NFL Draft With Daniel Jeremiah, Timberwolves HC Chris Finch, Playoffs Are Here And We Have A Thunder Fan Refusing To Wear The Shirt
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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 Pardon My Take, we have two great interviews for the people. We have Daniel Jeremiah. It is draft week. We always have DJ on. We're going to have McShay on later this week, breaking down the drafts.

who he thinks is going to go in the top 10, some late picks that could be good, overall thoughts on the draft. A crazy, crazy take that now I'm actually coming around on on Travis Hunter. Yeah, so yeah, a shocking one. So really good stuff there. And then we also have Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch,

We taped it on Friday, so we knew there was going to be a game one in between. We told him, hey, coach, try to win game one so this is not awkward. And guess what? He went out and won game one for us. We're going to talk about the playoffs. We've got them. We finally kicked off all the playoffs in the NBA and the NHL. We're going to do who's back of the week.

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Okay, let's go. A.W.A. Get on my tape.

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It's playoff season. The Caps didn't have a game, which was bullshit. Yeah, that's tonight. Very excited to watch the Caps in the playoffs. Nothing like having a team in playoff hockey. It's a lot of fun to look forward to. And then every single second that you watch it, if you don't have at least a two-goal lead, you're just shitting yourself. I'm pumped to see maybe Y5 versus Willie.

Chuck in some Knucks. Yeah. That should be a good matchup. I was pissed, though, for you because the first, I don't know why the NHL did it this way this year. Maybe it was last year, too. But I always love the first weekend of playoffs because it's like, all right, we got eight hockey games on Saturday or eight hockey and basketball games Saturday, eight hockey basketball games Sunday. It's going to be wall to wall. It felt great to have just, you know, noon comes around on Saturday. Yeah, I'm going to watch some playoff basketball. This truly is sports season.

Yeah. This is sports season. NFL season is football season because it's got NFL, college football. It's great. Your weekends are pretty booked. But this is just sports. It's sports everywhere. My favorite week of the year. Meaningful sports all the time. It is your favorite week of the year. We also have WrestleMania going on right now that we're going to comment on at the end. We have it live in the studio. So we're watching Cody Rhodes versus John Cena. I know that a lot of people come to this podcast for our wrestling takes. Yep. Well, I mean, I'm going to comment on it if Cody Rhodes wins. Yeah. And if he doesn't.

It was rigged. Yeah, I can't see the person that beat him. Scripted. Where is this one? It's in Vegas. Okay, the Vegas Screwjob. Yeah. Max, can we make sure the TV is set up? Because I'm sure at some point we're going to need a clip from you or something. And maybe also we're going to have to sim the lottery. We're going to need to sim the draft. We're going to have to sim the draft at some point. Yeah, no, I'm pumped to watch the Caps and Playoffs. I do think that this might be our year. And the issue is we don't really have...

A goaltender? We've got two goaltenders and neither one. You have to pick which one is going to get hot at the right time. Have you thought about playing them both at the same time? Well, I think that we should employ, if we get a one-goal lead, employ the pile. Yeah. The stack where you just lay on top of everybody else in the crease. Memes is coming in. Memes has two looks. Are either Luka Doncic or I'm going to break and enter your home. This is wet bandit memes. Yeah. He really, like, I don't know what's...

what's with, what are you trying to look like someone who's going to come rob us?

He's got the one pant leg up. Yeah. He's got drugs on him. That could be a gang thing. It could be. Are you wearing a Bulls jersey? Are you part of MS-13? No. Matt, I just have a... Okay. All right. Let's talk some playoffs. Let's talk some ball. Let's just go through it chronologically because we had eight NBA games, five hockey games, six hockey games. I can't remember how many hockey games we had. But let's start with the Pacers and Bucs. First tip off on Saturday.

I had a take that I wanted to just rip off right away. I think that you shouldn't wear your alternate jerseys, especially like I think those are the city version for the Pacers in the playoffs because someday you will look back and if like the Pacers go to the NBA finals and they have a historic run in 20 years from now, you're like, man, I wish they were wearing the old school like pinstripes or looking like the Pacers, not whatever the hell they looked like on.

Saturday with the paint splatter too at the baseline. It was weird. If Reggie Miller had been wearing those when he scored all those points against the Knicks, nobody would even think it was that impressive. Yeah. Be like, what is this, an exhibition game? Yeah. That is perfect for the play-in tournament. Yeah, exactly. It's a play-in tournament. Wear it for that. Maybe wear it for the in-season tournament too. Yeah. The NBA Cup. Not a playoff uniform. I agree. I don't want to overreact to Game 1's

I think the Bucks are in a lot of trouble. I think the Pacers are really good and I'm going to throw out. He's coming back though. Yeah. Game is coming back. He got in a little, uh, he actually was wearing a great sweater. He got into a, a jawing match with, uh, Tyrese Halliburton towards the end of the game. Uh,

Pascal Siakam needs more respect. Okay. He's so good. All right. And he's also like consistently so good. Yeah, I know. Like he's consistently so good, but he's not flashy. He's not flashy. He's kind of a little bit of a throwback, and he's also not a number. He's not a number one. He doesn't have a pretty game. Right. But he's so good. Yeah. And he's so efficient. He's effective. And I feel like the reason why the Bucs could be in a lot of trouble is Giannis still got all his stats. Yeah.

Halliburton was not good shooting, and they still blew him out, and it was never really close. And Halliburton obviously does more than shooting because he had a bunch of assists, and he can control the games in other ways. But I think that's probably a bad sign for the Bucs going forward. I got to put my hand up and say I don't, at least during the regular season, pay that much attention to what Tyrese Halliburton has going on. But every time he does pop up, it's because somebody's clowning him.

Yeah. Does he lead the league in getting clowned in terms of, like, the upper echelon players? I think he is one of those guys that maybe gets picked on a little bit. He also likes to talk shit when he's up. And he doesn't really play defense. Yeah, but he's a very, very good player. And like I said, he didn't shoot well. He's not a bad shooter. He's not known for, like, being an incredible shooter. But once he... Like, if you win a game by 20...

Plus, and I think it was 19. And Tyrese Halliburton shoots three for 13. It feels like the Pacers might have more to go up. I know Dame's coming back. Yeah. This Bucs team kind of bums me out because Giannis is so good. And did you guys see Kyle Kuzma? He dropped 22 minutes, 0.0 rebounds, 0 assists, 2 fouls.

That is so hard to do in a playoff game. In a regular season game, I could see it happening. In a playoff game, that is really, really hard to not have a single statistic. Like a rebound bounce your way. You happen to pass to someone and they score. Especially a guy like Kuzma.

Who has no problem just chucking it. Hank, did you see there was a meme going around? I guess it was from a Laker fan account. They had a draft grade after the Tatum draft. Yes, yes. And it had player ratings. No, this was on ESPN, I think. Oh, it was? Yes, this was on ESPN. And it was upside, and everything...

Everything was either Kyle Kuzma tied with Tatum or Kyle Kuzma beating Tatum. Yeah. It was crazy. Think about it. I'm going to try to find it right now. But yeah, 22 minutes, 0.0 rebounds, 0 assists. That's really hard to do. I could do it. I might be able to get an assist. Yeah, I mean, I would probably have more than two fouls. I would just pass the ball to Giannis.

Right. It's pretty simple. Pass the ball to Giannis when he's got a full head of steam. Yeah, just throw the ball up in the air. Let Giannis catch it in the paint. It wasn't the experience. Lakers insider 16, but it was. But this goes around all the time. Let's talk about it. All right, so shooting, Kuzma was better than Tatum. Okay. Passing, they were the same.

