Alex Caruso From The OKC Thunder, Comedian Ray Romano, Indiana Pacers Are In The NBA Finals + National Sports Podcast News
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Hey, pardon my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Folks, it's the foreplay guys. Let's talk truly unruly. When you spend every day following the countless laws of golf like us, it's refreshing to get a little unruly. Whether that means using the old hand wedge to escape the bunker, or just cracking open a hard seltzer

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On today's part in my take, we have an NBA finals set. We also have our good friend Alex Crusoe from the Oklahoma City Thunder getting ready for the NBA finals. We also are going to talk to our good friend Ray Romano ahead of our chill week in Tahoe. He'll be competing, talking about his golf game, comedy, great interview. We're going to talk about the weekend sports that were. We got a little national sports podcast stuff to hit. Highlight.

Hot seat, or sorry, who's back of the week? Got a little screwed up there. Well, last week, Max sprung the hot seat cool throne Friday on us. Well, no, I knew he told us that before. Yeah, but then he sprung it on us. He sprung it on us after. He did tell us that before. And be like, hey, just so you guys know, I sold a hot seat cool throne.

But we got a great show getting ready for the week, and it is brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. The NBA Finals are here. This is your last chance to bet on the NBA until next season, and DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, is pulling out all the stops to make this a Finals to remember. One team will be crowned champ, and the other will be lost to history. Who you got winning it all? Put your hoops expertise to the test.

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Minimum minus 500 odds required. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG.co slash audio. Okay, let's go. A-W-L. Yeah, that's my intent, that's my intent.

Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. Don't miss your last chance to bet on the NBA this season. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to get $300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins when you bet $5 only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Today is Monday, June 2nd, and the Indiana Pacers are in the NBA Finals in 49 states.

It's just a game. It's just a game. In Indiana. Yep. It's life. In 49 states, it's just basketball. Congrats, though, to the Indiana Pacers. Incredible season. Incredible run through the playoffs. They are so much fun to watch. And they take down the Knicks. Let's glaze on the Pacers, though, before we talk about the Knicks.

Okay. All right. I can blaze him. Pascal Siakam, well-deserved series MVP. Right. It was obviously people were talking about the moment where Tyrese Halliburton thought he had won the Eastern Conference final MVP. Now, PFT, you and I, I think, are in lockstep with this. We've always said that the MVP awards in these series don't mean anything. Tyrese Halliburton is the best player on that team. He deserves respect for that. Anyone who says differently is like,

Silly. That's the beauty of NBA basketball. And the sport of basketball overall is it's about team. Right. And there's no I in team. There's no MVP in team. Right.

And you're like, that's Tyrese Halliburton's team. You would never say, oh, whose team is it? I mean, obviously. Just because he won an MVP for a series past Will Siakam, who was great. Tyrese is a straw that stirs the drink. Correct. He is. I mean, without Tyrese, none of this works. The instant baskets after a made layup, those don't happen without him out letting the ball down the court. He is the most important player, I think, on the team. Everyone would agree to that. MVP, Tyrese.

Who cares? Who cares? You get the Larry Bird trophy. Yeah. Okay, very cool. Who cares? That is cool. But people remember the team accolades, not the individual awards. Right. That's how it's going to be. Right, you agree with that. Yeah, in the finals, I think people tend to remember the individual accolades. That's a little bit different. I wouldn't have that same take in the finals. Yeah, in the finals, it's, okay, that means something. Series MVP, it's like, okay, well, sometimes the best players...

they save a little something for the finals. So it really matters whose name is on that trophy after it's all said and done. Siakam, though, I think he had three games where he was over 30 points. He was just an absolute monster in transition. It felt like the entire Pacers team

pace-wise, which is obviously no pun intended, but they torched the Knicks in terms of pace transition. They outscored the Knicks 74 points in transition in this series. It felt like on Saturday night, it wasn't even the Pacers playing their best game. It was just the Pacers...

It was actually the Greg Doyle, Greg Doyle being a weirdo, asking for clarification on Pascal Siakam on how the Knicks tried harder. It felt like every time there was a rebound, it wasn't even rebounds, too. It was just made baskets. They would get out so fast, and it would be Carl Anthony Towns spinning around getting a layup line on him. And the Pacers, they just kept on pushing it, pushing it, pushing it.

And I also want to give a shout-out to Andrew Nembhardt, who was incredible. Got head-butted. He got head-butted. He had Brunson. I think Brunson scored four points in the fourth quarter. They were playing ferocious defense on him. Andrew Nembhardt, though, through the playoffs, when he is a primary defender, Damian Lillard in the first series, Damian Lillard had 23.3% field goal percentage, 14.3% from three.

Donovan Mitchell in the second round, 23.3% field goal percentage, 16.7% from three. This is all when Andrew Nembhard is the primary defender. And then against Jalen Brunson, 38.2% field goal percentage, 30% from three. He was awesome. He was great on defense. And Jalen Brunson, he continued to look shaky when he was handling the ball. He just doesn't see double teams coming ever. Yeah. And you can tell that he gets a little bit...

I don't know, in his own head. They make him nervous. They did a good job of making him uncomfortable. Yeah. And then Nembhard playing just lockdown defense. That was awesome to see. The pacers, the pace of Indiana basketball is so fun to watch. I don't want to, I don't even want to look ahead that much to the finals. Yeah. Because we can, well, there'll be time for that because we don't play until Thursday, so

We're going to have Priscilla on for a full finals preview. Can I say one thing, though, about the finals? Yeah. Because obviously there's going to be a lot of the ratings discourse, which we've already said. Who the fuck cares? I actually think this is going to be a fun matchup. I think the Pacers obviously are going to be tall tasks because OKC looks...

unstoppable. But if you look at just since January 1st, because the Pacers season, it started, Halliburton was dealing with some injuries, Nembhard was dealing with some injuries, they started kind of clunky, they had, I think they got blown out a few times in the first couple of weeks. I think they were 10 and 15 at one point with a loss to Charlotte. So it was a bad start for the Pacers. But since January 1st,

The best two records in the NBA are the Oklahoma City Thunder at 53-13 and the Indiana Pacers at 46-18. These are the two best teams since January 1st. I'm very excited for this matchup, and I think the Pacers are very much deserving. People are going to be like, oh, well, this sucks to smaller markets.

The Pacers are just playing great basketball and they took advantage of an East that was a little up topsy-turvy, but I actually think they were, they would have been here anyway, like the way they've been playing. Yeah, it was Hicks and six and the Knicks, they, they would have beaten the Celtics regardless of the injury.

So let's remember that. Hank, they were going to be up 3-1 against the Celtics. They blew a much bigger lead with less time in Game 1 of this series. That's true. That is true. It's impossible to make that point. Okay, well, I think that it's fair to say that the Pacers played the best basketball the most consistently of any team in the postseason. Is that fair to say? Yeah, definitely. Okay, so ipso facto, they are the best team in the East.

I can't argue that. And Rick Carlisle needs some respect. Give Rick Carlisle respect because the man is a great coach. NBA champion, Rick Carlisle. People forget that. And Paul George needs some respect. We alluded to it last week, but these are the Paul George finals. Paul George was traded.

for I think it was Sabonis and Oladipo and then they became Tyrese Halliburton. I think also some draft picks that I think Shepard was one of them. And then also Paul George was traded from OKC that became SGA. It's a Paul George fight. But I don't want to look too much ahead to the finals and be like, oh, I think this is going to happen because there's a lot of that discourse going on out there right now.

I just feel good for the Pacers. I feel good for the Pacers. They're a great team. I'm excited for the matchup. I know that people... It was a great matchup between the Pacers and the Knicks, for the Pacers, in terms of the style of basketball that each one excels at. It was as good as you could get for them. They were great in the postseason. Congrats to the city of Indianapolis. Congrats to Mr. Ursae. He gets the assist on that game one. Dan Dokich. Dan Dokich. Kaitlin Clark in the audience. This is really a Kaitlin Clark championship right here. Yeah. Yeah.

The stat? I don't know. You look like you're about to give a take. Well, no. I did some advanced research for the Pacers. Again, we're not going to do our finals preview with Rosillo, but the Indiana Pacers are 7-0 when Kaitlin Clark is in attendance. Yeah, so Kaitlin Clark is back. Now, the first two games in Indiana, she has no conflicts. Game six, they have a road game, the Fever against the Valkyries. Okay. Do you know where the Valkyries are from?

The Valks. The Valks are from... I'm not taking credit for knowing where the Valks are. New Mexico. No. No. The Valkyries. We're in the WNBA. The Valkyries are a Golden States team. Okay. So they also have a game. I believe it's game six. It's June 19th. It's the schedule. The Valkyries are playing the Fever.

That could swing this. I mean, if she's there on game three and four, the Pacers are going to win. She has to go to every game, right, when she doesn't have a conflict. And she doesn't. I looked at it. She plays, I think, the night before game three, and then the next game is a home game, and then it's the same thing. Like the game four is the Pacers play, I think, Friday night, and the Fever play Saturday. So she'll be there for those two.

I don't know what she's going to do with this problem with the Valkyries. It's a Valkyries problem. I don't think it's going to get there. You don't think it's going to get to six? But no. Do the math, Hank. Kaitlyn Clark attends game three and four. It's guaranteed to go at least six, but the Valkyries. We need somebody. We need somebody in the media to step up and be like, I believe in the Pacers.

I mean, I have. Reggie Miller. Who will be that? People are mad about that. I have this entire... I don't know. How did you guys feel? Reggie Miller, when he showed up wearing black for the funeral, yeah, no shit. Announcers usually wear black. So when Reggie's like, yeah, you know why I'm wearing this outfit, it's like, yeah, that doesn't really look that much different from your normal outfit. He also was just wearing a black vest. He wasn't even wearing all black. Yeah, so that wasn't really funeral attire. That's a funeral for somebody that...

Your friend knew, and you go along as moral support. I've been standing up for the Pacers these playoffs. I don't know what's going to happen in the final. That's what I mean. In the next round... I'll probably just stand up for him and just be like, fuck it, I was wrong. Who cares? I mean, you can't... You were right. I didn't understand the people that were upset at Reggie Miller for... Well, I mean...

Presenting the trophy and celebrating. But, like, who cares? No, I agree. I actually don't think he was, like, wildly biased to calling the games. Memes. But obviously he's a little biased. I think just his presence makes it feel biased. Memes. It felt extremely biased. He's a journalist. Who is the next play-by-play announcer for every game? Mike Breen. Mike Breen. Mike Breen.

Mike Breen's a man. Yeah. Not biased. He calls it straight, right? He's definitely not biased. Reggie Miller, though. But it is funny because New York does get... They have a lot of bias in the media. And then one time that the Pacers get one guy...

Everyone's like, how could this be? Well, he's also maybe the most biased guy ever. Reggie Miller? Against the Knicks. Yeah, but I don't think calling the game. It is funny. I have no problem with it. I don't think in calling the game, I never was like, holy shit. No. He's going over this. He did it outside of the game. I would be like, holy shit. What Reggie Miller just said was very dumb. Right. But I wasn't like, holy shit. What Reggie Miller just said was very biased. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Correct. But yeah, I'm excited for the Pacers. They're a very fun team.

Pascal Siakam, what a fucking move to get him. Because he was, I believe... Remember they overpaid for Bruce Brown like $20 million? Everyone's like, what the hell? Defense. And they basically were just like, no, we're just going to take this contract so that we can just trade it eventually. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that was the Pascal Siakam. Yeah, Bruce Brown. Yeah, yeah. And...

That was kind of like Pascal Siakam. Both teams went all in with trading some picks for Pascal Siakam and Mikael Bridges. Pascal Siakam was better. Right. So neither one of the teams in the finals are in the luxury tax, right? Correct. So they actually, the Pacers haven't been in the luxury tax in 20 years. I heard Wendy say that they're going to get permission to go into the luxury tax afterwards. That's huge. Yeah.

So tax bills and teams performance since 2012, the Pacers have not paid any luxury tax. The Thunder obviously have because they had those teams where they had, you know, KD and Russell Westbrook. And then they obviously had the Russell Westbrook, Paul George teams. But yeah, it's pretty crazy that they they actually. So I have a chart in front of me.

They've paid zero luxury tax and they have 51 playoff wins in that time, which is pretty crazy. And I think it's they have the same amount of playoff wins as all the other teams combined who didn't pay the luxury tax in those years.

years. Well run organization. Did you see Herb Simon, their governor after the game? The best tradition in sports, letting the owner get the trophy first. Of course. That poor guy. Reggie knew that he was not capable of holding the trophy on his own. So he gave it to him and then kept his hands on it, helped him lift it up, and then immediately was like, get this shit out of your hands. Let an athlete hold this, Herb.

Let someone else get it. But yeah, it's cool. It's cool. Two small market team. I think the Pacers are the 25th biggest market. I don't know what OKC is, but it's got to be probably lower. It's got to be down there. Yeah. It's cool. You could drive to the finals. 11 hours back and forth. That's pretty good. The subway series. Yeah. Subway series. All right. So congrats to the Pacers. We're excited for the Pacers. John Halberton. He's got to get on the floor.

Get him on the wood? You got to get him on the wood. I don't know. I don't think they can. Part of the terms of his parole are you have to stay in the box. That might be box of the year. Yeah. You got John Halliburton, Tommy Alter, all the heavy hitters. All the heavy hitters. I do think McAfee probably needs to do...

Although you can't really do the same speech. You can't be. I mean, it sucks that John, the Cougar, the Cougar Mellencamp had to like go out there and make that statement, like apologizing for McAfee. I don't know how John Cougar Mellencamp deputize himself is like speaking for Indiana.

