NBA With Kirk Goldsberry, The Knicks Stun The Celtics With Special Guest Jerry O'Connell, Pacers With Another Thrilling Comeback, Hockey Playoffs And Listener Submitted FAQ's
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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 on today's part of my take. We have our good friend, Kirk Goldsberry on to talk NBA. Incredible, incredible last two game days of NBA action in the playoffs. We're going to talk some playoff hockey. We also have a very special guest, Jerry O'Connell, who surprises Hank, uh,

During the Celtics-Knicks talk, and we recap Bet Gala and the day with Jerry O'Connell. We're going to do Hot Seat Cool Throne. We're going to do FAQs.

Also bonus talking soccer. Great show. We're going to start via Zoom, but then we're back in studio for Nick Celtics and Thunder Nuggets and the rest of the show. And it's brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. The NBA 82 game grind is done. And now the real fun begins. The NBA playoffs are here and it's time for all the high stakes drama clutch moments and

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only on DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Okay, let's go. Football.

Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. Make it a playoff run to remember with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just $5 only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, May 7th, and Tyrese Big Balls Halliburton. What a fucking comeback by the Indiana Pacers. They're up 2-0 on the Cavs.

PFT, the last two days of it's May madness. I feel bad for John Rothstein because he's been sleeping this entire month. It's been insane. And we thought we couldn't top it for Monday night, which we're going to get to when we're back in studio. And then tonight happens where the Pacers are down 20-22.

You know, six minutes into the third quarter, they're down seven under a minute. That's the second time in three games. They've come back down seven and under a minute to win a game.

And not only that, but it's the second time that Halliburton's done it in the final two seconds of a postseason game. So that means I was reading about this earlier. It said that LeBron James is the only other player since 1997-98. That's when they started keeping track of play by play. That is multiple go ahead field goals in the final two seconds in a single postseason. Pretty insane. Yeah.

Absolutely nuts ending. In terms of boxing out on free throws, I feel like that's one thing that the Cavs need to work on a little bit. One of them, I'll give you one of them with DeSmith when he came in with that dunk. Awesome. It was an awesome dunk. He was definitely like inside the three-point arc, but who cares? It happens on every shot. You got to learn how to box out. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, a Tony brothers ref game, you can't expect anything to make sense whatsoever. I know people were complaining about that. Cavs fans. Listen, the Cavs should have won that game. And the Pacers prove again that they, you have to beat them for all 48 minutes. I, I honestly think with the way they play pace wise, uh,

With the way Rick Carlisle basically plays every single guy on their team, he'll just be like, Ben Shepard, your time. You get a few minutes here. That doesn't happen in the playoffs. You don't play – let me look up how many guys played for the Pacers tonight. You don't play the amount of guys that he plays. He played 11 guys tonight. That's pretty crazy for an NBA playoff game. And so the Pacers, with the pace they play, the conditioning they have –

I really think that it's like they are built for this type of situation where it's like you've seen it two times in the last three games where they're just going to keep going at you and they're not going to give up. And Kenny Atkinson even admitted it. He was like, we ran out of gas, which I don't understand that either because the Cavs didn't have a guy over 40 minutes. But it's all credits to the Pacers. I know that the Cavs fans can say, oh, we missed this call, this call, that call.

The Pacers are just they have alligator blood. They do not die. And they have a belief in Tyrese Halliburton. He even said after he's like, there's no way I was passing that up. He's stepped back three to win the game. Silence the crowd. What a stud. And you poked the bear to start the game. That was the dumbest move that the Cavs fans could have done is a chant overrated at Halliburton before it got started. Why would you do that?

Why would you do that? He already knows that his fellow players talk about him being overrated. You don't have to remind him of it. That's going to piss him off a little bit. So dumb move by Cavs fans. But when you say that they ran out of gas, I think they're just talking about Donovan Mitchell. I think Donovan Mitchell was the whole team.

He scored 48 points. And then at the end, it was like every time he got banged around a little bit, he would take an extra 30 seconds on the ground because, yeah, he's fucking tired, man. He scored 48 points. Yeah, he was great. And we should mention, obviously, the Cavs were very banged up. Evan Mobley didn't play. DeAndre Hunter didn't play. Darius Garland didn't play. Those are three significant pieces to the Cavs. And they needed Donovan Mitchell to just be –

You know, 48, 49, 48 points. Was it 48 points? Did he finish with 48? Yeah. I mean, they needed every single bit of that and more. But again, I think it's more about the Pacers. Just like they just never quit. And Rick Carlisle is a very underrated coach. And this Pacers team is fun. And I don't know what, like if the Cavs don't get healthy,

They're in serious trouble. And again, it's similar to Monday night where it's like, I thought the Cavs would win this game because you have the pressure of going down potentially. Oh, two is a home team as a one seed. And for, I don't know, the first 30 minutes of this game, it looked like that was going to be the case where it's like the Pacers are happy to have their one win on the road. They're down 20.

And then just shit started happening. Cavs couldn't get the ball in bounds. Couldn't like the Pacers pressing them, just flustered them so much.

And Tyrese Halliburton, big balls. I love the big balls dances back. That was awesome. The big balls, the major league. It's awesome. It's really good. I'm glad that he did it. I hope he, I hope he gets fined and I hope he's like, that's fine. You know what? I'm going to keep doing it. I also like it when players do that. The old John Moran. You're not going to stop me. Yeah, it is. Well, yeah. What's more dangerous, your balls or your guns? I mean,

Tyrese Halliburton has the most dangerous balls in the game right now. Yeah, don't point it. It's loaded. Don't point that thing at anybody. It was a crazy inning. There's no such thing as a lead in the NBA. No, no, not in these playoffs. It's been insane to watch how crazy it is. And we're going to talk more about this series. And actually, credit to Kurt Goldsberry when we talked to him because he had a good Tyrese Halliburton take that looks even better, and we taped it in the afternoon. So it's always fun when that works out.

because you don't want to have the knee-jerk reaction of one game change your take, which we do all the time. I like that, though, May Madness. I feel like that could catch on. The NB May. May Madness is better. May Madness, and again, we should call John Rossi and be like, dude, I imagine he's just hibernating right now, and then anytime there's...

Like, you know, if there's a war breaking out in Europe or the Middle East, or if there's celebrity death, he's going to be like,

Tulane has a non-conference game against Chattanooga. Mark your calendars, December 2nd. Today, he was all over the fact that St. John's in Kentucky is going to be the highest rated non-conference basketball of the entire season. Call it a shot right now. Whoa. Hank, do you take the Pacers for real? Pacers are good. That was a scrappy win.

They were scrappy last year in the Eastern Conference Finals. You're so dismissive with scrappy. But they're a year, like, it does feel... You know, Hank, admit it. It was a little patronizing. No! Scrappy. I'm giving him credit. Scrappy is a compliment. Scrappy is a good quality to have. Here's the thing. They scrapped their way back.

they went through the wars last year and they got a little bit of scars and now it does feel like they're a different team making these big time plays and never being out of it. And kind of like, cause remember the, the, it was Easter conference finals, right? That you played them. They, they look like, like they, they look like the team in that Easter conference finals that,

What the Pacers are making everyone look like, you know, where they make mistakes down at the end of the game. Pacers are forcing other teams to make mistakes. They're making these crazy errors, games that they could win. They're there. The Pacers are stealing from them. So I feel like they're they're definitely a better version. And that Neesmith dunk that like took the soul of the Cavs. It was crazy. And then they just forgot how to play after that. The Cavs also are like not playing well.

three of their most important players. Yeah. Ty Jerome should nice guy. He shouldn't be playing as many. I mean, I think he went one for 15 and he was the one who was guarding Tyrese Halliburton at the end of the game. Was it, let me look up. I don't want to slander. I think it was 14. Sorry.

My apologies. He went one for 14. It's a bad deal when you have Tyra Jerome taking 14 shots in a playoff game. Yeah, and they forgot how to bring the ball up the court without committing offensive fouls. They forgot how to throw a normal inbounds pass without it getting picked off. It was just comedy of errors in the last minute. It was crazy. But I just love that feel of a team. The Pacers now have that feel where it doesn't matter –

These moments are not too big for them where maybe last year they were. And this year, just it doesn't matter what the lead is. I mean, two out of the last three games in a playoff setting to come back down seven and under a minute is insane. That's an absolutely insane thing to be able to pull off. And I think it starts with Tyrese Halliburton just being like, I'm that guy. He's got that irrational confidence going.

I think it might be rational now, though. Yeah, it could be rational. It could be fully rational. But you kind of want it to be irrational. Yeah, I'd like him to get a little bit crazier. But I'm looking up the stats right now. With teams that have a 2-0 lead, I believe this is teams with a 2-0 lead as the –

as the away team, they win the series. I'm seeing 92.7% of the time. Are we ready to call it? No, I, I want to see if the calves get healthy. Like if they get their guys back, I still think the calves are a good team. So I'm not going to fully call it. But I Pacers are, are fun. Watch. They're a very fun watch and they're scrappy as fuck. And Tyrese happened there. There you go, Hank scrappy as fuck. And Tyler Tyrese Halliburton is that guy.

But the way you say it is way different from the way Hank said it. Well, I was saying it to mock Hank. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, scrappy. Scrappy. They're scrappy. You're like patting them on the head. Yeah. Like, they're adorable. Yeah, they're scrappy. Fun little story. That was a scrappy win. I was watching that game being like, damn. I'm not like, there's no, I'm not dissing them at all. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a good win. Hunter Renfro, scrappy. He is scrappy. David Eckstein, scrappy. Very scrappy. Scrappy. Gritty. No, he's gritty. Gritty. That's...

Scrappy is like the teenage boy version of gritty. Gritty, you grow up to a man. A scrappy boy can become a gritty man, but it's not necessarily going to happen. Yeah, scrappy is like you do some small things okay, but there's a reason why you're not using a nicer word for it. Gritty is like you respect gritty. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Scrappy is a patronizing word. You were being a little patronizing. You're a little scrappy guy. You're a little scrappy. You're going to do your little thing where you come back. Yeah, it's a cute little win. They did it twice. That's awesome. Good for you. It was. Yeah, good for them. Scrappy is basically like a 20-pound dog at your heels.

That's scrappy. But, you know, a championship team is, you know, a full-grown 125-pound. They're not a championship team. Like, they're a fun little story. Like, Pacer Dan gets hyped up on them for a couple more games. I enjoy watching them play. I don't know what you want me to say. I love ball. I love ball. All right, the other game. Speaking of bad takes, this would be funny if the Pacers won because we just –

If they won it all, Hank, that would be an all-time clip. But I had a clip, which I copped to when we're back in studio talking about the Nuggets Thunder. I had the Warriors' scheduled loss again. And guess what? The Warriors did not lose, and they did lose Steph Curry. I'm a moron, but the Warriors, I don't know...

I don't know what Steph Curry's injury status is going to be. I feel like he's going to be out for a game or two, especially now that they stole this game. But the Warriors did not look like the team that played a game seven yesterday.

Two days ago. They looked like the rested team. They were running everywhere. So much more energy. And God damn it. The Timberwolves could not hit a shot. That was atrocious to watch. It was a lot of that. It was partly Buddy Heald. Like he kicked in big time. Steph Curry didn't. They didn't even really miss him.

after he left, there was a small comeback in the fourth quarter that made it, I think within nine at one point, but even without Steph Curry, they, they just kind of kept their foot on the gas and held them off off. But yeah, uh, tough break for the Timberwolves. I think Jim, uh,

Anthony Edwards didn't hit a jump shot until like three minutes left in the fourth quarter. Stan Van Gundy kept reminding America about that. He was 0 for 8 in the first half. They couldn't shoot a three-pointer to save their life. It was crazy. They got a standing ovation when Nas Reed hit a three-pointer in the third quarter because they're like, thank God, okay, we're not going to go 0 for the entire game. But yeah, it makes no sense to me whatsoever. The old team that's banged up, the Warriors –

They somehow looked like they had more energy than the younger team, the Timberwolves, who had all the rest in the world. It was very, very strange, and I didn't see it coming either. No, and the Steph Curry thing, I hope he's okay because I want to see him play in this series. What do you think? I think the first five games are every other day, so it does feel like they might –

I feel like he's guaranteed to sit on Thursday. As a 40-year-old who's dealing with his own hamstring injury right now from softball, I'll just say I took a week off in between softball games, and I came back and instantly tweaked it again when I started to run. You've got to be careful. I think Steph shouldn't play softball for the next week. Yeah. Yeah.

Or at least if he does, just make sure someone else is running for you. Yeah, pinch runner. Yeah, pinch runner. Yeah, I hope he plays. I feel like they're going to sit him, though,

probably game two and three and then be like load up the clip for game four because that's crazy that they stole this game like that was imagine imagine the mood for the Warriors right now if they lost this game and Steph was out you'd feel like this series was completely over but I don't know Timberwolves can't hit a shot this is a couple games in a row now like remember the closeout game against the Lakers they were just as bad from three they

They shot 17% from three tonight. There's absolutely nothing about this game that makes any sense at all. The Warriors, they're so much smaller than the Timberwolves are. And it felt like the Timberwolves could just big body them if they wanted to. And they didn't. They kept trying to shoot from the outside. And I guess it's just, you know, live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot. They're probably not going to be as bad in game two as they are in game one. And so I have to imagine that Minnesota comes out game two and beats the Warriors by a good amount.

Actually, I would think so. I would think so. But then you thought the Cavs were going to do the same. Nothing makes sense right now. I misspoke. They shot significantly better from three tonight than they did against the Lakers in the closeout game. They shot 17% tonight in the Lakers closeout game. They shot 14%. So that's a problem.

Got to answer make or miss league, PFT. That's true. People forget that. And I think that if you just take the three quarters of this game, I want to say that was more like 10% from three until the very, very end of the game. Yeah. It was ugly. Very ugly. Very ugly. And man, if the Warriors, I don't even want to think. If Steph comes back and the Warriors win another title, is where? Well, yeah.

That's what I'm saying. Like that was when we did the list of guys, the narrative guys. I think that Steph would definitely be in the conversation for top three of all time. Especially if he was like incredible in the finals. We're getting ahead of ourselves, but that's what we like to do. We watch ball, then we come on Zoom, then we get ahead of ourselves, then we do a Zoom two days later and we say, hey, remember that thing I said? That was stupid. If Steph Curry wins NBA Finals MVP, by the way, with a torn hamstring,

He has a torn hamstring. And a broken thumb. You got to put him ahead of LeBron. I'd agree. I agree. Do you think MJ is watching this series in the crowd like Donna Kelsey with a split jersey for Butler and Anthony Edwards? Yeah, he's got to be. Yeah. He's got to be. That was when you knew it was the Warriors night when the Wolves were making a little run and then Jimmy Butler did the foul bait thing.

where he just threw it up and it went off the backboard. Yeah. Like, okay, this is not this. The Warriors are winning this game no matter what. Yeah. It just felt like that. All right. Let's talk some hockey and we're going to talk more basketball with Kirk Goldsberry. And we obviously have the recap of the Beck Allen, Nick Celtics and Thunder games.

Nuggets. PFT. Not the best experience, I would assume, tonight. Bad game. Bad game. We had no juice. I don't know if you watched any of the game. We were juicing. No energy out there. There was some issues from the back end. We just didn't... We couldn't possess the puck. We just...

Every time, here's the thing about the Hurricanes, is they take a million shots. That's kind of their MO. They will shoot as many times as they can, which isn't the worst strategy in playoff hockey, but the downside to that is sometimes if you take a lot of low percentage shots, then you let a goalie get hot, and then it becomes one of these things where you just can't win because the goalie's so confident and he's seeing everything. And that, to a certain extent, happened tonight. Logan Thompson had a great game for the Caps, but

every miss that they'd have, we would get the puck and then we would turn it over in the neutral zone. We wouldn't be able to get it into their third. And yeah, if you look at the stats in terms of

like where the puck was for most of the game. I think it was in the Hurricanes attacking end, something like 20 minutes of the game. I think the Capitals, it was only down there like eight minutes of the game. Yeah. There was no energy, no juice. Tom Wilson had the lone highlight of the game. Actually, I'd say the Caps had two highlights today. One, Ovi hit a one-timer and Wilson was standing directly in front of the goal and it hit him right in his stick and just broke his stick in two. That was cool.