Defense Kuzma was better. Potential Kuzma was better. Potential. Yeah, I like that. When you think about it, Jason Tatum is the Jalen Hurts of Kyle Kuzma. Wait, break that down for me. That hurt my brain. Jason Tatum is the Jalen Hurts of Kyle Kuzma. I don't get it. Just a little bit more put together. Jalen Hurts. Okay. I think I get it. He's like a cleaned up. Well, no, he's way more than a cleaned up Kyle Kuzma. Yeah, cleaned up.

Jalen Hurts plays way better in championships. Oh, that's a good point. Both of them? Yeah. That's a good point, Max. Jason Tatum had great stats in the finals last year. It's crazy that people pretend like he doesn't. He didn't beat Patrick Mahomes. He did not beat Patrick Mahomes. He did not. I don't think he could. Just like Shohei doesn't have a Heisman.

until Jason Tatum beats Patrick Mahomes, can you actually say he's good? Did you see Shohei when he was doing this weekend? He had a baby, right? Oh, not that. The more impressive thing, I thought, he filled up cups of water for all his teammates. Oh, I did see that. He went over to the water cooler and he poured like eight cups of water and took them to all his teammates. None for him. Great dude. Great guy. Great dude. Yeah, I feel like the Bucs are just kind of a bummer now because I like Giannis. I've never not liked Giannis and it's just...

He doesn't really seem to have much help at all. We'll see what happens when Dame gets back, but it does feel like this is, it's the last gasp of the Dame experiment. Yeah. And, and maybe Yannis in, in, uh, Milwaukee. Mm-hmm. Uh,

Yeah, probably. He might ask out. I don't know. I don't want him to. I also do feel bad. I don't like the Bucs, but I feel bad for Bucs fans having to deal with the minute Giannis got good. It's literally the prevailing conversation has been, when is he going to ask out? Yeah. Which is bullshit. He wants to play in Miami, right? Right. Yeah. Let Milwaukee enjoy Giannis. Yeah. All right. My favorite game, I think, of the weekend, you guys would agree, Nuggets Clippers. Yeah.

There has never been a more Russell Westbrook game. It was the most Russell Westbrook game possible. The end of that game, the play that Russell Westbrook made was absolutely... With like 10 seconds left? Yeah, but all of them leading up to it. It was insane. He was actually playing like an insane person. He almost gave away the game. Then the announcer was like, yeah, you know, I got to take the good with the bad with Westbrook.

They didn't spend enough time talking about how insane he went on the court. So there was a perfect tweet from Kofi, who I think he's a – is he an NBA guy or a streamer? He's very talented, but he had the perfect tweet. He said, Russell Westbrook truly is the item box for Mario Kart. Yeah. And it's so perfect because this Russell – the best way I could describe it, if you missed this game –

If you watch the last three minutes of Russell Westbrook, Russell Westbrook haters and lovers could both say, I told you so. They literally could, they could literally just point at each other and be like, told you so. This is, this is what Russell Westbrook did to, to end the game. This is like three minutes left. This is a back and forth game. He went office offensive rebound in a putback. Then he missed the layup where he was forcing it on a fast break. Then he made a layup.

Then he bricked an open three. Then he made a three with 24 seconds left to take a two-point lead. And then he had the last shot and he didn't get a shot off. It was literally back and forth. Awesome play, bad play, awesome play, bad play. And also Russell Westbrook, I know that he frustrates people. I love watching Russell Westbrook because he basically is the... If you ever ask, what if someone tried just the absolute hardest...

And like what would happen? That's Russell Westbrook. Cause he's like his offensive rebound. He got, he was getting offensive rebounds. He was out hustling the entire team, but then he was also trying so hard to make plays that weren't there. And then he would actually make a play that was there. And it was just so much fun. What I truly admire about Russell Westbrook is that he has never lost confidence in himself. No. And he's been given every opportunity to lose confidence in himself to just say, fuck this. I quit. It's not going to work out for me.

People are changing my name to Westbrook. Yeah. And he still thinks at any given time he can go nuclear on any given occasion. Like the play at the end where he got the ball, I think there were like 10, 13 seconds left.

All he had to do was just pass the ball out or dribble the ball back out. Jokic passed it to him. It was like maybe seven seconds left. He could have just passed it back to Jokic. Yeah, or just dribbled away from the basket. Correct. Killed some clock. And he was like, you know what? I'm going to jump over three guys and dunk it. Oh, wait. You're talking about the end of overtime. Yeah. Oh, because the end of regulation when he just didn't get a shot off. Yeah, that was crazy. He jumped up and threw it off the thing.

I think that he actually meant to do that, too. I think that in his head, he was like... Well, he got caught jumping off. I think there's a chance that Russell Westbrook thought, you know what the best pump fake is? When you actually leave your feet, and then you throw it off the guy's back, then you get it and shoot it immediately. There's a chance that he thought he could pull that off. But in overtime, when he got the ball, and...

All he had to do was just dribble like five feet backwards, maybe make a pass back to the three-point line, and the game was going to be over. And he was like, I'm going to dunk on everyone right now, and I'm going to show them. And then he did not dunk on anyone. And it was... Yes, but he's so entertaining to watch. It was just... It was pure Russell Westbrook. And...

He was great. James Harden was great. I don't know why. Kawhi felt like he was like he had that. I think in the second quarter, he scored like 12 points in a few minutes. And then I feel like he just kind of disappeared for a little bit. This series is going to rock, though. Yeah, it's going to be great. The Max just pulled up. Russell Westbrook now has the most clutch shots made by a point guard in NBA history ever.

he definitely has the most missed clutch shots too. That's why... Think about it. What other athlete right now can both lovers and haters say, I told you so, and you can say, you're both right. You're both 100% right. That's it. He really is...

So perfect. Because whatever side you pick, you're going to be right. You just got to wait a couple seconds. I love watching him play, and I'm so glad that I don't have to root for him on my team. Yeah. I mean, he made that three to go up two. Anymore, yeah. He made that three to go up two, and it was like, this is the Russell West. He's the hero, and then he doesn't get a shot off at the end of regulation. They should pass him around. I mean, Jameis Winston might be in that same conversation. Jameis is definitely in that conversation. Every team should have the... Every fan base should have the...

It's not even like the privilege of rooting for Russell Westbrook. It's just taking him away from the last team that had to root for him. I think it's a lot more fun to watch Russell Westbrook if you do not have... Yes. If you're not rooting for him on your team or even rooting against him. Yeah, but bad news for the rest of the NBA is Kawhi looks back. Yeah. He's fully back. I feel like he could have asserted himself a little bit more. I mean, they kind of...

The Clippers should have won this game. They absolutely should have won this game. Um, but I think this series is going to go long. It is fun to watch Kawhi when you know that he cares and that he's trying. So, Oh yeah, he is a great dominant player. Yes. He had 22 points. I feel like I might be wrong, but I feel like he had 12 of them in the second quarter. And, uh,

I don't know. I mean, James Harden, this was almost a heroic James Harden game and it is a game one. Yeah. I was going to say, I can't see real good. Uh, that was game one, not game six. Yeah, it was game one. Um,

And Jokic is still the best. Did you guys see that video of Jokic with the little kid? Yeah. That made me cry. Yeah, Ben Simmons on the Clippers is so funny because he's just a nothing. He got a couple rebounds. He is out there in part to try to frustrate Jokic if he can. Yeah. Just push this guy. But that video with the kid and Jokic was absolutely horrible. The kid giving the money straight to his mom.

