LeBron will close out Nuggets in 6
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School is back, and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in-store or online at Dick's.com. If there ever is a movie about the story of LeBron James, what would you call it? I would call it striving for second best. Relentless. Can you blend? It's time to cash in. One more.

Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 109. This is the un-undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the debate show that is undisputed. Today, I will tell you why the basketball gods...

have blessed LeBron James with a golden goat opportunity. Today, I will tell you why the Eagles will win the NFC East, why my Cowboys will not even make the playoffs, and why my Cowboys have now humiliated me in ways I never could have fathomed today.

I will tell you why, thanks to one of your great questions. I now vow to break my evil belief in jinxes. And finally today, I will give you the beloved backstory to a video that I posted this week of me and Hazel play fighting. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. Okay, of course, every time I say a single word...

About LeBron, Raymond, James Sr., as in LeBron, his billions of blind witnesses attack me like Willard's rats. You probably don't remember this movie. I barely do. But there was a movie called Willard in which this geeky recluse named Willard had an army of rats that he could sick on people that he hated.

So every every single time I say even a single word about the quote unquote king, his apologists, his defenders, his naysayers, his billions and billions of blind witnesses swoop down on me because they can't handle the truth. I never tell anything but the absolute truth about LeBron James.

He is still the best passer in all of basketball. He is still the greatest basket attacker in all of basketball. Never seen anything like the way he can still freight train to the basket. Nobody can stop that. He still has the highest IQ in basketball and obviously one of the highest IQs in the history of basketball ever.

arguably up there even exceeding Magix, John Stockton's or Jason Kidd's, or I could go on and on, but LeBron is up there with the best of them, the smartest of them. Yet still, I do not believe that LeBron James was born with the clutch gene. And even worse, I don't think he has the closer gene that has been wrecking his team for two years now.

I hate to even bring up what he did and didn't do against Denver last year in conference finals. I hate to rub your noses in it, you blind witnesses listening, watching right now. Four times the Lakers were right there with the Nuggets in the fourth quarter. Four straight times. And in those four fourth quarters combined, LeBron James shot seven of 23 times.

He shot a combined one of 10 from three. Four times they needed LeBron to just close one deal, just one deal, and he went 0-4-4. His Lakers got swept by the eventual NBA champion Denver Nuggets. Two there, two here in L.A. Swept, unceremoniously swept, ending in the closeout game here in L.A. at the Crypt.

With LeBron with the ball in his hands twice late in the game, a two-point game, one shot to tie from the left wing, hit the side of the backboard, another shot to tie near the buzzer. LeBron finally put his head down as he should always and drove it. Jamal Murray made a tremendous high IQ basketball play, cut him off at the pass, got his hands on the ball. And as LeBron fought through,

Jamal's hands to get the ball up into shooting position. Aaron Gordon easily blocked it to end the game. Pathetic and pathetic. LeBron, you're just better than that. You at least got to get the ball up to the rim. And twice he failed to get the ball up to the rim. But Willard's rats attacked. LeBron's apologists, excuse makers, defenders attacked me. No, no, no, no, no, no. His foot was hurt.

Sure looked fine against Memphis in the first round. It looked great against Golden State in the second round. And then I began to hear, well, come on, he's 38 years old. He ran out of gas, ran out of gas, spends, what is it, $2 million a year on his body? Best conditioned athlete ever ran out of gas in a basketball game? Come on, stop it.

I mean, ran out of gas? He's a living gas pump. No, come on. Face it. Accept it. Swallow it. Let it sit in your gut. LeBron James choked his guts out last year against the Denver Nuggets. Four straight times he choked his guts out. All I hear is the GOAT. GOATs don't choke their guts out in conference finals games. Not four in a row.

So how did ran out of gas LeBron prepare for this year's deep playoff run during the regular season? By playing more minutes than he did last year during the regular season. He did what of the players who played at least 70 games during this regular season that just ended? LeBron James led the NBA in minutes played per game.

35.2 minutes per game. He did what? He led. He played the most. Silly me. I thought this was the year that LeBron James was going to manage his minutes so he could be fresher and readier with more gas left in the tank for the playoff run, the deep playoff run. Nope. He chose to play the most minutes.