That was fun to look at. The other highlight was Tom Wilson took another man's mouthpiece out of his mouth.

I love that. And then gave it back to him and said, here you go. And it's so different when Tom Wilson does it versus some like, you know, when it's like a pest doing it. You can't. What are you supposed to say to Tom Wilson? Just kick your ass. You just look down. It's like when I take a toy out of Blake's mouth because I'm the owner and he's the dog. He just kind of looks down at the ground. He's like, oh, he got me again. And then I give it back to him because I'm a good guy. But yeah, there was nothing wrong.

Nothing redeemable about this game outside of Logan Thompson. All-time sports sound is the road playoff hockey overtime winner where it's not like a clean goal. Where it's like, you know, there's kind of like there's a bunch of people in front of the net. I think, I don't think it got tipped, but still, it was one of those goals where

You kind of see it, but you don't really see it. And then all of a sudden the Hurricanes are just celebrating and the air coming out of a building on one of those moments because the finality of it is just like, wait, wait, what the fuck just happened? Turn it back on. Yeah, you keep waiting for a replay. You're like, maybe he hit the goalie. Maybe it's interference. And then you see the guys on the bench always know. So Ovi was like the first guy out of there. He's like, that's game over. I can get in the tunnel and start having my vodka and chicken parm now.

And it was bad. I don't want to call out the D.C. crowd, but I feel like I got to say something. There was no juice in the crowd. Need more juice. No juice in the crowd. Where's all the juice in D.C. right now? I have no idea. Where?

Game two, must win or can't lose? I said tonight was a must win. Oh, no. But I'm doing must win again, back to back. Never been done. Have you thought about switching it up to a can't lose? No, it's a must win. This one's a must win for sure. Okay. But it was the only person in the crowd that did have juice tonight was Stanford Steve.

Yeah, I got to credit him. He had some chug in that. Yeah, they put Stanford Steve and SVP on the Jumbotron. And then, of course, SVP, you know, he's a classy guy, very demure. He just sat there and he looked at Steve. He's like, okay, here you go, Steve. You're my resident. You're my designated beard chugger.

Good job by Sanford Steve. We needed like seven more beer chugs from Steve to get any juice tonight. Oh, and he could do it. Listen, I've been out with Steve a bunch. You have two PFT. You have two Hank. I've seen just in the most casual. I remember I went to a Cubs game with him like eight years ago and we were sitting at a bar. He asked how early we could get to a bar. Yeah, I was there. Yeah, yeah. And my buddy was like, yeah, we can open a little earlier. We'll get in there. And then he's like, can I bring my bags? Like, yeah, no problem. I'll get them.

I know the owner. He'll put him behind. Steve had like four beers before I finished my first. And it wasn't like he was chugging. He was just drinking regularly. He just has a hollow leg. So that's a man. It's like that. He's not. Would you ever call Steve scrappy, Hank? No, no. Fuck. Exactly. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah.

It was like that scene in the wire where the bar and they're just cracking eggs into their beer and chugging it. That's what Steve – in fact, I don't even think Steve knew he was on the Jumbotron. I think he was just slamming a beer. They just caught him in the – yeah. If you just have a camera on him every 10 minutes, you'll get that. I'm starting to think it might be the Leafs' year. It might be Canada's year because we also had the Oilers win tonight, game one against the Knights. And we have – so the Oilers are up 1-0, the Leafs are up 1-0, and the Jets are still there.

it might be Canada's year. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but that Leafs game was electric. And I thought going into the game, I was like, man, the Panthers are going to be way better than Leafs. Like we've seen this before. Leafs fans getting really cocky.

It's obviously only one game, but winning game one is massive. So there's some bad blood, too. Some very bad blood in the Panthers' Leafs series already. Paul Maurice was saying that it was an intentional, filthy, dirty kick to the back of the leg. He could have ended the man's career. He was talking about Matthew Kachuk.

So they're pissed off. I don't think that there's going to be any sussies, though. And Marshawn and the Leafs. The Leafs fans fucking hate them. Yeah. I like the bad blood. I feel like the Panthers just bring bad blood everywhere they go, which is fun. That's Florida. A lot of hepatitis. So very fun. Yeah, the Oilers. I mean, that was a great game by the Oilers. They scored three goals in the third to beat the Knights soundly. Could be the year for...

We should talk about this plan real quick. If the Oilers did win, we just can't have Whitney on again? Hmm. Well, it depends. Now, he would have to win MVP. He'd have to win MVP. Otherwise, we would just debate him to death on who's the best player. It would be Jason Tatum all over again. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we got a lot of rounds to go. I'm actually rooting for the Oilers. I do love watching Connor McDavid. I hope no one tells Whitney this, but we have fun with him, but he's so much fun to watch. He is really good. The one thing that we can't have is an all-Canada Stanley Cup. I don't know. Why? I would like that. Me too. I want that. Would they play both national anthems before the game? I don't think so. Or just O'Canada?

I think it's just okay. We can't have that. We got to, I, you know what? I don't even count that as Canada winning a Stanley cup. If it's two Canadian teams playing against each other, I would actually be the man. You got to beat the man, right? I would prefer two Canadian teams in one Canadian team, because it's like, if it's been so long since they've gotten a cup,

And to have one of the, like the stakes for both Canadian teams to be like, can we be the first team? And the other teams can be just forgotten in history. Oh man, would that be awesome? Need it. See, I think if it's, if it's Leafs Oilers, which actually would be great just to watch Witt and Biz go at each other, that would be fun. It would be incredible. We could also call it Mickey Mouse, no matter who won. And it's like, well, you didn't, you just beat another Canadian team and they haven't won in 40 years. Easy mode, easy mode. Uh,

Also memes. Congratulations. You, the Islanders won the lottery. Still don't understand how the lottery worked. It felt like they made that way more complicated than it had to be. I still don't know how it works either. I didn't even know it was happening. I just looked at Twitter. I saw chief's tweet that just said, what is going on? Followed by an Islanders tweet of the eyeball emoji.

And then all of a sudden I just saw Islanders got the first pick. And I was like, this is the greatest thing to ever happen. Because you guys had the 10th best odds to get it. 10th best odds, 3% chance of getting it. Wow. That's crazy. Now we have people just arguing over who we're going to pick where it just like, it doesn't matter. You're going to get somebody good. Yeah.

And you're going to get someone good who then will probably end up going to the Leafs at free agency. A lot of people were saying that. Just check, check, check the kid's Instagram. There's also a Long Island kid. Yeah. Make sure he doesn't have any. Yeah. Yeah. Leafs, you know, betting that he was in when he was seven years old. You got to make sure you got to make sure that doesn't happen. Yes. Scour the Internet. There's also a hot dog kid who is a Long Island fan, an Islanders fan.

That could be the simple draft. He's from Long Island? From Long Island. Islander fan. Higgins, he plays for Boston College Center. And is he worthy of the number one pick? A lot of people saying it's a reach, but you could trade down, get more picks. But he's top five. He's top five. You're like, yeah, but he's from the neighborhood. So it's pretty much just draft him so he'll never leave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That lottery made no sense. I watched it back and I was just like, what? It was like two numbers and then just fucking tell us. Just reveal it. Who cares? You're saying that there's like three guys that are standing out at the top of this draft. And I think the Blackhawks picked third, yeah? Did we fall to fourth? I think we could have fallen to fourth, but...

I think we're third. Utah also jumped up. They're four. Yeah, we're three. Because I know the Blackhawks had the second best chance to get the number one pick. So they got kind of screwed there. But whatever. Three. Blackhawks are going to be good in another couple years. I think so. That's what Chiefs keep telling me. So, I mean, I don't know how to auto... I don't know how to get...

I don't know how to get off of auto renew on my season tickets. So those are generational. Yeah. Kids are going to have them. Their kids are going to have them. That's something I got. It's out of my hands. I like the season. We get to like late March and I just get an email that says,

Thank you for your first installment for your Blackhawks tickets renewal. You think that's bad? My grandkids are going to have Indianapolis cold season tickets because I can't figure out how to unsubscribe from that. So this is gonna be three seasons in a row. Yeah. I made the smart choice with those doing the game by game. Yep. When we did it, because I knew I was going to get stuck in an auto renew again. And that's where I'm at. But I get a nice gift from Mr. Osei once a year. So that's cool. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Do we have anything else before we kick it to ourselves? And we have a special guest, Jerry O'Connell and then Kirk Goldsberry. Let's let's hop back in the studio. OK, before we get to Monday night's action in the NBA, which was incredible, you can see it in front of us.

The new Mountain Dew cans are out. PFT, it is summertime. What's your favorite part about summer? Mine, baseball, outside. Mine's probably drinking Mountain Dew with the boys. I love that. Golf season, Hank? Yep, beach. Getting it ready in golf season? Maybe going to the beach? Boating. River or a lake? Yeah, my favorite personally is vacation. Vacation? Well, guess what? Nothing goes better with baseball, boating, golf, baseball.

beach and hanging with your friends than the refreshing citrusy kick of Mountain Dew. And look at these new cans. They went old school, baby. They went throwbacks. They are awesome. This is like nostalgia in a can. It's a nice little vintage logo here. I like it. I even like the Diet Mountain Dew logo. Yeah. It's pretty sweet. Yeah. Makes me want to go outside. They knocked it out of the park with the new Mountain Dew, old Mountain Dew, but new Mountain Dew cans.

We love Mountain Dew. There's nothing like the citrusy kick of Mountain Dew in the summertime when the sun's shining down. Ice cold Mountain Dew with the new can. Again, nostalgia in a can. Go check these out. Just the can alone. I don't even want to crack mine because then the can...

Actually, you know what? I'm going to save this. I'm going to make a graveyard of Kansas. Get it graded. Yes, I will get it graded. So grab a Dew in the new packaging and enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. Thank you to Mountain Dew, our wonderful sponsor. Okay, Monday night was an incredible night of basketball. I think it might have been the best night of basketball in the last couple years. It was insane. We had two...

Road teams, big underdogs come back in very dramatic fashion, and we'll start, Hank, with your Celtics.

45 missed threes. Jalen Brunson was insane down the stretch. There was a stretch there where it was 75-55. The Celtics were up by 20 with 534 left in the third quarter. And they were on cruise control. I think you thought the same thing. I thought the same thing watching the game. I said it was over at halftime. This is it. This is going to be a four-game series. The Celtics are just so much better than the Knicks.

And then in the next whatever it is, I think it's, I can't do my math real quick. It's like 14 minutes a game. So it's 534 in the third to 328 in the fourth. The Knicks went on a 42-16 run, 14 minutes of game play. And Jalen Brunson outscored the Celtics 18-6. O.G. Ananobi was unbelievable as well.

This was a game I just I was shocked. I was like, this is the Celtics are going to win this game so easily. And then it just all flipped. And Jalen Brunson, I know there'll be Knicks fans being like, did you trash him? I don't like the Jalen Brunson foul baiter. I did say in that statement when we talked about it two weeks ago that I think he's a phenomenal player and very fun to watch when he's not foul baiting. And this was phenomenal. Jalen Brunson, I have a stat for you, PFD. You ready for this? Sure. The NBA put this out.

There's only been three players to score 75-plus fourth-quarter points through their first seven games of a postseason run in the play-by-play era. Can anyone name the other two? The first how many games? First seven games of a playoff of a postseason run. There's only three players to score 75-plus fourth-quarter points. Kawhi. Nope. I'm going to go with Allen Iverson. Nope. It is Jalen Brunson.

Steph Curry, ever heard of him in 2023? Kobe Bryant, ever heard of him? Oh, first seven games. First seven games of the postseason. He's scored 75-plus. He's in the sentence with Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant. It's insane. Now, Hank, you had to watch this game with Jerry O'Connor. Yep. I think you said afterwards that it was the worst experience of your life. Oh, that's what it is. What? What?

I've been complaining. We were recording this in the morning, and I've been complaining about how I can't hear out of my left ear. My ear hasn't popped. It was Jerry? Jerry was screaming. I don't know if he was screaming, Hank. No, he was, because I was coming up to people and telling them, like, hey, I can't fucking hear out of my left ear. I had to start covering up my ear because he was screaming. What did it sound like? What was he saying? Let's go, Knicks! Let's go, Knicks! Jalen Bronson! But, like...

Not, you know, Jalen Brunson one time, Jalen Brunson two times. When he would do a Jalen Brunson, he did it for 30 straight times in a row. Yeah, but I also saw a lot of... Jalen Brunson would score and he would just sing Jalen Brunson until the commercial break. I also saw a lot of Jerry whispering in your ear. Yeah. I saw him whispering, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong. So it's not like you got to make up your mind. No, that's what it is. Jerry, I actually think I have ear damage. I'm actually now concerned. You think Jerry did ear damage to you? Yeah. Jerry's in your head.

He's firmly in your head. Yeah. Because I was sitting, I was all over the place. I live streamed you for the overtime, but I wasn't sitting with you guys for the majority of the second half. He was just screaming bing bong over and over. There was a little bit of that.

Not even bing-bong. It was the defense and then just whatever player was scoring. He's a passionate fan. Jerry had an all-time performance. He was throwing his leg over my leg. The leg placement was crazy. At one point, Jerry was giving Hank a lap dance and whispering bing-bong into his ears. I gained a newfound respect for memes.

last night and uh and sometimes for him my ears fucked i actually i want to know i want to record that shit and watch the game at the same time that's that's very hard to do credit to memes i want to know what exact because i want to know like exactly what it sounded like when he was just screaming in your ear i mean you can see the clips i had to like it was you know all fun and games we knew that that's what we were there for but he was yelling so loud i had to start like

putting my my finger in my ear to block it because like my my ear hurt and then i woke up this morning was like damn my ear hasn't popped my left ear i don't think that's the problem so you woke up with jerry o'connell in your ear yeah permanent damage he's in your head how does that work i what do you mean what's gonna happen i don't know am i just deaf well maybe you know what i can't live like this it might be one of those things where the rest of my life like you hear a song it gets stuck in your head you need to hear it again to get it out of your head

Is that what it sounded like? Yeah, this is the problem. It doesn't stop. He won't stop. He's not going to stop. Like one or two or three times. Yeah.

Jerry. What a night. Jerry, yeah, tell us from your perspective how the night was because you haven't changed. I don't know if you slept. For people who aren't watching the YouTube, tune into the YouTube because he's back in his mesh green tank top in front of his car, his antique car. He's got the hat on. Yeah. He's got the hat on. Yeah. Yeah.

This is Hank's hat. Thank you for this. This is our Brokeback Mountain hat, Hank. Yeah. First of all, my clothes. I do want to say a lot of people are saying, what is he wearing? Why is he wearing that? It was the Met Gala. I was making a joke about the fashion at the Met Gala, and I wore this, and I thought it was all fun and everything.

Until I had to meet Larry Fitzgerald and Stephen Nash at the party. It was so much fun there at the DraftKings Sportsbook in Scottsdale. Larry Fitzgerald was like, what the fuck are you wearing, man? Like, what is this? It's a satire, Larry. And I was like, oh, Larry, it's a joke. It's like the Met Gala.

Then I had to meet Stephen Nash and like someone was like, oh, Jerry, this is Stephen Nash. And Stephen Nash is like, what the are you like a dancer here? And it was like, no, no, no. I'm an actor. Kangaroo Jack. I'm wearing this for the Beck Gala. It's a joke. So that was a little embarrassing. I was embarrassing wearing it. But man, getting I totally forgot about the gate. I like in the third quarter, I stopped watching the game. I was sitting at chicken fries table. I was sitting with.

The chicks in the office, Casey, everybody looked pretty. It was fun. I was like, I'm giving up on this game. And then it happened. And I got to tell you, I'm a little older than you guys.

Very reminiscent of the 86 Mets. Ooh. And how they beat the Boston Red Sox. It really is reminiscent of that. A New York team just rising from the ashes like a phoenix to destroy Boston sports. It was so much fun.

Game six, game one. Hank, I never screamed directly in your ear. I never screamed directly in your ear. That's from the plane ride. It's on tape. Dude, hold your nose. Hold your nose. I've been trying to do that. That's the problem. Yeah. You damaged him. Hank is blaming you for something that is not your fault, Jerry. Hank goes to enough concerts. He's had enough speakers in his ears. I don't think it's hearing damage. And also...