His mom saying, remember... Jokic just gave him money? What? No, it was like... It was like a shoe deal or something like that. It was like a shoe deal. The guy gave the kid money. He was like my... It was like a little chubby kid with rec specs. He's like, my favorite player is Jokic. I've always wanted to meet him. Guy gives him new Jokic shoes, gives him money. He gives it right to his mom. His mom's like, I'm going to spend this on you. And what do I always tell you? And he's like, be kind to everyone. And I just started fucking get a little...

A little teary-eyed. Then he went to a game and he was like... And Jokic was like, you kind of look like me, which was very funny. And asked Jokic for a hug. And Jokic... Like, Jokic looked happier than he did with the kid than he did when he won the title. Yeah. It was awesome. Can you find the kid? Can you find it, Max, so Hank can see it and get a little teary-eyed? I'll find it. That kid is so... I tweeted it out. He's so pure, so cool. I hope that kid never logs onto the internet. Yeah. Yeah, and fuck anyone who was like, oh, this was staged. Come on, guys. Yeah.

We got to be able to believe in something. Did WrestleMania end without us realizing it? Who won? Cena. Oh, never mind. God damn it. Jokic and Van Gundy fighting for the ball is very funny, too. Oh, my God. I mean, Van Gundy being whatever it is.

30 years later, and he's still... I mean, because obviously everyone was tweeting out him on Alonzo Mourning's leg. Yeah. 30 years later, he's still fighting. Yeah, he held on to that ball. That was one of my favorite highlights of all time, is when he just grabbed onto Zoe's leg and was like, stop, stop fighting. And Zoe was just walking around like nothing was attached to him. Like it was a pair of heavy shoes. Yeah, but yeah, Jokic and JVG just going at it. I feel like the Nuggets, or the Clippers...

You had a couple people helping him. I feel like Jokic gets into these once a playoff. I mean, it was the best when he got into it with the Suns owner. Yeah, Ishbia. Yeah, Ishbia flopped. Yeah, Ishbia did flop. It was maybe on Thursday, Max. It's okay. Hank will find it. Hank will probably think it's fake. Hank will probably think it's rigged. And it's not real. And he'll have some...

I mean, what you said about Lee Corso was disgusting. Seeing it in... Good riddance? Yeah, good riddance. I mean, the Rizzler goes to lots of games. What's the difference? Happy birthday to the Rizzler, by the way. He is risen? Yeah, nine years old. On Easter. Saturday was maybe his birthday. You clearly don't keep up with your Rizzler. I don't keep up. I don't have the Rizzler's birthday in my calendar. Okay. Get a knock on your door for that sort of thing. Next day, or next game, Knicks versus Pistons.

This is... This was... So, I know... And I'm not even going to fight the fight because I understand it's a very small minority of like the NBA playoffs suck. Why would you watch that? Listen, any playoffs, I'm watching. I just am. But having... Going from Russell Westbrook to campaign was so entertaining because this was... This was basically the Pistons' first try at the playoffs as a young core and they were really good for three quarters and...

And as soon as it got to crunch time, it was like, oh, yeah, this is what a hardened team looks like. And campaign and Jalen Brunson going for 17 consecutive points between the two of them. 21-0 run was so awesome. And campaign...

Max, can you believe that just a year ago, like think about how many Knicks fans had to delete their tweets because campaign was the Jalen Brunson agitator last year. And now he and Jalen Brunson are teamed up, you know, being a Knicks legend on his first game as a Knicks legend on the, you know, in a playoff game. That's all you need from campaign is just give you one of these games in a playoff and for him to do it on his first. He's ahead of schedule. Yeah. So is he going off too fast?

You already burned the campaign game? You may have already burned. I don't know how many campaign games you have. She won a series. Yeah. And his shot looks so bad, but it goes in. And yeah, Max, this was a bizarro Sixers game because it was campaign going off and then Tobias Harris having 25 points for the Pistons. Yeah. No, Tobias Harris had his best playoff game ever. Were you like, where did that come from?

It's not easy to play in Philly, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. So I read an article this morning on The Athletic written by Fred Katz, no relation. And he was talking about campaign. And it was like when he first got to the Knicks, Jalen Brunson literally went up to him and was like, I fucking hate you.

but now you're my teammate. And it was very awkward. And then he dropped an anecdote that is so campaign and just so funny. So the anecdote goes this. As a rookie...

campaign didn't appreciate his overall rating in the video game NBA 2K16 a 72 grade ranked 242nd in the NBA so Payne solved the problem himself he created a new player named the new player Cameron Payne moved all the sliders up to 99 the highest rating and played a season that technically had two campaigns refusing to acknowledge the lesser avatar and he said I gotta give myself some love

I love that. It's great. That is exactly what I would do if I was in a sports video game. Slider check. Max all your stats out. That's the reason. I would absolutely get pissed off if I felt that 2K gave me the short end of the stick on my speed. Yeah. I would go balls to the wall and be like, fuck this. I'm going to make my own version of myself. The one that I'm delusional enough to see. The one that thinks that I'm better at baseball than Hank. And I'll just max out my stats and play with myself. Yeah. Yeah. You love playing with yourself. I do. Yeah.

OG was awesome. He put Cade Cunningham in a torture chamber. And shout out Cat. Played some defense in the fourth. Pistons collapsed. They did. But the Knicks also kind of ramped up the pressure. And, I mean, campaign. When campaign gets going, you can't stop them.

When campaign is, he said his mind went blank. It was just all of a sudden. Yeah. The game just completely flipped. It looks like, it looked like the Knicks were out of it. Yeah. Yeah. They were down eight with like nine minutes left. Then campaign showed up. Are you worried about the campaign game next round? No. Hank's not worried about anything. Let me tell you something about Hank. He is cockier than ever right now. Hank has reached his peak level of, I don't give a fuck about any other team.

Why should I? Well, we can get to the Thunder in a little bit. I'm sure we will. Let's get to the Thunder in a little bit. Yeah, we'll get to the Thunder in a little bit. So we have Chris Finch, Minnesota Timberwolves head coach, coming up. Great interview. We taped it on Friday. We gave him some tips for this series, which he might have actually taken some of these tips. I think so, yeah. Because the Timberwolves...

the Lakers. Absolutely destroyed them. And really good interview. I enjoyed watching this game. Jaden McDaniels, I feel like he does this in the playoffs where he just goes up a level. He was awesome. And like Anthony Edwards didn't even shoot well. He did a good job reading their defense. I don't know what the Lakers don't have. I'm not going to overreact. You know what? I'm not going to overreact. They don't have an answer for Nas Reed. You can have LeBron. You can have Luka.

But you don't have Nas. Yeah. What was the... What was the... Oh, fuck. What was the Jemele Hill tweet where they figured something out?

Like the Lakers figured something out at the end of the game here? Was that against the Nuggets? Maybe. Because you could make the argument, Bronny getting into this game. They figured out. The Lakers might have figured something out. They had no matchup. Anthony Edwards after the game, he was kind of talking shit about LA. Oh, wait. Here it is. A win is a win, but if I'm Denver, I treat this like a loss. Lakers really figured something out putting Hachimura on Jokic. That's one of those...

somewhat small adjustments that can win a series. That was when the Lakers got swept. And I think after that was like just a shit pumping. No, I think it was 4-1. No, last year was 4-1. Oh, this is too young. Yeah. And also, just saying the sentence Rui Hachimura on Jokic. That'll shut him down. But did you see what Ant said after the game? No. He was like, playing in front of the crowd in LA is fun. It's not hard like in Denver.

