's awesome is Jared Allen. I just think that there was like 82 regular season games where this team was historically really good. Now, maybe that's another part of this conversation. Home, road. Do we care? Doesn't matter anymore. 20-point leads. Do we care about regular season at all? Don't matter anymore. Your net rating doesn't matter anymore. Like, all of these things now, are we just going to decide?

that the things we've always believed in, none of it matters. Cause I mean, Cleveland is checking a lot of boxes being down three, one here. It's the part that doesn't make sense to me. It was why I liked them as a possible finals team, because I felt like they had all the things I was looking for, except for, I wasn't positive who the fifth guys, but I like Struis. It's like, all right, if he's your fifth guy, but at least you had to make some big shots in the corner. I feel like he could maybe do that. Yeah.

There was three guys that you could throw into that conversation of like who would be now granted, you probably wouldn't play Jerome with Garland and Mitchell. But, you know, Merrill's played a lot. Hunter is supposed to be better than this. You know, even Dean Wade, who gets attacked defensively all the time because it's like, oh, I got him. And then he holds up really well. There's there's a lot of little pieces there that even if you're saying like, hey, I don't know who the fifth guy is.

A lot of teams would take all of those options, but this is... Well, with the Celtics... Go ahead. It's Pritchard, and then who are my other four? What are you talking about? I'm joking. I'm just trying to figure out my five. I start with Pritchard. Oh, I see what you mean. Probably Tatum second. Yeah. Are you sure? Pritchard. Are you ready for Pritchard versus TJ McConnell in the ESPN commercial? It's 30 shots, too many shots for Pritchard in a playoff game.

Look, man, that's like one or two every three minutes. I just can't believe they would come out that bad. Like normally, even if you're going to lose this game, like get it to 12, get it to 12 a little later. You know, that's usually how these games work. Right. Well, all right. So like you mentioned, I think later in the pod, you mentioned the 64 wins Suns team that just got waxed. We had those Hawks teams in the mid 2010s. Like we've seen,

successful teams crater at the wrong time in the playoffs. And every time it's confusing, the bigger question to me is after it happens, is there a road back? Because the only time I could think of a road back where the road actually came back was that Spurs, the Ray Allen shot. And then they came back and they even think like, oh man, that's it. They're never coming back from that. And then they came back the next year. The Celtics in 23, Miami.

losing the first three where it's like, that's it. Blow this thing up. This is a wrap. Then they came back and they won the next three. It's like, all right, what is up? Tatum got hurt in game seven. Maybe we just need to trademark a smart and Grant Williams and, you know, fix around the edges. But normally when it goes bad like this and you really take a shit in a series, it usually doesn't come back. Like that's usually...

We look back and be like, ah, when they start making like a big trade two years later, we're like, ah, we should have known because that series in 25 when that Pacers game, like we should have known that was when we knew that that nucleus wasn't going to work. Do you see how it goes? A couple of things. One, that Hawks team that won 60 games in 14 and 15. Artificially inflated 60. I just don't think they were that good. Yeah. Well, they were.

Compared to when you look at the net rating, points per possession, all that shit, they were not at the level of what this Cavs team was. But, you know. Didn't they win like 64 games one of those years though, or 62? I think it's just 60 that one year when they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals and they got swept. Dude, a seven-part documentary about them. I got to figure it out. No, that's going to be exciting.

Let me know when you want to do the Kevin Willis. We got a lot. We got a lockdown, Joe Johnson. Still trying to get an interview with him. So, you know, when that Hawks team comes up short, you're also going up against LeBron. Yeah. So did you ever go on the radio and say, I think they could upset LeBron? Or were you always like, I've never taken this seriously ever at any point? No, I remember that team annoyed me because they wanted like five guys in the all-star team.

Is there a first place? Yeah. Like, yeah, that's probably not a great way of doing the all-star roster. Five, maybe an exaggeration. Maybe it was four. But then if you look at the Celtics part of it, I mean, that's why we're sitting here like this is going to be ugly for Cleveland. Like I said, like it's going to be really ugly going. Okay, this it goes from, okay, there's new coach. He figured some things out. They're even better now. Coach of the year type of stuff.

And then no one's going to care. No one's going to care about any of it because now they're going to say that this group just is incredibly flawed. Well, and then you have this squandered opportunity of whether the Celtics come out of this round two series or not, either way, it's going to be a six or seven gamer with some attrition. And then Cleveland would have the home court in that one. And Boston's a team they've always played well against. And Mitchell's always done well against the Celtics. Um,

Now you're like, well, we blew like, what if the Knicks ended up beating the Celtics? I'm like, we could fucking play the Knicks in round three. But you know, the thing is, is after this series and the way this is looked, they shouldn't be saying that about anybody. True. How healthy do you think Garland is? Give me a percent.

Healthy enough to be out there. I mean, he's made some plays falling down twice, not being touched probably isn't a great time. He fell down and got a foul call in today's game where I'm like, he just fell down. And then he had a play in game three where he like lost the ball. He just tried to cut forward and then, then fell down again. So, you know, I don't know if that's in the flow of the game or whatever, but I thought at least game three, it's like, okay, you know, he's out there. I, you know, I don't think maybe he's marginalized a little bit, but,

I don't, you know what, I don't see multiple moments where I'm like, Oh my God, this guy shot. I can't believe he's out on the floor. You didn't look, this didn't was, I wouldn't say he was skipping around a hundred percent, but he wasn't bad. He wasn't compromised. Certainly what it didn't really affect either way. Um, I thought it was more of the Pacers were just extraordinary and also really seem to think they can be equivalent.

That's that's that was another lesson this game like they were like, we're fucking beating these guys today. This is happening. We're beating these guys. And I don't know. This might be, you know, the times we've argued about it in the past, but even with the health luck that they had against the opponents during the playoffs last year, just getting the Eastern Conference finals.

and probably feeling like you were a lot closer with Boston than the series played out. I mean, getting swept kind of separates the men from the boys in those closing moments. You're like, okay, you're not actually at this level despite running around for two hours. But maybe that's all they needed. And the strong close and a guy like Halliburton who does not care, which is why I think so many players despise him. But you need somebody like that. You need somebody who thinks, especially when you have that many players

times with the ball and everything that you're controlling there, you have to think you're better than everybody else. And he carries himself that way. And look, I mean, depending on where he is, I think I voted him all NBA. I know it kind of came down to like the last few names. There's like three for one spot or maybe four names for two spots. And I know some people probably split. So I don't know if he's going to make 13 all NBA, but I voted for him. I'm pretty sure I did kind of forget some of this stuff. You did. I didn't. Okay. I didn't mean to do it to you that way. No, I brought it up.

I stand by that. It was a regular season vote. I voted for a big Jim Harden over him. Yeah. It's a regular season vote. Do I feel great about it? Not especially. No, I don't feel awesome. Not going to high five myself with bear afterwards. Should they give us, should the NBA like hit us up a week or two into the playoffs and be like anything you want to tweak? I know this isn't fair. They should give you one mulligan.

I swear to God, every time like somebody becomes public and then it's like, oh, this guy did this. And sometimes I think it's because the person just does it. And then there's just that moment where like, well, somebody left Franz off of all NBA first and second. And then I'm like immediately going back to check my ballot. Yeah. Because you're just horrified that you're going to make some mistake. But I don't think the NBA can go over our ballots and go, are you sure about that, dude? Although I'd love it.

What's the weirdest possible finals we can have that actually might happen now? Is it Indiana and Minnesota? Golden State and Minnesota. Or excuse me. Well, what's the weirdest possible? Well, you know. Weirdest possible that could actually happen? That could actually happen. Yeah. Indiana and Minnesota as a finals that could actually happen. Wouldn't Denver Pacers be weirder?

I mean, the ABA part would be weirder, but Jokic being in the finals. I'm just trying to picture like a finals that people in our life who don't really follow basketball, like my mom, like who's in the finals this year. And I'm like, it's Indiana against Minnesota. And she's like, what? Or my wife. That's one of those. Yeah, Minnesota has this guy, Anthony Edwards. He was in an Adam Sandler movie. And Indiana just has a bunch of guys you've never heard of, but they're really fun to play or fun to watch. And that's going to be our finals. I would...

I would be defending, we would be defending ourselves against the ratings argument that would come out then. That probably wouldn't be a great time for some of the current back and forth. Pacers, T-Wolves. Like, hey, they shouldn't have. Shot your butt. Shot your butt a little early. You see some of the players' tweets? It's all connected. By the way, you know what would be a really good finals? Indiana-Minnesota. I would really enjoy those games. Good battle.

I guess I don't look at like Minnesota as surprising, but they're another team, you know, Western Conference Finals, same as the Pacers, Eastern Conference Finals. I felt like Minnesota had a much better chance in that series than the Pacers did last year. Maybe, I don't know, this sounds stupid, but were we just due? I mean, we're not even there yet. We're not even through the second round. Like due for just like a completely wacko. Yeah. Are we just due for one of these?

instead of every year going, okay, it's this team versus that team. All right, well, they have one of the five best players in the world and they have two of the 10 best players in the world and that's the way the sport works. I have the conference odds from right before round one. In Indiana, I thought it was a great bet and I actually had that in my picks. Indiana was 28 to one to win the East, which I thought those are like just great odds. I'm not saying it's going to happen. It's just 28 to one, playing Milwaukee in round one. It's just good odds.

But Minnesota was 20 to one to win the West. Right. And if you looked at that one, kind of the same thing where you go, all right, well, if they get through round one, they're playing the winner of Houston Golden State in round two. They could potentially win that. And then who knows? They they love playing OKC. But anyway, 28 to one versus 20 to one.

Would be a very, very high parlay if you did that one on FanDuel. Denver was 15-1. By the way. Did they really? Yeah. So maybe some momentum. Should we pause the pod? Cleveland was plus 185 to win the conference. And the Celtics were minus 145. And the Knicks were 12-1. Some tough first few minutes. All right.

and I'm way more nervous about the Celtic game now since we did the pod since which hasn't even been on this the people listening we haven't even gotten to that yet it's about 40 minutes from now but I started thinking about this Indiana game made me now nervous that the just you always think you know what's going to happen again it's like game four it's going to be a slugfest everyone's going to show up then I watch this I'm like all right now I'm nervous again I don't know what to expect anymore

I mean, it's just, is it the most impressive win of any game in the playoffs so far? Right. Mainly because it feels like they kind of broke the caps. I think that was the more impressive part. It broke me a little bit. Whoa. It's like one of those football games where you think the Cowboys lose 47 to 17 in round one. You're like, oh my God, you didn't just lose. Like, I don't even know what you should do this summer now. All right. Before we go to break,

Did you see the movie Nanas on Netflix? Not yet. Vince Vaughn, Joe Manganiello. Yeah, excited. Susan Sarandon, age 78, looks great. You've always liked her. Looks great. Talia Shire, Lorraine Bracco. Nice. Brenda Vaccaro. I had no idea. My wife and daughter just wanted to watch it on Friday night. I had no idea I was getting Dr. Melfi. I was getting Adrie Balboa.

I was getting, I don't know, was she Thelma or Louise, Susan Sarandon? I haven't seen it yet. One of those. I'm just in Thelma and Louise. I can't remember which one she was, but yeah, interesting movie. Made me think that stunt casting, um, it's still works. I really liked it. Thumbs up. Notice. Thumbs up. Thumbs up. Two thumbs up. All right. I'll have to check it out. Yeah. I just saw it. Um, cause it just came out, right? Yeah. Staten Island, Italian restaurant movie.

I decided I like all food movies too. I was trying to think of one that I even like burnt with Bradley Cooper. I love chef with John Favreau. The movie? Big night. Hot dog movie was not a food movie. It was a ski movie. Oh. Um, yeah, I like food movies. Chef. You said you like chef a lot. Do you like the bear a lot? You like the bear a lot, right? Enjoy the bear. Bear's coming back mid, uh, mid June. We dumped them all at once. A lot of overhead. Film two seasons at once. Apparently.

we're going to take a break. Did you get any feedback for your Star Wars cameo in the Star Wars Rewatchables?