For a lot of it, I was just going, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing

I got to tell you, Jersey Jerry pulled me aside. It was so fun to be with all the Barstool people. It really was. Shout out to Blutman as well. Got to give Blutman's dad a shout out also. I keep forgetting to do this. Blutman's father, obviously Barstool's celebrity, is the one who said you should April Fool's Day Max and call his big Dom. So that was all Blutman's dad. Okay.

I got to tell you, so I'm there, and I'm watching the game with Hank. There was some inappropriate touching. I'm sorry about that. I mean, should I talk to Barstool HR or something? That doesn't exist now. You also just had a raging boner at one point when you got a nice cock. Well, yeah.

It was just the game was happening. I swear it wasn't Hank. Anyway, Jersey Jerry comes up to me and he's like, Jersey Jerry, who I love, was like, hey man, can I talk to you in a second? This is like a timeout. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah. And he's cool. He's got his new haircut. He was fun. And he was like, hey dude, what's your deal, man? What's your deal? And I was like, what do you mean? What's the mix? And he was like, no, no, no. And he was like pointing at this outfit. He was like,

well what's your deal you you married like what's your story and i was like yeah i'm married and he was like well why why are you doing all this what is what is all that like what's your story i see you climbing all over hank like

what is this? Who are you? You have something you want to tell me? You have something... Get it off your chest, bro. Be free. Free yourself. I was like, I'm going to go back and watch the mix. It was so exciting. But the piece de resistance was your boss, Stule Presidente,

Dave Portnoy, immediately the Celtics lose. He goes into his phone and I was like, I got to go bing bong this guy. I got to go bing bong him. Good instinct. Went right over to him.

Gave him a hug, thanked him for all he does. Yeah, he does a great job. And just bing-bonged him right there. It felt so good. You know what? I wouldn't have been a real Knicks fan if I hadn't bing-bonged the fuck out of Dave Portnoy. It felt so good. Yeah, and it got written up in the New York Post. The New York Post had a story about Jerry O'Connell bing-bonging Dave Portnoy.

Just bing-bonged him right there. Did thank him for all he does. Thank you for all you do. All right, Hank. Hank has a question. I have another. First of all, you ruptured my eardrum. And then we got to the airport last night and PFT gave me what I thought was your whole outfit, suit and jacket. And originally I was going to throw it away. And then I was like, you know what? When the Celtics come back and win the series in five, I'll wear the jacket and have my sweet revenge. And then I was like, damn, this jacket's wet.

You just gave them the pants, and they were... Like, you gave me sweaty, disgusting ass pants. It was gross. And the second I realized it was just the pants, I threw them away. But that was fucked up, too. Like, those pants were disgusting. It was ass sweat. And by the way, watch the video.

I wasn't wearing no underwear. Oh! So that's why the bulge was popping on that one clip where you were orgasming in front of everyone. We're leaving and Jerry comes up to me. He's like, bring these pants to Hank. And then I touch them. He was like, oh yeah, you might want to be careful. That's all my ass sweat. That's all there. And they were saying that. PFT didn't say any of that to me. He was like, here. Honestly, guys...

Full disclosure, I got to say, loved the DraftKings sportsbook. Those Mountain Dew cans look really cool. Great ad-libbing there. You really stretched that out. But I got to say, I got to say, I did pop a couple of rocks on before the game just to get the blood flowing, just to be like...

Let's go, Nick! Let's go, Nick! Let's go, Nick! Oh, man. It was... What a dream. What a dream. What a dream. What a day. What a day. I got a question for you because you hit some big bets last night. And I know that you're only allowed to bet a certain amount because of your wife, who we love, who's always welcome on the show. We love. And I know that you hit a couple bets. Have you told her about those bets? And if so, do you get to hang on to that money or do you have to give that back to her?

No, already gave the money back. Um, it's already, it's already gone. Um, uh, it's my wife's walking around money. She got it. Um, it was a little awkward. Like I didn't want to do this at home. Obviously I'm in the park that I always, uh, uh, scream to you guys from just cause, um, like I didn't want to put this on and like front of my whole family and everything. Um,

But what a night. What a night. You know, I'll tell you, first of all, everyone should bet responsibly. A lot of people I saw you posted how much I bet and everything. Everyone should bet responsibly. But it's so funny. I had such better remorse because I chickened out at the last second. I was like, all right, I'll take the Knicks with the points.

You should always just bet money line bets, especially if it's with your heart. Just bet money line bets. What a bummer. What a bummer. What a chicken shit I was, you know? Jerry, I got a question for you. So you spent the whole day with us. It was great. We played golf. We hung out in the suite. We went to the bet gala. Was it every, like our operation, it was just fun having you around. It was such a joy having you around all day.

It was super cool. You know, when we were playing golf, I have a little bit of a slice, a touch, but I am not a terrible golfer. Hank, I want you to say it. You're not a terrible golfer. Okay, that was nice. Thank you. Don't drive the ball very far. I have a little trouble with distance. I do, especially off the tee. I have a little trouble with distance. It's my thing.

And man, big cat, just you in my ear, just going, just saying like, wow, you have a little trouble with distance. You say the one thing that really fucking threw me off my game. It just, it was so emasculating. You really are quite effective, especially when you were on the other team, but I'm literally going to the range and I'm going to my pro and I'm saying, I need another 50 yards right now. This guy just was in my year. Yeah. And also, um,

It was really fun hanging out with you. Big Cat, if I may, I mean, is this a... Am I allowed to be honest here with everyone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wonderful night. Did anyone try the steak at that DraftKings Sportsbook? Yeah, I had it all. Oh, it was delicious. Just melted in your mouth. But...

Going to a sports book with Big Cat is an interesting experience because you walk in, you're with friends, you're excited, you're going to watch a game. And Big Cat just starts at some point just like pacing back and forth. And you're like, hey, Big Cat, what's going on? And Big Cat just goes, haven't cast a bet, haven't cast a bet, haven't won a bet, haven't won a bet all night, haven't won a bet, haven't cast a bet.

And it's like, oh, yeah, well, we're having fun. We're here for the bet gala. It's kind of fun. And Big Cat just looks off in the distance. He's like, haven't cashed a bet. Can't hit fucking threes. Can't hit fucking threes. It's a fucking hockey game. It's not going to hit six. It's not going to hit six goals. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Five and a half goals. Haven't cashed a bet. So Big Cat, if I may suggest, maybe just bet to have fun. Don't make it because a lot of times...

Spoiler alert, you're not going to win bets. That's true. That's true. And Jerry, that's very fair criticism. I personally thought I took the bet gala as a personal challenge. Uh,

where I was like, I'm going to bet everything and a lot of it because I was like, what else are you supposed to do at the bet gala? So yeah, I had a lot of balls in the air at the beginning. Like that, whatever it was, I think it was like 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock Pacific time. Had a lot of balls in the air and none of them were going through the net. So it wasn't going well. But then it turned around.

Yeah, didn't you hit your over goals in the Maple Leafs game? Yeah, it was tough when you start and you're like, I was 0-4 within the first 15 minutes of the Beck Gala, and that's when it gets a little, you know, the stress starts to rise.

I'm a cast of bat. I'm a cast of bat. I'm a cast of fucking bat. That's every Sunday in the gambling cave, Jerry. It's not about winning bats. The Bat Gala was about just looking hot with your friends and possibly giving them hearing damage. Yeah. So I'd say you succeeded on both those. No, you did a great job, Jerry. We loved having you there. You brought a ton of energy. We appreciate it. I love the fact that you're up one another. Have you thought about the rest of the series? Because Dave told you generally sweet. I mean...

Yeah, just enjoy the one win, Jerry. In all honesty, I've got to tell you, the Celtics look incredible, Hank. They're a frightening team in the East. So that was really fun, taking it one game at a time. Each game is a challenge. But the Knicks do have that special 86 Mets magic that just somehow finds a way, like Harry Potter, to beat...

Austin, they just figure it out. It's magic. It's magic. Hank knows what I'm talking about. Can you hear me? Yeah, no, it's game one. I hear you. I hear what you're saying. Hank, how old were you in 1986? I was negative seven. Okay.

Negative seven. Yeah. All right, well, Jerry. I do have one more question for you, Jerry, because we just talked about this on Sunday, and we mentioned it briefly when we were playing golf, but you worked with Jerry Bruckheimer in Kangaroo Jack. Yeah. What was that experience like? Did he try to add any explosions? How badass is he? He's an incredible producer. He really is. I don't even have a bit here. I'm not even doing a joke here. His attention to detail is...

He looks at everything and everything goes through him. And he really knows how to make people have an enjoyable experience in a theater. Best producer I've ever worked with. Such an honor. And I'm lucky to call him a friend. Love that. Love that. Well, Jerry, let's hope this series goes six or seven because we have plans to maybe fly you back for... You know what? You'll just do Hanks right here. You'll even him out. Yeah.

Hank, I hope you don't have hearing damage. I wasn't screaming in your ear. I was not. I agree. How can you say that? There's no evidence. How can you say that? That's psychotic stuff. I think you have like a cold. I think you have like a cold, like maybe a little cold or something. You know what this is, Jerry? Hank's LeBron. He's like, oh, no, I lost the game, so I'm all banged up now. If game two was tonight, Hank couldn't listen to it.

Hank is like on the couch. The Knicks just beat the Celtics, and he's like, oh, my ear, my ear. Yeah, no, that is – I woke up. He did the look up. I see you, Hank. I see you. My ear, my ear. I'm injured. I'm injured. Are they looking? Is the stream on me? Yeah, I see you. Okay.

My personal favorite was when I was whispering, not shouting. I mean, infinity times. Someone read how many times did you say bing bong on on X, the everything app. And somebody wrote infinity times when I was just in commercial breaks, just going bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bing bong. It worked, though, man. One thing I did respect, Jerry, was that Jerry kept saying like.

you can say whatever you want to me, which I think was just his invitation to just go crazy on him. He kept saying that. I was like, all right. Yeah. It's like, we love you, Jerry. What are we going to say to you? Well, it's so funny. I mean, it's like a relationship that Hank and I have. I was like touching him. I was engaging with him and he didn't like, he was like, every time I touched him, he was like, don't touch me, you know? And it was like, you could touch me. This is a two way street, you know? I mean, like,

I give a little, you give a little, and we have like a relationship, you know? Like, what's the deal? He wants you to do whatever you want to him, Hank. You gotta have a say for him. There was never really a chance. Yeah. Well, Jerry, great job. I was very happy for you, Jerry. Can you believe I still...

I know. What a, what a, what a night. What a night. I'm taking that win and we'll worry about Wednesday night when it happened. We'll worry about tonight when it happens. Yeah, man. Good work there. Good work. Good catch there. All right, Jerry, you're the best. Uh, we can't wait to see you. Hopefully game six or seven bing bong and Hank's ear. Uh, and yeah, it,

It was sensual. It was special stuff. It was special, special stuff seeing you and Hank just having those moments. I think the one lasting image is Hank being like when my kids, when we're walking on the street and a fire truck goes by and they put their fingers in their ear, that was just Hank for the entire fourth quarter.

Yeah, and I'm still fucked. Still fucked. Still fucked. All right, Jerry. Tough up, Hank. Come on. People play to injuries. Tough up. Tough up. Yeah. All right, thanks, Jerry. Okay, Hank. We had to get Jerry here, special guest, because he was with us all day. He is so... It was just like a shot of energy all day. Like, all day...

Being with him is so much fun. I didn't feel the best during the Beck Gala because I was also battling kidney stones and thought I was going to shit myself and piss myself, but he just brings the energy up.

Yeah, no, it was a great time and it was like super casual. We were having fun because the game seemed like it was over. Right. And then all of a sudden it turned very quickly. But before that, like we were having a blast. He's a fun guy to be at a party with. Yeah. Early in the day, we were in the golf cart together and Jerry asked me if we were being recorded, if anything was on. And I told him no. And then he started to tell me a story. And then halfway through the story, I realized that, yes, in fact, there was a GoPro in the golf cart. I was like, hey, Jerry, my bad. It's right here.

And he just stared at me like, what have you done to me? What have you done to my career? So then every five minutes for the rest of the day, Jerry would ask, is there a camera on us right now? Are we being recorded right now? And it was everywhere. It was in the hotel. It was at the Beck Alley. In the car. It was everywhere. And I don't think it changed what he was going to say next. No, not at all. He would have said it. If we said, yes, you're being recorded, he still would say the same things. He just...

He's so fucking funny. He's so funny. We were leaving the golf course. Big Head, I don't think I told you this, but we're about to leave the golf course. I go in to pee right after Jerry goes in to pee. He walks out, and then I'm still in the bathroom. There are two other guys that are in the bathroom that just saw Jerry walk out, and they start talking to each other. And they go...

you know, the Barstool guys are here. The other one's like, yeah, I know. That was just Big Cat in here. Somebody thought that Jerry was Big Cat. I mean, I like that. That's pretty good. Yeah, Jerry's a good-looking guy up front, up close. He's a good fucking looking guy. Back to the game, though, Hank, we like Joe Mazzulla.

Big fans of his. Love. Great guy. Great coach. Best friend. Do you have any, I don't want to even use the C word, criticism. No. Do you have any notes for him on the game? He's not shooting the ball. That's true. That is a fair point. But is there any backup? It wouldn't even be, because it feels like the Celtics' strategy is shoot threes. Yes. Their backup strategy is also to shoot threes. Missoula ball, yeah. I think their emergency strategy is to shoot more threes. Is there like a fourth option that's not threes?

No, I mean, I think this goes back to even before the Missoula days, especially like the 2022 run where when things get tight, sometimes the Celtics fall back too much into isolation mode, one-on-one, step-back threes. Yeah. And it happens. It's happened in the past. I think obviously, you know, last year they figured it out. I think that was a good wake-up call game of like,

If we're not making our shots, we've got to try and run a better offense and just drive the ball. But also, if we miss 45 threes, if we miss 40 threes, we win the game easily. So it was a historically bad shooting night. We still lost in overtime. I'm not worried about this series at all. I'm not worried about the strategy or the team or anything. There's only so much you can do when you miss. Celtics in five? Celtics in five. Jalen Brunson has to scare you a little.

I just don't think it's like if we hit a couple more shots, that game was won easily. We should have won that game easily. That was an anomaly. I'm looking at your shot chart from the third quarter. How many non-three-pointers did you take during the third quarter?

If you were to guess. No, you took one. One. One. That's really bad. One shot. And I think it was a dunk or a layup. But everything else was outside the three-point arc. And then if you look at the shot chart from before, I think this is from Chris Forsberg, up to 619 left in the third versus the rest of the game.

You guys just went cold. So I think there is some truth to it that if you have to make some of your threes. Yeah, you're going to make threes. Are you willing to do Game of the Year Wednesday night? Yeah, I don't know. What's the spread? Whose line is it anyway? 7.5? 8.5? 9.5 was Game 1. I would guess 7.5? 10.5? I think it would be lower, I think. 10.5? Yeah, I think it's higher. You've got to go desperation. It does feel like...

Game of the year. Yeah, I'll go game of the year. If Barcelona wins on Tuesday, so if Barcelona has won today, it's game of the year. Game of the year. Okay. Also, shout out Mikael Bridges because I know his stat line isn't super sexy. He played 51 minutes. Yeah. And he also had the big three and...

Was he the one who stole the ball at the end on Jalen Brown? I'm pretty sure, yes. Yeah, just ripped it away from him. But having a guy who can play 51 minutes is insane. Did he say after the game, I'm a football guy? I didn't hear that, but he's awesome. I love that, yeah. Memes, you're a Knicks fan. How are you feeling? Oh, that game was unbelievable. Yeah. We had the best player on the floor last night. Okay. Got him.

I think that was supposed to be like a gotcha. No, that's a good point. That's not a gotcha. I think he was expecting like a, oh, he was expecting like a rap battle. You can add that in in post. Psych. Yeah, do the gif of the guy covering his head and going, oh my God, it's over. Well, I think we did. Yeah, no, you did. McHale-Bridge went off. Clutch player of the year. He proved it. OGN and OB went off. They played good, even though Cat had one of the worst third quarters of all time.

Well, it's clear they're going to just go after Cat to try to follow him out because he does, when he's off the floor, the spacing for the Knicks is a lot different. Yeah, then they just go to Hakimich, which is just brutal to watch. Yeah, that is brutal to watch. Josh Hart is a dog, too. Yeah. Yeah, he played like 46, 47 minutes. I mean, these guys are dogs. So do you think you can win this series? I have more belief now. Okay. You just got to take it game by game, possession by possession. Yep.