All those songs. But he was like, who's your hospitality? Well, he says I was born in a small town, right? Yeah. Indianapolis is not that small of a town. No. That was one of the dumbest controversies ever because it was like, McAfee did what he does very well. You hand him a mic, he's going to...

antagonize an awesome wrestling. Yeah. Literally in the WWE. Yeah. Like he, he is like, I might be number one guy that you'd want to hand a mic to in a live sporting event and just let him talk. And for anyone to be upset about that is insane. Yeah. Especially New York people. Ben Stiller,

His tweet was crazy. New York would never do this. It's very funny how there's so many comedians that don't actually have a sense of humor. Like screaming at Reggie Miller last year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, the comedians without a sense of humor. But also, you know what? And I'm not defending Ben Stiller, but this is also like sports fandom is the great equalizer. Yeah. Because you just like no matter what, you could be the funniest guy in the world. You could be the I can go with every joke.

If your team loses, you just act like a little bitch for 24 hours. That's just what you do. I can't believe Dom Rickles told me to take his wife. That's not funny. That's not funny, Dom. But it really is. It just makes everyone a little bitch for 24 hours, which is you got to just kind of let it go. That's just what people are going to do. So we have to have the conversation now about the New York Knicks. Yeah. Is this season a disappointment for the New York Knicks? Memes? Memes. We'd love to know your perspective.

No, it's not a disappointment. If anything, they definitely overachieved. This was the best opportunity to get to the finals, but they did overachieve. I don't have a dog in this fight. I can't tell another man whether or not it's a disappointment, but we do have one person that I think is very qualified to have this conversation with you. That's Hank. Hank, would you say that this is a disappointment for the New York Knicks?

I think right now it's easy to say we overachieved, we got farther than we thought. I think when time comes and you look back at this year, you're going to regret not going farther and you're going to understand how golden of an opportunity this was to get to the finals with all of the injuries and the path just opening wide up.

And having a lead in game one with two minutes left, blowing the biggest lead in playoff slash NBA history, losing in six games would have been seven. You would have had game seven at home. You want to talk about the what if game? The game one what if is. What if that ball hits the rim, goes up.

15 feet in the air, comes down, hits the rim, and bounces out. What if? What if? I mean, Jim Hersey died five minutes before the series. That's a fact. The Pacers are a team of destiny. They had Thomas Bryant and Obi Toppin just making every single three yesterday. There's nothing you could do. Thomas Bryant, NBA champion. Let's put some respect on his name. Yeah, but that guy still shouldn't be hitting those threes. Didn't he win one with the Nuggets? Pretty sure he did. Did he? Regardless, it's just...

If guys let... Oh, no. Was he on the... What team was he on? I'm pretty sure he won... I'm pretty sure he was on an NBA championship team. Was it the Lakers, maybe? Let's see. Go ahead. Keep going, memes. If guys like that are hitting threes, you're never... You're just not going to win. It's not your night. I mean, that's basketball, though. Your defense was tough. I didn't see any of the discourse until after the game, but it's like everyone's saying Kat. Yeah. Kat's got to go. Where was that before?

Why is that seem to be such a popular opinion? Yeah, he won an NBA title with the Denver Nuggets. I agree with you, Hank. I think Cat is the greatest scapegoat in NBA history in terms of like this happened with him with the Timberwolves too, where he gets scapegoated. And I'm not saying the Cat is a perfect player.

His defense was bad. He was getting abused defensively last night in transition. I do want to say credit to Cat. Like, you didn't see Cat just standing out at the three-point line just hoping, being passive and hoping that he would, you know, hit a couple threes. He was throwing his body at people last night, big time. But...

Cat is not like your... Cat defensively is a problem, but you have other problems. It's not all Cat. He's still a big guy. Yeah. And you'd rather, if you have a problem on defense, you'd rather he be a large man than a small man. So I think if you're talking about pointing a finger on defense, you point the finger first at Jalen Brunson. But again, you don't get here without Jalen Brunson and Cat. But that's the thing is that Jalen Brunson, obviously, for the correct reasons, is the golden boy. I'm getting a call. Oh.

Who's calling you? Hello? It's your yo. Hey, what's up? That's crazy. No, we were just talking about the Knicks Pacers series on part of my take. What's going on? How are you? How are you feeling? Jerry, we're live to tape. Good. I mean, I'm a little bummed out about that whole thing. Why'd you call him? What a crazy time to call. Why'd you call him, Jerry?

Yeah, sorry. I just happened to call. I just wanted to say it was a fun season, Hank, and...

You know, I'm sorry things didn't turn out well for your Celtics. Things didn't turn out that great for my Knicks either. I'm sure you were pretty happy about it, but it was all good fun. No, I was pulling for you guys. I was rooting for Mr. Bing Bong. I'm sad that Mr. Bing Bong is dead. You're not going to be able to Bing Bong. Yeah, well, he's not dead. No, he's dead. No, he's dead. He's dead. It's over. You had a great little run there.

It's never going to be like that again. But it was a great run, and that's all that matters. Let me ask you something. You run the Knicks organization. Yeah. Tibbs out, Cat out. Brunson, trading block. Blow it up. Cat for KD? Yeah, that'd be okay. That'd be a lateral move. Now, are you saying that to... By the way, I believe in the state of Illinois, if I'm on air, you have to say you're on air right now. Yeah, so we're talking about it on part of my take. You're allowed to take it.

I just said we're, we're, it's crazy you call, we're talking about the next Pacers on part of my tape. And memes said it, but you can't hear memes' voice. Yeah, memes said live to tape. But no, but Jerry, you called Hank. Yeah, you called me. I was literally like, I interrupted the podcast to be like, why is Jerry calling? What's going on? Yeah.

Oh, that sounds good. All right, Jerry, we'll talk to you later. It's weird you'd call him. Jerry, I have a question for you. Is this New York Knicks season a disappointment? The Knicks season a disappointment? Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's a loser talk. Honestly, I have to say our championship was beating the Celtics. I'm just saying we can't be upset. I can't even blame that game one Eastern Conference Finals game

An injured Celtics. A hobbled, banged up Celtics. Who?

Look, I'll be honest with you. My wife is in the other room. I don't have her passcode or passwords or anything, so I don't know what's being said. I can only go on that app and see what's going on. Jerry, it's Big Cat here, and I don't want to interrupt your bubble bath anymore, but I sent you a text. I'm willing to make peace. All I ask is she stops hitting on me.

This is my relaxing time. Okay. Just tell her to stop hitting on me and then I will unblock her and we can make peace. Okay. I got to tell you, I did see your post about my wife hitting on you. Yeah. Hold on a second. I got to get out of the bathroom. I'm sure it'll slip. I got to get the bath mat out. I appreciate you calling me during your relaxing time. That was nice of you. Yeah.

Did you see her post about my wife hitting on you? And I actually showed it to my wife. Because my wife actually unblocked you. So my wife can actually see your tweets and stuff. Oh, no. Well, she can't see your tweets now. I blocked her. I showed her your tweet. And we did have a reaction. Hold on a second. Let me just go to the other room. She's walking around his house nude?

Yeah, he must be. What's in the other room? Yeah, here. So here, honey, this is about that tweet where Big Cat said that you were hitting on him. What is your response? See, I make her giggle when she's around me. We're laughing at you here. No, Jerry. Jerry, listen. I just remind your wife I have three little kids. I have a wife I love. I don't want any of this, okay?

Tell her to... Hold on a second. I'm happily married. I think she's happily married. Let's just... Sorry. Yeah. You guys still there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we were laughing about it. It's really fun. Listen, it is tough that, you know, two of my best friends, Big Cat, because when we exchanged vows, you know, I basically was marrying my best friend. And...

Aww.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. The cat loves Star Trek. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm choosing my wife. Oh, okay. I'm choosing my wife, yeah. Okay. All right, we'll work on it, okay? Jerry, I have a question for you. This is PFT Commentary here from part of my Take Podcast, Barstool Sports, your left to tape. Do you think Rebecca would be interested in following any of Adam Schefter's content? That was a nervous laughter. Now you've gone too far. You want to wake up Mr. Bing Bong and have him come after the Washington Commanders, do you? No.

because I happened to meet Coach Dable last weekend. He went to a Knicks game when the Knicks were in the playoffs and the Boston Celtics were knocked out. And Dable said he feels very confident about Jackson Dodd, so maybe you should start to fear Mr. Bingbong. Okay, Mr. Commenter? Well, that's fine, Jerry. I did DM your wife, and I just said, no DMs, promise. I hope we can be friends. Is that okay? Okay.

Listen, it's not my call. Again, I don't have her password. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, we'll talk to you later, Jerry. Thanks for calling in. All right. See you guys. All right. Love you. Thanks for calling. Bye, Jerry. Yeah. Doesn't hurt anymore. He just called you out of the blue? I think I might have butted out on my accent. I was wondering why. I was wondering why. Wait, you called him. Not on purpose. And then he called you back? My phone started going off and had his contact up. That's a great move.

I mean, he called you. Yeah, he was calling me. When I picked up my phone, he was calling me. Yeah. His wife has his answer. She's... I'm willing to unblock if Jerry means it that we can get along, but I just... She unblocked PFT and I on Saturday night, late night. Hit me with a follow. And me too, which late night follow, some may be like, that's a booty call. And then I woke up the next morning. I was like, you know what? I'm done with this. I can't...

She's obviously interested in me. I'm going to block her and we're just going to go our separate ways. And then she proceeded for the rest of the day to tweet about me and follow everyone in our office. And when she, I blocked when she, thank you, Hank. That's my boy. When she followed Stephen Che and Brandon Walker, I was like, this is getting a little crazy. Yeah. She knows what she's doing and we know what she's trying to get my attention. Listen, Rebecca, no, no disrespect. You seem like a very lovely woman, immensely talented actress, uh,

I'm married and I really don't want you to... No restraining orders, okay? I might have to take one out. It's super cool that she married her best friend. Like, there's nothing nicer than friend-zoning your own husband.

Which is awesome, and I support that. I think they have a very healthy, solid relationship. I would never want to do anything to get in between that. You and your best friend. Like, he's such a great guy. Yeah. But just want to say hi, Rebecca. I will be respectful. The DM was just to let you know that I'm not going to send you DMs. Okay, that's beautiful. So if you want to DM me back, please don't, because that would violate the no DMs policy. All right, love that. And I might unblock both of you.

But it's a lot of like, you know, middle school trying to be mean to me to try to get my attention kind of feeling. And it's just like, hey, we're two adults. We're two adults. Max still is just tweeting at her with the indented paragraphs trying to fucking try. Mr. Oh, look at me. He's the real pervert in all this.

So now it's perverted to just show some respect around here? Your ha-ha yesterday was the most perverted ha-ha I've ever seen. You did a ha-ha in the middle of a tweet. Yeah, that was a funny part of that sentence. I wanted to just make sure that she knew that it was also funny. What was so funny? What'd she say? She was saying that her husband sucks at fantasy football. I don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember. Max hit it on her back. What are you talking about? Yeah. Ha-ha. Ha-ha. It was just showing respect. Ha-ha. All right, let's go back to the Knicks.

We're talking about since you don't want to commit to saying something that might be taken too seriously. No, I've never heard of that move before. No. What? No. Max, come on. Luckily, my competitors are a lot like your husband when it comes to fantasy. You're talking about how bad Jerry is at fantasizing. Ha-ha. Then he said ha-ha. Ha-ha. Then he said ha-ha. That is straight, unfiltered, from the tap, pervert. That... What are you talking about? Ha-ha. That is...

That is literally you're trying to laugh with her like, ha ha. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. You were laughing at your own joke? I just wish Rebecca would understand that you're the real pervert here. And if she's got to worry about anyone, it's you. What are you talking about? I blocked her. I've kept it clean. I've kept it clean from the beginning. Okay.

100% clean. You said, hope you're having a great day, and then you just wrote your name. You didn't even write respectfully, comma, Max. You just wrote Max. You know who needs to put respectfully at the end? People who it may be construed that they're not showing respect. Not me. Why is that? Because it was obvious respect. It's like when someone says, with all due respect, and then says something mean. No, that's always the nicest thing that you say. No, no, no, no. Well, that's interesting, Max, because the first time that you wrote her, you said, sincerely, Max.

Word count. Yeah. You never want to go on. People are going to read more. All right. Let's get back to the Knicks. So trade cat. That's what Hank would do. Pifty, are you in the trade cat? No, I don't think I'm in the trade cat.

Here's what – so I think Cat has become a – again, he's not a perfect player, but you have to admit that Jalen Brunson is a liability on defense. Yes. And you have to admit that you use a lot of assets for Mikael Bridges. He's got to play a little better, although he played great, obviously, in the Celtics series.

And then you have to admit that something happened with Josh Hart where every time he tries to take a three, it painfully hurts to watch. I think you probably make sense. You sprinkle in a little campaign. Yeah. Give him the green light. Yeah. Like, hey, Cam, tonight's your night. We didn't get that this series. There's still a good team. There will be a good team next year. I just don't know.

It just feels like immediately everyone hits the trade cat button every time you lose a game. And it's like he still is a matchup nightmare for other teams. I mean, he won a game in this series basically himself in that fourth quarter. I think that Tibbs is going to take a lesson that he always takes from any time he loses some, which is you need to do exactly what you want to do, but you need to do it harder next time. So he's just going to be like, we're not playing anybody off the bench. Yeah. Memes, what do you think? Is it trade cat?