Yeah, I did. I got a little, I got a little feedback on that. And, um, I had somebody say to me, you definitely rigged that with Brasilo. Everybody thinks that he was too ready for it. I was like, I promise you there was no rigging. We have no idea if he's ever going to pick up the phone and I never tell him I'm calling or what the movie is. You've never told me. I even missed the blues brothers one. And I was upset because I was like, I used to love that movie when I was a kid. Yeah. Um, the corn on the cob line to this day, you know,

My dad and I will throw that one at each other every now and then. And I called back and you were like, you missed your window. So it's a very rigid system. And after the blue chips one and now this one, people are accusing me of having all this prepared, which, you know, look, I'm probably due for a dud. One where you're just saying, ah, and then I stay on it once.

You start ad-libbing. I just start getting stuff wrong, like Kawhi's injury. So I'll just be like, yeah, I don't know. The Endor thing and the Ewoks, you're like, dude, that's the third one. But it's just in the advance of the back going, it's the sixth one.

All right, we're going to take a break, come back, and talk rest of the playoffs. This episode is brought to you by Degree Original Cool Rush Deodorant. Remember last year, people got really mad when Degree changed their Cool Rush formula? One dude even started a petition. What was up with that guy? Well, guess what? Degree listened. They admitted they messed up. They're bringing back the original Cool Rush scent, and thank God.

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And it smells like victory for all of us. Happy Mother's Day out there to all the mothers who are not watching right now. I think it's the hardcore sports fans. I have my mother-in-law and my mother in my house right now who don't understand why I had to record a podcast with my guy, Ryan Rosillo. But listen, OKC Denver game four, there was a lot of things going on. That game moved to a whole other level of...

Storylines, things I was just really intrigued by, things I wanted to find out, answers I needed. And I'll start here, Rosillo. Really hard for Denver to score against a team as incredible defensively as OKC. And I don't know how they're going to win two more of these. What OKC was doing defensively, especially in the fourth quarter,

I thought was pretty bonkers. It's pretty, pretty, pretty high level. And it made up for all their weird offensive stuff. It's just when they want to get stops, it just feels like it's like a miracle when you're scoring against them. So that was my biggest takeaway. What was yours? That I cannot believe I didn't have every dollar in my account assigned to the under.

What was it? 179? It was 227 was the number. And by the way, that Aaron Gordon three, it was OKC minus six at 94. So...

I'm sitting there and you and I had talked after game three. I've had anxiety. I don't even care who wins, right? I've had anxiety watching both of these games. Like I've never really quite felt like this because they're such grinds. And game three was just a grind. And of course, because of what we do, you're watching the game constantly thinking about all the different things.

things you could like at one point when OKC was down, I'm wondering if you're going to start sitting here saying, is there an Usman Jang Jalen Brown match at some point or something like, you know, who knows where this is going to go? Because if OKC is down 3-1, like we start talking about all the different storylines, which I still want to get to. But knowing that they had to play that game

and then play this one less than 48 hours later. And in Denver, I just kept thinking about legs and who would have energy. And it's the worst scoring first quarter we'd had in the playoffs, like a tide for the worst ever combined. I mean, it's an absolute grind. It was worse to watch than the score, which was an awful score. The actual shots and the way people were missing and how far off everything was.

It was like eight points felt like a miracle. I was like surprised Denver had eight points. It was so bad, but it made sense. It made sense. And then when they talked to Chet,

Even him, this young guy, great athlete. And I thought, you know, I know the sideline stuff gets a lot of grief and maybe we're guilty of it at times too. But I thought there was a lot of really good sideline stuff. And Chet was incredibly honest being like, you know, 48 hours, maybe even said 36 hours later. And so the start of his game was not surprising. What was he said? He said, this is basically a back to back. And this is what when we were talking on Friday, we were like,

I mean, that game Friday was just immense. And we were like, God damn, they have to play Sunday afternoon after that? Because it felt like two playoff games on Friday. And that's what I do love about this because we closed the season with Denver, you know, being the worst defensive team going into the playoffs, a changeover their coach. You're curious about what the rotation would be. Remember when Pickett closed against Sacramento in the regular season? We're like, okay, this is what Adelman's going to do. And you're like, oh, he's not going to do any of that stuff. But so you're left with

because there's so much that I want to get to here, but you're left with just a, I don't know if it's a sinking feeling, overwhelming feeling that Denver can't get two more against the Thunder. Well, here's what we found out. I mean, we could cover each team. What we found out with Denver is they're down to six guys and one of them was Westbrook who could not make a shot today, right? And was basically, they weren't even guarding him. Pick, uh,

And Strother and Watson were the two that played. The Watson Minutes will not be released as a 4K HD DVD, I don't think, anytime soon. Jokic looked just like they were just beating him with a two by four and they were doing exactly what they should be doing against him. They're trying to wear him down.

It was so hard for them to get good shots that when they got a good shot, there was that shot Murray made in the fourth quarter when he went to his left, did a hop step and got like an open 15 footer. And it was like, wow, they got space on a jump shot. Like it was like celebration. The thing that was crazy to me about OKC in the fourth quarter is Dort wasn't out there for like the last five or six minutes who I voted for defensive player of the year. And they're playing defense like that. And they don't even have him out there.

you know, but when you think like they just come in waves with, I thought Wallace was great today. Uh, Dort, Caruso, uh, the Hartenstein and, and Holmgren combo, just ridiculous on Jokic. You think he goes from, he goes from last year, the Gobert towns, Nas, just like some twosome of that, the entire series to whatever's happened in this one. It's just,

It's a lot, man. I, I, the, my big takeaway was like, I think, okay, is okay. See, is better defensively than anyone else is at anything would be how I would say it. It's like when we talk about football and we're like, so-and-so's defense is the best thing anyone's got going right now. And it feels like that way with okay. See,

There's some parallels here with, and we'll see what happens in game four with New York and Boston, but when you think about Boston the regular season against the Knicks, you see those first two games go the way they go, and then when it looks right for Boston, you just go, okay, this feels like

the significant gap that would lead you to pick Boston against New York in a playoff series. And before we had the final, so these are before the final numbers from today's game, but when they ran through the regular season and playoff results between Denver and OKC, OKC in the wins is like plus 27 and a half better, and Denver in their wins are plus six and a half better. But I'm glad you brought up Caruso because, you know, the overtime thing and the clutch scoring in this series for OKC has been a mess up until today where Denver...

I think had when they put up the clutch number, it was like 453 left to go. And they had five points up until the Gordon free throw because he went one or two and then he hit the three off of the violation. So, you know, those points like, yeah, technically the count is clutch points as they all do. But it was pretty clear like Denver just wasn't going to get anything offensively. But Caruso, like I kept wondering, and I think Dagnall was looking for this, was who's going to give me energy?

Who is going to fight? And Caruso had an incredible offensive rebound, kept the play alive. They get to the bonus. He had the strip on Murray. They were just constantly getting in there, tipping and active. And I think that's part of the decision of everybody's dead in Game 3, so he starts overtime with Chet on the bench. And I'm with you. I love the Hartenstein-Chet combo for Jokic because it's just...

One is always going to be on you, and the other one is always going to be lurking, even if Aaron Gordon is going to be hitting threes. So I understand what Dagnall's kind of like trying to figure out, you know, because he does have all of these options, which made me like the Thunder so much. But sometimes that can almost get in your own way. And so it's funny, the thing that he probably felt like with Caruso's energy and defense was,

He was going to try to get away with it, and then OKC falls apart in overtime. Denver's just running away. They end up going up in the series. You're like, how is this happening? And yet I think the same thing that he was hoping would happen in overtime actually happened. I thought Caruso at the start of the fourth quarter –

It's hard to say he's the story of the game because there's all these different things we can point to, but his effort level, when you could tell, like this is the youngest team going on this kind of title run. If OKC were to pull this kind of thing off, you're thinking, don't their legs, despite Denver, you know, having this Bain approach, like we grew up in the darkness, like this is what we're all about. Like you're going to be

running around mile high approach yeah but you know you think we're going to be uncomfortable at home with our resume and what this group has done even though i still think them blowing the lead to minnesota is one of the most surprising results in playoff history i think caruso was that guy for the thunder um because even a really young team like i still think these teams were just dead today considering what they went through on friday night yeah i thought uh

It's weird. You almost have to work backwards because they have six guys who could belong out in crunch time, right? And Caruso is kind of the odd man out in the fourth quarter of game three. Then they're trying to, you would almost think after, especially after watching the game today, you could talk me into Dort replacing Jalen Williams and Jalen Williams, if he's going to be what he was offensively in this game. I voted for him 13 ball NBA, by the way, but there's a version of them where they just go the two bigs SGA Dort and Caruso.

And that's it. And they just try to lay the defense down as much as they can. Those are good problems to have. But the big thing that happened today was, you know, SGA was okay. I think he had three shots. It was the fact that Denver just couldn't score. I think that was the most shocking piece to me. They always figure out how to get shots.

I didn't like the shots they were getting. We always talk about that with Denver. Like, I just like the shots. I like the decisions. I trust the process. When the two, when the two man game with Murray and Jokic, which everybody knows is coming, but all the variations of it, like,

In game three, it's just funny because you'll watch and go, how come you're not doing this the entire time? Well, you can't do it against any NBA team, let alone the Thunder every single time. But when those two guys get into a rhythm and they're figuring out the switches and they're figuring out the help and then Murray uses one screen and then he uses the second screen on Jokic, he had a three at the top of the key. I mean, this is the same thing that we've seen here for years, but when it's working, even at times, again, against a team with a defensive profile like Oklahoma City, you almost feel helpless.

Well, you think like game six, game seven against the Clippers series, right? Those were, I think one day off between those then went right into this series. They had a really tough game one, get killed in game two, game three, Friday night. And this one, they, I don't know if some of it is fatigue with the Oak edge from the burden that he has, but I think what was interesting about what, and I don't even know how to define this. They sped him up by like

fifth of a second with like his touch, maybe a fourth of a second, maybe a sixth of a second. Okay. His touch around the rim, which is usually one of the things that's so crazy when you watch him, you're like, fuck, how does he make these all the time? How does he make these spinning eight footers? How does he make these ones where he's going toward the basket? And how does the ball just always bounce around the rim and go in for him? What does he do? And they somehow fucked that up.

And now when he's saying it's like hard back of the rim or it's short or it's like, you know, or sometimes it's just off the backboard. But they did something to him. I'm really interested to see if he can solve it because I think he's the best offensive player I've seen since early 2010s LeBron at least. And they've done something to him that they've sped him up and fucked him up. And now when he takes open threes, they don't seem like they're going to go in, which is where he was in the Minnesota series when that went sideways too. The difference here is that

when you have a six man team and a couple of those guys are not guys who can create their own shot really under any circumstance, if he's not going to shoot a little bit better, I just don't see how they get to a hundred points for Sillow. Like that under being 227 was nuts. We should have bet the house on that one.

I can't believe we talked about it Friday night. I know. It's like a lingering anger I'm having with myself. It's fine. One quick thing, though, on Jalen Williams. I would push back a little bit on how flexible he would be about subbing out somebody like that because he still needs to be your number two. And in game three, he was incredible. And he was incredible offensively closing. There was a silver lining to it of,

you know, if this team's going to win a title, I mean, he needs to be a lot more than he was last year. Even with all the, you know, the crazy thing too is about OKC. When they get stuff kind of going side to side and Denver's in that zone and they're loaded up to one side and there's all these kickouts to the other side, these guys are not making these shots nearly enough. And they're all really good looks. So if you're on that OKC staff,

You know, I've look, I've thought about all sorts of things and I don't know how ridiculous you are getting thinking about like, OK, what's the SGA? I just said maybe they maybe they bench Jalen Williams down the stretch is pretty ridiculous. I voted for him. 13 ball NBA. I think that it is ridiculous because here's why I said that, though, because I thought this was an absolute.

absolute must win. We must win. He's your second best player. He has to be out there. But I'm saying if I'm in the fourth quarter of this game four and I know I have to win at some point with six minutes left, I'm like, I don't care whose feelings I hurt. I need to try to win this game now. And I have six options and I'm just going to go. So anyway, I wouldn't have been surprised if they did it. But that's how important I thought this game was to them because especially as a younger team,

You know, you go down 3-1 in the series. You can't finish these games, these 50-50 games where you, you've already lost two in the series, right? Denver's 4-0 in these. And I just felt, I felt like OKC had to have this. I didn't feel like Denver had to have this. I felt like OKC did.