Like, I've played in some tough environments before, like in Denver. That's hard. So, I don't know. L.A., are you good sports town? Are you just going to take this? Dude, the Timberwolves are deep. They roll guys out there. They play with so much defensive intensity. They had them.

Like Luca, and we're going to talk, we actually said this to Chris Finch, like, what do you do when you know Luca's going to go for 30 plus every game? And he's like, you know, we just got to make sure it's not efficient. He had 37. They just don't have anyone besides, like, once it's Luca and LeBron, like, their role players have to step up. And I don't know, I'm not going to overreact, though.

Because I did see a stat. I'll throw the stat out there. I'm not going to overreact. So this is LeBron James' 55th playoff series, and he's 31-24 in game ones, which obviously you're like, oh, that's good. He's over 500. It's still LeBron James has been on some really good teams. He's lost 24 game ones, but he's 41-13 in...

In series overall So what he has done in the past Is he uses the first game to probe the defense Figure out what he wants to do And then he turns it on in game two I'm not going to overreact I am going to agree to disagree With Jay Billis Calling this game which was such a bummer Turning it on and hearing him I didn't know that Jay Billis was going to do NBA games There should be like a TV rating That pops up Just Billis' face

at the top left-hand corner of the screen before the game starts, letting all the kids know at home. Yeah, just with a warning. You know, it's like warning, the jackass warning. It should just be a warning. Jay Billis is calling this game. You're going to get a stern talking to. Yes. Do not attempt this at home. And Jay Billis, when LeBron started complaining about a missed call, and then Jay Billis goes, now LeBron's really getting into it with the referee, and this is interesting because LeBron's not much of a complainer.

Agree to disagree, Jay. Yeah. You're being disingenuous, Jay. That was disingenuous. That was disingenuous of him. Either that, Jay, you got two options. One, you were being disingenuous. Two, you've never, ever watched LeBron James play basketball. Which one is it? Yeah. Because it has to be one or the other. I hope it's not the second because...

You're calling his games. I would think that ESPN would make sure that you've seen LeBron James play basketball. So it sounds like ipso facto you were being disingenuous. Yes, he was. I don't appreciate being lied to as a viewer. I'd agree. I 100% agree. Will the Timberwolves shoot 50% from three every game? Probably not. Nope. Probably not. That would be your takeaway if you're a Lakers fan. Yep. That's probably not going to happen again. Uh,

But on the other side, I always like to early playoffs, I like to look for Team of Destiny stuff, watching all these games, figuring out what the fan base feels like. Here's something I love from the Timberwolves fan base. There's a guy on Twitter called Ball of the Wild, who I think is the Timberwolves, maybe he runs the Reddit, the Timberwolves Reddit.

He does an edit after every win that's Warren Zevon, Werewolves from London, and it's awesome. Werewolves of London? Yeah. And it's just him saying awoo for like 40 seconds while it's like Anthony Edwards popping up and like all this stuff. Can you find it? He's ball of the wild. I don't know.

I don't know if we can play it. You can play it without the sound, and I'll just do the awoo. I love that. For you, PFT, so you can see it. I mean, Warren Zevon is like my favorite artist of all time. Yeah, all right, here it is. Ready? Watch. See that edit? Awoo. Does he add in like different lyrics? No, it's just awoo. It's the awoo the whole time. Awoo. That's the awoo going the whole time. And it's just got cool.

Cool Timberwolves stuff. Guys dancing and everything. Love that. And it just says zero days. Yeah. So when they've won a game, it's zero days since last of woo. I love that so much. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. That is cool. Again, will they shoot 50%? Probably not. Will they get another Nas Reed, Nas Reed game? Maybe. Yes.

I love watching him play. He's one of my favorite players for some reason. You know, you watch enough sports and you just develop fixations on guys and you're like, I just like that guy for some reason. Nas Reid is that guy for me. Yeah, I'm not going to overreact because I think the Lakers will still be in this series because they have Luka and they have LeBron James. But Nico Harrison was happy watching this. He definitely was. He said defense wins championships. That was so funny on Friday night. He should not be allowed to take a victory lap.

I'm banning Nico from taking victory laps. Oh, yeah. No, he can't. He knows he can't. But the camera work got shout out Jake Barstow. Shout out the guys in the truck. The camera work to zoom in on Nico Harrison when Anthony Davis was limping to the bench was so perfect. And Nico Harrison having the court vision to realize the camera was on him and giving a side eye to it.

What a moment. It was good. Good television. That was a beautiful, beautiful moment. Great television. Nico Harrison, you know what? He's off the hook. He's been let off the hook by the Mavs not making it. We just need to bring him up once a week. Just put a reminder that he's a shithead and an idiot, and we'll do that for Mavs fans. I agree. Just once a week throughout the entire playoffs, be like, hey, remember Nico Harrison? What a fucking moron that guy is. Yeah, the side eye. So good. All right. You want to talk about the Thunder, Hank?

Sure. They look pretty damn good. Hank does not respect the Thunder. Not going to overreact, right? That's the theme of this segment. Is that what we do on this show? We don't overreact? We don't overreact. Correct. The Thunder. So we're not going to overreact to wins or losses. Okay, I'll just say a couple facts. Fact number one, this was the biggest beatdown in the history of Game 1s. Did you like my new Mike Greenberg rule? What's your new rule? If you win a Game 1 by 50 points, the series should be over.

Because when this game was such a blowout, it was like 30 points at half.

How much more exciting would it be in the second half if the Grizzlies were literally fighting to keep the series alive and the Thunder were like, no, we're going to finish this series in one game? I feel like a lot of teams would try to win by 50 points. It would be awesome. Yeah. It's only game one. It's got to be exactly 50 or more. If you win the game one by 50, series over, we've seen enough. I like that. Yeah. Just be done with it.

And just have that be like something in the back of your head every game won. And the way they did this was they won by more than 50 points and they had their starters out. Like they took their foot off the gas big time. If you told me before the game,

Marvin Bagley would go 8 for 8 from the field and score 17 points and SGA would go 4 for 13 from the field and score 15 points. I'd be like, probably the Thunder still won because they're just better. But man, that was a close game. Yeah, they didn't even get a SGA game. He was 4 for 13 and they won by 50 and it was never...

It wasn't close. I mean, the first quarter was a little... No, the first five minutes maybe was close. After that, it was just an absolute beatdown. And guess what? The Thunder have played the Grizzlies four times this year. They've beaten them like... Not 50 points, but they've beaten them soundly every time. This series, I will overreact. Over, done, see ya. See ya. Next one. Yeah, this series, I agree with that. 51 points, game one. Ja said that there's...

Only one way to go, and that's up. It won't get worse, is what John Morant said. Oh, it could get worse. I think it could get worse because they, again, took their foot off the gas for much of the second half. After that first run, it was over. There was a moment in the game where a good friend, friend of the program, Alex Caruso, had zero points, and I think his plus minus was 27. Yeah, how many points did he end up with? Because he didn't score much, if at all. Yeah, can you scroll down? It was just such an ass-kicking.

Yeah, he had zero points. He finished with zero points, plus 30. That's awesome. Desmond Bain with a minus 51. That's an insane plus minus. That is insane. Would you like another stat? Yeah. Because we're not going to overreact. We're just going to talk stats. If you're asking me if I want it, I don't. You don't want a stat? I'm sure you're going to say it. You don't want to talk ball with the boys? We're not going to overreact. Okay, I'll just ask you. We'll change the subject. Maybe you can give a stat. What was the Celtics' record against the Thunder this year?