I don't know. If it's trade cat and get Giannis. That obviously makes sense. That makes sense. If you could get a tier one superstar. I don't think that's going to go. I don't think that's exactly how that trade would go down. Jerry just sent me the photos of him in the tub. Yeah. Oh, no. We just got a lot of Jerry O'Connell content. Oh, my God. That's a lot. Just blur out my penis bingo. All right. Well, we'll put it up for the YouTube listeners.

Yeah, I don't know what the Knicks do. I mean, I feel like it's a weird spot that they're in where that was the best Knicks season in 25 years, but also you can look at the full situation and be like, man, we kind of blew a golden chance to get to the NBA. Yeah, when you think about who you had to go through in the conference championship to get there, on paper, you would have loved to have that opportunity, right? Home court advantage. Home court against the Pacers. And you got that big lead at the end of game one. You're going to look back and be like, damn, this sucks.

That was a mean oof. Yeah, it was a mean oof. It was a mean oof. It was a very mean oof. Yeah, the Celtics never blew two 20-point leads. NBA champion Celtics last year? Last year's doing a lot of work in that sense. Max just did a... Max felt that for memes there. He can't really get in a fight with him. He can't get in a fight with Hank about this. Memes, did you do the meme where you made the Statue of Liberty with Max's face on it? No, I forgot about that one. Mm-hmm.

Still time. It's the new crying Jordan. It was a great year. I mean, you guys got Kylie Jenner to Indiana. Yeah, that's true. That is a huge positive. It still was a great year. Yeah. Completely ruined the Celtics. They'll never be the same. It was a great year. That would be great for you if the Celtics just imploded, but...

I mean, now you've got to just be rooting next year with the heat of the thousand suns against Hank and for them to just blow the entire team up. If they don't blow the entire team up, then that win ultimately won't really mean that much. Yeah. I think we're blowing it up. You're not blowing it up. You're blowing it up? Do you have anything else?

I still, I'll stand. I know it sounds stupid, but I'll, I'll still stand with Knicks fans for celebrating the journey. I know it looks dumb in retrospect, everyone being like, oh, they raised the banner. I still think there's just a difference between fan bases versus the actual organization. What are you gonna say, Max? We, we had the, the street signs. When are they coming down? That the street again, and I think the street signs were stupid. And that's the, that's just, again, that's,

That's whenever politics, politicians try to gain favor by being like, Ooh, cool sports stories. It always comes across as cringe. That always sucks.

I do love the Greg Doyle impact on this series, though. Yeah. That was going to be my Who's Back of the Week, was Greg Doyle just making an ass of himself, being super awkward, talking to Pascal Siakam. And to the point where Pascal Siakam, that woke something up in him, where he was like, you okay, man? Who is this guy? Who are you? Why are you asking these weird questions? What is it about Greg Doyle that makes him absolutely have to say the most awkward shit at the worst times? Yeah, he's a weirdo. He's a big-time weirdo. Should we say anything about...

last game on TNT NBA on TNT there was so they're still doing it next year I love the gone fishing at the end the gone fishing at the end was great I do think there's you can you can be sad about NBA TNT being over because I TNT had the best NBA coverage whether it be the inside the NBA their announcers Kevin Harlan it always felt I don't know just always felt like when you were two

tune in tnt it's like this is a big game it felt a little different uh you'd also be a little like they're one of the only channels where if you keep it on after the game and fall asleep you'll probably wake up to a good movie yeah you know sometimes where where yes man you'll just you'll wake up to god knows what but tnt you'll get you'll get a movie after you'll mix in like a weird episode of charmed yeah something with emotion smoothing on your tv i still don't understand what it's gonna look like next year

I feel like they might fuck up the inside of the NBA, which would suck, but I'm going to at least give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll still be awesome and funny together. The great part about it, though, if ESPN does fuck up inside the NBA, they will be the first people to tell you that ESPN is fucking it up. Right. They'll just go scorched earth on their own platform. Charles and Shaq and, yeah, Kenny will just be like, yeah, they fucked this up. Yeah, I liked at the end when they started dropping F-bombs and just being like, we've always been just in, like,

Fuck around. Yeah. Fuck around mode. That's kind of what our show is about. And then Ernie doing the very solemn, tearful goodbye. Yeah. Just when Ernie Johnson says anything, you feel like at least somebody honest is on television telling you something. Yeah. And I got a little sad when I saw someone tweeted out it was the evolution of the score bug from the TNT. Yeah. That made me a little sad. It's like, damn, I've watched a lot of basketball on this station. I feel like it should be okay. If you keep that core group of guys together...

It should be good. See, look, this is pretty cool. Just looking at it, it's like, damn.

That is a long time. That's a lot of basketball. I love 2012 to 2014. Yeah. That's a great score bug right there. And I do love the first one, the 99-2001, where it was like, this station doesn't know how to do sports. Yeah. You know? And they're like, hey, the Terminator's a good movie. What if we played basketball on a Terminator score bug? So I just wonder what they're going to do in terms of the production team behind Inside the NBA. Are all those guys going to stick around? Are some of them going to leave? Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. I hope we get... I hope it stays as close to what it is as possible. That's all I'm hoping for. Okay.

Should we do some national sports podcast stuff before we get to who's back in the week? All right. Before we do national sports podcast stuff, quick word from our friends at game time. Hank, do you want to look up an NFL game you're excited for? Surely. Game time. Football is back. The 2025 NFL schedule is out, and the only place you should be getting your tickets is game time. The official ticketing partner, Barstool Sports.com.

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dot com slash barstool 25 for more information i want someone to sign up for this and then maybe send me a picture of the uh discounted twizzlers and combos you got got that would be nice so fuel rewards dot com slash barstool 25 for more information okay national sports podcast what do we want to talk about as a national sports podcast first scotty scheffler being incredible scotty scheffler scotty scheffler uh

a man on a mission. I don't really know what else to say. He won back-to-back Jack Nicklaus. The Jack Nicklaus tournament. So he defended his title too. The craziest stat to me was that Scotty Scheffler, he's now defended three titles that he has and that Tiger Woods has defended 23 titles that he had. That's just every

Every time Scottie Scheffler does something awesome, it's really just a promo for how great Tiger Woods was. Yeah, Tiger should be pumped about Scottie. He should be pumped. He should be rooting for him for now. But yeah, you got the other stat up here. This is the meanest stat ever. Wins since May 2nd. Scottie Scheffler, three in four tournaments. The Colorado Rockies, three in 28 games played. That's an insult stat. That's brutal. Did you hear also Jack Niklaus afterwards? He was as straight and to the point as possible. He said...

Ben Griffin's a nice player. Sep Strock is a nice player. Nick Taylor's a nice player. Scotty Scheffler knows those guys are not in his league. They're not Scotty Scheffler. That's it. Like, it couldn't be more clear. He's just playing at a different level.

than everyone else right now. And it's fun to watch. And then he also had the very relatable moment of his baby had a blowout and was handed a baby with poop in his diaper right after. The greatest equalizer is a baby having a poop blowout. Yeah. Because it will humble any man.

I love it how every time he finishes a tournament, his wife is just first thing like, hey, great job. Also, now the baby, you're on the clock. Yeah. Whatever happens from this point forward, that's your responsibility with the kid. Yeah. Also, we had Jordan Spieth almost kill a person. Yeah. That guy rocked, though, that he hit. Yeah.

He got hit in the back, and the guy immediately took his shirt off. Yeah, he hit a guy. No, different guy. No, that was different. He hit a guy. I think that was Ben Griffin. It was Ben Griffin? Yeah. No, Jordan Spieth. Watch this. I saw this one, too. The guy ducks. It's as direct as possible. He ended up making par on that.

hole yeah this is what's crazy about golf is how close they put the spectators to the players yeah and they just assume that the players will never have a miss hit and this one was going right out of his head but the other guy that got hit the ultimate bro gets hit in the back and then immediately is like i gotta take my shirt off because that guy had been working out that was the best day of that guy's life to get hit with the ball he's like yeah i'm gonna flex on camera real quick by far uh okay so segue of scotty sheffer we saw the stat the rockies they're 9 and 50 yep

That's a problem. Fastest team to 50 wins in the history of MLB? 50 losses. 50 losses, I mean? Yeah. Beating... Somehow they're worse than the White Sox last year. By far. It's crazy. The White Sox last year at this point had like 16, 17 wins. Yeah. It's fuck the Monforts, fire them to the sun. They need to be... Sell the team. 9-50 is...

It's crazy. Insane. The other two things I had from National Sports Podcast, one was we have a Christian Yelich problem because he's getting hot. I know he left with a contusion on Sunday, but he hit two home runs on Friday, and he's getting hot. It's starting to make me nervous. I'm not worried about it. I'm not. There's too many good lefties.

And if it gets to that point, I will go Tony Harding on him. Yeah. So I sent him a text. Interpret that how you will. After his second home run on Friday night. And I said, alert, please read. This message is for Christian Yelich. Date of birth.

December 5th, 1991. You have been flagged by Major League Baseball. Banned substance department. Please report immediately to provide a mandatory urine sample. If you do not comply, you'll be suspended from all regular season exhibition events, i.e. Home Run Derby, etc. Please reply yes to confirm your receipt of this message. If no reply is received within 12 hours, it will automatically register as a positive test and you'll be banned from all regular season and exhibition events, i.e. Home Run Derby, etc. Signed, MLB.

He did reply within an hour and a half. Yes. So I was pissed. No, but I was hoping I was going to get him on that technicality. And then I was going to send it to MLB and be like, this guy is dodging. He also said that literally everyone in the stands was talking about us eating each other's asses when he hit the second. I love that. That's got to be good for his focus. I've got an idea of maybe something we could do along those same lines. We should have somebody in this office take steroids.

And then piss. Collect the piss. And then just mail all the piss to MLB. I love that. And just label it Christian Yelich's urine. I love that. And just send tons of it. I love that. Is there anything against the law about mailing piss? No. I don't think that there is. I don't think so. We just need somebody that would volunteer to take steroids and pee into a cup. Ryan Braun. Join the juice games.

Oh, the Enhanced Games? Yeah, the Enhanced Games. Those look so funny. That one swimmer. Hold on. He's looking up. Are you legally? No, you are not legally allowed to mail urine. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. Tell the full story. No, you are not legally allowed to mail urine indiscriminately. Oh. That's a very key word. This is discriminately. We're not being indiscriminate. This is we're targeted mailing piss. This is as discriminant as it gets. Yes. Intentional mailing of piss to a certain actor. Ah. Yeah. It's a problem. I don't think he's going to compete in this Home Run Derby, but he did mention...

the all-star game at Wrigley in a couple years and that started to get me nervous because it feels like he's going to I don't think he's going to do it this year I think he's getting himself like pumped up for a big stand at one point in the next couple years so he's got a finger contusion right now yeah finger contusion why would he not do it this year yeah you got to strike while the iron's hot he's got a finger contusion I mean he's got a finger contusion can't hit with a finger contusion I don't think he should make sure the finger contusion is healthy

Don't take any risks. There's just so many good players. So many good players that are lefties that I think MLB would... They don't want the storyline of the Home Run Derby to be two podcasters licking each other's buttholes. No. I'd agree. Bad for the sport. Speaking of so many good players, I wanted to do something real quick. We need to give a shout-out to Cal Raleigh. Big dumper. Yeah, he's a beast. He is. Now, Aaron Judge obviously is having an insane year. Aaron Judge is almost hitting 400. He's got 22 home runs. Cal Raleigh...

is the catcher for Seattle Mariners. He has 23 home runs, and that's insane. He's the fastest catcher to, I think it was 22 home runs by June 1st. It's nuts that he's doing this as a catcher. Like, Max, chime in. You...

It's insane. 23 home runs for a catcher. And I think he leads the league in throwouts to second. Like, he's a very good catcher, too. He's played every game this year. So he hasn't caught every game. He's DH'd some of the games. But that in itself is still impressive that he's played every game. It's crazy. He needs a lot more national attention, national sports podcast. He won't win MVP, but he's got my vote.

Bear? Yeah, no, Cal Raleigh's great. Probably Joe Maurer, the last very good hitting catcher to catch steam like this. He needs more love. It's just that every time Shohei hits a home run, the world talks about it. When Cal Raleigh does it, crickets. We just need to get Big Dumper going more because I feel like when Big Dumper gets a home run, that's a totally different. And he's an elite fielding catcher, and he's doing this.

It's crazy. He's got, I think, a 4-7 war, which that seems good, right? And he's doing it. He's got less at-bats than Shohei, yeah. Yeah. So I think he trails Shohei by 13 at-bats right now. Yeah. He's pretty awesome. First catcher with 20 home runs before June. That's crazy. 23 home runs. Cal Raleigh, big dumper. He's our guy.

Might go in the first round of the Dingers Only draft. I think he's a great value pick. Positional value? I had him two years ago on the Dingers Only. It was awesome. Positional value, I think he's easily 1-1. Yeah. Has to be. All right, do we have any other National Sports Podcast things before we do Who's Back? What else? National Sports Podcast. TJ Watt has an offer on the table. Oh. But it's not to his liking. From the Steelers? From the Steelers. That's good because he hasn't been to OTAs. It would be really weird if TJ Watt played for a different team.

What team could TJ Watt play for that would be the least weird? Probably the Texans. Yeah. Just because of the brother. Yeah. I mean, you... Maybe the Chargers.

Yeah, 49ers maybe? Yeah. 49ers could be like a historical franchise. It doesn't have anything to do with the Steelers. Yeah. I could see that. I could see him being a 49er and it making sense. But you don't want TJ Watt to be like a Jaguar or like a Seahawk. No. It would be weird. One of the strange teams. Yeah. I could see him. I guess, unfortunately, a Packer would make sense. You don't want him playing for the Ravens. I don't think he would. No, I don't think he would. But that would also look cool.