I'm not with you on benching Jalen Williams because he's your second best player. He had the huge game three. I mean, you could even talk about like what you're doing to him if you want to play that game. It's too risky. I'm with you. I'm just, I went through the thought process. It's too risky long-term with it, but. And you're also removing. Nothing was working for them though. Your second best on ball guy, you know, as good as Dort is. Hmm.

You're really just giving him spot ups. Caruso's got more drive in him, but again, a lot of his looks are just open looks. Wiggins was out there. Joe had a brick in the first half. You're like, that is your shot. It is wide open. Chet looked a little hesitant to shoot on a couple of those catches. So I think they ran a really good thing once they get SGA to collapse, get the defense to collapse around SGA. Like one time he got caught, got tied up, and I'm like, what the hell is going on? And then another time he kind of like was ready for it and they swing it.

And they had a Caruso three off that. They had Jalen Williams drive on it. But granted, he only ended up with 10 points. I think we should stay on the Jokic thing, though, because you're right. And it's funny because we're having this MVP off series and all the arguments about these two guys. And I think sometimes we build them both in a Superman. We can't believe they're missing any of these shots. But since game one, Jokic is missing too many shots for him. But every time you look at some of these possessions, game three, there was a possession about six minutes to go in that game. And

It was the eighth turnover for Jokic, and he had Chet and SGA right on him underneath the rim, and the other three players all had one foot in the paint. They don't care. I mean, this reminds me again of that Lakers regular season game where they won at Denver, and they were like, look how prepped up they are. Look how much help.

is coming to Yoke at you. Look how little they care about all this outside shooting. Like Westbrook's had some really nice energy moments. And to your point, he's not afraid, which is really important this time of year, but he's not making enough of these shots and he's taking a lot of them on top of everything else. So you'll see times where his defender doesn't even care where Westbrook is. And there may be somebody. Yeah. And then there's somebody else on the other side. Like they had one play where Watson and Russ were in the same corner and

and no one cared. Like, their spacing next to each other was so terrible. So when you look at these Jokic possessions, I think they're speeding him up because he knows. He's like, all right, these guys are swarming on me. I have no time, and I'm dealing with double bigs, and I have all this length. Yeah, it'd be nice if he made some more shots. It'd be nice if he stopped missing some of these huge free throws that we even saw in the Clippers series. But just their stills were all laugh, going, look at what is happening as soon as Jokic...

He stops his dribble and he's in the paint. And there's just, you know, whether it's Porter Jr. who was the difference in game three, there's still like just a lack of respect for any of those guys. Porter was, yeah, 0 for 5 from three today.

Watson was 0-2. Westbrook's airball was the biggest one in the game. And then on the OKC side, Dort was 2-10. Holmgren 0-3. Williams was 0-5. Jalen Williams. Jalen Williams was 2-13 in that game. Yeah, 10 points. Pretty rough. And then Isaiah Joe came in to give them some heat check threes and went 0-3. But the Jokic thing...

He spins, he spins around. There's another guy waiting for him when he does the thing where he, he tries to back down and he backs down and he can either throw it out or spin in. They're sending these guys to his blind side, like little like rocket ships. So now he's worried about those guys too. So he can't do it the same way. And it's all goes to what you said.

It's like watching a football team. It's like when, uh, when the Ravens had the, uh, Derrick Henry year, when teams would load, they'd just do eight man fronts and he would still run through them. And then at some point in the playoffs teams were like, well, how about an 11 man front? Are you going to run through that? How about we put everybody up on the line? Can you run through this?

that's kind of what they were doing. I thought to Jokic, but I still listen. We both watched a ton of Jokic. Like his touch has not been greater on the, the stuff that he's made all year. He's not making.

And he's missing wide open threes. And it's just, this is not the best version of him. And I don't want to make excuses for him. Cause I think he could play better. And I think he looked really frustrated down the stretch where he was doing the sinking shoulders. I can't believe I missed that. He just is a little discombobulated. So kudos to them because they figured out how to disrupt one of the best offensive players we've ever seen.

And it's almost like handing the ball off a few times, even if you don't think the reward is there, is you have to get him into those switches. You have to be attacking him in that first half. I mean, look, he always looks tired. He's probably far more conditioned than most people because he's in Colorado year-round. So even though he looks exhausted 30 seconds into every single game, the end of the game, it just doesn't seem that it wears on him as much. So I think it's both things. You'd be denying the...

of detail here on trying to make sure there's like a third guy there all the time. I mean, Jay Billis called it like a line defense. It felt like to your Derrick Henry point, like a goal line defense on that one play that I was looking at.

Yeah. I thought they did a great job on the broadcast, and I really loved a lot of useful graphics and, hey, here's what's the clutch trends. There was a lot of good stuff, which I think doesn't ever get... We just complain too much, and then we never compliment enough. So here we are, a couple of positive guys. Three-pointers, by the way. 10 for 41 for OKC, 11 for 45 for Denver. But to Jokic, he can make some more of those. I don't think Denver's done in the series.

Yeah, he could. No, I don't think Denver's done in this series by any means. I think this would have been way more dangerous for OKC. As a young team where young guys aren't playing well, and now you're down 3-1.

And now it turns into 48 hours of everybody just dissecting them, which can go either way. Sometimes it can raise the team's level. Sometimes it can tighten the sphincters. What would you have done? If OKC's down 3-1 and you're doing a pod, what do you allow yourself to do? I think I'd lead with the Denver piece of it. I just think it's so incredible that they won two of those first three games. They stole game one. Just an outright theft. And then game three, which I think you and I both loved.

Denver's just, you know, that was just the, we used to be the champs and we've been in a few of these rodeos and we kind of know what we're doing. It was one of those games. The physicality of it was ridiculous. It was an awesome game. Like that was a hard, Friday was a get, was a hardwood classics NBA TV showing it in August. And I'll probably end up watching the fourth quarter in the OT. This game will never be seen again. Nobody will ever watch this game. And SGA, yeah,

I think that they've disrupted him in all these different ways, much like OKC has disrupted Jokic. This is the best I've ever seen a team defend his drives. They're ready for his herky-jerky stuff. They never give up on him because he loves doing that hockey move where he kind of drives through and he brings it back out, but then he cuts back in. They're always ready for that. So when you think they've only had six guys...

And one of them has this giant, uh, bandage on his shoulder and it's unclear how hurt he is. Like, it's pretty impressive. But, uh, you know, ultimately your season comes down to stuff like Russell Westbrook's going to be wide open in the, in the corner. And he's going to air ball three that you needed because you had to have Russell Westbrook out there as good as he's been as a bench guy.

But that's kind of the difference when you get to this level. It's a couple of plays. Look, I do think there are some real positives, uh, with Westbrook's minutes, um, just for his comfort level. Um,

There can be moments. Look, when they got down huge in Game 2, it may not have mattered, but it felt like he was like, all right, I can fix this. Maybe it's a compliment that he thinks that he can, but if you just run through the totals here now, we're talking about somebody who's at 23%, and he's taking a lot of threes because they're there for him. By the way, three-point shooting combined in the first half, 13.6%. Worst percentage in a half in a playoff game since 1998.

The SGA stuff, had they lost, right? If they're down 3-1, because I think it's worth maybe doing some of this stuff.

Yeah. Then it becomes a little bit of like, Hey, this is what those other players remember. Windhorse was sharing this. And then we both talked about it. It was like, players do not fear this OKC team. Yeah. And then what were some of the, like the default defensive things that other teams are doing? You saw Minnesota do it. One of those awesome regular season games against them. It's like, look, we're just going to force the ball out of his hands. We're going to trap him. And we don't trust enough of these other guys because it's this SGA thing at the top. And if we can clog that up,

than guys that aren't as comfortable taking some of these shots in the playoffs. It's going to lead to success. There was a real moment there where you're like, would you allow yourself to have some of these conversations about is SGA's regular season approach too much like some of these other guys that

that have the ball in their hands the entire time and then it doesn't translate necessarily to the playoffs. I think in the past, sometimes with some of the guys we've talked about, it's totally fair. With SGA, it felt a little unfair if they had been down 3-1, but I think those things would have happened. You know, I looked at the regular season drives per game. It's 20.6 going into the night, 19 drives per game. I think the Memphis numbers are sort of weird, but he's still taking, because it feels like, is he taking as many shots? Is he getting to the free throw line as much? There's one difference, though.

Playoff officiating versus regular season officiating. These games are just more physical. And there's been times when watching them during the season, he would get calls that I don't think he's getting the same calls. And by the way, I don't think Jokic is either. I just think it's the playoffs and everything's physical. Everything's physical from the first quarter on. And you're just not going to get away with as much. So the stuff that he used to get away with in the paint and it would get to the line, it doesn't feel like it's happening the same way anymore.

Well, it definitely shows up on a few plays, but the overall numbers are right in line with where he is in the regular season. I was surprised. Is he not driving as much because he's getting cut off more? No, that's the same. Are the touches per game the same? Yes, they are. Now, granted, the Memphis series may be

takes away from some of that stuff. Free throw attempts per game. I mean, he's in this series now taking nine free throw attempts per game. After today, he took 12. The regular season, he took nine free throw attempts per game. So I'm with you that there's probably a few moments where he's like, man, I get that call in February. I mean, he had 18 in an OT game on Friday. He had 25 today, but some of those were...

um, coming at the end. It just doesn't seem like it's as easy, but he's also going against a team that, uh, certainly we did not see this kind of defense from Denver during the season. That's been the other story here. This team fired their coach with a week to go in the season. Basically, um, their effort was spotty back and forth and to watch them just turn into the team, like, oh, hypothetically they could be this, but it'll never happen.

And then to watch how hard they're playing. It all starts with Gordon, who's been, I think, the biggest winner of the playoffs from a career standpoint. I just think he's being discussed differently now, don't you? I love him. But I also love him. Is he our approval rating guy this year? No, I'm saying, yeah, there's a bunch of guys, but is he the 100% approval rating guy of the 25 playoffs? Like, who's zagging on Aaron Gordon at this point? Everybody's like, all in. Mr. Nugget. Mr. Clutch. One of the great

Maybe Orlando staff. It's like, sure, now. Oh, yeah. So he's not a small forward. Yeah. No, he's been awesome. I think the other SGA part of it, just to complete that part of the conversation, is maybe... This is actually really funny. I'll never forget how interesting I thought this was when A-Rod signed with the Rangers. So we're going back 25 years ago now. And he said, when you...

in big spots, everybody's surprised. Like your home fan base, like the size of the Rangers and all you've ever seen is highlights of me doing amazing things on SportsCenter, especially back then when that's all you had. And so when you see me fail because you've never seen those things before, you almost think like, wait, you're not supposed to do any of these things. And so the way...

I mean, the fitting thing is that we're seeing both Jokic and SGA struggle in a very intense, very physical and Denver's defensive level. Again, I wouldn't match it to the Thunder, but it's not what it was at the end of the regular season or going into this whole thing. You're seeing two guys have a really hard time with as much attention on them. And maybe it makes sense. The series is 2-2. I have a question for you. I just wanted to shout out Holmgren really quick. Just really enjoy him.

Like, it's just funny to think back at that draft and how much time we spent on those three guys wondering what the possible ceilings were of each guy. And then it feels like Paolo and Chet are going to probably hit the ceiling of whatever we expected. I love how competitive he is. We knew Hartenstein was in there because of the playoffs last year. We got a glimpse of it. But you never know with some of these guys until they're thrown into the fire like this. I just think going against Jokic, just knowing that dude's lurking,

for two solid weeks, right? And to not get in foul trouble and to just battle him and you just have to battle him. That's the only way to do it. You're not going to beat him. You're not going to shut him down. You just have to fight him. And I just think he's, he's shown more fight than maybe even I thought he had. And I was a big fan of his really like just both of those guys are just traded haymakers with this guy who's this fucking monolith, you know, it's impressive. Anyway, what was your question? Do you think Malone is rooting for the Nuggets?