0-2. That's a set. Good set, yeah. Good set, but you're not worried at all. In fact, some would argue that you're slightly disrespectful of the Thunder. No, it's not that, PFT. I know the playoffs, there's a lot of basketball to be played. They're in a separate conference. I think once we get to the Western Conference Finals, then I'll tune in on the two teams, and depending on how they're playing in the Western Conference Finals, I'll determine whether or not I'm worried. But first round, game one, a lot of basketball to be played. A lot of good teams in the West.

We'll see what happens. So Chet Holmgren said, at the end of the day, we can't control what people say, what narratives y'all come up with. That's y'all's job. So that's your job, Hank. Chet said it's your job to come up with a narrative. Y'all's job will come up with a narrative like you did last year with the Timberwolves and the Nuggets, who didn't even end up making it to the finals. That's true. That's a good point. We were wrong. Hey, guess what? Hands up. We were wrong. The Thunder, they have to make it there first. But you were worried about the Nuggets last year.

You, too, have to make it there first. Good point, Max. Yeah, that's true, and that's what I'm focused on. I'm not worrying about other teams. I'm worrying about my team, the Boston Celtics. That's not what you're focused on. Yes, it is. Do you know what we're focused on? The next game. The lottery. Pull it up. Yeah. Bulls went up to 1.7%. That's huge. Yeah. They doubled it? Yeah, because the heat got in. All right, sim it. Sim that shit. Brooklyn. Bullshit. We'll do it until one of the three gets it.

Philly. Philly's winning this too much. I know. I don't like it with the 10%. No, there's no way they let Philly win. I just hope they let us keep our pick. The NBA should step in and be like, you guys made a mockery of the load management this year. A mockery. You spit in Adam Silver's face. Injuries or injuries? I don't know what you want me to say. Should we... So I've made you guys aware of this. As a journalist, I was doing some work on Friday night. Really awesome life I have. Super exciting. There's a guy...

Who has season tickets to the Thunder, who sits front row, who I think has actually been to every Thunder game since their existence, who refuses to wear the shirt. So this guy, Juan Guerra, I actually reached out to him trying to get him on the show. He's gone radio silent on me. I think I might have tweeted too much about how he needs to wear the shirt. He realized it was not going to be a friendly interview. It was probably not going to be. It was going to be a contentious interview because I also had Thunder fans being like, don't give this guy any shine. I was like, dude.

We're going to have him on. Listen, there's one thing about this show. We would never have the back of a guy who just sits front row at sporting events trying to stick out so people notice him on the camera. Absolutely not. We would never have that guy's back. So we can do good cop, bad cop.

I still want him on. Yeah, we could make a personal clip for me out of this, and I will send it to this guy. I think he has the right to wear whatever he wants. He pays for the tickets courtside, right? Yeah. So he pays just like anybody else to get in, and he's not a fucking conformist. He thinks for himself. He's a good guy. We need more of that in today's society.

We should all be free to wear whatever we want to wear and sit courtside. He's still a fan of the team. You've got to wear the shirt. No, no big cat. You've got to wear the shirt. He should wear whatever he wants. That's what our founding fathers fought for. If everyone in America in 1976 was like, yeah, we'll just put on the red coats, you know what? We'd all be speaking British right now. We'd be talking English instead of American. You've got to wear the shirt. You've got to wear the shirt. So this...

I was made aware of this by our good friend Ryan Russillo on Friday night. This was the tweet that he sent out. Yeah, that's the guy. He doesn't wear the shirt. He doesn't wear the shirt. Look at that. He's just wearing a different shirt trying to stick out. And that's his friend. He takes the game who at least wears the right color, but he doesn't wear the shirt either. Juan Guerrero wrote on Friday night. I think he might have deleted this.

I'm going to say this in the most respectful way possible. Mention to another grown man what he should be wearing at any point in his life will get you immediately blocked. Yeah, that means even a Thunder playoff shirt. You may as well just block me first. Russo then got blocked within like five minutes. And I was like, I'm going to try to get this guy on. But yeah, I did reach out to him as a Big J journalist. And he initially agreed that...

And since then, he has not responded. So, yeah, I think I'm a big you got to wear the shirt guy. I'm going to take this guy's side just because it's working so far. I'll tell you what. The Thunder are going to lose a playoff game at home in this run. And it's because this guy's not wearing the shirt. They might not, though. That's good. That's why. It's going to be you look out.

There's this intimidating crowd. Everyone's wearing the shirt, and that guy's not wearing the shirt. There's a reason why. They might be the first team to ever go undefeated in the playoffs. Not with this guy not wearing a shirt. There's a reason why they were the first team that was put on Windy's Cities when he was buying the hotel rooms. Oklahoma City Thunder were number 1A on Windler's list. Was that true? I think that was the first one that he said to us. Okay. He might have.

I don't know if he put Boston up first. I mean, they had a historic regular season. They did. They were very, very good. But this guy's shirt, him trying to be different. They're not going to lose a game at home. Hank, they are. No. PFT. PFT.

Well, he thinks that this guy's shirt doesn't matter, and I do. There's the difference. Do you know that they let you exchange a shirt if they give you the wrong size? No. That's how good they are with the shirts in Oklahoma City. Any other place... That always bothers me. What? When you're just like, oh, it's a cool shirt. Oh, it's small. They have a kiosk that you can go, and you'd be like, you gave me a small, I need an XL. Boom. There you go. There's the shirt. Any other city, I'd be like, listen, some people wear the shirt, some people don't wear the shirt.

Oklahoma City does one thing. They wear the shirt. What is their shirt budget per game? It's got to be insane. It's got to be tens of thousands of dollars. It's got to be fucking insane. And then some poor person's job is to just put those shirts on every single seat. You know what? Not some poor person. I bet you that guy or girl is...

royalty in Oklahoma city. She's got, you walk in, you, I guarantee you there's, there's some kid in, in middle school right now in Oklahoma city, listening to this podcast, shout out this kid. Uh,

And he's like, yeah, my mom is friends with a guy who puts out the shirt. Do you think that the guy that doesn't wear the shirt, does he get on his... Well, first of all, do they even in between quarters have like the t-shirt cannon to fire out more shirts? They probably do. Or somebody that throws out an extra shirt? Yeah. And if so, does this guy stand up and try to catch the shirts? No, he refuses to wear the shirt. I know, but does he try to take away shirts that he's not going to wear? That I would have a problem with. I just...

You've got to put on the shirt. It's crazy. Hank, this is your... I'm with PFT. You don't think he should wear the shirt? Why conform? Do what he wants to do. Because it's Oklahoma City, dude. It's a free country. They are known for their shirts. You've got to put on the shirt. Where has it gotten him? I mean, the best... No. No, where has it gotten him? Where has it gotten him? He's gone to every single game. He paid for those tickets. But I'm saying, what you said, where has it gotten him? You don't know how high the Oklahoma City Thunder can go if he puts on the shirt.

They literally have never won anything with him. Might be the missing piece. It would be a real shame if this guy comes. He's peacocking out there, and what if he puts on the shirt and they win it all? I don't think he should put on the shirt. Hank is just... You were going line by line. You were like, to a man, the Thunder don't have a single guy that's better than anyone on the Boston Celtics. Nope.

Literally what you said. Max, is that not what Hank said? We said, let's go guy for guy. I did not say that. Not even close. You went guy for guy? You said, let's go guy for guy. Yes, Hank did. But I did not say the words, the Thunder don't have a single person, but I just said, let's go guy for guy. I was just trying to... You guys, Max was like... You said, guy for guy, everyone on the Celtics beats everyone on the Thunder. You just said, if this team is healthy, there's no way they lose. Yes, that's a fact. And then I said, you're not worried about the Thunder? And you said, absolutely.