I was scared when they were down 20. I thought we were going to get swept, smoked. But they have a lot of fight. There's no quit. Yeah, that's true. I think it's very unlikely that the Celtics have a three-point shooting performance in game two like they did. I'd agree with that. I think just based on everything that you've seen from the team, it lasts like two years, honestly. And they're going to drive more. They're going to get even more open looks. Yeah.

I noticed this one thing about Tibbs' last playoffs, and I think I've been confirmed about it as being correct. I think he might be going bald. Ah, you think? I think he might be losing his hair. Yeah, just a little. Just a little. At some point.

Like, Tibbs should make the... Like, not a lot. Like, it's not, like, crazy. It's just, like, a tiny little patch. He's got some good coverage for now, but I'm just saying something to keep your eye on because it's going to start showing up. He wouldn't even have to do that much surgery. And as a guy that has lost some hair, I feel like maybe I'm the first one to notice it. Yeah. Because, like, I recognize the patterns I saw in myself. Because it's not, like, you... The normal person would not notice that Tibbs is going bald. Yeah. But...

It's kind of like you're almost trained as a hair doctor now where you know, like, hey, you're not bald yet, but give it 10 years, you might be bald. I think the average person might start picking up on it in a couple years. So just something for Tibbs. I don't know. I'm just looking out for him because I don't know if... It's a hard conversation to have for some guys. I agree. I agree. All right. The other game. Also insane. Nuggets, Thunder, hand up.

I'm a moron. I think I had the exact quote of like, this is a scheduled loss for the Nuggets. They're, you know, to go two days or yeah, two days rest into Oklahoma City. One seed waiting for you. It's basically a game that they might just punt on and try to win on Wednesday night.

Couldn't have been more wrong. The Nuggets kept on fighting and pushing the ball, pushing the rock up the hill, and it was crazy because it felt like the Thunder had won this game so many times. They were up 10. It was just varying degrees of 10 where it was like, oh, yeah, then the Nuggets make a little run, then they're back up to 10. The Nuggets were up – or, sorry, the Thunder were up 13 with 639 left. The Thunder were up 9 with 302 left. But –

Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world. He is the best player playing basketball right now in the world. He had 42-22-6. It was an MVP off with him and SGA, who also was very good with 33-10-8. But the Nuggets, Aaron Gordon's shot. I mean, I don't know your takeaway, PFT, but mine is just the Thunder. The Nuggets are a really good team. They've been there. They've been through the wars. The Thunder are on the younger side, choked and

and should have won this game, and the mismanagement and missed free throws at the end of the game were just egregious. I think that Jokic was the best coach in this game. Yeah. He was actually coaching the guys on the sidelines during timeouts. When he was off the court, right before the Thunder fouled up three, he was running the show. He was coaching from the side. You saw him in the technical box. He was walking back and forth, calling people out. But that moment was the dumbest moment I've ever seen in these playoffs in the fact that

I do not understand for the life of me. The wave of foul up three has taken over basketball. I get the analytics of it. In no way are you supposed to foul up three without letting any time go off the clock and 75 feet from the basket. And if you're the Thunder, how do you fuck this up so bad where there's 11 seconds left, you are up three, Jokic is on the bench, the Nuggets do not have a timeout,

Play fucking defense. You're the best defense in the league. Yeah. The worst that can happen is you go to overtime and there's 11 seconds left and the best player in the world is on the bench. Instead, they fouled in like 0.1 seconds. Let him come back in. It was...

It was insane. Baffling. Baffling. And they fouled a guy who I think Aaron Gordon is like an 80% free throw shooter. And they fouled him so far away from the basket. Got Jokic back in the game. I understand the foul up three thing. I personally fucking hate fouling up three. Oh, yeah. No, I do. I hate it. Don't get me wrong. It's the right decision, I think, most of the time. If it's like eight seconds to two seconds left.

It's probably the right thing to do. If you foul under two seconds, there's a chance that they're in the act of shooting anyways. So they might be able to get a cheap three foul shots out of that. Right. But I think from what all the math nerds say, it's like eight seconds and under, it could be the right choice. But again, I don't think you can even say right or wrong all the time because it's all based on how good are your foul shooters. Right. So there's a lot of variables that go into it.

And you just don't, you never ever do it without letting, you have to let them a little time come off the clock. Yeah, I just, I don't like it. You can't really, you can't really ban it, but it seems like the coolest part of basketball is like a buzzer beater or a game coming down to the wire. And fouling up three, it just, it takes that away from somebody that's watching it. I know if you're like a fan of either team, you've got something different invested in it. But if you're just watching the game, it just steals the possibility of having a great ending for you.

Yeah.

You know what happened right before? I think that there might have been a timeout call. There was a brief break in the action. Chet went up to the line, got the ball, and simulated taking a foul shot. Yeah. Like he knew he was about to get fouled on the next possession. He was thinking about it that entire time. Then he gets in. Jokic turns his back to the ball and starts doing the electric slide on defense, just like jumping all over the place, getting into passing lanes. They fouled Chet, and then Chet...

He just looked like he was going to shit himself at the line. Yeah. He did not look confident. And that's probably like the Nuggets won't find themselves in a pressure situation like that because they've been there. They've been in big games before. Right. This is all kind of new for the Thunder. And then check gets up there and he holds the ball forever when he shoots a foul shot. Yep. There's like this big pause that you can just tell he's thinking like, don't fuck this up. Don't fuck this up. Don't fuck this up.

And then he fucked it up. And I'm very happy for Aaron Gordon, too. Yeah. He's had a great couple weeks. Oh, yeah. Big time. And yeah, you are right. There was the Thunder user last time out before Chet Holmgren's free throws. Another coaching malpractice move because what happens at the end of the game? Aaron Gordon hits a three with two seconds left. You need to have a timeout in your back pocket so that you can advance the ball. Yeah. Like you have to. That's crazy. So this was just.

This was just a masterclass of a young team not being through it and not knowing how to close out these games and the Nuggets being the opposite in a team that's been through the wars and Jokic being the best player in the world. I do have a couple – and also, by the way, Russell Westbrook. We almost had a Russell Westbrook moment where he hit the three – he almost hit that three. He was wide open to go ahead before the Chet free throws. But then credit to Russell Westbrook. He's having a very good playoff swell.

His drive to set up Aaron Gordon, if you watch it, you know in Russell Westbrook's head he's like, I'm going to go be the hero. Instead, he takes a step or two past the three-point line. Chet has to sag off, then he hits Aaron Gordon. Perfect pass, perfect shot. That was Russell Westbrook, I don't want to say growing up, because he's very old, but look at this. He gets Chet to commit a little bit with a false step,

And Russell Westbrook needs a lot of credit Because we make a lot of jokes He's been very good these players They don't win these games without him Russ versus Russ And Russ won And they were down one When Russ was taking the ball up court there Yeah And so he could have tried to go nuclear And do the thing at Russ Correct He could have been like I'm Russ Drives to the hole And then just like spikes it off the backboard And the rebound lands at midcourt But he didn't He made the right pass

I kind of like what Aaron Gordon, it makes no sense to shoot a three there, but it's like the different levels of brain activity. Normal good brain activity is taking a two down three late. Yeah. Inspired brain activity is taking a three when you're down two. Right. To get a one point win. And then genius level is taking a three when you're down one. Well, it was imperfect. Like he stepped right into it. It was perfectly, he was wide open.

Incredible game by the Nuggets. The Nuggets are just fun. Like, Jokic is so much fun to watch. I just fucking... I love watching him play basketball. I do have a few things that I'm concerned about for the Thunder in this series. Now, I think it's going to be a long series. We've talked about the youth. The other things that I have that I'm concerned about the Thunder... One...

This was the bugaboo all year was like they're not very big down low and they get bullied a little bit because Chet Holmgren is not exactly stout. I think Jokic could eat Chet. Yeah. I think like maybe a week. Yeah. Give him a week. He'll consume him. Especially when he's just played a full series against Zubac. Yeah, right. So then he goes to it's basically he played a full series with like six batting donuts on and now he's now he's swinging a wiffle ball bat.

So the Nuggets out-rebounded the Thunder 63-43, including 21 offensive rebounds. That feels like a problem. That feels like something that they might have to figure out. Hey, we're going to have to put more people on the glass. I don't know what that's going to end up being, but that's a problem. I also think the problem with the Thunder is who's going to be their second guy because they wasted a Caruso game. Caruso was awesome this game.

Jalen Green was not the second. You need a second guy who can step up. And they had a bunch of guys who scored between 10 and 15 points. The Thunder have so many guys, Big Cat. But they don't have the second guy. PFT. You've got to step in. What, about guys? Yeah. They have guys for days. I forgot your guy's guy off. Who's their second guy to score? Probably Jalen Williams. Sorry, I said Jalen Green. Jalen Williams. Their second guy to score.

Jalen Williams is 5 for 20. Jalen Williams should be their second guy, but I don't trust him as their second guy. They've got a lot of second guys. A lot of different guys. If you have five second guys, do you really have one? This is a problem. I think you just retroactively got demolished in the guy off. Oh, no, I didn't because the point of the guy off was that there was at least one player, one guy on the Thunder that was better than one guy on the Celtics. That was the guy off. Got it. It was. Just a statement. Was SGA's better than Tatum?

No, that was not. I don't think that was the statement. SGA, do you like watching SGA? He's in the camp of the Brunson Harden, where it's like, to be fair, a lot of times he will foul bait. I do like watching him, but when he gets into that mode where it's just living on the free throw line, it's not as fun. Yeah. That's just...

Again, he's not saying he's not an incredible player because he is. It's just when it becomes all foul shots, that's not fun basketball to watch. I do like the thing that he does where he just takes the longest possible route ever to get to the basket. Yeah. And he just zigzags back and forth like six times. His knees kind of bend out, and he just looks like he's Gumby, like he's elastic. Yeah. I like that. But then when he does the thing where he hits the brakes –

Or jump sideways into a guy. Right, it's the same thing as Brunson, where it's like I think both of them are so awesome, but when they do get into that mode, it's not fun to watch. I just don't know. Caruso had 20 points, and they're going to need someone to step up, and it might just be that they're a year away from one of those guys being the step-up guy. And then the last thing that concerns me about the Thunder is...

Our boy didn't put on the shirt again, and he not only didn't do that, but he mocked it. He mocked the shirt. PFT, you were correct in saying that those black shirts do not play. Yeah, the thing is, with Oklahoma City, you're a great, maybe the best t-shirt city in America when it comes to sports. Yeah. Right? We can all agree on that. Oh, absolutely. Almost everybody wears the shirt. Without a doubt. 99.98% of the fans wear the shirt. Yeah.

You're taking away your t-shirt advantage when you wear a dark muted color. Like, was it navy blue? Or was it black? It was a very dark color. And it didn't pop. Usually you get either the white or the light blue in the stands. And you know that it's a t-shirt game. I didn't even know it was a t-shirt game at first. Yeah. It just looked like there were empty seats out there. Yeah. And so our guy Juan Guerra...

There was rumors going around the internet. Actually, you said it to me in person, PFT. You're like, I think the guy put the shirt on tonight. And that's because he basically is mocking everyone who puts on the shirt. He had a poll out being like, who thinks that I'll wear a black shirt tonight? Because that was the shirt of choice for everyone. And it was no minus 1,000, yes, plus 600 people.

And then he's like, for everyone who said that I was not going to wear a black shirt, you're wrong. He was wearing a black shirt. He was just wearing an orange Oklahoma City Thunder jersey over it, making sure that he stuck out more than everyone. I don't like it at all. He's mocking the t-shirt culture now. It's one thing to be, go be yourself, be an asshole, say you're not going to wear the shirt, fine, make it all about yourself, that's fine, do it. But now you're mocking those that do?

Come on, man. So I think if the Thunder lose game two, this guy, someone's got to hold him down and put the t-shirt on. You know what they have to do? They have to trap this guy. What the Thunder need to do is next home game, they need to not give out t-shirts at all. And then see what color t-shirt this guy's wearing. Let's say he wears a blue t-shirt.

And then you have the t-shirts ready to go. You send out like a, like a Delta force of marketing people into the crowds, passing out all the t-shirts to match that guy's shirt. He would be so mad. It would be so great. Yeah. Cause that's all he wants to do is just stick out. And he, he always will quote what you got breaking moves. What? My ear popped. Oh, there we go. Hank. You have an apology for Jerry.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Jerry. I got worried. I got worried. You accused him of assault. We got to call him. You're Hanky Smiley. I got to call him real quick. Well, yeah. You guys saw it happen in real time when I realized like, oh shit, this might be a problem, but it's not. So you just blamed, you blamed an innocent man. I didn't blame. I said, this could have been the reason. He yelled once in your ear. He did yell in my ear. Not one single time. It's Jussie Lockwood. That's crazy. What? You should feel bad. I don't feel bad. I'm happy I can hear.

But you should feel bad for blaming an innocent man. My career was on the line. You can't podcast. Jerry's career was on the line. You said that his voice was so damaging that it caused your eardrum to rupture. That's his livelihood. All right, well, he'll listen to this and he'll hear you officially apologizing. I don't really know what I did. I said that might have been the reason. No, you blamed him. You pointed a finger at him. You sat up. He did yell. Oh, I remember why. He was yelling in my ear. He was.

I don't think he was. He said that he was not. Yeah, you're trying to... Listen, this is very unbecoming of you, Hank. You need to learn how to lose. Yeah. Yeah, I apologize for nothing. What do you guys think is going to happen in the rest of the OKC series? I mean, it's the Thunder. The Thunder are stacked. They're the best team in the league. There's no way they lose a series. That's good. It's not even the Western Conference Finals.

I'm not going to overreact to one game. I do think there are issues with them rebounding. I think it might be time for a game of the year, game two for the Thunder. Yeah, definitely. I agree. I think both the home teams will, even the series. I love how much Hank respects the Thunder. How can I not? How can you not? They've proven so much.

I mean, they won a shitload of games this year. Yeah, no. Regular season wins means everything. Yeah. I think Chet will be better. But again, seeing him against Jokic, it's like old man strength versus... Yeah, it's man versus boy. And he knows it. Everyone knows it. Yeah. Because Jokic, all Chet has is his size, but Jokic doesn't care about that. No. He's like, I'll eat you. He's just big body boys. Yeah. Constantly. There was one possession where it was just...

Yeah, he was just big body-boying them to the point where Jokic was like, all right, now I'll throw it off the rim and it will hit 95% of the rim rolling around and then go in. There has been a lot of disfactors from Nuggets. A lot. When they were... I think it was even after they won Game 7, they were by far the last... I think the Warriors had better odds to win the NBA Championship than the Nuggets did. I mean, that would...

Wait, you're saying that before the Warriors game seven? No, I'm saying like in the West.

Yeah, I mean, that's not the Thunder are the one seed. I don't think that's disrespect. No, but even though they had already advanced, and I don't think that the Warriors had advanced yet. Got it. The Warriors still had better odds to win the championship. That is disrespectful. It is disrespectful. And I checked the odds again today, this morning. Not a lot of movement. It feels like they can actually play the disrespect card right now, which is crazy considering how good they've been. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Should we do Hotsy Cool Throne? Yeah.

Incredible night of basketball. That was just the best. I mean, that's going to be tough for the hockey guys to hear it, but that was...

That was two insane, insane game ones. And if these series, the series can like match the game ones we're in for a very fun time. All right. So hot seat, cool drone. Okay. Before we get to hot seat, cool throne is brought to you by our friends at game time. NBA playoffs are here. And the only place to buy hard to get playoff tickets is game time. The official ticketing partner of barstool sports with

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Obviously, it was talked a little bit about, but I feel like it was kind of a weekend, so it got a little bit kind of passed over how bad he was in that game seven. I think we called him the biggest choker. No, I know, but I'm just saying in the general public, it was like that. It was that one day, but it's kind of like people kind of... Yeah, it was... There was games Monday, and then people have moved on. It was a Saturday game, then there was a Sunday game seven. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, but it's happened so frequently that it's hard to muster up that same energy every single time he does it. It's like being like, oh, can you believe Harrison Ford got into another plane crash? Yeah. By the way, I totally thought that was him, the golf course one. Me too. That was my first thought. It's got to be Harrison Ford. That's the H-man. Yeah. I agree. And I'm a James Harden fan. I'm also a lefty, so I've always... You are? I've never rooted against him except for those Philly years, but it's like as a lefty, I've always enjoyed watching him play, and I kind of like his attitude of just like...

not giving a fucking clubbing and flying to Vegas on off days. You kind of are the James Harden of this show. But then they put up. Hank's not there. That's not true. Are you just like you have a soft spot for any left-handed guy? Yeah. You know who else was left-handed? Who? Hitler. The other H-man. Stalin. Wait, Hank.