Great question. Came to the right place. As you know, I'm a spiteful guy. I'm guessing he has a lot of relationships and the answer would depend. Well, you know, relationships with these guys, the answer would depend on whether he thinks Jokic nudged him out or not. Whether they just told Jokic they were doing it or they cleared it with Jokic. Like if Jokic had a chance to defend him or not. And if he feels like Jokic had his back or not would be the answer. My guess is Jokic probably was like, whatever.

Hey, we got a new coach. It's going to be that guy's cool. I don't care. It might've been one of those, but it also might've been, Hey, we're thinking of doing this. If you don't want us to do it, tell us now count to 10. You don't have to say yes or no. Just count to 10. It's like the Watergate. When they call, yeah. The end, when they call Watergate about, is that the final guy on the list? And maybe he just didn't stick up for him. So I don't know. What do you think? No.

He's really against them. He's probably mad at the Cronkies. Sure. Well, the front office, the main guy isn't there anymore. Maybe take 10 years with Joker and this is my guy and these guys all want a title together, but I would never trust anyone's answer, especially when your whole life has been just competing. So if they were to win a title, especially considering the odds going into this year versus the year that they did it with him, I

I wouldn't blame him. I just don't know too many people that have spent their professional lives. You know what? He's definitely kind of rooting against them. I think he is. My answer is yes, the more I'm thinking about it. You know, there's a youth parent phenomenon when your kid plays on a team and then somebody comes in and plays their position and you're supposed to be rooting for the team and you're rooting for everyone to do well. But at the same time, you're like, all right, don't do too well in this spot. Like you just, it's human nature.

People do what's best for them. I don't know if I would want to hire a head coach that would be rooting for the team after he was fired by them. He can't answer it honestly, by the way. I have an OKC question for you. Yeah, OK. Do you feel any differently about them than you did 10 days ago? Maybe just a little because I thought they were really special. And, you know, you look at the net rating, you look at the point differential.

on what they did this season. This wasn't just a really good, I mean, this team could have won 70 games if they wanted to. You know, I was looking back at it, you know, you go back to like some of these other regular seasons, right? Utah and 21. I mean, that was a team that projected as like a 59 win team. So, all right, it's not 68, but they were number one in the league net rating plus nine points. That Phoenix team after they had lost, remember how good they were in the regular season, but

64 win team net rating was less for them. And so I'll admit like is OKC struggling because with the way this game started, you go, how is OKC not up 20 already? And part of it was free throws. And obviously, OKC couldn't hit any threes either.

And so, yeah, I'm allowing the down 3-1 thoughts to creep into my head back to what I kind of hinted at there is Windhorst saying players are not afraid of this OKC team. And I thought that that was dismissive. I started thinking about the way players GM and how wrong they are about guys they actually want to play with. I started thinking about some of the results from the player polls.

And I don't even know if all-star voting is even fair to do, but I'm like, there's so many times we have access the way players think. I'm like, what? How do you guys do this every night? And the X player podcast, don't leave them out. That's the best example, because as I've admitted numerous times, like I spend my life talking about the sport and you're in rooms with guys that have done it.

But you're like, well, how can I disagree with them? And then after you're right, you see a few clips from the pods. I go, I'm going to keep disagreeing. I'm going to feel it even more emboldened because this is fucking insanity what you're selling me. And so when I heard that coming out months ago, I'm like, oh, here we go again. Like they're new. They're young. It's a smaller market. Like everybody's just being super dismissive. You're just going to stop like SGA's had one of the most productive guard seasons we've ever seen. You're just going to shut all the faucet, the faucet up.

And so I was allowing some of that stuff to creep in my head where I'm going with their three one, you know, is it the randomness of playoff basketball or is there some real truth to like this team isn't as good as I thought they were. The numbers that are historic, they're not just good. These are historic numbers and they have all these different options for like that guy's coming in and it's like,

Is there something to be said that this was going to be another year of seasoning for this group? Because this would have been a massive disappointment. Who knows? They still might lose this series because I'm probably, no, I would say I'm way more impressed with where Denver is at being 2-2 in this series, which then I think the other side of that is that, yeah, maybe I thought OKC was going to run through this team and they're not. My answer is both.

I'm actually more impressed with OKC's defense than I expected to be, because I think it's one thing to be a great regular season team, but to watch their playoff defense be even maybe a little bit more impressive. So yes on that. But that's not surprising to me. I thought there was no way you could watch them all year and be like, they're not going to be as good in the playoffs. But there was this last level of like, all right, now what's going to happen when you're going against this Jokic-Murray gauntlet when you're down 2-1 in a series game?

What level can you go to? And they just answered my questions there. Yeah, I just, I didn't think, I think if there was one thing you could absolutely bet on. I had real questions about Chet. I'll be honest. Like Chet against Jokic, as we have to shut down Jokic with these two guys and one of them's Chet. I didn't think Chet was going to be big enough to handle him. And I think he's shown over the last couple games with Hartenstein that maybe he can. The Jalen Williams piece,

is the piece I'm more lukewarm on than I was. And he was awesome on Friday. I thought he had a really good game and actually kind of, if they won the game, he would have probably been the biggest reason. But when you're the second guy, and we saw this happen with Jalen Brown last year. When you're the second guy and sometimes you also have to resemble the first guy every once in a while for a team to really achieve its, what are you, like taking numbers? Yeah, just going through Jokic's numbers here again. Go ahead, keep on listening.

Well, that second guy, I think, has to be more than a second guy sometimes if you're going to win four rounds. And Jalen got to that point last year. I think the best example is Pippen from 90 to 91. Now, 90 ends the worst way possible with the migraine in the game seven. But he just, in general, wasn't quite ready yet. And then in 91, that whole season, especially down the stretch...

was awesome and then went to that Laker game and was like just such an additive asset game after game and went after magic and like what he did to the Pistons. He was just awesome and it was consistently awesome. And I'm sure people go on the basketball reference and be like, no, it was three for 10 in game three. It's like, I'm telling you, Pippen went up a level and you could see it. And Jalen Williams, I can't tell if he's a year away from that or not because I think it's in there. But Friday night versus today, like that swing,

for four rounds against the wrong team that might, because I don't, if it's not him, I don't know who the third guy is who can create offense for them. They're just swinging the ball around. You know, I just don't see it. And I think they're going to end up in a lot of these under a hundred games where the defense is going to carry them. And maybe it'll be more like a 99 Spurs type of situation where your defense is so awesome. That's how you win.

But, um, so I'm a little, little, little more scared on that side, but the defense has been so good. I think it evens out the coach too, by the way, I thought his game one was bad, you know, hasn't been in a lot of these, but I think he, I thought he blew game one. I just thought he did a couple of dumb things. Um, I think this is going seven and Rosillo. Yeah, it feels right. Also, I thought it was notable that okay. See, see was favored between six or seven for this game today in Denver. Yeah. Coming off a Friday night.

Cause Vegas, like with the Celtics, Celtics are down. Oh, two in Vegas is like Celtics by six still have favorites for the series. Right. Yeah. Whoever fan dole name, whoever set in the line, this, this Denver, okay. See when people are like, eh, still think. Okay. See, he's got it, which I thought was notable. We're gonna take a break for the podcast. Our guy, Anthony Edwards. That was, uh, here's what I think was the tough one for golden state. I actually really liked how they played. I thought they played hard. Um,

That's about as good of a game three, at least for three plus quarters as you're going to get from a team without Curry. And there were multiple times where it felt like they were going to bump the lead up to 10 or 11. You know, it just was always five or six. And it felt like every time they had a chance to put a cushion in,

Ant would hit a three. Somebody would miss a layup. Somebody would come back. And it just, Minnesota hung around, hung around, hung around, and then killed them in the end. But Ant, I thought, had some really big shots and some control of the game stuff. And then Randall, this has now hit the point with Randall that I think he might opt out.

We went from thinking like, yeah, I'll be I'm in for 30 million again next year. I've exercised my power option. I'm in. I think he opts out now. He's been that good. Right. Why would he opt into one year 30? He's going to be able to get more than that. Especially when you look at the free agents this year. Yeah. But, you know, this this thing that we touched on last week where you can just go through the cycle of, well, who has cap space? There's a Minnesota go find you want to sign with Brooklyn.

is one of these other teams with like 19 million figure out a way to get creative. Does that make more sense to you? I mean, it probably feels like, Hey, your role has worked here. Um, it, it seems like it took a while, but he's, he's figured it out. I mean, I guess you could also argue in a way like golden state as hard as they fought last night at no point did I think they were winning that basketball game. And, um,

There's probably no version of this Golden State team without Steph. I mean, who knows? Maybe he comes back in game five. I mean, this is asking a lot of the hamstring stuff, but it just never feels like Golden State. You're never worried they're going to run away from you.

the way they normally would. With the team they have. It's funny. I actually thought they were going to win in the fourth quarter. Did you? Because getting a random Kaminga just going nuts game combined with what Butler did for the first two and a half quarters, it was like, man, if they're ever going to win a game, this is the blueprint for how they would win a game. But they can't figure out the Randall piece. It's really interesting what a mismatch he's been these first two rounds.

where you've seen teams go, fuck, you know, and he knows it. And I think it's the smartest, most deliberate, but not too slow, not ball stoppy, like the right level of picking his spots and taking advantage of certain mismatches. I really like watching him. And he used to be, if he wasn't my least favorite player to watch, he was in the top three. But I've really enjoyed watching him in the playoffs. And I think this team kind of knows what it is. The part that I don't really understand is what they're getting from Conley.

the fact that he's been better than I thought he was going to be. I thought he had some really good defensive stuff. Like that key play of the game, he played excellent defense. I forget who it was. It was maybe Kaminga. Excellent defense where it led to that fast break where they had Gobert as the trailer, as the dunk, which was basically the play of the game. Was that the late shot clock? Yeah, and strip Kaminga. But it all started because Conley was able to actually play defense. And Conley was somebody that in December, January, we were wondering like,

What were they going to do with this? Like, were they going to just bail on him? Like, that's how bad he was looking. And now he's looking pretty good. But, you know, it's a bummer. Do you think if Curry plays, do you think they're better or no? Wait, say that again? Golden State. You think they can win this with healthy Curry the whole time? Oh, the whole time? Who would you... After watching these games without him, would you still take Minnesota? Yeah, I think I would. I like that they have...

the good Rudy moments and the non Rudy good moments. It seems like Butler clearly, if Rudy's out, he's trying to get momentum. He's trying to get downhill and he was able to go off at times. And so it probably feels good for Rudy to come in and be like, okay, now you're going to sell it. Even, even if you don't like Rudy during their struggles in the regular season, you could see other teams get so excited when he was taken out of the game. But

Instead of feeling like you're playing into the opponent's hands by going small, their small is still so big.

And you're going up against Golden State where, you know, good luck on the non-Butler minutes. I thought everybody kind of leading into that game was right. Like, hey, if Curry is out, you're going to have to start taking some shots you may not like taking because it's probably better than a wide-open Gary Payton second three. But he's been pretty good for the most part. I mean, Kaminga was incredible in game three. Pods was awful yesterday. Pods just can't hit a shot. Big minutes, too. I mean, Curry, these guys must be thinking they're like,

starting a startup company with the way they go into these lineups. It's like Trace Jackson Davis. People probably forgot he was on the team. Right. It's like he's starting at center. Yeah. He's bailed on Quentin Post.

I don't think... Look, I didn't pick them with them playing it out. I still like Minnesota better. But that was a grind for a Minnesota team. Look, they were turning the basketball over a ton. The three-point shooting for Ant had been a disaster other than that third quarter. But once you wake that dude up, I mean, it's just a different level. I had Minnesota in six. And I think even after watching this without Curry, I'd probably... I don't think that would have changed. Yeah.