Get a sick vibe. Yeah, it would look cool. Well, I mean, the Steelers would never obviously trade him to the Ravens. But it would look cool. But it would look cool. It would look very cool. Okay, let's do Who's Back of the Week. Who's Back of the Week is brought to you by our friends at Truly...

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Henry. My who's back of the week is Taylor Swift. Oh, you took mine. Oh, why? Big one. Why? She owns all her music now. Thank God. Even though she already re-recorded all of her music. So she owns all of her music twice. Well, now she can make some money finally. Are you being a hater? I just know that my timeline was just a bunch of people crying. Literally crying. It's the biggest thing ever. And I'm not judging.

Because I've seen a grown man cry after a round one win for the Dayton Flyers. Okay? So that happens. But how big was this? My understanding of PFT probably knows a little more, so I'll just give my thought and then he can enlighten me. But she did not own her Masters. That was a Scooter Braun situation. Governors. Yeah. She re-recorded all of her songs and released them again. So she owned...

All the Taylor's version songs, she owns all of them. Yep. So she had full ownership of her songs. The new ones. Which are the same as the old ones. Yep. And now she bought back the old ones, but it's the same. So her fans, like, it's not like the fans are getting anything new. Incorrect, Hank.

Vans are getting nothing new. Incorrect. And Taylor Swift, the richest woman in the world. You are a hater and you're a misogynist. And it's okay. It's all right. Just say it. What's wrong? I'm glad that you're saying it with your chest. No, I'm confused. Tell me where I was wrong. So Taylor Swift was basically working for free for the last 10 years. No, she re-recorded all of them. She didn't make any money. She released a thousand versions of them. So people have to buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy. She's dead broke. I'm sure that you were happy seeing her broke.

She was the most oppressed person in the world, basically. And so now, because she bought her old masters back. But what about the re-releases? Oh, she had to put in new labor for that, Hank. Okay. Wait, should we re-release our shows? Yeah. Hank does. He just does voiceovers for all of them because I'm Hank's version. No one would listen to that. It's all Hank. So was this a big... Doing different voices. Was this a big deal? No. There you go again, Hank. No. You love putting women in their place, don't you?

Put it this way, Big Cat. You're a Taylor Swift fan and you want to listen to a song. You could have listened to it last week. You can still listen to it tomorrow. Nothing changed. But now it feels less bad. No, Hank's like, well, she should have re-recorded all her songs from the kitchen. No, I respected that. I heard that one online too, Hank. And frankly, I think it's disgusting. I respected the re-recording. I'll tell you what the fans get different with. One of the funniest clips that was going viral inside the NBA was Charles Barkley being like, I'd never buy...

a woman a watch for mother's day because there's a watch and there's a you can keep time on the uh in the kitchen and it was kept on going it's like how did this show never get kids yeah keep going all right so hank here's what you get different here's what here's the new stuff that her fans get um the ability to add the old versions of their songs to new playlists

So you don't have to just already have those same songs on that. Do you know all the emotional labor that her fans did avoiding clicking on the old version? I understand what you're saying. When you're not, when you search for emotional labor, when you search for love story online, you have to make sure that you're not clicking on the one that doesn't say Taylor's version next to it. Now you can, the thumbs can just rapid fire.

And click on whatever they see. Also, I think that there were some albums that she didn't do the Taylor's version of yet that she may have been working on. But now, don't have to worry about that. Got it. Emotional labor, Hank. Emotional labor. Think about the emotional labor. It's not just for Taylor Swift, Hank. It's for her fans. It's for her fans. Who did a great job. Also, did you see Travis Kelsey liked the Instagram post of her saying that she had... And Harry Styles. Wow. And Joe Burrow. Love that. I can't believe it. Love that. Travis Kelsey, who's dating her, liked it. And so the...

The nicest thing is, famously, Taylor Swift is the only musical artist that this has ever happened to where she didn't own her own music that other people were making money off of. So now this will send a direct shot towards the music industry saying, you can't do this to artists anymore. Love it. You tried it one time with Taylor Swift, and it didn't work. So good luck in the future.

Thank you, yeah. You get it, Hank? I'm enlightened now, buddy. You get it now, buddy? And I'm happy for Taylor. Emotional labor. She did a great job convincing her fans to be like, you need to make me more money. Yeah. Great job. Yeah. All right, PFT, you're who's back of the week. All right, so Hank just took mine with Taylor Swift. I hope I was able to educate you on that, Hank. You were. Thank you. What are your final thoughts on the matter? Are you happy for Taylor? I'm so happy for Taylor Swift and her fans, and I love her music. I can't wait to listen to all the versions. Mm-hmm. All too well. I'm happy for them. That's one, right? That's a song, yeah.

I think. Listen, everyone's got things they're going to be passionate about. Crying about Taylor Swift recording a bunch of songs you could have listened to right before, but you forgot about the emotional abuse, Hank. I say fair play. Let those tears go. It's not about her. Yeah, she's back. That's the other thing. All versions of Taylor are back. You don't understand. It's not about her. It's about what she represents. I don't know what she represents. I'm not sure, but it's about what she represents, and I'm happy for it.

What she represents. Same. She's back. It's a victory for me. I almost said single cat ladies, but I didn't because that would have gotten us in trouble. So credit to me. And learned. But yes, but also, yes, single cat ladies. Yes. And even women with multiple cats. Yeah. Multiple cat ladies who have a boyfriend. Yeah. Or women who have boyfriends who know cats. And single cat men. Yeah. All of them. It's for everybody. Not dog owners. Mm hmm.

Yeah, I think if you have more than one dog, if you like hoard dogs, this is a win for you. Yep. Dog owners' wives. Yeah. What?

It doesn't have to be just Evan, dude. Hank, you're doing it again, Hank. You're doing it again. Dog owners' wives. You can't go two seconds without being misogynistic. It's disgusting. It's gross. For podcasts. Take that back. Hank. Disavow. Hank, we don't own our own masters on this show. I know. Yeah. You do. Now it's all making sense. I fucking wish I did. Now, Hank is a scooter. If I owned the masters of this show, I would not be here. You are the scooter of one. Yeah, I would.

You're the Scooter Braun of part of my take, so it's making sense why you're not happy for her fans. Good for Taylor. Good for Taylor. My other Who's Back of the Week, I'm just going to say it, Bonnie Blue. Bonnie Blue's back. She's going to double up. She's now doing 2,000 men. Put it on the list. 2,000 men while being tied up in a glass box open to the public. Can I have a take? So do I. I didn't want to do it on this show, but you go first. The question better be... Were you going to say the same thing as me?

I haven't wanted to think about it. It doesn't make any sense. Oh, I thought you were going to say you'd be down to be one of the 2,000 men. No, no. Oh, okay. No, I was just saying, I think I'm out on all of the body blow. So out. You're out on it? 2,000 is just, these aren't even real numbers anymore. From just a physical... That's what I'm saying. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And I don't really want to think about it too hard, and I don't want to see it, but it's like, that can't... Like, 100 was like, holy shit, that's crazy. I can't believe she did it. But 2,000, like, that's not...

That's like saying, what if I threw 25 touchdowns in an NFL game? That's not a real number. It's absurd that it's becoming an arms race, but now it's arms and legs every whole race. It's crazy to think that she's physically capable of sleeping with 2,000 guys at once. And when sleeping, why do they always say sleeping with? They cuddle, I'm sure. I'm out on it. It's pillow talk. I'm out on the Bonnie Blue.

Because it's like she just keeps going up and up and up with the numbers. And I don't have any wow left. I am mostly ew. What would shock you? What would make you go wow? I don't think there's a sense. 2000 is well past that. I don't believe 2000. Like, it does not. I think my last shot was like 100. You think that these are like fake stats? Yes. Like we're in the live, the juiced balls era? Yes. Yeah.

Like, are all these guys, like, coming? I don't know. I don't know. I'll be honest. I haven't seen. That's the thing. You don't really want to think about it. Right. Here's the thing. You just know that can't be true. She could be lying about it because I haven't watched a second of the video of the actual thing. I just monitor it like you're refreshing the stats, and then it says she did it. And I'm like, oh, okay, she did it. I just trust her. Max is trying to find the videos. Yeah, of course he is. Yeah, you've got it. Just go on your own defense.

But it's, yeah, it's absolutely insane what she's even saying. 2,000 men. The tied up in a glass box open to the public is, she's going to get arrested again, right? Didn't David Blaine already do that? Yeah, he did. Yeah. So you're just ripping off David Blaine? I would be more impressed if she didn't sleep with 2,000 men. If she spent a weekend being like, I'm not going to have sex this weekend. Yeah. Watch me. Yeah, if she was like, I'm going to French kiss 2,000 guys. Yeah, we're going to make out. Yeah.

What do you think? What's the world record on the most Frenching in 24 hours is? I'm going to let 2,000 guys feel my tits over the bra. Let's see. Most men French kissed. Now, if she could give 2,000 handjobs to completion, that would be impressive.

Yeah, that would actually, I would start to think like, oh my God, that's some record shit right there. Yeah, because you're going to be sore like your arms. You're going to be jacked up afterwards. You just got jacked off. Jacked off. All right. I have a couple who's, are you looking something up right now? Yeah, most men French kiss in 24 hours. Let's see. The most kisses received and given within a specific time frame. Most kisses given in a minute.

Florian Silberian gave 117 kisses in a minute during a live TV program. That's not that many kisses. Yeah. Most kisses in eight hours. That's not also possible. 117 is... Alfred Wolfram kissed 11,030 people in eight hours. A second? Damn. I think that's a record that's meant to be broken. Yeah. 11,030 people. You should go for it. No, I'm not a kisser. These lips are sealed. I don't kiss and tell.

All right. My who's back. Henry Lockwood. You did some fucked up shit in Florida, dude. Come on.

Yeah, there's a cop in Florida named Henry Lockwood. This is a fake article. No, it's a real article. It's crazy. This is a fake article. No, we're going to... I got to pull it up. How many times did you get tagged in it? I got tagged in a lot, and I was like, oh, no, this is bad. Who is this guy that must be important? It says local town. No, this is bullshit. So this is where it's like... There's an AWO writing this. Fort Lauderdale... High profile Fort Lauderdale detective fired after internal affairs investigation.

I'm just going to read the one part. Abusing his authority. Lockwood's career highlights included co-leading a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway. High profile. In 2023 for 100 and Meaty Families. That is not a high profile fucking detective. Yeah. His career highlight was giving out turkeys as a co-leader. Local 10 investigates Fort Lauderdale detective Henry Lockwood wants to face the department at Future Faces League. For giving out turkeys? Heck, he gave out turkeys.

to 1,200 families. That's crazy. He co-led. He co-gave them out. That's so many turkey. How many families have you given out turkeys to? Tons. You know what you got to do is you got to give out to more. You got to body blue this. You got to go 2,000 turkeys. That way the Henry Lockwood, you come up before him. Yeah. Detective Henry Lockwood.

Yeah, bad guy. Disavow. Yeah, bad guy. All right, my real who's back is the Stanley Cup final. Obviously, Wednesday, we're going to have Whitney on Friday. And do you want to do predictions? Because I also had a fun fact for everyone, if anyone wanted to hear it.

This is now 45 consecutive years that there has been a teammate of Yarmul Yager in the Stanley Cup final. That is a fun fact. Crazy. Yeah. 45 straight years. Obviously, some of the guys before he started playing became his teammates, but still insane. I think it's Oilers. I got Oilers in seven. I think it's Oilers. I'll go Panthers in five. What? What?

The Oilers is a more fun story. Yeah, I agree. You hate Connor McDavid. Just saying. You do hate Connor McDavid. We always think he's a winner. That was a panel move.

Oh, okay. You get the logo up there. Well, you didn't have to say Panthers in five. More fun. Yeah, you could have made it a little bit different. Get some interaction going. Get the engagements up? I don't have Panthers in four. I take it back. Okay, I like that. And then my other who's back was, so Jerry randomly called you, but it was going to be Rebecca Romaine because she has the hot streak. But I think we're going to settle it. I think we're done. I think I'm going to unblock her.

Not the first time a friend's wife hates my guts or also has the hots for me. So what am I going to do? Who else? Actually, I don't know if anyone's ever had the hots, but definitely friends' wives have hated me. I mean, obviously. Because of the Taylor Swift thing? No, just being. Yeah. Everyone has that, right?

friends wives that or like friends yeah oh yeah what are you talking about that's the most guy thing to have happen oh yeah your friend's girlfriend hates you because you're fun yeah yeah because you're too much yeah that's like the jealous i actually think that it's great if you don't have that you're the weird one max you got that for sure max is fun yeah max a lot of fun right max

Oh, yeah. You didn't understand what I was saying? No, I just, it took me a second to find out who that one was in my head. Oh, I have more than that. And that one might have a podcast. Yeah, yeah. And you guys have seen her hate me. Oh, yeah. I'm confused by what PFT is saying. Sorry. I don't, never mind. You're a lot of fun, right, Max? Yeah, yep. Either way, I think I'm going to squash the beef with Rebecca Romaine, even though I will not, I'm not going to move off the take that she is interested in me with how she acted.

You'd agree, right, Hank? I mean, she was giggling. She didn't really disavow. Yeah. She just started laughing on the phone. She was giggling. I have a theory about that phone call that we got. AI. Do you think that Jerry just did the Max Delente invitation to the White House with Big Dom to us with his wife? Oh. Was that Jerry doing a woman's giggle? Oh. We know he's a talented voice actor. But we did hear him get out of the bathtub. By the way, and all right, because I'm trying to make

Trying to fix everything with... I love Jerry so much that I want his wife to not either be attracted to me or also hate me. I want her to just be platonic. I thought his bathtub would have been nicer.