What other lefties? Because I do find myself, my oldest is a lefty, and so I point out when we go to the Cubs game, I'm like, hey, Kyle Tucker's really good. He's a lefty. Are there lefties that I should get him on to? In the NBA? I mean, Luke Cornett was always a classic. Yeah, Luke Kennard. I mean, Luke Kennard. Campaign. Campaign. Campaign. McCall.

James Harden. I feel like it's more. Bailey Shireman. Yeah, I mean, there's no quarterbacks. Tua. Yeah, there's not a lot. Tough. It's tough. Johan Santana. You're also a fake lefty. No, lefty baseball, lefty basketball. Righty golf. One of those lefties where you never really know what Hank's going to do with his left hand and what he's going to do with his right. Right. Ambidextrous. You could be righty.

But I'm lefty. I'm ambidextrous. You swing golf. I mean, you swing golf club, and that's the most important thing in your life, and you play that right-handed. Right. So golfers, I look at right-handed golfers. But again, I think it's natural that you enjoy people that do things in the same way you do. Regardless. But not when golfing. No. I like right-handed golfers. Right. But James Harden, when he gets on a golf course, you're out on him. If he's a lefty, yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, they put up a stat during the broadcast that, again, it's like kind of, everyone kind of knew how bad it was, but this stat really emphasized how truly horrible he is. Career playoff games under four field goals made. And it was Kevin Durant. He's got two. Steph Curry, he has three. LeBron has five.

James Harden has 35 career playoff games with under four field goals made. That's insane. His career's on. He's getting older. That's bad. That's his legacy. I respect it, though. I do. Everyone's got to have a thing, and I respect the fact that James Harden doesn't. He just doesn't feel like working. Yeah. But yeah, that's bad. That was eye-openingly bad.

Tough for the Harden stance. Yeah. Did you hear the stat of how many games with under 20 points he has in the playoffs? No. I think we talked about this on Monday, but yeah, LeBron James has zero, and I think Harden has like 12. I'll say this for James Harden, at least obviously this year aside, because it was first round, a lot of his... Oh, Barcelona just scored. Fuck yes. Barca. Fuck. Wow. At least a lot of his...

Playoff chokes have happened in the second or third round. That's true. So he's won a series. Yeah. This Barca team is different. This game has been incredible. That's talking soccer. Yeah. That was talking soccer. In all time. Big time. It's been a lot of stuff. One of the best soccer games I've ever watched. Barca. Do you say Barca or Barca? I think you say Barca, but if you say Bartholona, then it sounds like you're a man of culture. I can't wait. I bookmarked this one idiot because I said...

What's the play in this game? And everyone picked Barcelona. And they went down 2-0. And I was like, why is Barcelona so bad? Everyone told me they'd win. And someone was like, your followers aren't smart enough about soccer to give you a winner. So I'm going to quote tweet that fucker. Small victories. Yeah, it's good. Still got some game left. Yeah, you're right. They got this. They got this. Rafinha. Oh, that's one of the guys that picked a score. Let's go. Let's go.

And then yeah, my cool tone, you like this one, Big Cat Caleb Williams Oh, yeah So Jane Daniels, I mean, Drake Mays married, Jane Daniels No girls No girls allowed No girls Not even allowed in the same building if a girl is there He's like a six-year-old's clubhouse Six-year-old's treehouse We're after one ring only, baby, that's Super Bowl rank Did you see the video of Jaden with his mom in the car?

No. So he was out and he like... She was sitting there. She was driving. He was getting out of the car and there was a girl that was talking to Jaden on the sidewalk and his mom was in the car. And his mom just kept saying, excuse me, excuse me. I love her. She's the best. It's a little creepy. She's the best. Okay. Meanwhile, Caleb Williams was in Miami and he got out of a car at a restaurant with three different like supermodels. Hell yeah. That's a QB1 you want. Yeah. That's QB1. That's aura. Is it? Yeah. Yeah.

Not a helicopter mom 24-year-old. No girls. That's pretty damn cool to get out of a car with three chicks. Like, never in my life. That would be the most stressful evening ever. Imagine going on a date with three women at once. That would be tough. It would be sick.

Yeah, but that just means he's got something. Hey, they're good looking too. All due respect. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, cool throwing Caleb Williams. Good job, Hank. Great job, Hank. Nice job, Hank. Great job, Hank. Thank you. Thank you. My hot seat is horse racing.

Horse racing is on the hot seat because Sovereignty just announced that he was not going to be competing in the Preakness. So we're one and done. Sucks. We're still going to have Randy Moss on because we love talking to Randy Moss, but this sucks. I guess Sovereignty might race in the Belmont. They haven't made an announcement about that yet, I don't think, but I don't know why you would because it just seems like... Well, it's money. Yeah, money, but also you already won the Kentucky Derby. That horse is going to be set for life.

Yeah, it sucks. I mean, there's thoughts that he might have an injury. Obviously a quick turnaround, but that's the whole point of this. Winning the Triple Crown is not easy. What did it say? We received a call today from trainer Bill Mott that Sovereignty will not be competing in the Preakness. Bill informed us they would point towards the Belmont Stakes. So he didn't even cite an injury. It sucks. This is, I think, the third time it's happened in the last 13 years, so it's obviously a trend. Yeah.

Yeah, this is horse racing has a lot of issues right now, and this is definitely one of them that these – we talked about it, remember, a couple years ago, Flightline, one of the best horses I've ever seen in my life, and he raced, I think, five races and then was studded. Like, I wanted to see him race more, so it sucks. Yeah, eventually the horses aren't even going to ever race. They're just going to, like, get a radar gun out, and they'll be like a two-year-old horse, and they're like, this is the fastest two-year-old we've ever seen.

He's never actually going to compete, but you can buy his offspring. Yeah, that does suck. Yeah, so it's tough. We will still get Randy Moss on, though. It's like Shador skipping the East-West Shrine Bowl. We want to see more of these horses. So you're saying, Sovereignty, you are now a Cleveland Brown. I'm saying I'm going to prank call Sovereignty. Got it. Somebody out there get me Sovereignty's number. I would love... We should harass this horse. I'm down. I'm down.

Because this horse, frankly. Do we still got it? Frankly. Do we still get a horse off of Twitter? This is what's the problem with this generation of horses. The generation, what generation are we in now? Generation Alpha. I think it's Beta. Beta. This is a Beta horse. This is what happens. It's a horse that's been coddled its entire life. Told that it's special. It accomplishes one thing, which in the grand scheme of things, guess what? It's Beta. A horse wins the Kentucky Derby every year. Not special, man. Sorry. Sorry.

He was born as an alpha. Beta started in 2025. My kids just missed it. They're all alphas. He's late alpha. This horse is a late alpha. He's one of the latest alphas. And I think that it's disgusting what this generation is doing. There's no accountability. There's no thirst for greatness. There's no dedication to your craft. There's no hard work.

These horses are just taking the easy way out. And I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. So fuck this horse. Sovereignty, you're on my list. Yeah. I didn't even know I had a list until right now. But Sovereignty is the first name on my list. Agreed. Bitch. And then my cool. He's fat, too. Yeah. I heard that. Looking like Luke. He's eating too much hay. I heard he's on that Nyquist shit that he's put on a couple pounds. Sovereignty is a pussy. Let's just not. Let's stop beating around at this horse is a fucking pussy. Yeah. Yeah.

And if it's not sovereignty making the decision, if it's like a helicopter trainer that's binding everything for him, let your children make their own mistakes. Oh, my God. Inter just scored. And then all the shirts are coming off. Oh, no. This game is nuts. Talking soccer.

This game is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Can we get some bar or something? This feels like it's a Pope thing. Like, this is for Pope Francis. Oh my God. Yeah, if it's a trainer thing, shoot the trainer like a horse. Yeah. Not actually. Or at least just, like, put a tarp up and then have him disappear and then we can all think that he's dead. But I think that this is... It's bullshit. Yeah. What are we teaching? I'm worried about the youngsters out there that are watching this horse that have...

All aspiring horses out there? My four-year-old son, Chris, came in the other day. He was like, Dad, I want to be like sovereignty when I grow up. And I told him, well, if you work hard and you eat your vegetables and you stay in school, get good grades, maybe one day you can. And then now his idol is going to teach him that you accomplish one thing and then you never do anything again for the rest of your life. Because my four-year-old daughter came in and said, I want to be sovereignty when I grow up. And I said, hey, idiot, you're old enough to be sovereignty.

Yeah. So that's good. It's also older than sovereignty. Chris is stupid. Yeah. All right. Your cool throne. My cool throne is accountability. Accountability is also on the cool throne because the Ravens have moved on from Justin Tucker. Was this because of the thing? The draft. Yeah. Oh, because the draft. Was this a football decision? This was a pure football decision. The Ravens announced yesterday that they were moving on from Justin Tucker, who is, I think, still the best. Is he the best kicker of all time? Uh,

I remember he was like going back and forth. He was switching back and forth. That's not a joke about Justin Tucker and massage, but you could make that joke. Uh, he I'll find it. You, you keep going. I'll find it. Yeah. So this is what general manager, Eric to cost had to say. Sometimes football decisions are incredibly difficult. This is one of those instances considering our current roster. We have made the tough decision to release Justin Tucker, uh,

Justin created many significant and unforgettable memories in Ravens history. His reliability, focus, drive, resilience, and extraordinary talent made him one of the league's best kickers for over a decade. We are grateful for Justin's many contributions while playing for the Ravens. We sincerely wish him and his family the very best in the next chapter of their lives. So, yes, this was a football decision. Yeah. He is technically field goal percentage. He is. Yeah. What?

Why are the Ravens pretending? I mean, I guess you can just do this. They can do whatever they want. Yeah, but it's also very weird because it's not a football decision. It's also interesting that for maybe the first time ever, somebody is forcing a release on Justin Tucker. And

And we don't know what... We still don't know what happened, right? Like, we don't have... Has he been charged? Has anything happened? I think they've investigated it, and there's a bunch of accusers. We should say that they're all accusations. Yeah. So we don't really know, but there's certainly a lot of them. Do you think there's... I would imagine there is a, like, magic eight ball at every NFL headquarters, and they...

They hit it. They shake it up, and they say, oh, my God. All right, we got to stop watching this game. That was talking tennis real quick. That was some groans. They shake it up, and then it just gives you an answer of, like, how should we release Justin Tucker? He's been accused many times of sexual misconduct, and it just floats up. It says football decision. Yeah, it was a football decision made for on-the-field reasons.

It's the same thing as with Deshaun. It's like either he's a victim of one of the most coordinated, vicious smear jobs of all time, or he's a world-class scumbag, and there's really no in-between. Correct. And it feels unlikely that this would be a coordinated hit job from so many people. Yeah. All right. My hot seats, I have two. The first is Nebraska, Nebraska football, because Michigan has put a self-imposed –

Two-game penalty on their head coach, Sharon Moore. It is the scandal that keeps on getting guys fired or suspended or self-imposed suspensions. And usually you'd say, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Sharon Moore out for the first two games. No, he's not. So they play Oklahoma week two. Yeah, so you can't do that. Michigan has suspended Sharon Moore for week three and four. Central Michigan...

And Nebraska. That's such a slap in their face. Yeah, because you can't jump it. Who do they play week one? I don't know. My guess is probably Cupcake. Yeah, probably. So, yeah, you can't split them up. It can't be like Grover Cleveland or Trump presidencies where you just go back and forth. Yeah. New Mexico. Yeah, New Mexico. So you can't go New Mexico. Then he gets to coach Oklahoma. Then Central Michigan. And then he's out for Central Michigan. You have them back-to-back. So Nebraska, I mean...

I would like to see an argument from Nebraska about this. Yeah. If you have to choose either Oklahoma or Nebraska, you're choosing Nebraska. Yeah. It's tough. It's very tough. Sean Moore did go to Oklahoma, so they were like, oh, well, he wants to play. I think it's more that they're

They're doing Central Michigan and Nebraska because they, yeah, it's a pairing. Yeah. Oklahoma and New Mexico or Central Michigan and Nebraska. They're literally saying Nebraska is not as good as Oklahoma. Which I think is probably fair. Yeah. Did you see that Michigan's president is leaving for Florida? Yeah. All this is just weird coincidence. Is that for two weeks as well or is that like a full-time? No, I think that's full-time. Okay. So full-time president. Everyone is scrambled.

Uh-huh. But they did nothing wrong. So do you think that there's any chance that maybe the president of Michigan is leaving because some shit's about to hit the fan? Maybe.

Maybe. Or he just couldn't stomach missing the Nebraska game. That's true, yeah. He's so vehemently against this decision that he had to resign. Yeah. My other hot seat is Grand Theft Auto because they released another preview. I didn't realize that it's 2026 now. I also, this is my hand up. I'm not in gaming shape. I don't really game anymore. I miss it.

I had no idea they didn't release a new main title Grand Theft Auto since 2013. I had no idea. I didn't know that. That's crazy. I thought it was every couple years there's a new Grand Theft Auto. What the fuck are they doing? Figure it out. They're creating the greatest game of all time. But you can't have a gap of 13 years between the game. I mean, people are excited. But I'm more... So I'm not saying that this game won't rock because it probably will. And I'm excited they finally are doing it, although they did push it from this summer to next summer.

I'm saying, how the hell did we have 13 years in between? Yeah, it's disgusting. I mean, we had a long time between GTA 1 and GTA 2. You remember that? Memes. GTA 1 was a completely different game. That's the meme, though. It's like, we got this before GTA 6. GTA 6 is also becoming Embiid now. Yeah, it's GTA 6 and Embiid. Everything's Embiid. And everything's a meme. Yeah.

So, Memes, are you excited? How old were you when the last one came out? 2013. I was a senior in high school. Okay, so you remember that one? Yeah, I mean, I still play it. No, PFT, we didn't have a big gap. It went 97, 99, 01, 02, 04, 08, 13, 26. You know what it was? The difference between GTA 2 and GTA 3 was just...

Night and day. Yeah. It's crazy. GTA 3. One of you were so hard. That's when it became GTA was GTA 3. Yeah, that's where it really started. One and two. And Vice City was so hard. You couldn't get away from the cops. Yeah, they should do one where it's just University of Georgia, Grand Theft Auto. This is crazy that it took this long. I'm upset. But people still play GTA. That's the thing. Yeah, but I'm upset. I might have to play this new game. I'm definitely going to play. It's interesting. How do you keep updating a game where you can literally do whatever you want?

Well, I believe I'm not super locked into the GTA. Maybe memes can fill in, but I believe GTA 5 has a way where you can build your own world and create your own servers. Is that a Minecraft shit? Yeah, it can kind of be like you can build your own world within GTA, which is why it's still active. And I'm pretty sure you could gamble on it, too. Yeah. You go to the online casino. You go to the casino in the game, and you're gambling in real life with your money. Catch me at the casino. That sounds safe. I'll be there.

And then my cool throne is I piss out one of the two kidney stones, so I'm feeling better. Let's go. Yeah, so we talked to Jerry O'Connell about the Bet Gala, and I was in a bad mood because I didn't have any winners early on, but I also was in torture at the Bet Gala because my stomach felt like it was going to explode, and being in a social setting with kidney stones is not exactly fun. So you did not save this one, correct? I didn't. So we got back at 2 in the morning.

I took a piss. I knew it was coming. I had the split piss. Yeah, yeah. Also, shout out Shefty for announcing. Good job. That's why you're our insider. I had the split piss on the plane, and I was like, it's coming. Got home 2 in the morning after a long-ass day. Pissed. Incredible pain.