Golden State feels like one and a half guys short, right? And that the reason I say one and a half instead of two is because that weird roster they have, you can get the random out of nowhere half from somebody. But for the most part, it still feels like they're short and they can't survive terrible Draymond games with or without Curry. He was awful last night. He was really sloppy with the basketball. I thought Randall went right at him a couple of times. It was kind of shocking.

And for all the shit he talked about Gobert, like I'm just, I was surprised that he wasn't great. I didn't love the fourth foul that was called on him. I thought that was a really big call. No, there's probably one he got away with. It was funny because. Yeah, they all evened out with him. But.

Legs was like, you know, he's used to playing with fouls. I think it was 525 when he had had the fifth one somewhere around there. And Legs goes, like I said, I would have taken him out. But the funny thing is, is Draymond, he actually can't be trusted. I don't mind Kerr going, well, look, this whole thing is...

completely new and without Steph now everybody's asked to like step step up like not just one role like two roles it feels like like hey you're gonna have the ball in your hands a lot more and you're gonna end with the decision and you're gonna have to shoot in spots that normally you'd be waiting for him to cut and by the way all those cuts where you guys are wide open all the time none of those are gonna be there so Draymond had the bad foul against Kawhi

He had the terrible foul against Memphis where he fouled out. He had a moment in the Houston series where he was in foul trouble. It's like, okay, do not give away a cheap one. He did it. And so the Jaden McDaniels drive, it's hard to tell Draymond instinctively, somebody who's in the conversation, the defensive player of the year, to not try to find a way to come over and contest. But he had no shot on that baseline drive. None whatsoever. Yeah. But I don't feel bad for him. That was to put your hands up and don't touch him. Yeah. So he actually can't be trusted defensively.

in foul trouble. And that's, that all pales in comparison to his whole story and performance in game three. Cause I thought game three was so incredibly, um, Oh, excuse me. Game two, game two, when it looked like he wanted to get thrown out of the game. Um, I still think golden state's not dead, but even if Curry was able to come back in game six, I don't know what version we're getting from him. You know, we're getting set early as game five.

And I would lean closer to six. Um, it was fun though. The Kaminga thing. I was on Kaminga Island. I went down there last night just to watch with my fingers crossed, brought a bottle of wine. Oh yeah. Brought some chips and cheese, some crackers. Um, nobody was there. It was just, just public services or anything. There's no electricity. Uh, uh,

It is a weird one. And I, you know, as Kerr's one of my favorite coaches, as you know, and I still, I think it's just so weird that he punted on Kamingo when you watch some of the other guys in this team. And I get it from his mindset. Like he makes mistakes on defense. He doesn't fit into our flow of the app, but the guy is so athletically talented and unique with the roster they have. I still can't believe it as a play though. Here's where I've landed though, Russo.

I think some guys just aren't good playing 18 to 20 minutes a game. We've seen it a lot. Some guys, they just need to play big minutes. I actually think Pritchard's a little bit like this for the Celtics. I don't think Pritchard is a, let me come in for seven minutes each half guy. I think he needs bigger minutes and he was a huge part of why they won yesterday. But I just think some guys are like that and maybe Kamega is one of those. But if I was a GM, I would really think about him. Like if I was the Pistons,

Be like, you know what? Let's let's look at all the tapes of when Kamingo played 30 plus minutes and try to figure out what that looks like on our team. I think he's competitive. I really think there's something there.

I defer to Kerr on this one. He's needed him. Fair. They've invested in him. And I would admit, yeah, you're right in game two, the shot making starting game eight for eight, the pull up mid range, the finishes when he has momentum. It's bouncing off dudes on drives. But you know what's funny about that game is he actually was screwing up when he first came in. Yeah. He had a switch where he switched off of a worse defender into Ant.

and i was like okay again sometimes teams will just switch for the sake of just trying to get bodies moving around but he wasn't thinking that way like he is only good when he has the ball in his hands and he's thinking i don't have to give this to anyone else and then after that he decided like oh i'm gonna go oh i'm like i've seen these luca cuts he kills rudy so he's like i'm gonna go at rudy and then that didn't work and it was he got

stuck underneath the basket by the baseline, and that was kind of a mess. So there were a few things that jumped out, and you'll see it over the course of him because the scoring by itself is very impressive. At his age, his athleticism, and at that size,

The biggest win, if they were to lose this series, may be getting people to think he's worth a flyer on. No question rejuvenated his trade value as a sign and trade guy. He had a play in the third quarter when, and the Warriors had momentum and he had Ant 40 feet from the basket.

and took this crazy angle and anxious went by him and had this crazy duck on him last night. Right. Yeah. I mean, he tried to pick up, he tried to like, it was just awful. So, and I watched that and I'm like, no wonder Kerr's not playing them. Cause this is like, I, I don't understand how that would be your defensive tactic. Um, it's too bad. I,

You know, Curry's 37. They put a lot of miles on him and he ended up breaking down and having an injury. And it's not shocking, but it's too bad because this would have been a really fun series. Celtics next. How are you? I did something unusual. I invited my wife's friend, Krista, who's very fun, came over yesterday and we had margaritas and I drank margaritas during the entire game. That was how I dealt with game three. Is that all? They drank it. They drank it up.

I was really nervous and just decided to enjoy my Saturday and have some cocktails and watch the Celtics. And it was a fun one. For your first one, a lot of people are nervous. So where are you though, conference-wise? That's a good sneaky joke. They're a better basketball team. They're down 1-2 in the series. They've led every game by 20 plus points. How am I supposed to feel? This is a ridiculous series. I've never seen a series like that.

They're up 20 points in the second half of all three games and they're down two to one. I will say, I thought, I thought Joe called a couple of amazing timeouts. There was a couple where it's like, just call it now, Joe, just don't, don't be here. I'll call the timeout. Now the Knicks are rumbling. They're ready to go on a run here. And he called it three times. And, uh, and I thought the most important thing he did, which of course they did not mention at the halftime show, um, was just played Pritchard.

He played him 18 minutes in the first half, kept him out there. Holiday played 10 minutes. Pritchard's a real problem for the Knicks. I don't fully understand it, but they don't seem to have anybody on their team who can guard him. He's not afraid to guard Brunson. Spaces the floor. The more he plays, the better he is.

And I thought he was absolutely massive and the biggest reason they won the game. And then also Horford on two days rest, which by the way, will not be happening again for three more games. But Horford two days rest versus one day rest was, was big. And I thought Porzingis as much luggage as he, as he looks like,

He was still pretty important defensively in a couple patches of that game just by being long and kind of standing around with his hands up. So great win. They needed it. I thought the Knicks, they played three games now and haven't looked good in any of them, which means they're due for a good game, which is the part that worries me the most. They haven't played a good game yet.

Defensively, I think Boston's been terrific in this series. What they're doing to Brunson, how they've contained him. And granted, Brunson started getting it going. He closed Game 2, obviously, really well. And maybe it doesn't matter because they're down so much in Game 3. But there was a couple moments. MSG was hoping, can this thing get to 15? That was the great Joe timeout when it got to 17. Joe's like, timeout.

Yeah. But if you look at the Knicks, regular season, 117 points per 100 possessions. Granted, it's the playoffs. It's going to be different. It's only three games, but.

It's 101 for the Knicks offensively against the Celtics defense. And it was 110, I think, against Detroit. Brunson's 38, 39% splits. The free throw thing has not been a big part of it. They tried maybe a little bit. Yeah, it's a little harder to get to the line these days. Yeah, but the overall free throw numbers, I would say for Brunson, even though it turns into a conversation about his baiting, the numbers don't show up the way it does for maybe a couple other players.

He took nine against Detroit. And Cat has made one three in this entire series. I mean, his splits are atrocious. He's shooting 14% from three, 43 overall. I also think he's getting incredibly frustrated because it's the default go-to. If Boston's looking for something, hey, just get Cat in the action, and he's probably not going to be here quick enough. I mean, it's just asking a lot with his body type and the way he moves to be able to contest all of these threes. But I think my favorite part of that game

was that even if you're going to make more threes, which they clearly did, they're wide open numbers. I think Shulman had an NBA.com on wide open. Oh, I like him. Right. 25%, 12 and 48, whatever tracking they were using. I went through the first two games combined in game three, 12 and 19. So, I mean, you could, you could simplify it and say, Hey, that's the game.

No, but that wasn't it, though. The offense was so much more sophisticated than it was those first two games. You know what I loved? I liked how they played in the first half. There's like two things that I'll look for. They would get Jalen Brown into Brunson post-ups, and it's not necessarily the shot that I want.

but you have to send help. Yeah. And even if they have different rules of like, maybe this far out, we have Jalen getting to one of those weird shot attempts. You know, I don't know what Zach Lowe was talking about at the end of the game too, where he was fallibating Brunson a bit. And Zach was like, oh my God, you know, and the crazy thing is, is

To me, Jalen has had so many shot attempts that are like that, that I can't believe he's taking them. And it feels like they've gone in more than they haven't that I almost just give him the benefit of the doubt on some of these tougher looks, but it was much more like there's two things with him on those post-ups.

As soon as he gets help, he was really good, and they're swinging the ball. And it's like, okay, this is something you're starting with as opposed to just the hunt, switch, ISO 3 that I think drives even the hardest core Celtic fan absolutely crazy. The other part with Jalen is you have to get him with momentum with the ball because if he stops, then it's totally different. And I think his...

aggressiveness at the start of that game, even going back to the Orlando series when no one can make a shot. It just, it feels like he is more aware at times of what they need on offense. And I really thought it showed itself when they put together that huge first half. We saw it the same way. One thing I liked, and I don't know what happened in game one and game two, I have no explanation for it, but in game three, they put a real concerted effort into putting guys in spots that they like and

that the Knicks didn't like. Tatum was another one. Like one of the first plays they ran for him. Tatum's always good when he has the ball on the left, like 35 feet from the basket. You set him a pick and he dribbles right toward the key and he can pull up from three. And I always feel like it's going in when he takes that. Those first two games, they just, they had him dribbling the ball up as the point forward.

And, you know, playing with his food, doing the one-on-one stuff. I thought they got everybody involved and I thought they really did a good job with Pritchard. They ran a couple of Drew Holiday plays. They got White. White got a couple of plays where they set some picks for him. He was trying to go to the basket. They kept going downhill and really smart. And then when they took the big lead in the second half, you could feel it veering back.

toward that game one, game two offense again, because they were trying to basically kill time. When this team tries to go in the prevent offense,

I'm not going to like it every time. Just so you know, there's never going to be a situation where I'm happy when they go prevent offense. I don't like it. I think when they're moving, when they try to run, that was another thing. They were trying to run off rebounds and turnovers, push the ball, push the ball, push the ball. And you know, the Knicks aren't, that's where you want. You want towns like running back, trying to, you know, try to get back there. The Mitchell Robinson, Hacker Robinson stuff I thought was really good.

I don't like that hack of stuff. I've never liked it, but I thought it, it hurt the Knicks. It changed, you know, it, it changed the energy of the game in a couple of spots when the Knicks felt like they were about to make some sort of comeback. Um, and then Ananobi was awful. And that's, Ananobi, he was incredible game one, right? He was the best guy in the floor at game one and game three. You didn't know he had the Tobias Harris. I didn't realize you were out there.

So I still avoid him at all costs with the ball. If you have the ball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're the next, what's your move? A party. Three man, three big.

Up front, winning on three bigs. It's also the first game Mitchell wasn't like a huge plus on the net side of it. And I'm with you. Like, you can talk about his defense. I think Pritchard got him a couple of times in isolation. It's like, man, you know, like hit step backs on Mitchell Robinson from three. And Pritchard was just feeling awesome. He was he was great. But I don't know how, you know, Reggie Miller in game two, there was an air ball where it didn't hit any. It wasn't just an air ball went under the net.

It's an impossible free throw attempt miss. Like even the worst free throw guy in the league. It was almost like, hey, aim it right and below the net to win some sort of prize. Right, like at a carnival. Yeah. And Reggie Miller goes out, it happens. He's like, that doesn't happen. You don't see that. And then he had another one. He injured the cameraman. We don't see that too often. And you wonder...