Yeah. Is that crazy? No, that's... You know what that bath is? That's crazy. You know what that bath is, though? It looks like it's the bath tower on the Mayflower. Yeah. That's the bath that he does not share with his wife. That's the secondary bathroom where he's allowed to bathe. Okay. Yeah. Either way. Her bath is way nicer. I'm going to... I'm pretty... I think I'm going to unblock her and we're going to make amends. I think at the very least, we need to make a new rule. Anytime anyone from that household...

calls into part of my take, it has to be from the bathtub. They have to be taking a bath. Doesn't matter who you are in that house, man or wife, either way. That's the podcast room. Max? Ha ha.

Ha-ha. Disrespectful. Ha-ha. It was a ha-ha. That was a joke. Ha-ha. No, that was disrespect. That was a big-time ha-ha. We're kidding. Still big-time. Disrespect. Also, who's back college baseball because it rocks. I tuned in some. Vanderbilt, huge loss. Vandy Whistler. I think they were the first number one seed to not make a regional ever. I might have made that stat up. Either way, there's been – no, no.

To make a regional. Not super regional. The regional. They were the number one overall seed, I believe, and they didn't make the regional. That makes no sense. It starts at the regional. What did they make? To lose in the regional? Oh, they didn't make the regional final. Sorry. Yes. Yes. There it is. They're the first number one overall seed to not make it to the regional final. They lost the right state. That's embarrassing. I also love this. I don't know if it's...

If there's anything to back it up statistics wise, but it feels like the first weekend of the regional finals this Sunday, every single game is like 15 to 14 and it's a lot of fun. You just bet the over. What do you got, Max? Did you find it? Insanity. The commanders lose five, four to Wright state Vanderbilt is the first number one overall seed to miss a regional final. There it is. That's crazy. Shout out Wright state. Okay. Okay.

Let's get to our interviews. We got Alex Caruso, then Ray Romano, and then we'll finish with lottery balls, PFT. Before we get to Alex Caruso, he's brought to you by State Farm. In basketball, the great players don't just go it alone. They have teammates, coaches, and a solid support system behind them. It's kind of like insurance because, let's face it, a lot of us probably aren't great at doing that alone either.

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Okay, we now welcome on our very, very good friend and a very, very, very special guest. It is Alex Caruso from the Oklahoma City Thunder, ready for the NBA Finals on Thursday night. We actually were just saying this. I did a bad job because we were talking about it before, but how badly do you want the NBA Finals to start right now and sitting here being like, let's just get this thing on? Also, congratulations. Congratulations.

Yeah, thanks to start. Thanks for having me again. Excited to be back, even though it's not in the studio. You know, this counts at least a little bit. Yeah, dude, I'm ready to play games. Like, that was the hardest thing that we talked about before this was, like, the eight days and nine days in between, you know, end of the season, first round and then first and second round. And, like, the opposite in the last two rounds. Like, we played game seven Sunday and then played Minnesota on Tuesday. So...

Much rather just play games. And this whole week is going to be just interviews and trying to tell people the same five responses to every question. Can you give us those five responses? Yeah, just give us all five right now. We won't even ask you the questions. Five is an arbitrary number, but like, you know, like...

They're going to ask about, you know, how do you feel about being in the finals? And it's going to be, oh, it's great. We're excited for the opportunity. And then they're going to ask about Indiana. And it's going to be like, well, they won three series too, so they're going to be confident. This is good. Like, you know, any generic coach-speak answer you can give, like that's where they're going to have us on deck ready to go. How important is, like, getting out to a fast start? Yeah, I mean –

You want to win game one. Game one, you get in the driver's seat and prepare all week to win game one. Yeah. Alex, PFT commenter from part of my take here, how do you plan on slowing down that fast break at the Indiana Pacers? Yeah, we're going to try and play defense. It's this newfound thing. It's pretty good. You get back in transition and you try and play defense and stop the other team. Okay. Good answer. Good answer. Alex, big cap for part of my take here.

When you guys do advanced scouting and analytics for this series, how many points are you expecting Thundor to cost the other team with his belly? Probably...

We've been looking over the past. The analytics have gotten to us. It's at least six to seven, depending on the weather, honestly. Rainy nights, he gets a little more enthusiastic. PFT commenter from Barstool Sports, part of my Take podcast. Alex, have you thought about how to best neutralize the John Halliburton factor? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, they did that for us. I think they put him up in the suite. He can't be on the court anymore, so that's a good start. Yeah, and also, I mean, SGA's dad, didn't he just win Western Conference Final MVP? Yeah. That was so funny.

I didn't even know that was happening because, like, everyone's taking pictures and stuff. And, like, my family's on there, so I'm hanging out with them. And everyone's in their own little, like, circle. And then I see it, like, probably the day later. He's, like, tossing it up in the air. And Shay's like, yeah. Like, you want it. I was like, yeah. That checks out for the few times that I've met Shay's dad. Are you a little nervous, though, for real? Real question about actually playing in the finals for the first time here? Because, I mean...

I was wondering how long. It's got to be like, I would imagine like the guys look at you and they're like, Hey man, you've been here. And you're like, dude, I haven't like we played in fucking literally Mickey mouse's house. There were no fans. It doesn't count. It was a little different. However, however, the ring is still in the closet. So like, like anything that counts, uh, it's been, it's been fun with the guys though. They, I can't remember who it was. Somebody made a joke about that too. It was like,

Are you excited about going to the finals for the first time? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you know, fans. It would be kind of funny if like the first like three minutes of the finals, the fans kind of fucked you up a little bit. You're like, oh shit, this is so different. Honestly, going into the playoffs this year, like we had the one series against Milwaukee my first year in Chicago. And then a couple of playing games, but like the playing games aren't the same as, you know, playoff series.

And the first game against Memphis this year at home, I had so much adrenaline that I like I had to like calm myself down. Like I had to like switch up my music and I had to like start like actually get into some breathing because I had so much adrenaline pumping through me, like especially going through like layup lines. Usually I'm like a chatter, you know, I'm I'm throwing out phrases to guys. Let's start fast. Like, you know, be ready to be ready to go.

The whole warm-up of game one against Memphis, I was just dead silent. I was so quiet. I was trying to figure out how do I get myself out of it. And then once we got in the game, it freed it up. But yeah, dude, that was...

That was probably the closest I'll be to being nervous before a game. Yeah. I feel like you just get out there and you fight your way through your first screen. And then you're like, okay, now I'm focused. Now I know that we're playing basketball. Yeah. It's like, what do they say with football? It's like, you need to get hit. Yeah. When a quarterback plays his first game ever, it's like once he gets tackled for the first time, all of a sudden he locks in and starts throwing dimes. That's kind of what it is. You get out there, your first screen, your first –

whatever it is, you know, you get a little sweat going and all of a sudden it's just basketball. So is it an art fighting through screens? Because you are like the best at it. Yeah, I mean, we got...

We've got a handful of guys on our team that each have their own superpower defensively. But yeah, we talk about it. We do a good job, too. When we watch film, whichever guy is in the play, we'll gas each other up for sure. There'll be a play where Lou will just not get touched for 10 seconds and three different people will try to screen him. And then he chests somebody at 30 feet and takes the ball.

just rips people. Dub just rips people. And then there'll be ones where like, I just get skinny and I'm getting over all the screens and we just turn into like a highlight reel. The players do. The coaches are obviously, you know, trying to like coach us and tell us to do stuff. But like the players, we do a great job of,

each other up whenever there's a couple like that. So how do you get skinny? I feel like that's something that this podcast could, could definitely learn how to do. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that might be the summer brand right there. It gets skinny pod. Yeah. Slipping all the screens. Just get as close as you can to the other guy. Like a lot of it's just anticipation. And I'm also like, I have a good frame for the get skinny, you know, motto. Um, like,

Like I'm a 190 guy and I'm just like straight up and down compared to, you know, lose like 6'3", but he's 200 something pounds muscle. So for me, it's just...

Literally get skinny. Get as close as you can to the guy and get through it. You're great at getting skinny, but you have the capability to get big with it. Just bump into a guy. When you were defending against Jokic, what was that like just banging against Jokic for the entire game? I'm going to throw my body into this huge human being. Yeah, dude. I was exhausted after Game 7. I'm not going to lie to you. That was the most physically tired I've been all playoffs going into...

Going into game one against Minnesota, I was definitely like there wasn't a full recovery between playing Jokic for 25, 30 minutes and playing game one against Minnesota. Luckily, you know, our team's really good. So me at like, you know, 85, 90% is still passable.

But yeah, dude, I was exhausted. It was one of those things too, where it's like you, you, you use that adrenaline to your advantage. Like in the Memphis game, I told you like I had some, or before the first Memphis game, I had so much adrenaline that it was almost a negative thing. But like in game seven, at that point we had played every other day and then had two days. So we had two days to rest up for game seven and like recover. So the whole game, I was just like, all right, like I will die on this court. Like if I have to like fatigue, isn't going to be a reason that we don't win the game.

but there's a couple possessions man where i'm like laying on them and like luckily we have great team defense and like there'll be a couple where like i'm fronting them and then running underneath like the dudes i don't know i don't know what his official weight is but the dude is like he's like offensive tackle strong like he's like immovable right and then he doesn't he doesn't like make these super aggressive moves to get into the post he just like takes takes a foot bumps you takes another foot bumps you

So, yeah, it was a long night in the cold tub after that one. Did Jokic, like, talk shit or get – because it felt like you were frustrating the hell out of him. Was he getting – Bro, he doesn't talk. That's got to be actually the weirdest thing, right? He's got a little bit – like, you know, you've seen those clips of people talking about, like, Tim Duncan was, like, a silent trash talker. Yeah. Like, you've seen, like, the KG clip where he says, like, he'll hit you in phrases. Like, he'll, like, say, like, nice try, like.

You'll get it next time. Like that stuff, like yokes, at least to me and like playing against him. I've never heard him like talk. He literally is just like serial killer face, you know, like post you up, get to the jump hook, make it jog back down the court and get a steel push in transition. No look past jog back down. Like,

Just a blank slate the entire time. That's got to be very weird and awkward to have someone not talk any shit whatsoever. I have a question about the screens. This is a dumb question. I would assume everyone's still calling out every screen, right? Is there times when one of your teammates, maybe not on the Thunder but before, just forgot to call it out and you get crushed?

Yeah, that happens. That happens. Most of the time, not most of the time, the bigs always feel bad when they do that because it usually happens on the guy that's picking up full court. Yeah. Those are the ones where it's like you are picking up full court, so you're turning the guy, trying to make him work. And then all of a sudden you plant and go, and you take that first slide, and then you just get rocked. Yeah, that one's – now when you look at the big and you're like,

Like, what's going on? And they usually give like a, you know, hand up accountability moment. My bad. Yeah. Yeah. Because that feels like like that's something like when you play pickup, you yell out screens. But if you don't yell at a screen in an NBA game, you could really fuck someone up. Yeah. Well, the hard part, too, is like especially for us at Paycom, like we'll go on a run and the crowd will be so loud while we're on defense.

That we can't like, you know, you can't hear your guys talk. Yeah. There's been times where I'm yelling at Chet running down the middle of the floor and like I'm three feet away from him telling him there's a guy behind him. Watch out. He can't hear me. And it's like sometimes it's at a detriment for us because it's like we're playing so good and the fans are so loud. But obviously I'm not going to, you know, that's not a I don't want to trade off.

them being loud for us being able to communicate because it obviously affects the other team right yeah do you know do you notice speaking of the crowd when there's somebody in the crowd that's not wearing the t-shirt that everyone should be wearing yeah what was the deal with that y'all y'all went on a well you gotta wear the t-shirt you gotta wear the t-shirt yeah no you gotta wear the t-shirt

If it's there. If you're a fan of the team and we're at home, you've got to wear the t-shirt. Unless you're Thundor, in which case don't wear a shirt. Unless you're a staple, you know, have your own get up that's like, you know, people know who you are. Yeah, super fan stuff. Yeah, super fan.

With your defense being as good as it is, I've always thought that practicing defense is the worst part of playing basketball because it's exhausting. Does it suck any less practicing defense when your defense is really fucking good? Yeah, honestly, the practice part in general is just terrible at this point. I just don't enjoy practices at all. And I think that just comes with after a certain number of years in the NBA, you just get over it. You play so many games, you understand everything.

I'm not learning anything new pretty much. Pretty much every coverage that the NBA does, I've seen or heard or know. So at that point, it's just like get through the drill, know it, and get to the game to be able to do it. But for me, like you said, I'm a defensive guy, so that stuff kind of comes natural and easy to me.

Whereas there's some people in the league that probably should work a little harder on that. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever think that you're a try hard on the court?

Oh, yeah. Okay. All right, good. Because there was the moment I'm talking about was game six against the Nuggets. You guys were down like 14 with like two and a half minutes left. And you basically tried to win the game yourself. And you almost did. I think you got two steals in a row and hit a three. And it was like, holy shit, is Caruso going to just do this himself? But then I look back, you still end up losing by like 12. I was like, that was kind of a try hard move.

Yeah, you know, it's the playoffs. If you're not trying hard, you're probably not playing anymore. True. It's also, I do that in regular season games. Dude, I don't know what else to do. We're going to be out there. We might as well play. I like that. I mean, that's a good answer. And that's also why you get all the accolades on defense. You should be trying hard in the NBA playoffs. I think that's a fair take to have. That's probably a positive thing, I think. Yeah, but that was a try-hard move by you.