He did that. He takes himself in and out of games. He did that. He accomplished the equivalent of basketball suicide. He accomplished the equivalent of mind-blowing self-destruction. Unless, of course, basketball genius LeBron James wanted to build in an excuse just in case he once again chokes his guts out in this year's playoffs.

Sure. Then his blind witnesses can say, well, look, he played the most minutes in the regular season. What do you expect? My God. So why did he play all those minutes? It got them exactly where it got them in the play in tournament. If you told me they were the one seat, I'd say, well, OK, he played all those minutes to get them a seed to get them home court advantage.

No, it got them the eighth seed. The eighth seed? Really? Played the most minutes to get you to the eighth seed. I'm sorry. All those minutes played actually got him the perfect excuse just in case. But guess what just happened? Whether LeBron liked it or not, he may be dreading this. He may be losing sleep over this as we speak. The basketball gods just said, LeBron,

We are going to bless you with a golden goat opportunity right here, right now. Those basketball gods made sure that the Denver Nuggets inexplicably blew a game at San Antonio last Friday night to a Spurs team with Wimby, but without their other two best players, there was no Vassell, no Sohan, no Hope, no Chance.

Spurs by far, by far the worst team in the West without their second and third best players. Wait, they just beat the Denver Nuggets and cost them the one seed? They did. Basketball gods at work. Then Tuesday night at New Orleans, as you well know, just when it looked like LeBron and the Lakers were going to beat the Pelicans by 30 in their own building where they had lost five in a row,

The Pelicans inexplicably, inconceivably went on a 38-20 run and managed to tie the game at 95 all with 3 minutes and 13 seconds left. 95 all in that fourth quarter on Tuesday night. LeBron went choke city again. He went 1-8 from the floor. He went 0-2 from three.

Heck, for the game, he was 6 of 20 and 1 of 5 from 3. But with 3.13 left, the basketball gods tapped Zion Williamson on the shoulder and said, Zion, leave the poor man alone. LeBron up to that point, excuse me, Zion up to that point had scored 40 points. He'd gone 4 out of 4 in the fourth quarter. And all of a sudden, he goes up and makes a little three-foot floater right in AD's face.

Came down not so dangerously, not so awkwardly to my eye. And Zion, playing the game of his life in his first ever postseason game, suffered the most mysterious injury I have ever, ever, ever seen. He did come away with a very slight limp. He was angry, pulled his jersey up over his head like he knew something had gone terribly wrong in his left leg. Couldn't figure out what.

Went to the bench, sat for a second, threw a towel in anger. Then Power walked up the tunnel to the locker room and did not return. Looked like he was moving okay, maybe a little hitch in his get-along. Did not return. If Zion had not been hurt, the Lakers are going to lose that game. You know it, and I know it. It just felt like he had 10 more points in him over the last three minutes.

The Lakers were going to lose that game. They'd lost momentum, lost their way, lost their rhythm, lost all hope of stopping Zion, keeping him from the rack. They were getting wrecked at the rack, annihilated points in the paint. What was it, 68 to 34? And remember, if the Pelicans had won, that would have meant that the Lakers would come home to play on Friday night,

A do or die game against. We thought it was going to be Golden State. Nope. It was the Kings. A nemesis even greater than the Nuggets have been to the Lakers. A nemesis that so owns the Lakers psychologically that the Kings have wiped them out eight of the last nine times they played. Wiped them out. At least the Denver games have been close. Wiped out by the Kings psychologically.

I don't think there would have been any chance that the Lakers could have beaten the Kings in a one and done game, a do or die, even here in LA on Friday night to survive into the eighth seed. But what if LeBron had flamed out in both play-in games? You don't think that would have stained his legacy? No. The basketball God said, we got you, Bron. We give you Denver while you're still fresh.

We give you Denver in the first round as the seven seed versus the two. We give you an opportunity to strengthen your goat case by righting the wrong of last year's conference finals, by redeeming yourself, by paying back your teammates that you so dearly owe for those four fourth quarters last year, your epic fail last year.

LeBron, you now have the opportunity to show the world you can close against the NBA's best late game closer, Jamal Murray, who destroyed you last year in those four fourth quarters and against the NBA's best player in Nikola Jokic, who destroyed you last year in those four fourth quarters. LeBron, your legs are as fresh as they could be at this point in the season.