See it floating around. And then I had this moment of, should I fish this out of a toilet with piss in it? Or should I just go to sleep after a 20 hour day? And I chose sleep after a 20 hour day. I think that's fair. You guys tell me if what I did was, was wrong in any way, shape or form, because I've had some bad pushback on this. When I pissed mine out,

I was like, I got to get it out. I got to save it. And then I got to take it to the urologist so he can tell me what's wrong with it. I did that for my last one. Yeah. So I didn't have the strainer. I went into my toilet with a slotted spoon. Yeah. And I fished it out. And then I washed the spoon and put it back in the spoon drawer. No. Hot water, soap.

washed it very good some people told me that that was disgusting no they're like i'm gonna be serving guests over at my house with my piss spoon if that's disgusting well then tell me like put these two together you can't use a piss spoon but you can piss in the sink where the spoon ends up yeah good point

Hypocrites. Doesn't make any sense. Yeah, you should. P is sterile. Yeah. You're fine. So I'm glad that you pissed it out. Yeah, it felt good. It felt like I just my stomach hurts so bad all day. I pushed it too hard. I shouldn't have played golf, but I did have fun with the boys. But we're both on the clock now again. Yeah. No, you are. I have another one, but that might have been the big one. I don't know. Yeah, that's what they told. Like, I've got multiple. So it's like any given moment. Yeah, but I do feel better. So that's good. And what are you looking at us like that means?

There's more? Oh, yeah. You guys just constantly have a buddy. I had a 2mm and a 3mm and a 4mm. I think that was, I hope that was the 4mm. My body's like a quarry. I'm just pissing out stones. I got a whole stash inside me right now. I like to think my body is more like a really nice English countryside, one of those big driveways going up to the mansion.

And it's lined with pebbles. Yeah, cobblestone. Yeah, not cobblestone. I'm saying like the actual pebbles. Okay, gotcha. You know what I mean? Yeah. You see those at like super, super rich, like Hampton's houses have them. The driveway is pebbles. That's my kidney. You think one day if we just kept them inside our bodies, it would turn into diamonds? We should try. I think it might. We should try. Okay. Good hot seat, cool throne, everyone. Yeah. Barcelona and Inter are in extra time. Is this sudden death? Nope. This is not.

Do you mean the game? No, it's not Golden Goal. Okay. No, no. So we'll just keep updating when we do FAQs. And that was Talking Soccer again. All right. Before we get to our interview with Kirk Goldsberry, you see it right in front of us. We've got the new Mountain Dew cans. And guess what? Bottles as well. And guess what? It is summertime.

I love summer. I love the heat. I love golf. I love barbecue. I love baseball. I love just being in the backyard. I got a new grill set up, PFT. I love that. I'm going to grill tonight. You know what I'm going to do it with? A Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew. Nothing goes better. Yeah. I got a pizza oven. I'm going to try to figure out how to work outside. I feel like pizza and dew is a winning combination, too. I love that. So nothing goes better with pizza.

Pizza oven outside, grilling outside, and hanging with your friends in the refreshing citrusy kick of Mountain Dew.

We love Mountain Dew. We love these new cans. It's nostalgia in a can. They brought back the old logo. So go check it out right now. Grab a Dew in the new packaging and enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. I already had one today. I'm going to have another one because I love Mountain Dew and it tastes delicious. So thank you to Mountain Dew. And again, go grab a Dew in the new packaging and enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. Okay, here he is, Kirk Goldsberry. Ooh.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest, our good friend. He has changed jobs, though, since we last had him on. He is now with The Ringer, NBA analyst at The Ringer. He's also a New York Times bestselling author. He also has some new cool stuff at his store, which we'll talk about later. It is Kirk Goldsberry, here to talk playoffs. Kirk, always great having you on. I have a first question, and I don't know if...

I just want to hear from your brain because you're a lot smarter about basketball than us. Nikola Jokic is the best basketball player in the world. We've run out of things to explain it. Can you explain it in your smart guy language of how and why he is the best basketball player in the world? And no disrespect to SGA who will win the MVP this year most likely. Nikola Jokic is the best basketball player in the world.

He's the most skilled player in the world. He does everything at a very high level, except one thing, which we'll get to later, which is why Michael Malone got mad at me. PFT, you know the story. But...

One thing that I came across this year doing a best shooters of the year column at the ringer was that Nikola Jokic was the most efficient jump shooter in the league, big cat. And that's not even his calling card. This dude is one of the best rebounders, one of the best passers, one of the best close range scorers, has the best floater in the league, but he's also an incredible jump shooter. And that's not even a strength. So long story short, he's just the most skilled big man we've ever seen.

His stats are insane across the board. And if you look at the box score from the game one victory against OKC, it looks like a Wilt Chamberlain 48 and 22. What are we doing? This is insane. Yeah, it is. It really is. And it does feel there's every now and then –

Steph was probably, you could put him in this category, even LeBron, where it's like you feel like you're watching something that you haven't seen before in basketball. And I feel like there have been big men who have been skilled in certain ways. They're obviously the dominance of Shaq or Kareem, but the total package of Jokic does feel like something we have never seen before.

Yeah, at least our age. And there's some old heads who saw Wilt score like 60 or average 50 and 50 or whatever, but we're not those dudes. Like I was thinking about Shaq this morning because he's the most dominant center of my life, right? Like this dude single-handedly won the 2001 NBA playoffs. Like he just destroyed everybody in his path. Yoke is just putting up way better stats than that guy. Again, with one exception, which is interior defense. And

And the way to beat the Nuggets is to attack him in the paint, something the Thunder haven't been able to do yet. But they're the worst paint protection team left in the playoffs. I wrote an article about it a few years ago, and former Nuggets coach Michael Malone took exception with my analysis. But that's exactly the one weakness this guy has. It's his Achilles heel, if you will. The dude can't protect the basket like some of the other great centers of all time.

It was a great story because you wrote that article, and then I think that was right when the Nuggets caught on fire and won the championship, right? You deserve some credit for spurring on that team. So about the Nuggets, they moved on from Malone.

And I feel like Jokic is also part coaching the team too. So he might not play great interior defense, but he's a great offensive player. And he's also what seems to be a very good head coach too at the same time. What's different about the Nuggets now as opposed to when Michael Malone – we call it the post-Malone phase. Post-Malone. Shout out Posty. Post-Malone.

The face tattoos, I would say. But no, I think the biggest thing, PFT, is the leadership of Jokic in those huddles. We've seen him being very animated, like you're saying, almost drawing up plays. But the players seem to be getting along. The morale seems really good. There's just a cohesiveness. It simply wasn't there. One of the reasons they moved on from Michael Malone and Calvin Booth is the vibes were toxic in that organization.

near the end. We don't have enough numbers to really say, oh, they're doing this, that, or something else different at this point. It's been such a short amount of time when the playoffs started. But, dude, they're just getting along well. And I think that image I have of Jokic at the sideline, like yelling at his teammates, like a fiery Greg Popovich moment as a coach, that's new. That's what I've noticed that's different. Yeah. And so we obviously don't want to react to one game.

But it was a shocking game, the Nuggets-Thunder. It was an incredible game. I know that the foul-up three, we discussed it. I think you probably agree. Foul-up three is fine. You don't foul-up three 75 feet from the basket with the best player off the court. That just felt like the Thunder completely screwed that up. But I had...

I listed three things that I'd be concerned about for the Thunder, and I want you to maybe tell me if I'm way off or if you maybe have a fix the Thunder could go with. The first was rebounding. This has been their problem all year. They're not super big down low, especially with Chet because he's a stretch five.

The second is I don't know who their second scorer is going to be, and you kind of need that second scorer to step up in big moments. And the third is the fan who sits courtside has got to put the fucking T-shirt on.

I love that. Dude, their second scorer is a great point. Big cat. It can't be Oscar Russo. Like it wasn't game one, right? They need either chat or J dub to show up. And again, attack the teeth of this nuggets defense, make them protect the rim. They don't want to do it. They're not good at it.

So I think that's the key I'm watching for. They should be worried. I mean, this is a team that swept a weakened first round opponent last year in New Orleans and then played Dallas in the second round as the number one seed. Dallas was, I think, the five seed and they lost four to two. It's a really similar trajectory here with another sort of Balkan dude like leading the opponent and.

and showing them how to win games late like Luka did last year. They need, and I think it starts with SGA. The other thing I'd say, which is sort of a first take-take, is like SGA's got to start playing like the MVP right now. Because right now, Jokic won round one of the head-to-head MVP battle, which is also great. Like no shade it takes about superstars. That was awesome. But SGA has to win a couple of these head-to-head battles, dude.

Yeah. Yeah. So what about with the T-Wolves? Anthony Edwards, it seems like he's improved every single year. He's gotten better at passing too, which is good to see. I think he probably has some room to improve there still. But with the Timberwolves, has Rudy Gobert been unlocked offensively?

Yes, I think so. Thanks in part to the Los Angeles Lakers bold strategy of not employing a center like in the NBA. It was it was it was worth a shot not having a center on your basketball team. But Rudy Gobert really exposed the weakness of that. And what's interesting to me is if there's one other team that's really small left in this playoffs, it's the Golden State Warriors who start a very small front court, obviously. And Rudy, I don't

I don't know if you guys know this, Rudy has a little bit of a history with Draymond Green. And so I'm very much looking forward to these toils in the front court in this series, but

Size matters, guys. You know this better than anybody. Size matters. And I really think that's what this series is going to come down to, not only in the front court where the Timberwolves have Rudy Gobert, but also, dude, all the looks they can throw at Stephen Curry with Ant and Jade McDaniels and Alexander Walker. They're just bigger and longer and more athletic. So I think they have a good shot of advancing in this series. All right, but question about that, because the Rockets beat the fuck out of –

Steph Curry. Like, I think that was one of the hardest series he had to play in terms of the physicality. And, um, and Thompson was, you know, obviously he gets hurt at the end of game seven, which clearly bothered him. And with the closeouts weren't the same. Do you, I feel like this is similar to, uh, Yoko's going from the Clippers to the, the thunder where it's like, now he can do whatever he wants down low Zubach in there. Um,

I feel like Steph Curry will have a little bit easier time than he did against the Rockets because they did a very good job of making sure that Steph didn't beat them every single night. I agree with that. I mean, Houston is an insane defense just built for war. And Emei Adoka is the toughest coach, most defensive-minded coach in the NBA right now. That said, dude, Anthony Edwards isn't afraid. He's a great defender. He's more athletic. And youth is a big thing.

in this at this stage of the season and Steph is beat up like look at the shape of it the best shooting hand we've ever seen is deformed right now these guys are beat up and that's such an underrated part of this we're asking this older team

to go in and play this younger team after that war in Houston. And I just see a real opportunity for Minnesota to keep that momentum going using a similar formula of just pounding them inside, getting rebounds, whether it's Gobert or Nas Reed, Jade McDaniels. Like these guys are big. And I think they can give the Warriors problems. And the other thing I'd say, Big Cat, lastly, Houston couldn't score.

This Minnesota team is going to score on that end of the court too. That's a good point. Yeah, Houston was a tough watch. They're building something, but it was a tough watch sometimes watching them play offense.

Yeah, they need one more guy. But they have a great season. And I think like Golden State also deserves credit, guys. That's a very good defense when they've been at their best in the postseason for 10 years now. Draymond has been the middle linebacker, one of the best defenses in the postseason. And they deserve credit for making Houston look bad a lot of the time, too. I want to flashback real quick. We got to do just a brief Luca and the Lakers postmortem. So, yeah.

In your statistical opinion, you're a math expert. Is Luka too fat? Dude, he is, honestly. Like, he is. Yeah, it's the truth. He's gotten bigger. He's not, like, fat by our standards, but in terms of NBA basketball, he is too fat. And I heard you guys calling out my good friend Zach Lowe, also at the Ringer, the other day, because he had, like, a really great observation, Big Cat. I think it was you. He said he's laboring all the time. Yeah, he's constantly laboring.

He looks like he's played one too many games of pickup on a Sunday afternoon, and he's still out there trying to make it work. And it's just, he's slow on defense. He's slow to the basketball. And then yeah, he looks like he's overweight. I'm sorry. It's not, it's not a nice thing to say about another person, but.

when you look at some of the other superstars in this league and how they take care of their bodies and how, how they work out and how they present themselves physically, like Lucas sticks out. Yeah. And it took you, you make fun of that. Jokic piece. Jokic really had a body transformation itself that get him over the top. Yeah. Uh,

So I think Luka needs to do that. I think he will do that. But when you ask me the question, he got torched on defense, dude. Jade McDaniels, Anthony Edwards were just driving on him like he was the slow guy at the pickup game. Yeah. And they just torched him. You know what's funny is, like, I was thinking about it because, you know, Luka gets –

killed for his defense and his body. And there's other superstars that maybe aren't the best defensively. And you could put Jokic and Steph in that category where they both try very hard, but they're not elite defenders. Jokic and Steph, if you look at their bodies, they were, they transformed their bodies. And I know people were like, Jokic still looks, he's totally different than he was five years ago. Steph, remember how much like Steph has put on so much muscle and, and, and just gotten so much stronger through the course of his career. And,

Luca has to do that. Steph is arguably the most conditioned player in the league. Yeah. Period. Yeah. If you watch him at the fourth quarter, one of the reasons he was so great in the Olympics or he's so great in the playoffs is he at age 37 is still like the guy with the most juice at the end of the fourth quarter. That childhood picture of Nicole Jokic is legendary for a reason. I know you guys love that.

But yeah, like it's a battle for a lot of us. Like everybody has to deal with this in some facet of their life. And I think a lot of players have had a really good nutritional awakening in the middle of their 20s. And Luka Doncic has an opportunity to do just that. And like I said, I think he will. But I do also think it's fair to say it's limiting him, particularly on the defensive end of the court and at the end of games. Yeah. And he's in the place to do it. You're in L.A. You got juice shops everywhere. Yeah.

Like it's, you're in the Mecca of health food. You can, you can shed a few pounds, have your shirt off a lot. And then if JJ keeps playing like, you know, the same guys for the second halves of every game, he's going to eventually get into shape. Right? Like he's,

Luca was probably like, this is not the five guys rotation I thought I was signing up for. Yeah, that was not the right kind of five guys. When JJ said they were going five guys, he got confused and he got excited. So is he worse on defense than he was last year? Because the Mavericks, I mean, nobody forgets that the Mavericks made it to the finals, but we talk about Luca in a much different way now than we did last year.

Well, the other thing, and when Nico Harrison was still alive, he had assembled this great defense last season with PJ Washington, with Daniel Gafford. They were really good. And there was some deodorant on the floor with Luka defensively. And the Lakers had Austin Reeves and aging LeBron, Rui Hachimura. They didn't have guys to clean up the mess behind Luka when somebody would beat him on a draw.

Dallas did a great job of building around a slower, weaker defender. And to be fair to the Lakers, PFT, they haven't had time to do that organizationally. I've had a few people say, hey, that Mark Williams trade that they canceled at the deadline.

They probably should have forced that through so they could have had that bigger guy. Regardless, they have to build a different team now with this Luka Doncic situation. Yeah. All right. Well, that's enough piling on Luka, but I think we get the point. Better than Luka piling on us. That is true. Dang, that would hurt. Yeah. So looking to the east, Hank is not in the room right now, but I'll ask like he was. How panicked should the Celtics be?

Dude, I wish I was at the bed gala last night. What a moment that must have been for you guys. We didn't release the movie, but it was a movie. I mean, they should be panicked if they just can't hit any more three-point shots, but I don't think that that's going to carry over. But maybe you tell me, is there something that happened with the Knicks that this is something that we could see the Knicks pushing back a little bit on, make it a series?

I mean, yeah, they had more fight. And the thing that drove me crazy... So the Celtics... The stat from that game, PFT, is what? The Celtics broke the record for most missed threes in a playoff game. They missed 45 threes in a playoff game.

in a game. That's almost one a minute. Like that's ridiculous. And at some point, let's say when you miss 34 threes and it's the middle of the third or the end of the third quarter, you're like, maybe we should do something else. Well, they didn't, they didn't do anything else. And one of the things that Jalen Brunson has done a lot this year is when he

In that Detroit series, they needed points to stop a Detroit run. He would flop. He would go into the teeth of the defense and make a play, draw a whistle. The Celtics didn't do anything like that during that Knicks run. They seemed really content to sit behind the three-point line. I think the last play of overtime where Mikael Bridges ripped the ball away from Jalen Brown was a poetic ending to that game. They refused to attack the basketball hoop.

Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown are too good to be that passive when the threes aren't going in. I don't expect that to continue, but when the Celtics team isn't making their threes, they do have a tendency to sort of just say, oh, that's all we have. Now, the other thing is Porzingis wasn't out there. He's a big weapon. They could have posted up. They didn't have that. So I don't expect this to continue, but the Knicks are not going to go away. And if you give them a chance to

and let them stay in the game. They're also a much better clutch team than the Celtics, in my opinion, right now. Yeah. Do you blame yourself a little bit for that Celtics loss? It's like they were playing Goldsberry ball. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've played both sides of that line. I think Joe Mazzulla loves math. I know he loves the town. I know he loves part of my take. I wish he loved two-point scoring a little bit more when they have a nice slump going, like 15 of 60. That's your game. You're not going to win if you miss 45 threes. Quick break from Kirk Goldsberry to talk to you about, look at these, the new Mountain Dew cans.

PFT. It's vintage. I like the sun design on here. This would be a sick tattoo. I see this logo, and I just feel refreshed. I see this logo. I get thirsty. Hank, what's your favorite thing to do in the summer? Favorite thing to do in the summer is go to the beach. No. And golf. And golf. And drink Mountain Dew. Nothing goes better with golfing with your boys.

And hanging with your friends in the refreshing citrusy kick of Mountain Dew. We love Mountain Dew. One of our favorite sponsors, when they came on, were like, yes, we love Mountain Dew. And then they threw back throwbacks to the nostalgia of our youth with these cans of

They're so awesome. You know what? This would hit real good driving around in the El Camino in the summertime. Yeah. With those down, dew in hand. Yeah. They really did crush it. Like, when you walk down a grocery store aisle, it's like, that's what I want. I want this. I want the citrusy...

Delicious kick of Mountain Dew. Nothing goes better with golfing, with hanging with your friends, than the refreshing citrusy kick of Mountain Dew. So grab a Dew in the new packaging and enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew today. We love Mountain Dew. Thank you to Mountain Dew. We appreciate you, Mountain Dew. All right, back to Kirk Goldsberry.

Yeah. You also mentioned Pop, and Pop's been in the news. He's taking on a front office role. El Jefe is what he's calling himself. El Jefe. I like that name. It's a great name. And I like the press conference, too. We just turned around. He's rocking the shirt that says El Jefe, and Manu's all excited to be the special assistant to El Jefe.

So you worked with Pop for a while. I don't know what your guys' relationship was, but we talked a little bit about Pop on Monday as part of my take. You got any good Pop stories? Yeah, I got two. I'll do a basketball one first that involves James Harden. The 2017 playoffs, we were playing the second round against the Rockets. They were incredible, like peak D'Antoni Rockets with Harden.

And one thing I had really sort of done in the scouting report was dive into their three-point shooting fouls. And I told Pop in this memo, I was like, they've drawn 108 three-point shooting fouls this season, Harden and Lou Williams at the time or something. And I said, you know, they're scoring 11 points a game in the first round against the Thunder on these three-point shooting fouls. You know, you get the guy in the air, you jump into them, or you do the rip through. And I was like, we can't give them those. That was my one

analytics, like, let's not let that happen. And right before game one of that series, he, he pulls me over and he had like a glint in his eye. And he's like, Kirk, that's, that's way too many. That's way too many three point shooting fouls. And he kind of winked at me and was like, okay. And I had no idea what the game plan was. And then we come out,

And that's when we were playing pick and roll defense. Our guys had our hands in the air. Do you remember this? Yeah. We were playing defense with our hands up because we,

Pop had said, hey, we're not going to get caught in that whole series. Early in game one, Patty Mills got caught with a three-point shooting foul that he shouldn't have been called for. And that was the only three-point shooting foul the Rockets got that whole season or that whole series. We won in six games. That's the game six where Harden famously didn't show up in Houston. We didn't have Kawhi. But that was a really great moment of watching how Pop looked at a stat

And then devised the defense that nobody had really seen before or since. Watching guys play defense like this, it was a remarkable thing. And I loved that. I loved seeing how he was able to implement that and win a series with that.

Yeah. And that's also like a credit to him. I would assume that working with him, he was open, like the best coaches are open to ideas and they're open to, you know, someone on the staff being like, Hey, just look at this. And they don't say, oh, well I know basketball better than anyone here because he could do that. He could say he knows basketball better than anyone, but instead being like, oh yeah, actually this is a, this is something that we have to, you know, game plan for and be smart about. Yeah. I've had another quick one. So,

Pop is also more than basketball. And in one of our New York road trips, he took us, he came into the team bus. It was like, who wants to go to a play tomorrow? And nobody raised their hand. And I've raised my hand. I was like, I'll go to a play tomorrow.

And so we go to this play, just me and him, and it's Kate Blanchett. And PFT will know this. It's Anton Chekhov's The Present, Chekhov, the Russian playwright. And in the first act, like, I don't know anything about Chekhov, right, except for one thing. And the play is called The Present. And in the middle of the first act, the Kate Blanchett character opens a present that's a pistol.

And I'm like, wait a second. I've listened to enough prestige TV podcasts to know. And I was like, Pop, we had intermission. I was like, dude, I think this is Chekhov's gun. I think this is where this came from. I don't want to spoil anything for you, Pop, but I think we're going to see this gun again in the third act.

And sure enough, it happened. And he had never heard of Chekhov's gun. So I remember. But that's a great example. Pop loved Russian. He loves plays. He always he's just a culture guy. And he always wants people in basketball, which is very rare in the NBA. Very few NBA teams do stuff like that. And he was always really passionate.

about taking us out to museums or having great speakers come in or taking us to theater or having musicians come through. And that was just a really cool thing for him to do. He didn't have to do any of that. Yeah, it's very cool. My NBA equivalent of Chekhov's gun is when Draymond hits two consecutive threes to start a game when he's feeling himself.

Yeah, or Russ. Even Russ. With Dre, it's more like if he hits two threes right off the start, he's going to get a tech at some point in that game. Because he's feeling himself. Westbrook's gone. Yeah, Westbrook hits two and you're going to see six more. Yeah. Yeah. Also, we were just saying it. Russell Westbrook has been awesome for the Nuggets this postseason. Like, they don't...

some of these games, they do not win without him. And I know that we joke about him because he is funny to watch and he does have moments where he just becomes like, Hey, I got this. Yeah. But he's been playing great team basketball. And even we were, we were breaking down that, that past Aaron Gordon, like,

there's a world where Russell Westbrook says we're down one. It's two on I'm one on two. I'm going to go to the rack and be Russell Westbrook. And he made the smart basketball decision, dude. I don't know. It means if memes had, have you guys seen the, the clip of the studio crew from Denver watching that last play as it happened live? Oh, you got to clip this and show this.

Christian Brown gets that rebound. He's racing up the right side and he makes the right play. He finds Westbrook right at the mid-court line. And the Denver house or these guys watching from the desk in the studio show are like, no, no, no, no. As soon as Westbrook gets the ball and they're watching it in real time. And then to your point, Big Cat, Westbrook doesn't do what we've seen him do a hundred times.

He makes the beautiful pass. And this guy is one of the great passers of this generation. Finds Aaron Gordon on the exact opposite side of the court. The defense is turned around. Gives Aaron enough time to knock down one of the biggest shots of the Nuggets postseason. Maybe not even the biggest one. But just a remarkable play. But I thought it captured that exact transformation of Westbrook when he plays within the guardrails, guys. He is a phenomenal player.

bench player but there is a roller coaster you sign up for when you have him on your team yes it's very fun to watch him from afar we should do a Mount Rushmore by the way this summer of the Mount Rushmore of guys that you love to watch but hate having on your team yeah it's or just the no no no yes guys yeah or just whenever something happens you're just like no no no no yes that's all

One thing that we're really good at, Kirk, is after the first game of a series, we just say that what happened in that first game is going to keep happening. So we've been talking about how great the Nuggets are, and they do deserve a lot of credit for fighting back, but can we just pretend, let's just pretend that Aaron Gordon's three didn't go in and the Thunder won.

Or if they just played defense and didn't foul. Yeah, either way. So regardless of how they ended up winning by, like, let's say two points, what would we be saying about the Thunder? And would we be saying, like, the Nuggets are going to have to make some adjustments if they want to stop them? You know, I would still have been a red flag with that game, honestly.

The rebounding differential, Detroit coming in on fumes after a seven-game series, still coming in there, these young teams just waiting around. The fact that in your hypothetical, PFT, they've still been a very close game, I think I would have been surprised by that. They wouldn't have covered the spread. They had a shot to win. So I think it would have still looked bad. And again, they did not take it to the paint.

Shea needs to attack more. This dude was put on earth to drive the basketball and not settle for pull-ups. And I think he needs to be more aggressive and really attack the weakness of this Denver team. So I'm with you. It's a make-or-miss league. That shot could have gone either way and narratives would have changed. But Denver played pretty well last night, especially when you consider –

They were playing less than 48 hours before in a game seven. Yeah. In a different state. Yeah. I had a scheduled loss for the Nuggets and I was way wrong. Cause I was just, I mean, they, and that also is like the, the thunder as a young team. I was, I was actually weirdly more shocked by the Celtics not being able to put away the Knicks because like a young team, this will happen where it's like, Hey, you're up 10 all game. Like the kill shot has to come. Cause you just can't let teams hang around, especially like the Nuggets and,

And when the kill shot doesn't come, this is what you roll the dice of. Like, we could have a couple things go wrong in the last minute, and here we are, down 0-1. Yeah, and these are champions. The Denver Nuggets are champions. And playing that fouling up three game, and I know you guys already talked about it, but one thing I haven't heard is you've got to make your free throws. You've got to trust your young guys in these big moments. If you're going to play that game, champion.

Chet Holmgren, you better have a lot of faith in Chet Holmgren to make those two, at least one of two, and he missed both of them. So I think the coach, I keep zeroing in on the coach. He doesn't have enough playoff experience, Dagnall. I think he has some regrets about how he played out the end of that chess game last night, and they need to be better up and down the roster, but also on that coaching staff. All right, other series we've got to talk about.

I know we're taping this Tuesday afternoon around 3 o'clock, so we don't know what happens game two. Cavs Pacers, though. I've been a big fan of the Pacers these playoffs because I just think they're very fun to watch. They have five guys. I mean, they have more than five guys, but they have...

Everyone scores. I feel like they get open shots. Halliburton drives create so much space for everyone. Is there a chance the Pacers can win this series against Cavs? And what is the fix that the Cavs have to do? Because it felt like the Pacers sped them up even more in game one, and that made the Cavs pretty uncomfortable. Yeah.

I thought when people thought this was going to be an easy series for the Cavs, they were out of their mind. Indiana made the semifinals last year, you know, conference finals, and they're better this year. And Tyrese Halliburton is better.

And I think Big Cat Cleveland is the team that is banged up right now. Darius Garland is hurt. Evan Mobley is hurt. DeAndre Hunter dislocated his thumb like this is not a good time. And I have a nominee for the 2025 take ease if you guys will accept the external nomination.

The three days after the playoffs started, the Athletic released their annual player poll. And in this player poll, 90 anonymous NBA players were asked, who is the most overrated player in the NBA right now? And they said Tyrese Halliburton. And that take is aging.

Very poorly. Very poorly. They are five and one in the playoffs. He isolated Giannis Antetokounmpo multiple times in the deciding moments of that series and took him to the rack. He leads the playoffs and assists at 12, just two turnovers there.

His passes, when they find shooters, suddenly everybody turns into Klay Thompson because he's creating incredible looks for guys like Andrew Nembhard, Neesmith, Siakam, Miles Turner. He is just the best. He's like a Steve Nash level orchestrator right now. And like Steve Nash, the defense isn't great, hand up, but...

This dude isn't the most overrated player in the NBA. That is a terrible take. And in fact, that might go so far as to say he might be the most underrated player in these NBA playoffs. I think he's just... I think he's a little goofy. And that's what... And like people...

It's a weird thing, but guys that smile too much, guys that maybe talk a little shit but in a goofy way, people just don't like that. And his shooting numbers aren't out of this world, but what he does passing the basketball is insane, and it's just...

he's fun to watch. Hey, he can go by. I feel like you can go by anyone. He's 25 and he's three wins away from bringing his team is clearly the best player on the team to the conference finals two years in a row. That's, that's not normal. Like when Jason Tatum was doing that, we're like, Oh my God, this guy's incredible. And he is, he was. Um, but if they win this series and like I said, I think it's about a coin toss right now in part because of the injuries in Cleveland in part because of those injuries. Um,

And if they win this, look, Tyrese Halliburton deserves some flowers. He deserves some of those media cycles where we're like, he's 20, like the Luka Doncic stuff. Like when Luka was like, oh, the, the,

Tyrese is having this offense play very well. And I think Cleveland should be a little bit worried. If any of the teams that lost game one should be pretty worried, I think it's Cleveland. And if they win this series, they should let his dad back. Banning him for the entire postseason, that's too much. Like a two-game ban, I get it. Maybe all the home games this round, I get that. But are you telling me if you get to the NBA Finals, you're not going to let his dad back in the arena?

Could they like put him in a straight jacket or something? Yeah. Tie him to a chair. Yeah. And then also the one knock I'll have against Tyrese Halliburton is that he didn't have his dad's back enough. I know that you had to say like, yeah, okay, dad, you shouldn't do that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I would have liked to see the guy stand up for his dad a little bit. My pops was wrong. He said that. Yeah. You know, in all seriousness, I think he handled that about as well as possible. That's a pretty awkward situation. Yeah.

Very awkward. Yeah. Like also his dad was wildly inappropriate. Your son just won. It reminded me when Angel Reese did this. I don't want to get political. When Angel Reese won the national title in her first instance to talk trash to Caleb, like, go hug your teammates, dude. Right. You're making the story about something else.

Like your dad stole the story of the first round, their win by going on the court and being crazy. I agree entirely. I think it was like way, way out of line. It would just have been cool to see Tyrese be like, yeah, that's my dad though. You know, I can't say anything bad about my dad.

Yeah. Yeah, I see that. You're a real patriarchy guy. I see that. I am. George Bush invaded Iraq because of his dad. That's true. He loved Halliburton. That's facts. That's facts. Look it up. That's all facts. Next up on Pardon My Freud. I think you're, what, you have a perfect record in terms of picking NBA champions on this show, right? Yeah, I don't like to do victory laps like Schrager. I think he's done this for a long time.

But, yeah, I picked the NBA finals correctly for as long as I can remember, PFT, on your show. Okay, so who do you have right now?

I'm sticking with the Boston Celtics, uh, bing bong hanky. Uh, I still support the Celtics and you know, I'm sticking with the, with the thunder and I'm a little bit nervous today. It was a safe pick all year. And you know what? I'm happy to be nervous. PFT. I'm happy to be nervous. Cause it was like, I didn't want both of these teams to just plow through the bracket and end up there. And now there's some, there's some adversity for both of these teams for game two, but dude, these teams both deserve credit. Boston Celtics,

It's just the most dominant team when they're healthy, and they're healthy right now. Drew's back. And then OKC, I mean, they won 68 games. What can you say? It's a juggernaut. Best defense we've seen in a while. Love the hat, by the way, Kirk. Looks great. Hank just chimed in. He said he loves that. All right, so off of that, I got one last question, the rowback question. Actually, we got to talk about your ass.

at your Atlas balls to roll back question. RHO BACK.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. You should go right now and buy perfect for Father's Day or Mother's Day. The golden hexagon.com you made an Atlas basketball, which is pretty damn sick. So what is on this?

It's a spherical map of the world. And this is the first edition. I sent one to PFT for his birthday. Oh, thanks for sending it for mine, too. Our birthdays are pretty far apart. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Yeah. But this is the first edition and the breaking news that I'm happy to announce. This is the Atlas ball. The Kyrie ball is coming now. So I have made one as a tribute to Kyrie Irving and globe basketball for sort of a get well soon sediment to one of the great point guards. But yeah,

you know, Kyrie's a big fan of spherical geography and so am I. And what better way to celebrate that as a basketball lover than a decoration for your office, big cat, that is actually a basketball and a globe at the same time. You can,

have the whole wide world in your hands. I love it. It is really cool. I've got it in my office at home. It's also a good Father's Day present if you're looking to get something for Dad. Or a birthday present if you were looking to get it for someone's birthday. Or a Mother's Day present. Yeah, that's true. You brought up Wilt earlier today. Do you think that Wilt actually scored 100 points in a game?