Yeah, no, it's more fun on the road too just because obviously you try hard at home. The fans, even if you lose, they're like, oh, it's okay, you get it next time. But you sit on the road and fans might get a little nervous and then afterwards they're like,

uh we weren't we weren't nervous at all like yeah we knew we were gonna win the whole time it's like all right we're gonna win the next game yeah do you remember the moment i'm talking about because you did kind of make the fans nervous for like a brief second which was crazy because the the nuggets were up like 14 and it was like back-to-back steals we went small and we just i mean at that point like what like you said like you're down that much for that much time it's like all right let's just try and get a bunch of steals and rip a bunch of threes or get layups um

They also just didn't guard me on the corner three that I shot. I was just wide open. Do you feel disrespected when teams do that? No, and I'll tell you why not. I used to. I used to think that it was disrespectful to me. And I guess maybe there's like 10% still disrespect. That's just like the ego of NBA players. But you literally – teams have to decide what they're willing to live with. Mm-hmm.

And like Shay getting 50 isn't something that they're willing to live with, which respectfully. So like, I would probably have the same idea if I was on the other team.

So, like, you know, I just get open shots, and it's great for me. I love open shots. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Open ones are easier. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. So what was your reaction when Magic Johnson tweeted about you after you won game five? Is that just, like, the best? He said that to me, and I just started laughing because I've seen his tweets before where it's, like, you know, it's just like an AP memo release. Yes.

Congratulations for advancing. It was great news.

Great representation and recognition from Magic. Yeah, because it's usually a day after the thing happens he'll tweet about it, but this was right when it happened. The first thing he had to do was say, Congratulations, former Laker and NBA champion Alex Caruso, who now plays for Oklahoma City Thunder and is headed to the NBA Finals. Did you get a text from him in addition to that, or was it just the tweet? No, unfortunately, just the tweet. No tag either, so we don't get any followers or any credibility off that either. They've got to like...

Some people probably saw that and are like, who's Alex Cruz? We're following Magic Johnson. Yeah. I got a question that I bet you you're going to be asked, but let me try to ask it in a way that's not as boring. Your coach, Mark Dagnall, who's been awesome, he was your coach when you were on the G League, Oklahoma, what is it, the city, Oklahoma City Blue? Yeah, the Blue. Yeah.

Have you had like a private moment where you're like, Hey, this is, this is pretty awesome. Like we're, we were, we were both at, at a level where you're at the G league and you don't know if it's going to work out for either of you. And now you're four wins away from winning an NBA title at the highest level as head coach and a, you know, a major contributor. Yeah. Not maybe not as direct as, as you just put it. Um,

But like, we both know, you know, how, how cool it is. Like he came in, he came and saw me, I live in Austin in the off season. He came and saw me work out. And then we went to lunch afterwards one day and we were just breaking down the team and like, you know, I'm a basketball junkie and he's obviously a basketball nerd, guru, junkie, whatever you want to call it. And so we were just talking about the team and like how everybody plays and stuff like that. And then we like, obviously like bring on like,

You ever think that you'd be driving to Austin and watch me work out to get ready for, you know, NBA season and nine years, 10 years ago, he's like, no, I'm not gonna lie. I don't, I didn't think I was like, yeah, me either. So we've indirectly, you know, uh, throughout the year, like, I think we understand like, there's just like that,

That's probably the best way to put it. There's just, like, that understanding that, like, yeah, we were in the trenches. You know how long ago that was? It wasn't even the G League. It was the D League still. Oh, wow. Wow. It was the last year of the D League. That is crazy. And that's just a cool – that's, like, a cool sports story where it's, like, these two guys had the –

You know, there's a lot of guys who the path isn't one, one and being a superstar and getting all the way up there. It's like, there's a lot of different trials and tribulations. So it's, I love the story. I hope they talk about it on the broadcast. If they don't, I'll tweet about it. If they don't talk about it, you know, I'll give you, we'll, we'll name a prize, a cash prize that I'll give you if they don't bring that up at some point. Yeah. Speaking of cash prizes, have you gotten your watch that SGA got you appraised? How much was that?

I don't know the actual appraisal, but the market's somewhere around $15 to $17. Oh, I thought it was more. You kind of cheaped out on that a little bit. That's kind of cheap.

Don't worry about 17 of them. Well, if I ever, if I ever went in NBA MVP, I'm going to buy you a hundred thousand dollar watch. Cause that's the kind of guy I am. That's fair. Yeah. Which are really pleased. Oh wait. Did he custom for everyone? Does it, is it like, is yours different than everyone else's? There's there's, there was like a handful of different ones, like a couple of submit subs. They were like, I had a bluesy, the, the,

silver and gold with the blue face. There's a couple of black and gold ones. I think somebody got, maybe there's two Sky Dwellers in there. There are a couple of different colors. Yeah, it was a mix. Okay. Is it engraved? I don't think so, no. That would kind of rock if you got everybody watches that just said SGA on it. Oh, like SGA. Yeah. 35. Yeah. Did he get the guy who, did he get like staff or was it just players?

No, it was just players. Oh, because I was going to say, you've got to get one for the guy who does rebounding for your free throw practice for him, right? Yeah, well, I mean, there's unwritten rules of taking care of guys. At the end of the year, like playoff bonuses, you shell out some of those, a percentage of that to those guys. Yeah. That was, by the way, it was a subtle joke about him being a free throw merchant. You didn't have to. No, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't like it. I didn't like it.

He actually – I saw a stat. It's like he's not even the top 300 of free throw attempts. Yeah, in the playoffs. I saw another one. It was like of all the 30-point scores in NBA history, he averaged like two or like two and a half less free throws than all those guys. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I was going to say, have you had a moment where you've thought to yourself, damn, it's pretty cool that I've got two guys named Jalen Williams on the team? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, to be honest, we don't ever call him Jalen Williams. So it's like hard to like, it's either J-Dub or J-Will. Which one's which? J-Will is the post player. J-Dub is like the all-star this year. He was the wing guard. Interesting. Did you know that those are the only two Jalen Williams to ever play in the NBA? Yeah.

Is it really? Yeah. And you're hogging them all. Yeah. Holy. That's cool. Yeah. The more you know. Yeah. Another backhanded question coming your way, Alex. Big cap from part of my take. Are there any times when SGA gets hit and he goes down and like guys on the bench are like, oh, my God, he might really be hurt. And you're like, listen, guys, I've been through this with LeBron. He's fine.

Okay. I bet you're not going to get that question in media. I didn't think you were going to tie it back into brawn. Yeah, it's nice, right? Kind of brought it all the way around. That was good journalism. That's professionals. No, no, I haven't had that. Okay. Based on my past experiences, I haven't had the ability to.

to teach the guys what that's like. Okay. We have to ask about the Lakers. It's part of the contract. If you're in NBA media, do things that when I come on, there has to be a Mickey mouse championship and a LeBron question. Yeah. Well, let's be honest. Let's, let's be honest. If, if you're so lucky to win the NBA finals this year, which ring are you going to feature more prominently in your house? Good question. Honestly, though. I mean, you have to put them right next to each other. No, no. Me personally, I wouldn't.

I will say, so I got fitted for the first one on my pointer finger because it's like, you know, you get one, you have one on your finger. Like, you know, Tom Brady has like however many, seven, right? Yeah. He's got seven. Like, I want to keep doing that. So, like, it'll be on the second finger. I love that. The middle finger is the better finger. Yeah, and we have – I don't know if you've heard. It's the best finger in the hand. Yeah. We've had the debate. I don't know if you want to chime in, but –

If the Thunder go on to win the NBA finals this year, we've gotten ahead of it, and we think this actually will be the worst Thunder team to win a title in their dynasty run because you guys are probably going to win like six in a row. So you're saying this is the worst this year? Yeah, we're going to look back and we'll be like, can you believe that team won?

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a hot take. That also insinuates that we're going to win like six. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're already like we're way beyond that now. If you don't win four, then that's a disappointment. We're already ranking all of the championships you guys are going to win, and we've already put this one at the bottom. Dead last. Dead last.

Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Well, if that does happen, I'll shake your hand and we can agree that this was the worst one. Okay. Yeah. Do you ever get jealous that you're not in all the commercials with Chet and SGA and all those guys? The AT&T ones? Yeah. No, I'm glad they didn't make them sing this year or whatever they did. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. Being on their team this year, it's more bearable to watch. Whenever the first one came out last year when it was just Chet and Shea, I think. Mm-hmm.

It came on so much, dude. And I was watching so much battle. I was like, I swear to God, if I have to see this again, I'm going to like break my laptop and throw something. Yeah. The other team is, oh yeah, it's a great commercial. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, Alex, you're the man. We've been rooting for you all playoffs. You're the only team I have is just you personally. Yeah, you texted me and told me. Yeah, I am. I'm rooting for you. We said that you're the face of the NBA. Yeah, you are.

Somebody sent that to me the other day. It was Tommy. Tommy, yeah, Big Cat. I texted you yesterday. I said, yeah, what's the debate? Yeah, because it said embrace debate, and he was like, what's the debate? Yeah, that's a good point. He is the face of the league. Yeah. All right, so I have one last question. Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips. Polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. Promo code TAKE. Well, no, we're not going to do any jinxes. We're rooting for you to win. We want you to win.

If you do win, would you come on the show drunk?

Oh, for sure. Okay. Hell yeah. That's it. That's probably the next level of our bonding is being y'all's friends and a show guest is like actually being adults and going to get some beers. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, if you didn't get traded, you were going to be in our office all the time on the simulator. That's true. It was going to be – yeah. But we weren't going to be winning as much, so it was going to be like bad beers instead of happy beers. I think if you win the NBA championship, you come on the show drunk.

That puts you in the Joe Burrow pantheon as part of my take guests. Yeah. Wow. We need to do it in a different spot, though, not in the studio. It needs to be in a special... Thundor's house. What'd you say? Thundor's house. Yeah. Thundor's backyard. Yeah. He invited us over. Is there a category at Thundor's house? Yeah. I think what should happen is, since you play for the Thunder, we should go storm chasing together. Oh, shit.

Yeah, we'll think about it. We'll see. We'll see. Let's win it and then we'll talk about it. Okay. That's fair. All right. Do you have any questions for us? Because you should start lobbing questions at the media in your press conferences. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's up with those new guys, Zach? Oh, Zach's here. The McDonald's? Yeah, he's McDonald's order. Is he here? Yeah, he's here. Did you think that was too much? What's your problem with it? No, I just – I wanted – I was interested to, two part. One, the 10 to 20 nuggets. Yeah.

How do you determine and also how many sauces? So I guess that's a two part first question. Yeah. Zach. So usually nuggets go tail end. So like if you're not feeling the full 20, you can kind of pop four or five before the sauce. And if you're feeling up for it, like, oh, I'm going to house these. Then you start dipping into the different sauces. That's crazy. You go four or five dry.

If they're still warm, you pop a couple, like put them on the plate. Yeah. You put four or five, you eat four or five dried nuggets to see if you're really into that nugget mood. Okay. That came off wrong. It's just like, as you're assembling the plate, you know, you're reaching in the container. A couple might land on the palate. In your mouth. A couple might fall out of the container into your mouth. Second question. Second question. What flavor ice cream?

So, all time, Netflix and chilled is my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor. But I will say last night they have a chocolate caramel cheesecake flavor I tried. You should definitely give it a shot if you're ever in the mood for some ice cream, man. Okay. Post-post-post-post-season, in the off-season, I'll get after that. That's a crazy order, I'm just going to say. Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!

Especially due to the five dried nuggets. Zach, real quick, did you ever think that when you shared this at 2 in the morning coming back from Indianapolis, you'd have Alex Caruso on the precipice of going to the NBA Finals being like, dude, what's wrong with you? Not even a little bit. I don't really know what to think right now. But if you need any other ice cream recommendations, I'll definitely send you over a short list of some flavors they have. They're absolute hitters. Ben and Jerry's only, or is that like a...

Oh, no. We can definitely switch up brands if you have like a one, like a hometown favorite you enjoy. Bluebell ice cream. Yeah, Bluebell ice cream. It's a southern thing. Bluebell? Okay. Yeah, I can get into a little Bluebell. They got that classic vanilla from Bluebell. It's a little like, it looks a little yellow in the tub, but oh, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's creamy. Yeah. Yeah. They got like a birthday cake one too. Oh, of course. You know cream, man. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Yeah. He's a great team. Listen, he'll do some market research for you. I will farm him out to you to get you honed in on exactly what you want for ice cream. Bring him to Thundor's house. Yeah, he's in. He's in. I'll do whatever you need, Mr. Cruz. Just let me know. He also just calls us sir.

uh constantly yeah mr mr and sir uh that's professionalism yeah it is it is uh all right you're the best uh good luck in the finals and uh hopefully we're getting drinks and and uh you're you're putting it on the second finger yeah man four more to go appreciate it guys

Alex Caruso was brought to you by NASCAR and their Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which is the crown jewel of the NASCAR Mexico Series. Tight corners, fast straights, push drivers to their limits with door-to-door battles all race long. Anything can happen in Mexico City where bold moves and dramatic finishes are part of the show. The fan experience is electric.