You yourself said the other night you feel much healthier than you did one year ago. Now you don't have the quote unquote tendon injury in your foot. You've got the chronically bad ankles, but you're OK. You feel great. Think about it, LeBron. This year, your career, 41 percent from three, as I keep saying on Undisputed, is about damn time.

LeBron, you're finally making your free throws here of late. Last six games, you're 38 of 46. That's 83%, which you should have been for your entire career, but you just came off 10 of 10 free throws against New Orleans. Couldn't make other shots, but you could make those free throws, and they are called free throws for a reason. They're free. I'm not saying that you were that great from the free throw line this year,

Because you were 75% for the season. That was your worst in three seasons. Career, you're still 73.6%, which is unfathomably bad to me. Jordan was 84%. Bird, Magic, obviously even Kevin Durant. We could go on and on. They're all up around 90%. Not you, LeBron. But at least you're coming late to the party.

As you said, after your first championship, it's about damn time. Yeah, it is. So here we go. You can now make threes and free throws in the fourth quarters in your four wins over the Nuggets upcoming. Maybe you can let Austin Reeves help you close. I remind you last year in those four fourth quarters, Austin didn't get many opportunities, but he only made eight of 10 shots, seven of eight threes.

Maybe you can let him help you handle the closing. I believe you can, will, should close out the Nuggets in six games. I've thought that from the start of the season. But you got to show me something, LeBron. And you have shown me a little bit more this regular season. There is that stat out there. It's a little misleading, but the Clutch's team in the NBA this year,

in what's called clutch time, last five minutes with a score within five points either way. Lakers were actually the best team in all of basketball. They went 24-9 in those kind of games, late and close games. Now, I don't remember LeBron making any walk-off shots, but I do remember some fairly classic outcomes because I do remember LeBron

Against the Rockets, this was way back on November 19th. LeBron had two free throws to win the game. At the end of the game, missed the first, and to his credit, the pressure mounting, and his eyes probably crossing. Maybe he did it by accident, but he made the second free throw to win the game by one point. I'll give you that. At Toronto, another one-point game. Anthony Davis made two last-second free throws to win the game. Give him that. Bodes well against Denver.

January 27th at Golden State, it was a classic double overtime. Lakers won because LeBron hit two late free throws to win that game. I give him high marks for those. That was the best I've ever seen him at the late game free throw line, where he's mostly been a disaster in his career. Then another big late close win for the Lakers came with no LeBron. They did have AD, but it was on March the 8th at home against the Bucs.

That was when D'Angelo Russell just took over the game late. He closed the game single-handedly, scored 44 points, got an assist from Spencer Dinwiddie, if you recall, at game's end. Dinwiddie blocked Dame time. Damian Lillard's last-second potential game-winning shot, he just flat-out cold blocked it, made Dame eat it. So there are a few games where, okay, okay, okay, I see you.

I got it. I got it. Maybe this team is starting to build a little late game character it did not have. Walk-off shots, no. I don't remember any of those. I watch every game very carefully. But I also watched what happened on March the 2nd, the last time Denver played the Lakers out here in L.A. It was the same song, eighth verse. Again, Nuggets have won eight straight games against the Lakers. Seven of them went to the wire.

Seven of them were close through most of the fourth quarter. March 2nd, same song. Another verse. LeBron, up and under layup with four minutes left, gave the Lakers, the home team, a two-point advantage. And from that point on, the Lakers got blown off the floor and lost by 10 points, thanks to Jamal and Joker. So LeBron, golden goat opportunity there.

how it would help your case if you could dethrone the defending champs. If you could close four games out of seven, I think you're going to win it in six. That's what I believe. I thought that from the start. But I need to see it. I'll believe it when I see it, LeBron. But this is your time. The gods have spoken. They've been good to you. Your team is good enough to beat Denver. But my question is, are you? The world is watching.

You're about to be the center of the sports universe. You're about to have more eyes on you than Caitlin Clark has. You got to show us, LeBron. You got to show me no more excuses. Make me rave about you on Undisputed instead of forcing me to rake you over the coals again and again and again.