How does that not? Because I mean, every emotion Mitchell Robinson has, he wears on his sleeve. There's no poker face about how incredibly frustrated he is with this. And he had tried to say something like, hey, it's a compliment that they want you out of the game this bad. It's like, that's one way to process this. Or they're trying to get 0.5 points per possession. 0.3 for me, considering his free throw percentage. But you wonder how much that bleeds. And look, or it's the simplicity of the

the team we all think is better is down. Oh, two, they've been through some wars before. It is a team that does seem to like to make things really hard on themselves. And it was going to be really surprising if they were down three. Oh, so all the other little things. That's good. That's good on the road in a way that I almost feel more comfortable with them on the road than at home. Their record. And I think on the road was better than at home this year. Um, I don't know why the home court advantage doesn't matter for them anymore. And I don't know really what's happened to home court advantage in general.

They were 33-8. On the road. Yeah. Better than OKC was 32-8. Yeah. I don't get it. Come on. You got to have something else. Some other Celtics thought. Like, is this... Did you ever allow yourself to think they were losing the series? I still don't feel comfortable.

I don't know if comfortable is what I'm looking for here. Did you, did you have a moment after game two where you were like, they're going to lose to the Knicks in the second round? I mean, I told you I invited my wife's best friend over to have margaritas with me for the entire day because I was so nervous about game three. So that was my state of mind. It's not something I typically do on a Saturday. The Porzingis thing really makes me nervous. I think it puts an incredible amount of pressure on Horford and Cornette to a lesser degree.

Um, I really worry about them with rebounding. My fear for game four with the one day rest, um, is the Knicks pounding them on the boards and the crowd being really into it and them hanging around, hanging around and getting second chances and Horford just being luggage like he was in game two and Porzingis just seeming, I don't know what the right word is. Weak. He's,

He's weak. I mean, the illness, if this is what we're talking about here. He seems off, like almost fumbly hands, like his reflexes aren't even there a hundred percent in the same way. So what he was bearish. Well, more, more like, uh, who is that guy in OKC that Poku, a little Poku ish. Um, he at least learned in the next game, the game three to just keep his hands up and be like, I'm tall. I'm going to do that. But you know, it's,

It's a massive loss to have this guy who is a guaranteed 20, who is like their swagger guy in a lot of ways. When he was getting going, the whole team, it was like an electroshock. And also like, it's just a huge pain in the ass. And I think specifically kills towns and you're just removing that and you're getting this kind of luggage version of him. I thought Cornette was good. And Pritchard, I think is, is weirdly become the key swing guy of the series.

because I don't see why game three can't keep happening for him. He's getting guys in switches and he's just destroying them. And he's hitting all of his corner threes in the spacing that he gives them. We also have not had a good Tatum game yet, which I think is a positive for the Celts. And I thought Brown looked pretty athletic. So yeah, there's some positives, but yeah, they're down 10%.

2-1. I'm never going to feel good about this. It feels like it's going to go 7. I think the Knicks will have one awesome game when they shoot like 20 for 42 from 3. You know, it's just law of averages. They're not going to just suck for the entire series offensively. They've been great with Brunson. I've been really impressed with that part of it. Not to say you're going to completely shut this guy down, and I know he had a ton of points in Game 3, but

It doesn't feel like he's had those long stretches of, oh no, like now he's the best player on the floor and there's nothing you can do with him. And Kat not providing the spacing is probably a big part of it not being a little bit easier for Brunson. That I can't explain. His rebounding has been great. I don't understand why he's not jacking up seven, eight threes a game. I always feel like they're going in when he takes them. It's one of those, I don't like when he's open.

No, I wouldn't say that. I also don't like when they put him on the low block with Horford on him or a smaller guy and he actually gets aggressive and tries to wheel into them like he did in game two. I think that's sitting there for them. And I thought Bridges had some really nice offensive moments in game three where he's got that little funky near the baseline, little eight, 10 footer that they know they can go to. So they have options, but

Sometimes this will happen though with the game where it's the hottest ticket, the crowd's crazy. Oh my God, that crowd's going to be off the hook. And then the other team comes out and throws a haymaker and they're up 15 in the crowd. Everyone's just paralyzed. What happened? I thought people are there. They went on StubHub. Their kid wanted to go. We have all these celebrities. Every Nick is there. There's this crazy energy that's happening. And then you can diffuse that in like 10 minutes.

You know, we've seen that over and over again with the Monday night. It'll be, I think, be that'll be not a crowd with the kids. That'll be like the real Knick fans. There'll be a real energy in that game. And I really worry about the rebounding for the Celtics that they need. Like, it needs to be like a 14 rebound game for Tatum. Where would you put Tatum in superhero mode? Get us a basket. Oh, I thought you were going to Superman ads. Like, talk about timing.

Jesus Christ. Nothing worse than playoff pee when in the Gatorade ad, he's making the shot and then they came back from commercial and he missed it in the game. I think this is a good PSA for all the guys out there. Maybe don't do those commercials if you might be in a tough series.

I would bat that one around with maybe your manager, your agent, the other people in your life. Like, what are the worst case scenarios for this ad? So I'm going to be in a Superman thing on a Saturday and we're down 0-2. And there's just been a national dialogue about whether I'm a superstar or not for three days. And now I'm in a Superman commercial. Maybe hold off till July on those. I don't know. Okay, let's do this though. Tie game. Shot clock is off.

How many guys will you name that you feel better about than Tatum? Here's the thing, because I heard you do this on Thursday. You feel the same way I did about Tatum this year. I think Tatum has been awesome in the clutch this year. I voted for him third in the clutch rankings, which I still don't really fully understand the clutch rankings because it's like, why isn't Jokic the winner of the clutch player? Like he does everything. But I thought Tatum was really good and reliable and smart.

in these crunch times. And, you know, that went sideways in the first two Knicks games. But I, the only thing I don't like with him is the, uh, the step back three with the hand in the face. And, you know, there's a reason heading into yesterday. What was it? The last 32 playoff games, you're shooting 28% from three. That's bad. There's your answer. That means you're taking too many bad threes. If you're at 28%, I thought he took some good ones yesterday. And then near the end, when they had a big lead, it got a little dicey.

I thought about it more since we had these back-to-back Mitchell performances. I can't wait. Can't wait for him today. So it's Jokic, right? It's Luka. So you're saying, give me this scenario. It's like 40 seconds left, tie game. It's a 2-1 in the series. Some of these guys take terrible two-for-ones. So let's just say shot clock is off and it's tied. Yeah. You just hit.

excited or scared? No, because you made me think of something that I think the two for one is this has now become an epidemic where we've gone, we've done a 180 now where the two for one team should do this. You get two shots for one and now the first shot that they're getting on the two for one is the worst shot of the game. And I just, it's like, cool, you're going to get a second shot now with three seconds left. You just took a 29 footer with a hand in your face with 30 seconds left. I swear to God, the league average is like...

50 points per 100 possessions on the first attempt on the two for one shots always by everybody, everybody in the league. But people would yell at us on the math side of it being like, yes, but you guys are forgetting the payoff of the extra possession. All right. Maybe. But OK, but it doesn't mean it's like possessions. Does that add up to one possession? It turns into Seymour Hoffman like Rain Man, you know, it's like what is that? You didn't even give yourself, you know, it's actually I don't know if it's worse, but it's bothering me more.

There will be a time where the shot clock is still on. So you know the other team is getting the ball back. So say it's like 34 seconds left in the quarter, full shot clock 24. So they're getting it back probably with 10. And they're maybe 10 seconds. I would say, what, 14 seconds is the best chance at a full look. So...

When I see these possessions, and I promise I'll explain this, there is a moment where you just have to accept they're going to probably be able to run something and it's going to be a halfway decent look. But the team that has the ball will still run the shot clock down to one and

As if they're preventing the other team from having time that's already in there. And yes, you could talk about offensive rebounds or a ball that goes out of bounds. Oh no, we got the ball back with 11 seconds left. There are a ton of shit attempts in this scenario because guys are acting as if they're running down a clock

to a point that like doesn't exist. The other team is most likely in all the scenarios you run going to have enough time. And so, Hey, if you had a good look with five seconds left on the shot clock, and that meant there's 15 game or 19 game clock and their game, their shot clock is off. Like,

It take the shot with five seconds left on the shot clock. You don't have to run that down to one because they're still getting the ball back with plenty of time for a decent look anyway. And guys have really emphasized running that down to the last possible second when there's still going to be time that you can't work off of the clock other than offensive rebounds and the other stuff. We need a whole Sloan conference study on how stupid the two for one. I will not be invited. Can I say one thing on the Tatum end of the game shot clock off?

Because you're not going to answer it? No, because normally I like it. Guess when I don't like it as much? When Ananobi is guarding him.

Well, that I mean, I think Andy Novy is a nightmare. I have been so impressed. I mean, he's had a really good season. I think he's had a really good stretch. He's a nightmare. He's a nightmare. I don't think Tatum can go by him because he's so strong and he moves his feet. So we've seen over and over again with Brown and Tatum when they go against them. It's like watching somebody try to open a front door that won't open. And they're just like, no, no, it's going to open. And they're banging. You can't get by him.

I need to find on Synergy, because we don't have a second spectrum anymore. I need to find how many shot attempts he's defending. And sometimes, again, you'll see the number, you see the graphic, and if you have time to look at it, you're like, all right. But I would imagine that the staff is going, we do not want to switch into him. And granted, if it's the end of the shot clock and you don't have really any choice, there's nothing else to do. But we need to avoid...

on-ball attacks against this dude. My favorite part of him, Bill, is during that Detroit series, they're trying to get him off a Kate as much as they possibly can. And he would still find, it also helps if a big is somebody you don't care about as much and popping out, which was supposed to be a big difference in how some of these teams are matching up with each other to your Prezinga's point. But his fight to get back into the play and

and challenge, even though he's been kind of run off with the screen. I mean, he's at that size, man. He's really special, and it's just kind of fun to get to watch it at this level this season.

He's been a big winner of the playoffs. If I'm the Celtics near the end of the games or the end of the plays or when I need a basket, I just feel like there's better options. All of them are better options. If Towns is out there and Brunson is out there, whoever those guys are guarding, that's my first thought. And even if that means we have Peyton Pritchard with Mitchell Robinson on the right side and he's going to go one-on-one with him with 17 seconds left, I like it.

Because I just feel like there's ways to attack this team that for whatever reason they weren't doing it. Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow night. I think the Celtics are going to be in for a really hard game tomorrow. It's not a game I would bet. And I'm worried about the Knicks. No. How many margaritas? The entire day? Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like you were pretty on it. It wasn't like you were breaking down Minnesota Golden State. I know. Why are they playing Bogut? We had four during the game, but I was also like powering water because that's the vet move. People don't realize you don't realize that when you're in college. Just drink a lot of water. It gives you like superhuman. Yeah. All right. One more break for the podcast. And then we got to talk lottery. Lottery karma rankings.

I used to do this as a column once upon a time. I did not send you my list. I was just going to go through it and have it react. I'll read you the teams with the odds and their top four odds and basically come down to who I think should win from a karma standpoint for the lottery. All right, so what does that entail? What does that mean, karma for a lottery? What does it mean? Yeah. Did you behave the right way as an organization and a basketball team? Did you bastardize your season?

Ethical tanking, what you're saying. Have you won in the past? Have you already been given...

a bunch of lottery carrots over the years. This is your Cleveland point. This is the Cleveland point when Cleveland won the lottery three times in four years. It was fucking ludicrous. I, by the way, just a quick aside, when you would lose your mind to a non-receptive audience on TV, I enjoyed it. Thank you. Because you weren't really even talking to anybody. I don't even know if you were talking to, you were just so mad. Like this shouldn't happen. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's just staring at me. Um,

Are you just doing the right thing as an organization? Are you on a good run? Do you deserve it basically because you're just doing the right things? You're making good decisions. You're picking good players. Maybe you made a good trade. If you're the news, don't lie. Right. So anyway, my number one team for the lottery karma rankings, drum roll, please. The Houston Rockets.