Absolutely not. Are you going to go guy for guy? We did go guy for guy. I would like to judge the guy for guy. It was closer than you thought. Do you have Dave Portnoy in the guy who won't put on the shirt? No. Okay, well, you should put that in the guy for guy off. All right, go. I don't want to do this again. You don't want to go guy for guy? We're going stat for stat, guy for guy. Just go guy for guy. Okay. PFT, would you like to start? Yeah, let's go guy for guy. I'll start with, I don't know, I'll say Hartenstein.

Against Al Horford. I'll take Al Horford. Way better playoff experience. Veteran player. Big time player. Clutch. What are the stats? Who's got better stats this year? Big Cat, who wins? I mean, I would take Hartenstein right now. Al Horford's pretty old. Al Horford is a better player overall in his career. Correct. By far. Chris Stapps and Chet. I would go Chris Stapps. I would lean Chet. Lou Dort.

Peyton Pritchard. Ludor Derek White. I'm a Dorchard Chamber guy, so you know the answer to that. I love Ludor. The Celtics have a great team. I'm not even saying that I would doubt the Celtics. I'm just saying you should respect the Thunder. I respect them. You always see the Thunder before you hear it. I respect the Thunder. That's a good point. If the Thunder don't get you, the Lightning will. If the Thunder win the Western Conference...

I will start to think about that. You were not respecting the thunder. You're not. Thunder. They're not into my conference. But the way this conversation started was you were like...

There's no way this Celtics team is losing if they are healthy. That's a fact. I was like, you're not worried about anyone? That's a fact. And you said no. And I was like, you're not worried about the Thunder? And you said no. I'm not worried about anyone. So that is zero respect. It's an easy way to get killed. No, that's incorrect. You said there is no way that this team loses. I have tremendous respect for the Celtics and supreme confidence in my team. That doesn't mean I don't respect the Thunder. I just believe in our guys. I think that Hank just hates the Thunder. You guys don't understand.

You hate the Thunder because it's the only thing that can get you to stop playing golf. Sounds like you're in the torture chamber right now. Right now. No, it's round one of the Western Conference Finals. There's a lot of good teams in the West. And the Thunder have not fucking... This iteration of the Thunder haven't done jack shit.

It is round one and it is game one. No team has done jack shit until they do jack shit. Last year, the Celtics did not do jack shit. Okay, what did the Thunder do last year? What? Last year, the Celtics didn't do jack shit. But going to last year, the Celtics hadn't done jack shit. They made it to the finals. What are you talking about? But that doesn't mean anything.

What the fuck does that mean? It means you won the Eastern Conference. That's pretty fucking hard. Which is a lot easier to do than the Western Conference. So you scared me. Factor fiction. Okay, how the Philadelphia 76ers done the Eastern Conference back? I'm not talking about the Philadelphia 76ers. He asked you a factor fiction, Hank. We're not talking about the Philadelphia 76ers. You're ducking the factor fiction. Yeah, we are. If the fucking

The Eastern Conference is so easy. How are we talking about the Philadelphia 76ers? The Sixers can't even make it to the finals of the Eastern Conference finals. We are not talking about the Philadelphia 76ers. Because you said the Eastern Conference is so easy, Max. I think we can all agree that this guy has to put on the shirt because the minute this argument happened was because we started talking about the shirt. That's where the anger came out in this podcast. Because this fucking guy won't put on his shirt. We're divided enough as a nation right now. We can't have another debate like this.

We can't. Does that feel good, boys? Hank gets too wound up.

Look at you, emotional. We're all trying to find the guy who wound him up. No, I'm not wound up. It's just like you guys. I was shocked. On this show over and over and over and over again when it's like you guys, are you worried? Are you worried? Are you worried? Are you worried? Oh, they lost the regular season game. But you talk about the Celtics like they're this five-time dynasty. They've won one finals. Which one was that finals? Oh, the most recent one. Correct. But do you know how hard it is to repeat?

Yeah, I do. So, like, this isn't... You're looking at this like it's a foregone conclusion. I'm just happy we're winning the NBA Finals. It's called confidence. I'm happy we have Max. Max has just entered the NBA playoffs. I did. My whole NBA playoffs is anti-Seltic. That is my NBA playoffs. Welcome to the NBA playoffs, Max. I just care so much about Hank that I'm trying to warn him against the dangers of hubris. Right now... Again, if they were in our conference, I would be, like...

you know it'd be a different story but like you're flying too close to the sun you got to respect your thunder it's not going to be till june why would i be concerning myself because they're going to remember they this that's y'all's job to do the narrative that's what chet holmgren said and y'all's have done quite a job why are you hitting with the y'alls well that's what chet said he said that's what that's y'all's job y'alls hank you're getting hit with some y'alls have have put up quite the quite the bulletin board material i hope that they see this in oklahoma city

Okay, me too. I do too, because I hope that everyone sees this and says, put the fucking shirt on, dude. Yeah. Fucking put it on. Put it on. You guys are now making a Root Against the Thunder. You should want to Root Against the Thunder. Yes. Yeah, you should. They're good. They're really good. You weren't previously rooting? Who are you most afraid of in the West? Clippers, he said. Clippers won. Thunder too? No.

Thunder 2. I mean, personally, just like, although not really, it's not really statistical based, but LeBron. LeBron. Yeah. Would scare me. Yeah. That would scare me. You want to talk about Celtics game? Yeah. Celtics 103, Magic 86. This is why the Celtics are really fucking good because their fourth option is Derek White and he had 30 points. Derek White was awesome. So awesome. Yeah, the new Dort.

Listen, you can say anything you want about the Thunder. If you fucking go after Lou Dort, I will fight you. I fucking love Lou Dort. The guy brings energy. He hits threes, big threes. Defense. Defense. He's got fat ass. He's Canadian.

I understand it's hard to repeat. I do believe, truly, from the bottom of my heart, and I'm probably going to say this statement over and over and over again when this debate keeps coming up every show, and it's like, are you worried about this team because they won one game? Celtics maybe lose one game. Are you worried? The answer is going to be no. This team is better than the team last year that won the championship, and if they stay healthy, they will repeat. That is my...

wholehearted belief. Porzingis does look fully healthy. Yeah. He's making great plays on defense, and Derek White's defense is obviously incredible. Did you— I mean, he's hitting threes. What did he shoot from three today? Because I feel like he made— Every single one of them. Like four out of his first six or something. When he was shooting like that, and then they put Pritchard in the game, and Pritchard just goes out there and starts toying with the defense. Listen, the Magic's team defense is very good, and I feel like they can be competitive, but—

but at times it did feel like the Celtics were fucking with them a little bit. The Magic just have two guys really good. Wagner and Paolo are really, really good. And the rest of their team, I mean, think about it. I think their third leading scorer was Jonathan Isaac with seven points. You can't beat a Celtics team that has Derek White as, again...

Derek White, it's not disrespect to say he's their fourth option because that's just what he is. He scored 30 points, and he was awesome. And Tatum and Jalen Brown did not shoot well, and it does not matter because they have so many guys. So many guys. Any given night. Are you worried about Jason Tatum's wrist? No, he got x-rays. He said they came back negative. Are you worried that his mom's going to try to fight a team? No, it's a good thing. That was very funny. His mom said, do you want me to go in that locker room?