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This is Rick from Tennessee who asks, if there ever is a movie about the story of LeBron James, what would you call it? Rick, I would call it striving for second best. Jackson from Atlanta asks, what is your dream NBA finals matchup this year? Well, Jackson, it's what I picked from the start.

Lakers Celtics be the first time those classic franchises have met in 14 years since Kobe beat the Celtics and my man Paul Pierce from Undisputed way back when that was 14 years ago. I want to see Lakers Celtics great old days.

I picked it from the start. I picked Lakers over Celtics because I really like LeBron's team. I like this roster. I wish they had Jared Vanderbilt, best name in sports, Vanderbilt. They're starting to have a semblance of Gabe Vincent. I wish they had Christian Wood, but I think he's gone for good. Not sure about Cam Reddish. I wish they had all of the above.

That's a loaded roster. I still think they're the best team in the West. If they have a closer, which I've had my doubts about, but I saw them decide to play defense in the first ever in-season tournament, and you know what happened. Same thing I believe should happen, I believe will happen, in this year's dream NBA finals. You're on, LeBron. This is Brian from Las Vegas who asks...

With you being from Oklahoma City, are you at all pulling for the Thunder? That's a great question, Brian. I appreciate you asking me that because I am pulling for my Thunder. I like this team far, far more than I ever liked the KD, Westbrook, James Harden teams. That 2012 team that got all the way to LeBron in the NBA Finals.

against which LeBron won his first ring and said it's about damn time. This team is so much more fun to watch because this team has so much more fun playing basketball together. This team really, really likes each other. I watch just about every game and every home win ends with five or six of the Thunder doing the postgame interview together.

All for one and one for all. No solo stars like the 2012 Thunder. What a collection of talent that was. You've got three future MVPs on the same team. Are you kidding me? How Clay Bennett, the owner, couldn't keep that team together because of the luxury tax is astounding and confounding to me. How could you let James Harden go? You're sixth man.

What a team the 2012 team was. Remember they even had Serge Ibaka. Serge led the league in blocks that year. Serge was first team all defense that year and runner-up for defensive player of the year to Tyson Chandler. Remember the conference finals against my San Antonio Spurs? Remember game four? Serge Ibaka went 11 for 11, personally took down my Spurs. They had no shot against this team.

Harden one night, KD the next, then it was Westbrook. So as you remember, I was the biggest KD fan, even when he was at the school I hate, University of Texas, biggest fan, tore me up, tore my heart out when KD took shots at me for taking shots at Westbrook. I only took shots at Westbrook because I don't like him, never liked him. Ball hog, egomaniac, solo stat machine,

Plays hard only for his numbers, for his glory. As KD finally decided when he went to Golden State, I can't win a championship with Russell Westbrook as my primary decision maker. Russ brought the ball up. And all too often, Russ Westbricked the shot. Westbricked the shot. So Kevin, defending his little brother Russ, took shots at me for taking shots at Russ.

And then the Thunder faithful in my hometown of Oklahoma City completely turned on me. And when our team at first take took our show on the road for the first time ever to the 2012 finals that began in Oklahoma City, I had to have a bodyguard in my own hometown because Thunder fans had sent me so many death threats. How could I root for that team?

When I got to Oklahoma City, I was rooting for me to survive the first two games. Bodyguard with me 24-7. One night after game one, Thunder had won 104-94. That was the one and only game they won in that series.

By the way, they even had Derek Fisher on that team. They had Thabo Sefalosha on that team, an all-defensive player. Remember, they even had Perk. They had Kendrick Perkins on that team, averaging seven rebounds. Nick Collison, that was a team. That team could have beaten LeBron's team and just fell all apart because they were still the baby thunder. But the bodyguard shepherded me through the night.

of game one at the arena and then back to the hotel, downtown Oklahoma City, all the way to my elevator to take me up to the, I don't know, sixth or seventh floor to my room. He said, you're going to be okay from here. I said, I got it. I'm fine. And as I walked onto the elevator, two women, middle-aged women walked on behind me and he looked like, you okay? I said, I'm good. And as soon as the door shut, those two women went off on me. They skewered me

with scathing criticism for my criticism of Westbrook all the way up to the seventh floor. They were on nine or 10. So I got earfuls, two earfuls from both of them all the way to my seventh floor. And they held the door open as I exited to continue to berate me as I hurried down the hall to my room. How could I love that team? It did not love me. My city turned on me.