We've got passionate crowds, nonstop energy, and a celebration of motorsports culture. Tickets are going fast. Lock yours in now at NASCAR.com. Don't miss the excitement. Feel the adrenaline in Mexico City. Watch the NASCAR Cup Series in Mexico City live on Prime, June 15th at 3 p.m. Eastern. You get edge-of-your-seat racing action with the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the crown jewel of the NASCAR Mexico Series. And now, here is Ray Romano.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest, recurring guest. It is Ray Romano. We're getting ready for the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament in Tahoe. Ray, you are going to be there. We wanted to have you on to talk about everything, but also your golf game.

By the way, we went last year for the first time. We're going again this year. The best event possible. Like, it is heaven on earth. It's incredible. But how are we feeling? Well, I mean, do you golf? Yeah, I used to. I just quit recently, and it feels great. Yeah. I don't know what. Yeah. How good are you? What's your handicap? You know? Terrible. I think it was at its peak about a 24. So not very good.

Yeah, well, I'm like a 14, I'm like a 14, 15. But so I stink and I suck and I go, you know, I go in streaks where I'm, maybe I can shoot in the 80s. I've only broken 80 once in my life. I shot 79 about two years ago. And that was, you know, that's the pinnacle for me was my goal was to break 80 once in my life and I did it. But my goal when I go to Tahoe

you know there's these elite athletes right um it's there's 80 of us let's say or 90 and they're all celebrities but most of them are from the sports world so there's about 20 from the entertainment field yeah

And my goal is to, I just want to, because golf is the great equalizer. Golf is, you know, I can play with Steve Young, who's, you know, five times Super Bowl. He's got five Super Bowl rings or whatever. And I can compete with him. You know, I can't compete with, you know, Aaron Rodgers or Steph Curry. But my goal is to try to come in the top 50.

I've been playing 20 years there and I've never broken the top 50. So that's my realistic goal when I go there is to just break the 50 marker. I love that. Also, because Barkley's getting better. He's getting better. I don't want him to beat me. Yeah, that's a fair goal to have. So what happened the year that you were at your peak at this tournament? What was it about when you were at your best that you were trying to recapture?

When was I at my best, though? I guess when you were in the top 60? I've never broken 50. I think the best – and another thing is it's the staple forward system, so you get points, you know, and if you double bogey, you get minus points. So my goal is to be in the plus. The highest I ever scored was a plus –

I believe I finished plus eight, you know? So, so, so my, I, I've 20 years, I've, I've finished in the plus eight.

Four times maybe. So that's my goal is also to finish the plus. But I go in streaks like five months ago, I was a nine handicap and I've never been a single digit handicap ever. And it was my short game. You know, somebody gave me a little tip on the short game. And that's the key, man. The short game is can save you and, you know, you can recover from a shitty shot.

Sorry, can I say that? Yeah, say whatever you want. Fuck, fuck. Wait, wait, give us the tip. Oh, man, I don't know. It was just chipping. One guy gave me a tip.

not to break your wrist in any chip shot, not to just keep a straight wrist for every shot, even like a 50-yard shot and a little chip from the side of the green. I started doing that. It started working. I got to a nine handicap single digit. Now I'm back to a 13, 14 because like any tip, it works for about –

four or five rounds, and then it just starts going away. Yeah. I have a tip that never goes away, though. Maybe you can use this this year, break the top 50. You just cheat. If you just cheat at golf, then... That's my other problem, is I'm very anal OCD, and I play every rule. I play... When somebody plays with me...

I really think I annoy them, you know, because I'm not good, but if I hit it OB and I can't find it, I got to go back to the tee and hit. And they're like, what's this guy doing? He's going to shoot a 101, and he's worried about it. But I am. I don't cheat. Yeah. Actually, I'm going to correct you. I don't think it annoys people. I know it annoys people. Yeah.

I warn them. I warn them ahead of time, man. I don't take any gimme putts. I do the whole thing, man. You know, whatever. Whether they play with me again is a question. I think you can definitely beat Barkley. I think that's a good goal to have. As long as you can stay ahead of him, then nobody's going to question you. You know, he doesn't have the hitch anymore. I don't know how much that hitch is.

Yeah, he got rid of that. That was a psychological thing, and he was trying for years. And I feel for him, man. I feel. It's like somebody put a curse on him or something. So how did they work out the pairings for that? How did they work out who you're going to be playing with? I'll tell you the thing. 20 years ago...

when my show was still on the air and I had a little, I had a little more clout and, uh, I could, and my boys, you know, I got, I got three boys and they come every year and they were like in there, they were 12 and 11 then. And, uh, I could request who I could play with, you know? So I'd always find some New York jet or somebody I played with, uh,

I played with a bunch of Jets, you know, and then little by little, I lost some of that clout. You know, because I have no one could you can't really request who you play with. I mean, Steph Curry, of course, plays with his father and Travis Kelsey plays with his brother. But otherwise, it's just random. I get who I get. And I I usually get the comedians. I get Baumgartner. I get Larry Cable guy. I get Rob Riggle.

But I'll tell you, about 10 years ago, I played with Trump. I got paired up with Trump.

And I think, you know, that's where the Stormy, what was her name? Stormy Daniels. Yeah, she was out at that tournament. I was at that tournament, yeah. So I didn't see her, but I saw him. Uh-huh. And he plays the same style as you, right? Like if he hits it out of bounds, he says, I'm taking it back to the tee, no gimmies. Yeah, except he's hitting one on the tee. I'm hitting three on the tee. Yeah.

But, you know, he's a pretty solid player. I think he was like about a 10 or an 11 handicap. But that was pretty interesting, yeah. Yeah. How are you feeling about the Jets season? Also, where have you been for the Knicks? Have you not decided to go sit courtside? Like what's – Well, I'm in LA, man. If I was in New York, I'd try to be there. But Timmy Chamblee has all the seats, tickets now. I know. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, tonight, right? I mean, listen, I'm a more a Jet fan and a Yankee fan. I didn't follow basketball as much, but I was always a New York fan. And I was at a playoff game for the Knicks. I think it was against the Portland Trailblazers maybe 20 years ago. Yeah.

So I'm there. If I was in New York, I'd try to muscle into the game for sure. But it looks rough though, boy, I'll tell you. Yeah. So how are we feeling about the Jets season? Are you all in on Justin Fields? Have you gone through the process? There it is. Now listen, Ray, I can give you – as a Bears fan, I've gone through the whole Justin Fields story arc. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Any questions you have about Justin Fields and your new quarterback? I guess my question is, you know, do we have a chance? He's a great guy. He's a runner, right? At least we got a runner. Yeah, great guy, runner. I always have faith. I always have faith. You know, I think last time I was on with you guys, I –

I made some stupid prediction about the jets. Um, and I, you know, Aaron Rogers, I played golf with him once and I was really rooting for that to happen. And my boys, you know, my boys are super diehard. I have, I have twin boys and they took the red eye from LA for his first game. And they were there when he ran out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, we've, uh,

And the sad thing is I became a Jet fan after almost immediately after they won the Super Bowl in 69. So it's been a long, long stretch. Yeah. But look, you're a Bears fan. I mean, you don't give up, right? You don't give up. No. Also, is that now like if you became a Jets fan right after Joe Namath won the Super Bowl, is it the Ray Romano curse? Is that what we're going to go with?

Let's not. So you became a fan of the team. I was a Yankee fan, too. Yeah, true. They had some good. They've won a lot of. It doesn't apply to baseball. You're right. So you saw them win a Super Bowl and you said, that's a team I'm going to root for at that point. I was like 11 years old and I didn't I wasn't really locked into this.

rooting then and I was following my older brother. You know, when it came time to pick a baseball team when we were real like 8-9,

And my cousin was older than us. And so we asked him for his advice. And the only two teams we knew were the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. Okay. And we had to, like, decide who we were going to root for. And we made the right choice on that one. Yeah. How do you feel about Juan Soto going across town? You know, my boys don't like it. My twin boy says, nope, can't ever vote and root for him again. I'm like...

I don't know. Business is business, you know. I mean, I don't know the super details of it. I mean, if he's staying in New York, you know, and didn't the Yankees offer him more money? I think it was comparable. It was close. I think the Mets might have offered a little more. Yeah. I broke it down with the boys. It sounded like it was the same, but if you broke it down, it wasn't. You know, I'm not a New York fan where I can't.

If I like the Yankees, I can't root for the Mets. If the Yankees aren't there, I'll root for the Mets also. I was at the – my father took us to the game where they won their division for the first time in 69 when they won.

He took us to when they clinched the division. And I remember running on the field as a young kid in 69. And I had the Mets. I had the Mets on my show. Everybody loves Raymond. I had about nine Mets on the show for one episode. I had it. We had every we had really everybody except for Tom Seaver, you know. So I got a little soft spot for the Mets, too. But.

I'm not rooting against Soto. I won't tell my boys that because my boys are, you know, they're at a different level than me. I actually have a question about baseball and your show. So on one episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, you met Barry Bonds. Your character met Barry Bonds. Your character was also a sports writer. Yes. Would your character vote for Barry Bonds to go into the Hall of Fame? Mm-hmm.

That's a tough one. That's like a, that's like a Pete Rose question too. I got to get more details. I don't know. I got to be more informed just like with Pete Rose. You know, I'm I think if I only know this stuff on the surface and from what I hear, you know, and he never bet on his team and what's going on now with, with gambling and how it's everywhere. Um,

I mean, I might be inclined to vote for Rose to get in, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I also think Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame because everybody was using steroids. Not everyone, but most players. Most of the power hitters were. And he's by far the best hitter to ever play the sport. So I feel like... Was McGuire caught using stuff? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the whole Andrew Bottle in there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a museum at the end of the day. It's got to tell the history of the sport. You can't just be like, oh, the guy Pete Rose just didn't exist. That's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well now, now what do you think? You think he's going to get in? I do. Yeah, I do. I think he probably will. Yeah. Then, which is a shame that they do it after he dies. But yeah, I know. I know. I know. Yeah. Um, I got a, I got a weird question for you, Ray. Uh, I'm ready. So I, I'm not, I don't think I'm going to apologize for this, but I'm going to acknowledge that I'm weird. Uh, I don't know if you remember this. I think about it every now and then. Uh,

When we last saw you, you were actually in our offices when we were still in New York. We're in Chicago now. And you came on the YouTube show I do during the day. And I asked you if you think your twin boys ever kissed. Because I have a theory that all twins have kissed at some point. Just because I know that if I saw someone who looked like me, I'd kiss them. I'm not going to apologize for it, but I'm going to say, hey, hand up. That was kind of a weird question to ask you.

Yeah, not only do I remember it, I had to go to therapy for it. I do remember it. And my boys, I told my boys yesterday that I was coming on the show and they brought it up again, you know. And they actually told me that there was a top 10 most embarrassing thing. It made a list. Yes, yes. Yeah. I don't mind it. It reminded me of, I used to do a bit in my stand-up

about my twins. Uh, but this, and this was a, based on an absolute true story is that when they were like four, they were in the bathtub. I was, I was running the water for them. They were in the tub. I don't know. I got a phone call. I stepped out. And then from the bathroom I heard, uh, ew. I'm like, Oh no. And then I hear, uh,

Now let me see. And then, ew. And in my act, I was like, I didn't want to go in. I wanted to like shellac the door shut. And I went in and true story. Sure enough, one of them was bending over. The other one was stretching the cheeks apart. Yeah.

Oh, so they definitely have kissed. There's nothing weird about it. That's how me and Big Cat prep for each show. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's before we did the guys. It's just guys. Yeah. And then I said, hey, listen, I did that as a kid, but in the mirror. I never had. Right. Right.

That's life with twins. Yeah. That's when, when you have someone who is, is basically you, you, you don't have to look in the mirror. You can look at him. Yeah. But one of them got married last year. I had two kids get married last year. Oh, awesome. Congrats. Yeah. By the way, that story at the wedding, that would have been a great toast.

I did not. You know what? I wish I would have thought of that. I said some stuff that my wife said I probably shouldn't have at the wedding. Yeah. The full circle of the twin kissing question is that a guy in the room with us who did the – a very talented guy here at Barstool who used to do the show with me, he three months ago had twin boys. And so when he had twin boys, I kind of was like, uh –

Maybe I have to revise this theory of mine. And he was like, nah, keep with the theory. It's fine. We'll find out. Were they identical? I don't think they're identical, but I, I like literally when I found out the first thing that popped in my head was, was our interaction. He said the same thing happened to him where he's just like, yeah, uh, yeah, I guess that was a question that was asked. And now we, someday the twin boys are going to see this and just be like, Oh, sure. Yes. I do remember one day they were, we were driving. Cause I,

There is such a uniqueness to identical twins. Yeah. We were in the car, and one was in the front, one was in the back, and they were, I don't know, seven or eight. I probably shouldn't have had the guy in the front. And the one in the back, I don't know what he's doing, but he just says, hey, Greg. Yeah, he goes, no matter what you do, don't squeeze your testicles. LAUGHTER

At least they help each other out that way. That's good advice. That's really good advice that I never got. I needed to get that advice from a twin. Just being like, don't do this. Now, at my age, it's try not to sit on them. Yeah. Did you ever dress them to be the same? Or were they always their own individual? My wife would give them the same...

but Greg had green and Matt had red. We had green for Greg. My mother could never tell them apart. Nobody could really tell them apart, you know? That's so funny.

Yeah, yeah. I have another story. This is a more cute. But the only time we, when they were real little, the only time we traveled without both of them, I had to come to LA for something, for some audition or something. And my wife came with me and they were like three years old and we took one. And this was the first time traveling. And we got to the hotel and

and we have the one twin and we put him in the hotel and we're unpacking our bags, whatever. And from the other room, we hear a thump. And we go in there and it's him standing next to a full length mirror. And he thought he saw his brother and ran into the mirror. Oh, twins rock. Yeah, it does. Sounds like fun, honestly. Yeah, I'm changing my opinion on twins. I think that everybody in the world has a secret twin somewhere.