They have 3.8% odds to win the number one pick and 17.3% to get in the top four. They got the pick from that Brooklyn trade they have. So this is basically Phoenix's pick.

And, uh, I still, to this day, didn't really love the James Harden trade that much that they made for Brooklyn, but it turned out fine, but they've made a lot of good draft picks and they've set themselves up in a really nice way. I even like the Shangoon green contracts they did. I'm interested to see what they do this summer. And I think I've ever in the lottery, they've earned the right to say like, you know what, we've just done it the right way here the last couple of years. So that'd be my first pick your reaction. Wow. Um,

It's hard to argue when we go based on your criteria. Okay. Number two, by the way, what if Houston gets the top four, they become a content machine for the ringer and for our pods content machine. I thought we were going to do 30 minutes of Giannis to the thunder today. Don't think I didn't have it written down for alternate. I had a prep number wins. No, it was like, shit. Like this is now, this is now happening. Um,

Is Wiggins for Reeves? How does that work? Go ahead. Can I give you some Giannis Intel? Please do. Everyone in Milwaukee thinks he's coming back. Now, granted, the weeks pass and you never know. But I don't think they're expecting a trade request. Can I ask you a follow up? Yeah. Say the Thunder were to lose. Impressi calls. It's like, OK.

I'm just going to, I'm going to crank up our ceiling. Would it behoove the Bucs? Which I've said from the beginning, if Giannis goes, Hey, I'm fine. Then you just keep them. And if it means you win 50 games and you get a chance. Just proactively trade them without even asking them. Yeah. Go. I don't want to do this again. The stunning trade? Yeah. Who do I get him from? Okay. See, Holmgren has to be in it, right?

He has to be in it. I'm not hanging up unless he's in it. Well, you need good players because of the draft stuff that you laid out. But Holmgren has to be in the trade. Well, I imagine you have to get somebody good. Yeah. So would you rather have Chet than Jalen Williams? Oh, I'd rather have Chet. I would rather have Chet too. I'm very excited about Chet. I'd like him to be a little more confident in that three if he misses a couple early ones. But, you know, we can get there at the end of this round. So who knows? What is he? Is he 22, 23? I'm a big Chet fan.

I think the only thing that worries me is that he's had two injuries already. And now granted, it's like, well, but I just... Injured big guys make me nervous. My next one... Body fat of 6%. My number two team in the lottery karma rankings, the Washington Wizards. 14% odds for number one. 52.1 to be in the top four. And...

First of all, I liked their draft last year. They've changed their organization around. I don't think they've been like crazy. Just funny. I even kind of liked the Jordan pool trade. Looking back, like fine. Um, especially if you're tanking, this is more selfish. We need more good players in the East and you and I need more good players in the 4 p.m. PT games.

I just feel like we're late. I can't watch the Pistons all 82. Yeah, what are we going to do? We get the Pistons, some Celtic games. I think I've watched enough Atlanta. We need to beef up that crew. And I just feel like I like the way they've handled the last couple years for the most part. So that was a strong number two, your reaction. They have one in the past a couple times. At least there feels like there's a plan and direction. But Winger is a stud.

Everybody's talked about the stuff he did at OKC, but he's done with the Clippers. So he is a guy that I know privately that I would, I guess I'm saying it publicly, like if the Wizards end up with it, good for him. Good for Winger. Good for this fan base. Because, you know, no one's, that fan base, that was a fun team that you never took that seriously. But it's kind of a sneaky, awesome fan base. And they have had nothing good.

Think about the Caps. Think about the Commanders. Those are some of the best fan bases in their respective sport. And this basketball team, going back to Jeff Malone and when they had Ruland, Cliff Robinson, that terrible 1986 trade with the Sixers. But

It was a team that you're always like, oh, you know, they may bring it tonight. And it was I don't know. They always felt like a little bit more on the radar. And this is a very, very long time, you know, flirtation with the Westbrook Beal run that year when Beal probably showed us enough of like, oh, is that guy going to be a dude that checks out on the team? Yeah, I think it's a really because I think of the fan base, too. I think of the fan base a little bit and what they deserve. And I think that fan base is long overdue for some good news.

Yeah, they won wall. The last really fun team that seemed like they had a chance to maybe make the finals was that 2017 team that lost to the one and only Kelly Olenek. They had a fun arenas run there for about a split second in the mid 2000s.

Yeah. And they had a fun split second with C-Web and Juwan and Rod Strickland and whatever that was, even though they got swept in round one. People remember it fondly now. But think about this. Think about what you're reaching for. I know. Listen, I've known House since 1988, and he's never had anyone remotely approaching Cooper Flagg. The best players he's had since I've known him, which is two-thirds of my life now, were Bernard King in the 1990 C-Web season,

the, the not washed up, but getting there, Mitch Richmond and then arenas and then Bradley Beal and wall. So anyway, I have them second number three, by the way, real quick, I'm putting you on the spot. What do you think their highest wind total was in the eighties? Oh, I don't definitely not in the fifties, probably like 45 and 37. That's why you're the, that's why you're the best.

Is that what it was? 43-39 in 1982. Yeah, they've been horrible. They won the 78 title and that was almost 50 years ago. All right, so third one. They won the title so long ago that the team that they beat has not been in their city for 20 years. That's how long it's been. Number three, Portland. They won 48 games that year too. That's weird. Number one odds for Portland, 3.8. Top four, 16.9. The reasons here, the Dame trade was...

The right trade, I think they get rewarded for that. The Abdiah trade was probably the sneaky move of the summer last year. We're still in it with our guys, Scoot. I like their weird collection of assets. The Billups coaching hire turned out to be pretty good. I think they extended him. And it's Arrow pointing up in a lot of ways. This would be a good spot for Cooper Fleck. I like it, except for I just feel like does that diminish Scoot's star? Or does it lift him? All your arguments for both? Yeah.

It gets tough after the top three, Russo, for the lottery karma rankings. So you think it's a clear tier one of those three teams that deserve it, done it the right way. Houston, Washington, Portland. Fourth one, Utah. Number one odds, 14%. They have the best. They're in the one spot. So even if a couple teams jump them, they'll still be there. Six teams have never had the first pick in the draft. Can you name them? Utah is one of them. So there's a hint.

Utah, Toronto. No, they had it with Bargnani. Yep. El Magico. It's a really hard question. It is a tough question. Has Dallas ever had it? Yep. They have. Mark Aguirre. I'll give you the six. The Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the Memphis Grizzlies, who famously came one spot away from LeBron James in 2003.

One of the great lottery reactions of all time. Miami Heat have never had the number one pick and the Oklahoma City Thunder have somehow never had the number one pick. So Utah, they took care of Will Hardy, which I appreciated. They gave him a contract till 2031. Like, sorry, dude. Sorry we had to make you do that the last two years. Their owner has been great. I think he's probably the best kind of new wave owner the league's brought in in the last 10 years. But they did really tank.

pretty aggressively. But I think it would be fun to have Flag go to this team. So I'm going to overlook some stuff with them. I have them fourth. Your reaction? I believe they should be in tier one. I mean, we sit here, we want to play the tanking game and say the Wizards did it the right way and then Utah did it the wrong way. And I'm sure plenty of basketball people would agree with you. But look,

Mitchell was going to want out. They cleaned up on the Rudy thing. They hit reset on a team that, you know, we just pointed out earlier in the pod. Remember when they won all those games and it was a 59 win profile team. And then immediately they're like, Hey boys, this is the playoffs. It's going to, it's not going to translate like it does for other teams. You know, sometimes you regularly see in the playoff. Uh,

I think the most important part of this, you've got me on whatever tier of ethical tanking you have these teams rank through. But as far as what Utah needs, okay, what they need is a guy that may want to actually stay in Utah for 10 years. Yeah. I think the only way they're ever going to get somebody who's a franchise changing player is to get a Cooper flag in the draft.

They're not going to be a destination for free agency, even though I've heard Ryan Smith, the owner, like laid it out like, hey, we're not small market. Like, look how great. Yeah. All these things. I think if you're a simple guy.

you'd actually like to play in Salt Lake. I think Salt Lake's oddly confusing to a lot of different people. Like it's just, it's, it's kind of more convenient than Denver. Salt Lake's awesome. Right. I'm buying Salt Lake stock. I am with you. I'm buying Salt Lake stock. They have a hockey team. They don't have 16th street like Denver. So that's a positive. Got rid of Sundance. I think that helps the cap. That's out. Yeah. Sundance going to Boulder. Never made it. Um,

All right. I'm happy to consider them being in tier one. They should be tier one. The Will Hardy thing made me mad because I think he's a really good coach. And you just removed two years of... Imagine if you... When you came to work for us in 2018, if I was like, yo, first two years, I'm going to need you to really just fuck up the first 15 minutes of your podcast because we need the downloads to be down. And then you can try and try some stuff

but I don't really want it to be good yet. But 2021, I really want the pot to be good. So just kind of. So you'd say, hey, we want to suppress your value. No, don't try. This is a terrible analogy. It's not going to work. I'm just trying. But imagine being in the being in the position of like, don't do your best. Hey, we're not going to be ways to win this game. Don't use them.

We're going to have to have you to do everything still over the phone. This whole zoom thing you're seeing on the shows, moving to video, just two more years, audio only. Um, well, I just think that sucks to be like, this is how I have to coach. Like my organization doesn't want me to win, but we both agree. That's what you have to do when you're Utah. You have to play it that way. It's just a thing about the league.

If you're trading for somebody, that's probably a small target of who gets traded for that's a franchise-changing player that's like, I'm here and I want to stay. You're probably not going to be able to use your cap space on anybody. So you need somebody to come through, which I think this is a great organization, whether it's ownership, age, Zanuck, Hardy. I am probably a little too – I do wonder if Hardy in a private moment with a beer with a couple friends –

Says, well, it looks like I'm not catching Popovich anytime soon. Right. Because all of those numbers are when you pull up his basketball reference. It's like, that's what my winning percentage is. And that's what my record says it is. You could also argue, too. It's like we're going to give you this shot at a very young age to be this coach. And maybe there's a different path you're stuck in as a second or third assistant somewhere else. And you don't even get this opportunity until seven or eight years later. The Spurs coach. It.

My argument for Utah and why I want them to win the lottery is this Cooper flag in Salt Lake would be the most important piece for a franchise that needs it, considering all the challenges that they have faced historically in transactions. I'll move them up to tier four, tier one. You sold me. I think Washington would have the same kind of impact, though. I think he's a game changer for them. They've never had a player...

come in who is like, I'm going to make everyone better on this team guy in the last 40 years, right? Which is what we think he is. Do you think you have a Jordan Poole quote? Be like, this guy's going to be all right off the bench, like Twan about Pierce. Remember that? Jordan Poole's like, I can't wait to teach him everything I know. All right. Next one is Brooklyn. Their number one odds are 9.9%, top four, 37%. You know, they sabotaged year one of the Jordy era. They might've been like a

38, 30, they might've been a play in team and they were just like, no way. So I got to ding them for that. But, uh, you know, they've been all over the map. Sean Marks, I guess can just never get fired. But the, uh, the KG trade turned out to be just a grand slam. So you almost like get rewarded for that, right? All the stuff they got in that trade, that's still going and going and going. Um, I wouldn't be upset if they won. I, you know, there's a whole case of,

Can Brooklyn even survive unless they had a guy like this in New York city? Like when you think about what happened with the Knicks this year, I just think Brooklyn's going to be the ugly stepchild of New York basketball forever, unless they get a guy like this. So that's the case for it. And a Feeney's pizza outside Barclays. I got, I'm going to throw that in there too for karma. Great pizza. I think for all the same reasons that we, I don't know, Utah still has more challenges than Brooklyn would. Um,

Right, because we've seen Brooklyn lure guys already. Right. There's nothing on this Brooklyn roster that even gets you excited to the point of like even Lowry marketing. Yeah. Charlotte's next. 14% number one odds. Played the game like everybody else did. New ownership. I like Charles Lee. I wonder if you get flagged how many guys are still on this team two years from now. If you get flagged over under two and a half, would you go over under two years from now?