And now I'm rooting for my city because this team is fun. This team is real. This team is way better than people are giving it credit for. This team is going to do some damage in the postseason that is going to shock people.

Thank you.

way to run your household, customized to your family's needs, and the easy way to raise financially smart kids. Get started with Greenlight today and get your first month free at greenlight.com slash Spotify. So it came to this for me as a Dallas Cowboy fan. The other morning, I arrived here at Fox around 4 a.m., parked in the parking garage down below this building that I sit in, come up the elevator, it opens on the main floor, in I come,

And always waiting for me is the overnight security guard, Derek. Huge Cowboy fan. Not like me, but huge. We commiserate. We talk about what might be, what could be, what will be. So the other morning, the elevator door opens and I see a big smile on Derek's face. He says, you hear who we signed? I said, no, I haven't heard a thing.

He says, Royce Freeman. I said, who? He said, that's what I said. Who? But it's Royce Freeman, you know, the running back. I said, yeah, I'm vaguely aware of him. Hadn't he been all over the league? Derek said, I don't know. I think he's bounced around. Looked it up later. He's been on five teams. Derek was excited about the Dallas Cowboys signing Royce Freeman, journeyman running back, once upon a time a third-round pick of the Broncos.

bounced all over the league. I'm thinking it has come to this. Cowboy fans have to get excited about Royce Freeman. At least it could have been Ezekiel Elliott. I was not a fan of re-signing Zeke, reaching back past for the blast from the past. Zeke's just about done. Apparently, Jerry and Stephen Jones have decided the same thing. All kinds of reports. He might be coming home to Dallas.

Well, they just signed Royce Freeman. So just allow me to get this off my chest because I'm at wit's end. I'm done with my Dallas Cowboys because they seem done with us. They were down 27 to nothing in a home playoff game as the two seed against the seven seed that was the youngest team in the playoffs, the Green Bay Packers, with a quarterback playing his first ever playoff game.

down 27 to nothing before halftime. And what did Jerry Jones do about it this offseason? He spent the least money of any NFL team in free agency, the least. While our arch rival in the division, the team we always end up fighting for the division title, the Philadelphia Eagles, have spent the most money this offseason. The most versus the least.

Huh, interesting. So the other morning, I had to sit and swallow the story that the Eagles had re-upped and extended Devontae Smith. Now, understand, Devontae Smith was once drafted because the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones decided to swap places with Howie Roseman and the Eagles. It's fine, but we could have had Devontae Smith, but we went backwards and we got Micah Parsons. I used to think Micah was...

Maybe even the next Lawrence Taylor. Now, I'm not even sure he's the next Micah Parsons. But the Eagles took Devontae a year after we took CeeDee Lamb in the first round. So Devontae is in the draft class a year before, I'm sorry, a year after CeeDee.

So he's a year younger than Seedy, and they already wrapped him up. They gave him $25 million a year to equal A.J. Brown's $25 million a year. So they got two co-happy campers going to training camp. Good for them. Then I start thinking of all the offseason stories I've read about, wait, the Eagles locked up their two best offensive linemen, Landon Dickerson and Jordan Maulata. They locked them both up. Big, huge new deals.

Wait, we lost Tyron Smith to free agency and we lost Tyler Biotis to free agency. Two of our best offensive linemen outside of Zach Martin, of course. But we lost two big ones and they re-signed theirs for huge money. And they went and got Saquon.