Like, you might never meet them, but there's somebody that lives somewhere that looks exactly like you. Like, well, I've seen... Unfortunately, when you're in the public eye, you get... They let you know when they look like you, you know? Yeah. And usually the lookalikes, it's not...

It's not a very flattering lookalike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes, but most of the time it's like, okay, I guess I got to get my hair dyed or something. Yeah. All right. Another weird question. I actually don't think this is weird, but it's more like a grown man saying another grown man. I loved your work in Ice Age because I have three little kids and you were phenomenal in Ice Age. I think there's a new one coming out. Is that weird for an adult to say that to another adult being like, hey –

the, uh, Wooly Mammoth that you voiced, you, you, you knocked that out of the park. Well, thank you. But, and that, and that brings up another, another bit I'm doing in my act, in my standup now, you know, my, my daughter got married at the New York public library. And I don't know if you've ever been there. It's like, it's like literally like the Capitol building. It's like the white house. It's, it's this majestic building. And I can't tell you how expensive this wedding was. Yeah.

So in my act, in my standup, I tell the audience how expensive it was. And they kind of laugh. I go, no folks, you don't understand. I got to do Ice Age six now. And that's what we're doing. Yeah. I did that joke before it came up and then they called me and said, Hey, we're thinking of doing another one. And,

Here we are, man. I can't. I mean, look, the real the Ice Age didn't last this long. Twenty five years since the first one, man. It's crazy. But, you know, it's yes. If you have kids, it's it's fun to do it and have now there's a new generation going to watch it. So, you know, I don't I don't know.

what a new story they can make out of this. You know, I know we're going to be running away from something, um, but, uh, we're getting the gang back together and doing another one. I love it. And it is, they are genius kids movies because, uh, they started with the, with the squirrel or whatever the, the animal is. Yeah. Yeah. And,

And that gets the kids hooked right away. If you can get a little kid to laugh out loud within the first 30 seconds of a movie, they're going to watch the whole movie. So they figured it out. How old is your kid? I have a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 2-year-old. Oh, wow. Yeah. You're in there. A lot of Ice Age. Yeah. I'll tell you right now, we're in for Ice Age 7 and 8. Okay? So sign us up.

Oh, I, I listen, I'm not gonna, that's the thing. You don't want, you don't say no to it. You know, it's, it's, it's not the hardest work in the world. And, and,

I don't want to talk about the money, but the money's not bad also. Yeah. How long does it take? Like when you do a movie like that, when you're doing the voice, uh, how many, like, is it days? I go, well, it's a lot of days. It's not a lot of days in the booth, but you go into the sound booth and you do like a four or five hour session and

And then you come back months later and do another one. And then a month later. And it could take up to close to a year until they get all the audio down from me, you know. But the thing is, I've done five of those movies. I've never been in the studio with another actor. It's just all you. Piecework. It's this. Yeah. You know, you're on one page and then you're on the next and they have to tell you.

Okay, now you're running away from a dinosaur, but there's a lava pit and they have to fill you in on where you are. But it takes about a year of getting into the studio. Do you get to watch your character as you're doing the voice work for it? Or do they take your voice and then they match the voice? They don't animate it until after they get the audio down. And then when you come back the next time, they'll show you a piece of that. What they animated. Yeah.

But it's a different animal. And sometimes, like, you're running away from a... You're going to get killed, and you're screaming, and they tell you, you know, your head was this far off the mic. You got to do it this... You got to keep your face right in front of the mic, you know? Yeah. It's a little weird. What's more difficult work, doing voiceover like that or acting in a movie for Martin Scorsese? I...

I would say, believe it or not, the animated is a little more tedious that way. But nothing's more scarier than doing a movie for Scorsese. And not because of him. It's just because of me. I mean, I don't know if I... Tell me if I repeated, told this story last time. I know you guys wouldn't remember, but...

When I did my first scene with De Niro, I...

First of all, I can't even believe I'm on this movie. I can't even believe it. What am I doing here? Right. The Irishman. Yeah. Yeah. The Irishman. Yeah. And I'm face to face with De Niro and I'm his lawyer and I'm asking him, did you do it? It's a big scene. And it was like day two and we do it. It takes, you know, you got to do it from this side, this side, this side, Scorsese standing right there. And De Niro, De Niro, I love De Niro. He doesn't say much, you know, he doesn't talk a lot. Uh,

you know, when the cameras aren't rolling. And we're there for like three, four hours cut, go home, that's the end of the day. And everybody leaves, you know? And I'm like, I don't need somebody to pat me on the back, but I need somebody to tell me I'm not going to get fired, you know? And nothing, everybody goes home, you know? And we're staying at a hotel in Long Island. I drive to Long Island and I'm like, I call my wife and I'm like,

i don't know i don't know if i'm gonna be have this job tomorrow i don't know nobody we there for so long and nobody said anything she goes calm down calm down i get to the hotel i check in and i'm like in my head like that and then i hear ray and i look and it's de niro and he's checking it he's got his guy with him or whatever and i go oh hey he doesn't say one word walks over

Kisses me on the cheek, walks away. I call my wife. I say, I think I'm okay. It's a mafia movie. A kiss on the cheek sometimes can go either way. Did you kiss him back? No. This is not like the twins.

oh man oh no buddy i mean that was yeah it was like he he talked he kissed me off a ledge yeah that's all it needed all it needed well uh i got one last question for you uh ray it's the roback question r-h-o-b-a-c-k.com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts roback.com promo code take great golf stuff uh

Like we said, Ray and a bunch of guys are going to be out at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship in Tahoe. We'll be there. So my last question is, when was the last time you hit a patron there? And is that an active thought in your head? Because I think we were offered to do the pro-am, and we were like, we don't trust ourselves. This will be bad. I probably hit...

one person every year, you know? Listen, if you average it out, I'm not even joking because, well, you've been there. You've seen the crowds. They're everywhere. And we're all hackers, you know? I mean, some of us are good, but even the good ones hit crappy shots, you know? But the scary one was about

four years ago and it was during you know on wednesday you have to do the you do the corporate round every celebrity has to play with four corporate guys you know um and it was during that round and the spectators are there and i hit a nine iron and i kind of sculled it a little so it didn't go up but it wasn't a line drive and it was by the green and we yelled four

And there was a bunch of people around. And then I walked up. We thought people scattered. And when we got there, there was a woman on her back. And there was some... Here's the scary part. There was someone next to her saying, Carol, stay awake. Stay awake, Carol. Stay awake. I'm like, what the... You know, what's going on? And the paramedics had to come. She... The good news is she was... She recovered. She was okay. And the funny news is...

I finally got to on my knees and said, hey, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And she said, from laying down, she says, can I take a picture with you? And I laid next to her. We have a picture of Lay because she couldn't get up. I'm laying next to her. But she went to the hospital. She had black eyes. I kept in touch with her for a little bit. It was one of the scariest moments for me. I thought I was going to withdraw from the tournament and all, but she ended up being okay. But I do it.

I hit a guy that's one of you guys' competition. Oh, man, I'm going to forget his name. He works for the guy in— Ryan Russillo.

Is that it? Florida? No, no. Oh, the Levitard show? Yes. Yeah. And, and, and the, the guy was there covering it and he was, he want the weird part was he's married to my cousin's daughter, my cousin, my first cousin's daughter. And so he, the guys were telling him, you got to tell Ray you're related to him, whatever, whatever. And on the 17th hole,

I didn't even know the guy was there. I never saw him before in my life. I hit that guy, and he was ready to come over and talk to me, and then he didn't talk. After I hit him, he didn't talk to me. He didn't get hurt. But then eventually we talked about it on the show that I actually nailed him, yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that that lady was okay. It would be a very embarrassing lawsuit if you hit somebody and then they took you to court because your golf game was so bad. Mm-hmm.

The thing is, on the ticket, there's no legal recourse they can take because if they come on the course, they know. But are you guys going to be there this year? Yeah, we will. So actually, I think we're going to try to do the Get Hit by Ray Romano challenge. We might just follow you around and stand like 200, 250 away and hope you hit us, and then we'll sue you. If you're 250 away, I won't reach you. Okay, we'll stagger it. I feel like a par 3 is a good option for that.

They won 50. They won 50. Okay. All right. That's a sweet spot. But, yeah, we'll be there. We'll definitely say hello and thank you for coming on as always. It's always fun to have you on. Thank you. Is this airing live or today? Monday.

Oh, okay. I was going to say go Knicks, but it'll be over by then, right? No, you can say it. Yeah. Maybe it will be game seven Monday night. Maybe it won't. Yeah. Keep the faith. We need that cat to step. How's he doing, by the way? Is he playing? Yeah. He's doing okay. Yeah, yeah. The big purr. I think he'll be okay. He's got some great games. Yeah, I know he's got a knee. His knee is okay. He's going to play, yeah? He's got to play. He's got to play.

Okay. I mean, he played that. He got back in the game that night, so I would assume he's okay to play. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll say hello and thank you as always, and let's break 50 this year. We're going to watch. We're going to be Ray Romano breaks 50. That's the goal. That's the goal, to come in below 50th place. I'll tell you what. If it hits me, I'm actually going to direct it towards the green for you. Yeah, I'll throw it. I'll throw it to the hole.

You play it where it lies. Yeah. We need an army out there helping you. Yeah, let's do it. We got you. We got you. I'll take it. All right, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Ray. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Part of my take is sponsored by BetterHelp. Men today face immense pressure to perform, to provide, to keep it all together. So no wonder that 6 million men in the U.S. suffer from depression every year and it's often undiagnosed. It's okay to struggle. Real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so you can be at your best for yourself and everyone in your life. If you're a man and you're feeling the weight of the world, talk to someone. Talk to a friend. Talk to a loved one. Talk to a therapist.

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Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash PMT. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash P-M-T. Okay, let's wrap up the show. By the way,

I had this as a who's back, but then I looked it up, and I guess it's like a month old. I don't know if you guys saw it. I think it went viral this weekend. But it was Mark Ingram telling the story about how Jameis Winston once did a pregame speech that started in prayer and ended in the Monday Night Football theme song. I love it. So good. I love it. He's the best. He's the goddamn best. Yeah. Good show, boys. Good show. Zach, did we have anything we missed?

Also, good job of handling yourself with Caruso. That was nerve-wracking. Thank you, sir. One thing. Earlier we were talking about Nix blowing that 14-point lead in Game 1. May have been the biggest fourth-quarter deficit blown. The Milwaukee Bucks actually blew a bigger lead. They had 29 points in the fourth to the Atlanta Hawks this one time. Oh, okay. In the playoffs? I'm sorry. I take it back.

Fuck you, Hank. Yeah. Sorry. So Nick's season no longer a disappointment. Yeah. That's huge. That was a huge correction. Good point, Zach. I like that. Zach boy. Yeah. Would you trade Kat? For Giannis, I'm down. Okay. Nice. That's a good GM right there. It's a real good GM. Kat for Giannis. Who says no? Yeah. No one. I haven't heard a single person say no to that. Yeah. Let's get it done. Let's get it done. Okay. Numbers? Three. I think that was Hank. Yeah, that was Hank. Okay.

Memes had the echo through. I think that was Hank. Jack, you're in charge now. You just demoted Pug? Wow. Did you just storm the Capitol on Pug? Pug's not here. Yeah, but that was pretty fucked up, which you just did, Memes. That was a bloodless coup on Pug. I don't know who got three first. Who do you guys think got three first there? I'm pretty sure the host of the show sounded off. Give Pug your headset right now, Memes. Pug,

memes can we get more headsets in the back by the way memes just straight up demoted you he said zach's in charge he made zach president there's a speaker in there this room is getting crammed these days wait there's a speaker in the back room why why does every time you have to put on headsets because if you would hear the speaker through the mic so we need more headsets

Technically, yes. Okay, let's just get a couple more. All right, let's just get that done. You know what, Zach? You get us headsets, okay? You're going to get us headsets. I got headphones in my backpack. I can do that. Okay. We'll get more headphones. We'll get more headphones. All right, Pug, you decide. It was Hank. I thought it was Hank.

I wasn't here. It's kind of hard to... It was Hank. Okay. Rock, paper, scissors. Oh, a fair president. That's two out of three. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Memes up one nothing. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Tie. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Hank wins. Oh, ball don't lie. That was some great podcasting right there. Make it rain. That was a good battle. Shout out to AWLs. All right. I won with all three. Yeah. Memes, would you like to pick a number? Got it. Six. Yeah, all three. That was a good one. All right. Everyone else, numbers? 61. 11. 99. Pogues.

27. 21. Let's go, Zach. I'll go 55. I'll go 42. Zach, what was yours? 55. 15. Oh, Zach, that's mellow, isn't it? That's your favorite player of all time. That would have been nice to hit, but hey, shout to mellow. Okay. Shout to Jackpot, shout to mellow. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Damn it. It happens. Love you guys. Thank you. Thank you.

I found a kid who swings a golf club like a dream. I'd like to try to qualify him for the U.S. Amateurs. Coming to Apple TV+. What's your name? I'm not into older guys, but I'm flattered. A new comedy series, Stick. I don't want to go on this trip. Your mouth's saying one thing, but those eyes are saying something else. From the home of Ted Lasso. Is he your shot at redemption? This is your mulligan? Owen Wilson. This game takes and it takes. The game's finally giving me something.

You know Arnold Palmer? Iced tea, lemonade, mix it. I'm missing a nap for this. Streaming June 4th on Apple TV+.