It's a good mom. Yeah, really good mom. I'm excited. How many tweets did you get being like panic button at halftime? I got a few, a decent amount. That's premature, guys. Listen, we're going to get to the panic button stuff when the Cavs win a couple games against the Celtics or maybe when the Knicks are 1-1 if the Knicks win one of the first two games. You can't do it halftime against the Magic. Going back into my old Hank Knows Ball files, you pretty accurately predicted the playoffs last year.

in terms of how many losses you're going to have. This year, what do you say it's going to be prior to the NBA Finals? How many losses total will you have? Good question. Three. Three. One in the second round, two in the third round? I would say two and a half. I mean, I would take the under. I would set the line at two and a half. And you would take the under? You think the Cavs are going to take two off you? I don't know. I don't think the Cavs are even going to make it. Oh. I mean, they beat the shit out of the Heat. Yeah. Yeah.

The Heat, this is why the play, I mean, the Heat are just not. Like, what are we doing? The Heat were not a good team during the regular season. They won the play-in. I mean, I guess the Heat were the best of the other play-in. They proved that on Friday night. Trey Young is just, I don't know how Hawks fans do it. His, his...

Just standing around the last few possessions, having guys get rebounds over him, it was brutal to watch. And it was...

I just don't know how you do that. I don't know how you root for that guy. And Davion Mitchell basically out-hustled him, and the end of that game was unbelievable. It was just a win for Heat culture. Yeah. But then they had to play the Cavs today, and guess what? A Cavs team that won, what, 60-plus games versus a Heat team that is six games under .500. Yeah, the Cavs are better than the Heat. There's also got to be something to be said that the Grizzlies and Heat getting blown out has something to do with the fact that they had to play all week.

On Friday, yeah. Yeah? Yeah. I'd say probably. That's probably fair. But still, the Cavs are so much better than the Heat. I don't think it's going to be a sweep, though. I think that the Heat are going to win one, maybe two. The Cavs are so much better than the Heat. I would take the under on two. I think the Cavs are a lot better than the Heat, and they've been very good all year. And the Heat are not...

They're just not a very good team. They're under 500. Yeah. I don't know what else to say. Like, when you're under 500, we've proven over 82 games, you're not that good of a team. Yeah, and Spoh has to be going out there understanding that he's probably going to lose every night. Yeah. And Donovan Mitchell was awesome. Scored 30. Yeah. Yeah.

I think the Cavs are a very good team. And then we're watching right now the Warriors kind of welcome the Rockets to the NBA playoffs. Are the Warriors officially back? Yeah. I think they might be back. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. I'm just saying. Yeah. Third quarter. I think what Wendy said was completely accurate about the West. Just pretend that they don't have the little numbers next to their names. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, this is a Warriors team that I don't... Their depth could be an issue because obviously Jimmy and Steph have to carry a big scoring load every single night. But, yeah. Yeah.

I wouldn't go against Steph Curry. Dylan Brooks tried to tackle somebody. I don't know who he hit. It definitely wasn't Draymond. He's already doing that? Yeah. The nice thing, though, is he's got Steven Adams to back him up, which is a great guy to have behind you if you're going to pick a fight with somebody. That's a fact. That's a fact. Should we talk a little puck? We had two games on Saturday.

I've, I've made my future bet because Whitney told me that he thought maybe the abs, I took abs plus seven 50. I've also told PFT enough that he cares that I would cash out if they play the caps in the finals. Cause I, I would rather you win. You are free to do whatever you want with your bet, but I would, and I will not hold it against you if you don't cash out, but I would, it could be a lot of money. I'd want to root for you. I'm locked in our year. Yeah. I'd want to root for you. But the, uh, that first game, uh,

The Jets Blues was awesome. And I don't know if you guys saw, but the one-timer goal to win the game with like a minute and 30 left by Kyle Connor was so sick. Cross ice just fucking buried it. And there's something about playoff games in Canada that are just...

I do like it. And the Leafs-Senators series is going to be great because there's a lot of bad blood and just both two Canadian teams. One has to go. I would like to see a Canadian team make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. Yeah. I think that'd be fun. So the Avs beat the fuck out of the Stars.

Speaking of famous fans, I remembered that Glassbanger is in jail. Oh, he is? Yes. He got locked up? He's in jail till the end of May. Now, I don't know what to believe on Twitter because anyone could say anything, but there was a question of like, where is he? And everyone's like, he's in jail. Oh, Hank might be right. The Rockets just cut it to nine. And someone replied that

He's in jail because his old lawyer died and he missed a court date for a DUI he got. Insane circumstances only could happen to a fucker like that. I choose to believe these circumstances. Apparently he's in jail until the end of May.

So we will not get glass banger at Dallas Stars home. But he is like that's the irony of being in jail and visiting with people. You do get to bang on the glass there. That's true. That's facts. Do you think he's doing that? I think probably someone shows up. Somebody just shows up and plays the game for him on like it's like on their phone. Yeah. He just gets to hit the cell. We had and then the Devils got killed by the Hurricanes, which I when we had Whitney on last week previewing the NHL playoffs, I didn't.

Based solely on Frank the Tank's tweets, I had no idea the Devils were even in the playoffs. They also got a bunch of injuries. There was that one clip of both their guys coming off. Guess what?

I know that there's people who were in prime season of dick measuring between the two sports. There were some blowouts in hockey, too. A lot of blowouts. There were some blowouts in hockey. I think also the Sunday, because we had three games to start Sunday in the NBA where there were 12 and a half or more favorites, and they all covered. And it was like, yeah, I guess this sucks because it was the one seeds and then the two seed.

So I've got a small bone to pick with the Winnipeg Jets. Okay. Very minor. And also they did win the President's Trophy, right? And I think that the last team to win the Stanley Cup was the Blackhawks. I believe so. That won the President's Trophy. And that was a long time ago. Was that 2012? I think in 2015 we might have. No, 2013. When was the shortened year? The shortened year...

I don't know. I think the shortened year was 2011. No, no, no. There was a year where they started the season. I'm going to look it up. I want to say it was 2015 was the shortened year. Nope, that was not a shortened year. All right, but keep going. My small, very minor bone to pick with the Winnipeg Jets, it has to do with their logo. It's a jet with a maple leaf.

I searched for what jet is in the logo for the Winnipeg Jets. The AI overview says that it's an F-15 Eagle. That's not an F-15 Eagle. Oh. That's either a Hornet or maybe a Viper, but I think it's a Hornet. Canada's got a lot of F-18 Hornets.

That is abso-fucking-lutely not an F-15 Eagle. So we're saying, wait, so it's... They might have fucked up the design. Blackhawks 2012-2013. That was a short year. They had the best record, because I remember they started and they won like 20 in a row or didn't lose forever. So wait, so explain it to me again. It's a big deal to me, but probably to no other person in the world.

They say that it's an F-15 Eagle. Buddy, that's not an F-15. What is it? That's either a Hornet. I think it's a Hornet. But they're jets. They are jets. They're both jets. So does it matter? Well, yeah, because that's not the outline of an F-15. If they're claiming that's an F-15, that's not an F-15. But it's a jet in their logo. It is a jet in their logo, yes. Also, who told you that it was an F-15? The AI overview. I'm looking at it right now. The Winnipeg Jets logo features a fighter jet, an F-15 Eagle. I think your problem was with the AI. Yeah.

Did I get AI'd? Yeah. Oh, no. Right? This is the... I've had some issues with the AI recently asking a question. So what did you see? No, I've seen nothing, but I've asked the AI, like the Google AI questions, and I've gone to other people telling them that that is the answer.

and then being made looked a fool. I found another source. I thought this was your thing. Well, no, I'm telling you, if they're claiming that's an F-15, it's not a 15, but I just saw... Shouldn't you be able to verify that? That's what I'm doing right now, is I read a source on the internet that said that that was an F-15, and I am telling you that is not an F-15. But then I just found a different source that says, indeed, it is a Hornet, as I suspected.