Not the biggest fan, but they got Saquon. And I thought we would plunge for Derrick Henry, who lives in Dallas in the offseason. We didn't even sniff. Derrick Henry says now, nope, I never even heard from Dallas. And he, of course, went to Baltimore. So we badly, desperately need a running back because we lost Tony Pollard. We lost, what was it, 12, 14 players to free agency? And then I'm thinking, well, wait, the Eagles on defense are

They went out and got C.J. Gardner-Johnson, brought him back. Everywhere he goes, good to great things happen because he's just a defensive catalyst and difference maker at safety. But I love to have him. You better believe I would. He talks a big game. He plays a big game. And then they went and got Devin White. I love Devin White. He didn't have a good year last year, and they stole him for $4 million a year. But Devin White is a game wrecker at linebacker, a blitzer wrecker.

tackling machine. I can play the pad. I don't know. Devin white is now Philadelphia Eagle as his CJ, as his Bryce Huff. They, they lost us on Reddit cause they didn't want to pay him huge money, but they traded him, got a draft pick back at third rounder, but they went and got Bryce Huff from the jets. He was their leading sacker with 10. So I, I don't know. That sounds pretty good to me. So what have we done?

We signed two players in free agency, the immortal Eric Kendricks, not exactly a household name at linebacker, although he did play for our new coordinator, Mike Zimmer at Minnesota. We gave him all of three million dollars and we signed Royce Freeman. I mean, we got him. We went and got Royce Freeman. And I would say that would put us back over the top against Philadelphia. Right. Wait a second.

Philly's quarterback is Jalen Hurts, and he's locked up on a big long-term deal that pays him $252 million. It's about $40 million a year. I got to tell you, Jalen Hurts is better than Dak Prescott. And still, I'm not sure what Jerry Jones is doing with Dak Prescott because some days I think he's going to let him play out his deal this year and eat the $60 million in dead cap money next year. Or he could go ahead and

extend him for four or five more years, which would soften his impact against the cap with prorated money. But why would you throw good money after bad with Dak Prescott, who's two and five in the postseason? Why would you do that? I don't know. But we haven't done anything with Dak. We haven't done anything with CeeDee Lamb. And just watch. He'll be a training camp holdout because he should be because he turned into, to me, the most productive wide receiver in all of football last year.

And the Cowboys still haven't re-upped with him as he enters into his fifth and final year of his rookie deal. Still haven't done anything with him. He's going to be at training camp holdout while the Eagles will all be in training camp. Happy campers. Mike is going to want his money. But has he lived up? No, he hasn't. So Jerry and Steven Jones keep saying, we have to hold our money back to pay our big three. You do?

Your big three was down 27 to nothing before halftime of a home playoff game against the youngest team in pro football. You what you have to do what? Hold your money back. And I'm thinking, wait a second. Do the Eagles have a salary cap five times the size of Dallas's? I think they do. They must because all they do is spend money. We have to hold our money back to pay players back.

who've done nothing for us except last year go to San Francisco and lose 42-10, go to Arizona and lose 28-16, go to Buffalo and lose 31-10. 27-0? 48-16 early in the fourth quarter against Green Bay? Are you kidding? As we speak, right here, right now, the Eagles are clearly, clearly winning.

far and away runaway favorites to win the NFC East. It's over. It's done. They are going to win the NFC East. Clearly, my Dallas Cowboys are not a playoff team as we speak.

And I don't think the draft will make them a playoff team as we speak. They're going to miss the playoffs next year because Jerry just builds through the draft. It's what Jerry can keep his hands on because he can take credit for the draft picks because he has final say in the draft. And they have drafted very well. But now they're in the spot where they need to draft five new starters who will be instant impact rookie starters. Seriously? Yeah.

Long-time Cowboy fans will hark back with me. This has happened only one time. You can argue it was the greatest draft in the history of pro football. I got to give Gil Brandt, the late, great Gil Brandt, I had my battles with him, but I got to give him credit. 1975, it became known as the Dirty Dozen draft off the movie that you probably won't remember back in 1967. It was a classic. Do you know the Dirty Dozen?

Charles Bronson and the great Jim Brown. The great Jim Brown. He was a pretty good actor. Arguably the greatest running back ever. So in 1975, the Cowboys hit on 12 rookies. 12 rookies made the team. Randy White made the team in the Hall of Fame.

My friend Thomas Hollywood Henderson made the team out of tiny little Langston College in my home state of Oklahoma, just north of Oklahoma City is Langston College. Thomas would have been in the Hall of Fame if not for crack cocaine, but he saved himself and he saved a lot of other people after he retired from football. Jerry's going to have to pull off a dirty dozen draft to make us whole and healthy again. And I'm here to tell you,

He ain't got that in him. This is Harry from L.A. Will there be NBA playoff games you have to miss because of the schedule? Absolutely no, no, no, Harry. I don't miss. I will not miss.