You'd say two and a half. Over two and a half. Who's on the 2028-29 season roster. Well, it's already two with Lamello and Miller. Lamello? We sure? Kind of. Are we? Well. Miller, who? I don't know. Miller, I don't know. It looks like he's going to be really good. Yeah, sure.

I don't know. I don't trust. Mark Williams has already been traded. Miles Bridges is a different conversation. Grant Williams Leadership Council. Your guy has Saloon. I don't know. Diabate? Saloon? Salon? Whatever his name is. I don't know. That's how bad this year went. Not a strong rookie year. Yeah, Salon. Some tough basketball reference. I told you I liked watching him. I didn't know if it was going to be any good or not.

I didn't sell the stock yet, but I, you know, I do have a red flag next to it. Chicago number one odds, 1.8%. But, uh, I like some of the trades that they recently made. Uh, we we're just, we're in a weird territory here. Cause we've got Toronto number one odds, 7.5%. You and I have hated them. Wait, wait, make the case for Chicago. Cause isn't there something to be said of like, no, they they're, it's pathetic that they don't spend money.

Right. I don't think, I think they've spent the tax once in 15 years, but I just like some of the guys in the team. So I was thinking from a karma standpoint, I enjoy Kobe weight. I like giddy vooch. I've enjoyed putting flag on that team. I think would be, would be fun. That's really the only jealous posters. Toronto 7.5%. You and I have not liked their moves. Uh, I, uh, the only reason they're this high is because there's four other teams that have to be lower than them.

And I don't really make, I can't come up with a case for Toronto. I have nothing to add. Okay. Now we're in the bottom four. New Orleans. Their number one odds are 12.5%. They've drafted really well, which we've talked about many, many times. They've made some really bad trades.

They seem like they're jinxed as a franchise and as a basketball city. This would be the one city I'd be actually worried for Cooper Flagg if he went there because it just seems like nothing good happens there. But the fun piece is from a karma basketball. If they did get flag, it opens up content left and right for us. There's so many possible trades. They might be good right away. It could be like he could swing them by 20 wins potentially just because they already had a lot of talent in place.

So that part's fun. But man, it just feels like they've had a lot of luck already with like they won the Zion lottery, you know, like it's hard to say, oh man, they're due. Like they literally won one of the three hardest lotteries that we've had for what people wanted in the last 15 years. So.

That's the case for New Orleans for and against. Yeah, I probably would like them to get it a little bit more. I don't know if it hits a reset on the franchise. My guess is most owners wouldn't win the lottery and be like, OK, cool. Now let's be bad around just winning the lottery. And maybe I don't know what to believe on whether or not there's a everybody's all on the same page about keeping Zion alive.

I just don't know how many more years you can keep going into a season, like hoping this thing is going to work out. And even if you traded him, it ended up being a star somewhere else. Cause I think there's a history there where it's like, well, look at Baron Davis did when he left. We'll go to happen with Chris Paul when he left. Look what happened when Anthony Davis, when he left, if that's bleeding into your decision-making, then I don't think you are making the right decision with this. But,

We all realize how special Zion can be when it's out. I don't even care if I traded him and he was awesome somewhere else. I could not go back into another season having every one of our hopes tied to somebody where it feels like it just ends bad all the time. And if you win the lottery with Cooper and Trey Murphy, I would start, you know, again, nobody, nobody likes when the media is just sitting there telling everyone to blow it up all over again. But,

they might be the perfect candidate for it because they have drafted well. There's other players like we didn't even mention Herb Jones anymore because he's been hurt. I would just try to figure out what I could do. Murray's out for most of the year. Yeah. And, you know, CJ is a nice player. There's probably still some value there. It doesn't mean you're going to have like seven guys, uh,

this offseason? Yeah. This next year is his... Yeah. He's an expiring heading into next season. Got it. Got it. Got it. I looked up the Zion contract stuff to familiarize myself with it and I thought there was like partial guarantees.

They could let him go before July 15th and just get completely out of it, which I wouldn't do that. I had forgotten that that was an option. No, because Shams brought it up. Remember when he wasn't playing doing, by the way, they could just go ahead. To me, that's insane. There's still there's always another team that's thinking if we get him with us, the ceiling version of Zion with us, that guy is not for free.

I know what you're saying, but I've heard the argument before. There's no way you would just go out. Let's just. I'm not saying I would do it. I'm just saying it's in play. It's a thing that they could do. Okay. You're saying it's in play, but it's. You know what else is in play? What's that? They could trade for somebody who takes the Zion contract and immediately intends to waive the contract because this will be their way to get out of a shitload of money. I just don't think that he is at that point.

where you would want nothing or acquire him to get off of money to then waive him. You know why you're right? Because you could do this all again next year. Yeah, you could take, even if you're trading for him, you could take a flyer and I'm knowing that, all right, if this goes badly again next year, I could just get out of it and waive him again.

But I just, everyone is so desperate to shed money. I just think it's notable that somebody makes $39 million a year who could match with anyone in trade. You could then wave and get out of all the money, all the apron shit that comes with it. I don't, I don't think that's nothing. It's my worst fear for the Celtics. What? That they would trade for Zion and then wave them? Like the new owners, like now that I have the team, guess what? We're cutting costs. We've traded for Zion and we're waving them.

Sounds like somebody was having some down. Oh, two thoughts that I think this is my fourth margarita. The next start to come back. I was like, oh, my God.

All right. Bottom three. San Antonio, third from last. Number one odds, 6.8. They won with Wemby. That's really the only reason. You can't win with the Admiral, Duncan, Wemby and Yama. And then you get Cooper flag. Sorry. Because I know everybody was listening like, hey, the Spurs, they do it the right way. They've had too much luck. No, we're good. You get Duncan, Wemby, stop. No one's going to agree with us. We're right. We're right.

which leads us to the second to the last karma team, the Philadelphia 76ers. Their number one odds are 10.5%, top four, 42%. If it falls seven or lower, they're in the five spot now. Two teams jump them. OKC gets their pick. I just don't think you should be able to stumble in a Cooper flag after the summer they had last year. It's ridiculous. It's outright ridiculous. I'd be happy for Maxie. I'd be happy for McCain.

But the Embiid extension combined with the Paul George four years and trotting out the big three media dialogue and the title stuff and all of it, if it leads to Cooper flag, that's outrageous. No offense to our Philly fan friends. It would be outrageous. It really would be. I almost want it to happen. People are going to be so pissed off.

People are going to be so mad because it was, this is how it played out. Right. What it wasn't just that this was on the table. It's when everything was falling apart and then you were looking at their record and

And then the Sixers are going to those games being like, you think you're fucking tanking? We're fucking tanking. Let me introduce you to Bona. Oh, hey, Nets, you want to play hard in the fourth quarter? We're running ISOs for Edwards. Like, fuck you guys. They're ready to like Tanya Harding, Quinton Grimes. They're just going to hire some fat guy to hit him on the side of the leg on the bench. Well, Toronto kept winning these games because their defense was somehow incredible this late into the season. And...

Or they had that stretch, I would say. You're like, how the hell does Toronto keep winning some of these games? But Philly, and I think Philly, in a way, I like what they did where they're like, we're not screwing around.

Even though Quentin Grimes, for that stretch, it's like, are they going to cost them this top six protection on this thing? So we were chasing the top six protection. We're following all that stuff. Like, are they going to actually lose this pick? Like the worst case scenario of what could happen here, considering how bad the season is, like on top of everything else. And guess who else has the pick? Oh, great. It's OKC. What a shocker to then getting Cooper flag. I think that'd be a lot for people to handle. I think people would rather the Spurs with it than the 76ers.

Embiid. Think of the headline. Embiid, excited to take Cooper Flagg under his wing. A new long ESPN feature. Last but not least. Now, it's weird because they should be last in the lottery karma rankings, but you could also make a case they should be first. Because of the fans. The Dallas Mavericks, number one odds, 1.8%, top four, 8.5%. To do that Luka trade and then end up with Cooper Flagg

would be a moral outrage. Not even an outrage. I'd be morally outraged. My morals would be discombobulated by it. I just can't believe that's how it would work out. It would make me so mad. Like, really? You motherfuckers just got Cooper Flagg after making the dumbest trade anyone has ever seen? And it worked out? You got Cooper Flagg out of it? But on the other hand, for the Mavericks fans...

who are as traumatized and upset about a trade as any fan base I've ever seen since I've started to like sports, I'd be happy for them. But I think they have to be last. I feel like the fan part should prevent them from being last. Like why are the Sixers? Why are the Sixers? What about San Antonio? Because at least they'd be rewarded for... They've done some good stuff, San Antonio. The Fox trade was good. Castle pick was good. Um...

They tanked while also seeming like they cared about the season, which I think is a hard line to straddle.

That's almost why I appreciate Daryl and the Sixers were going, you guys want to act like there's these rules of engagement shit? You guys want to have one of those operations where it's like, yeah, we're sort of invading this area, but we're kind of not because we gave it a title. Like you ever want to go through and just laugh your ass off? Look at some of the military operations titles, just the branding of them to try to make everybody feel a little bit like nothing's even called a war anymore. And

when I think about what the Sixers did, you can call this whatever you want. Label whatever you want. There are no rules. Like, we're doing this. And it was the right thing to do. Nobody will remember in a year. Yeah. And, you know, look, whether it's that

Dallas argument years ago where it felt like it was terrible or the Doug Peterson Philadelphia Eagles thing where it made sense for the Eagles to lose that game but because it's the national broadcast we're seeing it happen in real time and everybody's got their phones out there's no other games on distract us from it then it becomes this like act against humanity and I I don't like like I know what you're saying where the Spurs did it in the decent way right

Utah wasn't perhaps as decent. Again, we keep using that word that everybody loves about ethical tanking or ethical hoops. I don't know. That just feels...

That feels nasty to have Dallas last, but I know you're thinking about Nico and maybe there was some after Luca and the Lakers lost in five games. The people in the media that suggested somehow we needed to revisit the Nico Harrison conversation. This is like watching a four by 100 relay and seeing the first handoff and going, well, that's over.

This is not when you're evaluating this. And by the way, again, it has nothing to do with what the Lakers or Luka didn't do in the playoffs this year. It has everything to do with the execution of this historically bad trade. So even if it turns out in five years, like Lucas heard and like, hey, was Nico right? The process will forever be wrong. And when that team gets eliminated, when Reeves gets traded this summer and he will get traded.

And the stuff that they get back for him is going to make it seem even worse that they didn't get him in the trade.

I know it's a TV show, and this is somebody who's done this for a long time. You know what's happening in those pre-show meetings. Like, hey, do we need to revisit the Nico conversation? It's like, I don't know. What's the rest of the rundown look like? Like, we're kind of light. There's no football stuff. It's like, all right, maybe we'll throw it in the Ds. I can do two more minutes on Nico. Yeah, just set me up. Yeah, and then sometimes that itself is the segment. Ask the question, and then you just shoot down the entire idea. But anyone...

That really is paying attention. Again, I shouldn't even phrase it that way. Sane people would go, this is not a conversation that we can have right now because of an elimination in one year of the playoffs. So go ahead. We have to go. Yes. So I always grab a dream team cup when I do the pod. I love that you do that. I didn't notice that I grabbed John Stockton. I just grabbed one. Does it mean anything that I grabbed John Stockton for the lottery?

Um, well, I had 12 choices of dream team cups, I guess Malone or Stockton. So it was a one in six chance. I was grabbing a Utah thing, which is basically the exact same odds that they have in the lottery. So I grab a John Stockton. Don't think about it. We'll see tomorrow night if it's a coincidence. All right. We're still, we're going to watch this game. We're going to, uh, for the podcast, uh,

We're going to put at the very top of the podcast, our thoughts on the Cleveland game that we're about to watch. We'll tape a little stuff at the top, but I enjoyed myself as usual. Good to see you, Rosillo. See you in a bit.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rosillo and Eduardo and Gahal. Don't forget, I'm coming back tomorrow night with another podcast, Rewatchables Push till Tuesday. You still have an extra day to watch Death Wish, which is quite a movie, quite a 70s movie. And I will see you in 24 hours.

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