Wait, 10,000 or 100? Which record is most untouchable? The 100. I'd say the 100. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do. I think there would have been a lot of truthers come out of the woodwork if he hadn't. Guys who were playing in the game, for instance, his opponents. Like I was talking to Chris Bosh and Matt Bonner a few weeks ago about when Kobe scored 81. That's like a great story for them to tell because they were on the Raptors. And, you know, it's kind of a cool story. It's humiliating at the time, but.

I think those guys would have been like, yo, this was all, this wasn't true. I don't think there was a bunch of fake news on that one. Yeah. I feel like that's one of those stories that it's, it's fun to pretend that it's not true, but it's probably like very true. Yeah. Yeah. I'd agree. Yeah. Yeah. Did Kobe score 81 though? PFT. What do you think about that? I don't know. It was in, it was in standard definition.

So it could have been the clone. I think that was HD still. What year was that? 2011, 12? My TV was standard. All right, so my last question. So Celtics Thunder is your finals.

Tell me what would have to happen for all the other teams. Like you could just be one line. Um, it could be as easy as like, Hey, Jokic is just Jokic. But what would have to happen if we're sitting here two months from now and we've just crowned one of the other six teams that are not the Thunder Celtics, uh,

Yeah, I think it would have to start in the West with what you brought up earlier. Somebody not stepping up for the Thunder, like J-Dub or Chet. And Chet looked like he shrank in the moment. I'm not going to hold it against one game. But that did not look good with those free throws in that moment. So if they continue to get sort of big misses from their supporting cast, I could totally see the West...

which is so brutal and so unforgiving. You can't have a lot of flaws on your roster and win the Western Conference in this league. So I think, you know, OKC's supporting cast needs to fail them. And I'll leave that on the table. I don't think that will happen. But then in the East...

We saw it a little bit there too. Like the Celtics need to break down with the three-point shot. They need to not have the diversity in offense and find solutions. Ultimately, I think Boston has a much easier path to the finals than OKC. If I had to pick one of these teams to not get there, it would be OKC at this point. Who would be next up in the West if it wasn't OKC? Timberwolves are – all of those teams look good. Yeah.

Yeah, I think Denver and Minnesota, who have history, are both looking good. And obviously Golden State has won the Western Conference, I think, six of the last ten times. Like, there's some big players on that side of the bracket. But just for the sake of the take, I'm going to take Jokic. I mean, dude, he had one of the best seasons we've ever seen. He was incredible down the stretch last night in a game that will always be remembered for Aaron Gordon's incredible shot.

Jokic scored 18 points in the fourth quarter and was the best player on both ends of the court, getting every rebound. Um, and if he keeps that up, dude, you could see that this league has seen big men run through the playoffs for decades. So I could see a path where he sort of throws back to the future and it's just a dominant big man dragging his team through the playoffs. I would love that. Yeah, that would be very fun. Uh,

Who do you think? A big cat. I know you're a big hoops guy. You haven't had any of your takes. Where's your bet at right now? I do agree that the Celtics are going to be in the finals from the East because I just think they're better. Listen, I've been talking up the Pacers. They're dangerous, but yeah, I think the Celtics will be there. And then, oh man, I keep going back to it. All right, tell me this. Is it crazy? It feels like I really like the Timberwolves is my short answer.

My concern is it does feel like whenever the Warriors and Rudy Gobert go up against each other, Steph Curry's found a way to play him off the court in a way where it's like you get a lot of switches and you can't guard Steph in space. Is that a real concern for the Timberwolves? Or is it because the Warriors don't have as many guys now, it's not as much of a concern that the Timberwolves can counteract that a little bit?

Yeah, I think that's a great, great question. I think Chris Finch has found ways to keep Rudy in games and get away with drop coverage in places that some of the other teams haven't, that Rudy's been on. But...

Yeah, I think it's also fair to say, like you said, this is not the 2022 Warriors or the 2017 Warriors. This is not Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry in their primes like Pajemski, Buddy Heald, Gary Payton. This is not exactly the 27 Yankees of jump shooting.

Like we saw from this other previous Warriors era. So I have the Timberwolves winning this series simply because the offensive depth isn't, A, good enough to outscore the Timberwolves, but I also don't think they'll be able to play –

go bear off the court like that. Yeah. Okay. All right. So yeah, I guess my pick would then be the Timberwolves. Yeah. And it would be really cool. Like we, last time I was on here, we were talking about how American superstars are washed and we need to put tariffs on international basketball players. And I think,

Anthony Edwards could make America great again as a basketball player. Yes, he could. He absolutely could. All right, Kirk, you're the best man. We appreciate you as always. And everyone go buy a Father's Day gift or a Mother's Day gift at thegoldenhexagon.com. Or just a gift for yourself. Podcaster's gift, yeah. It is a very cool globe. Hank, Barcelona just scored. It still says Gulf of Mexico. So the updated version, we'll have to change that. But I appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me on.

It's the creamy chili McCrispy. It's the creamy chili McCrispy.

It is an elite sauce and these are great strips. We brought them in for an ad the other day, had to take a bite of it, took my bite, finished the ad, then memes was like, hey, I can go ahead and take these McChrispy strips away from you now. I said, no memes, I want to finish them, they're delicious. And that sauce also pairs well with just about anything else on the menu. And you can dip the McChrispy strips in any of the McDonald's other sauces and it's all good.

New McCrispy strips with a creamy chili McCrispy strip dip. It's chicken made for dipping, and it's only at McDonald's. Kirk Goldsberry was also brought to you by Nutrafol. To be honest, going to the barber can be a hassle. I love talking to the guy, but it's another errand to run after a long week. But the upside is I still have enough hair to need a cut.

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He just called me. Hey, you were calling me. Everything okay? Yeah, Hank's ear popped. You're kidding me. So it wasn't your yelling. What a... You know, I gotta tell you, I felt such... I felt bad, actually. Yeah, yeah. Hank was playing the victim. I hung up the phone and...

I'm sorry to use rude words, but I was like, what a fucking pussy. Like, I never screamed in his ear. And then I was like, oh, God, maybe I did, like, hurt his ear. Maybe he's got delicate ears. It fucking popped. I knew it. Yeah. What a chicken shit. Yeah. Yeah. He's sitting right here.

I'm sorry, Hank. Like for you to blame me because you don't use a fucking ear code or put a Q-tip in there once every now and then. Max. Max. All right. That was it, Jerry. I just want to let you know you're off the hook. Jerry, I had a question for you. I know that Max wouldn't apologize to you for, for flipping out about the white house thing. Do you think that Hank owes you an apology? Does Hank owe you an apology? Nobody owes me an apology. Um,

I love how Max from Hawaii is trying to jump in on this thing. And it's like, dude, no, stop. We'll go on your vacation. Yeah. Get out of, get out of our business. Yeah, exactly. Last night on X, he was like, he was like hitting me with notifications. And I was like, dude, you got to jump into the fire. Like, get out of here, dude. Yeah. Go to a, go to a luau or something, man. Yeah. All right, Jerry. Thanks for all you do. One more thing. Um,

Yeah. Yeah. But hey, you hit it with the thanks for all that you do. Really, really kind of, you can't get mad about that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. All right. Great. All right, Jerry. We'll talk to you later. Thanks. You did yell in my ear, but that's all right. All right. All right. See you, Jerry. All right. Bye. All right. FAQs.

So you want to apologize to him? No, fuck no. If he admitted he yelled in my ear, I would consider it. But if he's going to lie, I'm not going to apologize. Loki kind of credit to Hank for admitting that his hearing's back. Yeah. And that it was just the plane that set it up because Hank probably... Oh, my God. They scored. Inter just scored. Now they're going to park the bus. But yeah, credit to Hank because he could have just played this along and said, yeah, my hearing's still gone. And then that way he doesn't have to listen to anything that we tell him.

But instead he raised his hand and said, hey, you know what? I'm okay now. So thank you for that, Hank. Hank is in a bad spot right now. How do you not win this game when you're up? When did they underscore their last goal? Two minutes left. Overtime or whatever the fuck. Extra time. Added time. All right. You just fucking live and die with the team all year for them to do this. I know. I'm sorry. Tortured fan base. Barcelona. Prayers up.

Hey, Big Cat, Patrick, Max, memes, and the guy reading this. Hank, can you start over with a little bit more zest? No. A lot of athletes have pregame routines or meals before performing on the big stage. With you guys running the best national sports podcast, I was wondering if there are any pre-podcast routines or snacks you have before airing the podcast. Today is the day, memes. That lottery ball is yours. Memes did win the lottery ball.

Kind of. Yeah, I mean, the Islanders. He didn't do it. The Islanders did. The team you roots for did. Did they use balls for that? It was a whole, yeah. What was the question again? Pre-game routine. Pre-game routines or snacks. Yeah, I mean, on Sundays I would say we probably do. Yeah, food. Meme sends the food question mark text around 5 o'clock. That's kind of like the old...

Like it's the bell for everyone to go to the town square. All right, get to the office. Meme sent the food, question mark text. The podcast is nigh. Yeah, we're on the precipice of podcasting. I like to have big cats slap my face like John Henderson in the locker room before a game. Yeah. Really get the blood going. Usually we just kind of figure out what kind of mood Hank's in before so we can...

I mean, the real answer is me and Big Cat like to pick somebody to gang up on. Yeah. It's usually Hank because he's sitting right here. Yeah. Just get riffing on somebody. Just really lay into them. It's almost like we're doing the tennis, you know, volleying back and forth, warming up. We're just doing that on someone's face. Yeah. Right on his face. Sorry, Hank. I know this is a big bet. It's more just, you know. Barcelona. Yeah. Bartholona. How could you? Bartholona.

Are there any questions you really want to ask a certain guest that you haven't gotten the chance to ask it? Ooh, that's a good question. Like any recurring guests that we've had on that we didn't ask the big question to? What memes? You got one. No, you guys have to have some regret. No, I know. I'm just trying to think it on the fly. Like a specific guest that we've had that we've really been like, oh, fuck, we blew it by not asking this person. Probably should ask Carl Malone what happened with all that stuff. Yeah, that's fair.

That's fair. That one probably. That was a basketball decision. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think, though. Is there one where I've walked away been like, damn, I wish I'd asked that. Like, damn, we fucking missed that question. I don't know, man. Can you guys think of one, Hank? Memes? Memes probably would be able to think of one before us. But usually it's probably like, man, they fucking blew it. Dance around almost. I mean, there's obviously someone has something that.

you know like a crime they committed when they were a kid or something we're not gonna bring it up and embarrass them you know what i mean like there's not shit like that oh yeah like if like there was uh some kid that was outside and they got into a fight with them and then there's a whole hate crime section of the wikipedia yeah yeah yeah somebody like that wait who is that again it's not you oh wait oh it's not you it's not you it's not you it's not you

Wait a second. Who is that? Yeah, okay. So there's some... Hey, listen. We're not journalists. I'll be the first to admit. There are definitely times we've done interviews where people are like, how did you not ask that? How did you not ask that? Dude, we're trying to fucking just have a good time. Sorry. If you want journalism, go listen to The Daily. Hand up. We didn't ask Fauci about the Wuhan lab. Yeah, we should have. We should have snuffed that one out. Yep. That's on us. Bad instincts. Big mistake. Big mistake. All right.

Hank, it's dead. They're going to park the bus. What the man's... It means they're going to put every player in front of the goal and there's no chance they're going to score. Why didn't we do that? Well, because we weren't winning. We were winning. Yeah, good point. Yeah, we're winning. Um, last one. Oh, no. Can we find out a little more about how Max, me, Shane, and Pug got involved with the podcast and how Big Cat and PFT's first interactions with them were? Hmm. Hmm. Okay. So with Max...

Max came on after Bubba Post Bubba He worked in the office for what a year or two? Yeah I mean I was technically his boss He worked on stool streams and other stuff with me I did know that Max was The two things I knew about Max Before he Cause like I don't think we really interacted much Was that

Philly, and he had a rivalry with Hank. Like, swear to God, I knew that Hank and him, like, didn't... They had a playful thing with each other. Yeah, like, I was technically his boss, but obviously this was... I think it was, like, even the confetti, when the Sixers confetti thing happened, and, like, I would go up to his desk and basically do what we do on the show, and he would still, after, you know, some prodding, would just...

eventually stand up, start screaming at me and like, yeah, I would do a show once a week with him with the hard factor guys. And the only thing I really picked up about Max was he really likes to touch his testicles a lot when he's nervous. And I was like, what's up with it? Why is he always grabbing at his balls? Cause it was like every week. And I'm glad to see that he hasn't stopped with that. I also love the fact that he's not here to defend himself, but he would probably admit to that.

Yeah, he absolutely went to that. Memes tweeted us so many times that we had to hire him because we were like, this guy might kill us. No, the PMT memes account was great. I just remember DMing him, asking where he lived, and then just praying. I think, I don't even know if it's legal to ask, but I was like, how old are you? Yeah. And I was like, if he's older than me, that's a problem. Yeah, no, memes. Is that what you led with? No, I was like, where do you live? He's like, Long Island. And then I was like,

How old are you, I think? Do you want an internship? Yeah, memes is a good test case of, like, a lot of people obviously would love to work at Barstool and be involved in this and will be like, oh, I want to work here. Like, here's my resume. Or, oh, I want to work here. Watch me tweet, like, a few things, like, every couple weeks. Memes was just committed to the game. You could see his work ethic from day one. Yeah.

Shane and Pug, I think a stork dropped him off. I don't fucking remember. Yeah, Shane's AI. Shane just was here one day. Love him. You see my Pope bobblehead? See my Pope bobblehead, Shane? He's fucking sick. Wait. Oh. That's a great bobblehead. That's a great bobblehead. Yeah, I don't remember. They're just like traditional. Yeah, they were traditional hires. So it was just like one day they were here. It's like, oh, cool. Nice.

And that was it. Do you remember your first interaction with everybody? With Shane? I think I... No. I think I heard a rumor that he had never had McDonald's before.

And so I asked him about that. I was like, what was it like having your first McDonald's? Must have blown your mind. Like your first tomato. I think you're just sitting in the studio and I introduced myself to you. Yeah, I don't remember. Do you remember? I do. It was you guys recording the Thanksgiving episode of Advisors, I think. And Hank brought me in just like show me around and I introduced myself. Okay. Yeah. What about you, Pug? Yeah, I was just like normal hire and I was.

I walked into the studio, nervous as fuck, introduced myself. And that was it. Yeah, now we're cool. Yeah. And then Jack, I'm still waiting to meet Jack. Because he's like over a thousand on introductions to me. So we're waiting for our first formal introduction. You're still waiting to meet me? Yeah. I mean, you just whiffed every time. So we're going to try. Try to do that. Yeah. We can plan for it in the future. I like you, Jack.

Jack wiper. Wipe. It was just that one time when Jack said, what did you say to me? It was uncomfortable. It was just like, how's your morning going at like 11 a.m.? I think it was at like 9.30. No, it was a little later than that. And it also was weird to be like, just how's your morning going? I was like, what did you just do, dude? It was very like corporate America.

Nice guy. Yeah. Nice guy. You're a nice guy. Jack, real quick. Sean Moore, self-imposed two-game penalty suspension, and then also your president left. Is this weird to you? It's a little weird. Okay. Do you have a president right now? No, we don't. We might have an interim, but... Okay. Yeah, it seems like everyone's kind of running away. Would that be fair to say? Yeah. What are they running away from?

Beats me. Okay. You didn't see anything. Yeah, exactly. All right. That's our Michigan man, Jack. All right. Good show, boys. No, Max isn't back till Monday, Sunday. What has he been doing in Hawaii? Tweeting at us. He misses us so much more than we do. He feels like he's got big time FOMO. Big time. Big time. Okay. Numbers. Three.

That was a long pause, memes. I didn't even go for it there. What was the last number you guessed, memes? 44. 44. 13 is what the Islanders got, so open. We go twofer. Okay. 99 book. What's wrong, Hank? 58. Bartha? Bartha? We had it. We did. Bartha. 21. Jack, did you say something? Did you say your number? 58. Hank, are you going to say a number? I said five. You said five? Oh, man, he's so down. Hank, come on, man. There we go.

It'll be okay. On 13. Seven. Love you guys. One day.