I don't go to dinner on playoff nights. I just don't go. I don't care if it's Friday night or Saturday night or Sunday. I don't go out. I watch playoffs. Ask my wife, Ernestine. I do not miss playoff games. This is my hardest time of the year, and it's my greatest time of the year. I've come to love the NBA playoffs, weirdly, even more than I love the NFL playoffs, and I love them to death. But this is just...

The magnitude of this Western Conference this year is just completely absorbing to me. I can't absorb more than two playoff games at once. So I will, in the early rounds when they're opposite each other, I'll have two on at once, but I can barely absorb one playoff game at once. I try to watch two. The only exception I can ever remember making was, I don't know, maybe three years ago.

Not that I'm going to name drop here, but close friend of mine, Billy Bob Thornton, you might know him as an actor. He also is a singer for a group called the Box Masters, the lead singer. They have quite a following all over the world. They travel tour all over Europe.

He wanted me to come listen to the box masters, listen to him because they were here in Southern California, out in Agora Hills, out in the Valley. It's quite a hike from where Ernestine and I live. He said, please, it's a Friday night. And Memphis was at Minnesota in a pretty crucial playoff game. And I told Ernestine, I'll go, but I'm watching my game. So I had it up on my phone through the whole concert. I watched the playoff game in my lap.

barely able to focus on Billy Bob. That's the only exception to the rule I have ever made. The other night, Golden State at Sacramento was late, late, late. As you know, if you're living in the East as I speak, I'm in the West. I have to get up at two o'clock in the morning to get ready for Undisputed. And I watched every last drop in the postgame interviews of Golden State at Sacramento.

because I am addicted to the NBA playoffs. I am addicted to doing Undisputed on mornings after NBA playoff games with our newest addition, Paul Pierce, who has been spectacular. You never know what's going to come out of his mouth or mine, but Paul is insightful. He's edgy. He's smart. He's fearless. And he is funny.

And I'm having a blast with Paul and Keyshawn Johnson talking NBA hoops, meaningful do or die hoops every morning on Undisputed. I might have slept only three hours when you see me on TV, but it'll be over before we know it. This is Nolan from California who asks, if you believe in jinxes, do you also follow horoscopes or your Zodiac sign? Nolan, this is a great question.

And it stopped me in my tracks, got me to thinking. I do believe in jinxes, as I've talked about numerous times on this show and on Undisputed, and I am not proud of it. My wife Ernestine has often asked me, how do you believe in God and in jinxes? She often says, so how do you go to church on Sunday and you believe in and you cater to jinxes? I don't know. I have my whole life and I've been wrong.

I do. I wear crazy different jerseys for games thinking it's going to change my luck. I sit in different places in my man cave as if it's going to change my luck. I watch games on different TVs in the house as if it's going to change my luck.

I make our daughter Hazel, I'm about to address her in a moment, our seven-year-old Maltese. I make her stay in my man cave during games because she's going to bring me luck. As Ernestine says, she's like your little Buddha. She didn't bring me any luck when we were down 27 to nothing to the Green Bay Packers in the home playoff game. Ernestine says to me, so wait a second, just because you're wearing...

A Micah Parsons jersey in Los Angeles, California, it's somehow going to change the game that's being played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yeah, it is. It's going to change it because I just know I got a lucky jersey. Well, not so much. It's lunacy. It's madness. It makes absolutely no sense. It's actually sacrilegious, blasphemous that I believe in jinxes. Can't believe in God and jinx at the same time.

And no, I don't follow horoscopes, zodiac signs, although I must say it is uncanny to me from the little I know about my sign and my wife's sign, how dead on the characteristics of Sagittarius for me, Leo for her, are dead on the characteristics. When I look them up and I say, oh, Sag, supposed to be honest, maybe to a fault, blunt,

impatient, risk-taking. That's me to a T. Leo, Ernestine, vivacious, infectious, full of charm, heart of gold, unwavering loyalty. That's my Ernestine. So I give you those, but I don't follow. I don't read horoscopes and I shouldn't believe in jinxes. And starting next football season, I have a new year's resolution.

No more jinxes. No more lucky charms. No more weird different jerseys or TVs. Hazel's got to stay. No more of that. I mean, where has it gotten me? Nowhere. So for next football season, my New Year's resolution is jinxes be damned. Now, speaking of Hazel, allow me to close with this. I posted a video you may or may not have seen.

on all of our undisputed platforms the other day. Me and Hazel, I'm lying on the floor. It's Hazel's favorite sport. It's what I call play fighting. I have play fought with Hazel since she was a tiny, tiny little baby. I forget when we got her. She must have been, I don't know, maybe five or six weeks old right away.

Got her on the couch and she starts fighting with my hands, biting my hands. And so I start to just tap her or tap her and she likes to fight. So here's what you need to know about the backstory of this video. This was a tame one because I don't want PETA on me. I don't want anybody accusing me of animal cruelty. But there are other times and other spots in the house where Hazel and I go at it.

She loves to compete with me and I get a kick out of competing with her. And by competing, I mean I'm sort of slapping, play fighting with her and she is raking my fingers with her teeth. Trust me, her teeth are big and sharp. She's a Maltese. She weighs 10 ish pounds.

She is the biggest 10-pound dog you will ever know, ever run into, because she is the most ferocious 10-pound dog I've ever known. She is a little psycho. Ernestine would say she's a lot psycho because Hazel is a biter. Hazel will go after anyone, anything.

Of the human race other than me and Ernestine and Ernestine's sister Joyce. Just those three people. That's all she knows and all she will abide. Anyone else is a stranger to Hazel and she will attack and she will try to bite. And she is quick.

And she is vicious. And when we take Hazel to the mall out here near where we live, Century City Mall, on Saturdays, it's a parade of dogs. It's an outdoor mall. I have to watch her so carefully on her leash. Sometimes I have to scoop her up and hold her tightly because if a dog comes near,

She will tear the leash out of my hand and try to attack said dog. It doesn't matter whether it's a Siberian Husky or a German Shepherd or you name it, a St. Bernard. Hazel wants a piece of the big dog's fearless, crazed psycho. That's Hazel. So knowing that,

You have to understand that Ernestine is in awe of the fact that not one time have we ever had to make an emergency run to the emergency room. Hazel loves to play fight with me, but I have to trust, and I do trust, that she won't lose it for a moment and clamp down. Because if she clamped, I've seen people who've been bitten by other Malteses, not her, but

She would do lots of damage if she clamped down. If for just a split second, she got miffed, which she does. Sometimes she gets mad as we compete. If I pop her like we're going fast and sometimes I catch her underneath the jaw a little bit or side of her head and she stops and looks at me like, God, what?

Where did that come from? And then she comes right back after me. And in those moments, I think, is she going to bite me? Nope. She never does. She never loses sight of she can bite and I can't. I can slap. I can pop, but I can't bite back. And she knows it because she is the smartest dog I've ever been around. In fact, when I say the word dog, when it pops out of my mouth,

It just sounds wrong. It sounds blasphemous because I don't consider her a dog. She is our daughter. She's human to me, and she is astonishingly smart. I still can't get over the fact that now that I lift weights at home post-pandemic, she knows everything.

Every set I do, she carefully sits and watches until it's time for me to finish. And she knows exactly how many reps and how many sets that my last movement will be. She knows on chest and back day, which will be today when I get home, that I will finish with back with some pull downs, actually pull ups. And she knows it's three sets of 20 reps.

And she will stand up and come and be at my feet when I lower myself back down off my universal machine after my final, my third and final set of 20 reps. On rep number 20, when I lower myself back down on my pull-ups, she'll be standing there wagging her tail because she knows I'm finished. On shoulder and arms day, she will know exactly when I finish with some pull-ups.

reverse dealt flies that I do bent over on my bench, three sets of 20. She will be right there wagging her tail on my third and final set, my 20th rep. She is an amazing, well, I can't even use that word. She's human to me. Love you, Hazel. And I'm sorry when I occasionally catch you a little too hard. Thank you for not biting me.

That's it for episode 109. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember, Undisputed every weekday, 930 to noon Eastern, the Skip Bayless Show every week.