Yes, Big Cat. This is a straw man. Question. It's still a jet, right? Yep, it's still a jet. Okay.

Still a jet. So that part, they're right. They are right. They are the jet. That is a jet. Yeah. From my second source that I'm looking at, it does appear that it's an F-18. So it was the AI that was wrong. The AI was wrong. The AI was wrong. Yeah. Fuck that AI. Yeah. I'm stronger than the machine. My jet knowledge is better than Google. Do you know who was never wrong about this? Who? Me, because I always thought it was a jet. It was a jet. It's confirmed a jet. Still a jet. Still a jet.

But yeah, Winnipeg, good job having a properly sourced logo. Yeah. Wait, hey, memes. What'd you think about the Knicks? You're a Knicks fan. We just passed over. Yeah, it was a campaign game. I was very nervous when they went down eight and the campaign popped off. Do you think maybe you could take that guy? Knicks in six. Oh, ho, ho, ho. Oh, bing bong.

Jerry was in Chicago this weekend. We just didn't see him. Sucks. He was here for a volleyball tournament. I also looked it up. According to DraftKings, the Thunder have a better chance to win the West than the Celtics do to win the East. Interesting. Shout out, DraftKings. Just saying. I'm just saying. That's y'all's narrative, Max. No, that's DraftKings' narrative. That's y'all's narrative. DraftKings' narrative. Okay. Do we want to do Who's Back of the Week? And then we'll get to our interviews. Great interviews. Who's Back of the Week brought to you by our friends at Truly...

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I am a big fan of the Wild Pink. Go check them out right now. 8% ABV, 100% delicious. Level up your lemonade. Four supercharged lemonade flavors. Pumpin' Blue Raz OG original lemonade. Punched up pineapple. Wild Pink, the official hard seltzer. A part of my take. Find Truly Unruly Lemonade at a store near you. Or visit trulyhardseltzer.com. Henry. Yeah, man. Who's back? The week is playoffs. Playoffs? It's that time of year. Should we break down the games?

Also in golf, though, Justin Thomas, for the first time in three years, won his first tournament in a playoff, the RBC Heritage. So Justin Thomas is back? Playoffs are back? When I saw RBC Heritage, I thought it was being played in Europe somewhere. I thought it was played in Canada. That's a big time, yeah. I don't know why. It feels like it's in Scotland, right? The RBC Heritage? Yeah. But then they showed the...

Well, I think it was also the... And it was prime South Carolina, right? Yeah. Prime South Carolina. But the winner, I always thought it was Canada because the winner gets that jacket, the red jacket. Oh. The fifth major. First win in three years? Yeah. That's major for him. We like JT. Yeah, big one. Tough for our guy, Siwoo Kim Tracker. Siwoo Kim started the day in first, right? Yeah, he's lights out.

Until today. That was brutal. I felt bad for our boy. I saw him tweet something like, I'm with my family, they're all happy, and I'm just in hell. I appreciate that he's committed to it. If you're a tracker, the losses should affect you. Right, and listen, we all choose a path in life. I mean, the Brooks tracker is gone. He's been gone rogue. He goes off the map a lot. But our guy, Siwoo Kim Tracker, we love him, and he...

You don't choose this life. It chooses you. And it happened to choose him to track Siwoo Kim. And he was brutal today. And that was tough. Yeah. Family all happy laughing. And here I am molding about the woo.

I actually can't imagine not being a sports fan. You all must be so happy. It's very funny to be like being a sports fan when it's like you're actually just talking about Siwoo Kim. He's probably going to. And like someone like an uncle at Easter being like, what's wrong, James? He's like, Siwoo Kim. Oh, you got money on the Grizzlies? Nope.

I just track Siwoo Kim, and that's my life. And I love it. I respect him for it. There should be a Siwoo Kim tracker tracker that updates us on what Siwoo Kim tracker is going through. I think we are. Yeah, that's a good point. We just did that segment. What's up with Siwoo Kim tracker this week? I would like to see an account, though, that does it so I can read it. Okay, PFD Year, who's back? So, Hank, you just went with playoffs. Playoffs are back. Got it. Mm-hmm.

You didn't like it? It was good. It was good. You didn't want to say golf. It was really good. Yeah. Well, no, it was playoffs. Yeah, playoffs are back. Were you happy? Was I happy? Yeah. Did you see JT win? Yeah. Not really? I was happy to see Justin Thomas win. Yeah. Same. Yeah. Good story. Agreed. Good guy. Him. Good golfer. My who's back of the week is the rivalry. The rivalry is back on.

I have joined a softball team. Oh, yeah. I'm officially on KDIC's softball team. And, man, the group chat is buzzing. Love it. Great vibes in the group chat. These are my boys. Can't wait to have a couple beers with them, play some softball.

It's going to be great. I'm fucking pumped. I'm ready to go. Pumped for you. Yeah. Same. Also, people should be blaming Max for not inviting PFT. Yeah, I'll go with that. People are blaming me. It's like, dude, I invited myself onto a team. I wasn't... I mean...

You are kind of the leader of the team. I am not the leader. Yeah, he is. The leader of the pugs. He is kind of the leader of the pugs. You are. You're Pugs Boss. Hank and I both joined this team at the exact same time. You're the best player. You're the dog dad. I'm not the best player. I might join KDX team.

I might. I might join Katie's team. This team, I can tell just from the group chat what kind of guys I'm dealing with, and these are some loyal dudes. I'm pumped to play some softball. I'm committed to the Pugs. Pugs, listen. What position do you want to play? I don't know.

Whatever position. No, in a perfect world, though, let's say you're setting the lineup, you're putting yourself. Where do you think you excel? I got to meet the boys. I got to see. No, but in a perfect world. I got to get in where. In a world where there's. Yeah, perfect world. I got to start fitting in and not fitting out. But like in a vacuum. I would say pretty strong left field.

Would you accept a D8 spot? Yeah, wherever they need me. That's what kind of team guy I am. Listen, I'm committed to the Pugs. We're 1-0. We've had some early season adversity, and we fought through, and we're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're so back. I find myself. Clubhouse cancer find. A small bit emasculated when the group chat started going, and we're talking about getting jerseys together. This team is really rattling around each other, which I love. I love being with a group of guys like that. What's the team name? We are Fat Pitches Only.

Nice. Yeah, classic, right? So we were getting the jersey order stuff going on, and they're like, okay, we're going to put in the jersey order. I'm just going to write the sizes out and just like whichever one you'll be. So it was like medium, large, extra large, double XL, triple XL. And I was the only one that liked medium. So it's a bunch of big boys, which I'm down with. You're like when that happens on the Burnerverse, always makes you laugh when a guy's like,

You all cool if I have a day? And he posts like a picture of his fit pic and it's like a Peter Millar medium. Yeah. Everyone's like, dude, you probably weigh 130 pounds. You obviously are. You're as sturdy of a medium as they come. I'm a sturdy boy. I'm a little thick. Yeah. You're not a true medium. No. I've gone from being a medium to now I'm a marge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to get a marge. When I rock the medium, it's like you're wearing a medium. No, that's a marge. That's a marge, baby. Yeah.

Well, I'm excited. I'm happy you found a home. Yeah, me too. Are you guys going to do a home run derby? Just pumped to play softball. Or some kind of competition? Good question. I mean, I was down to do one with Hank, but Hank seemed like he didn't want to smoke on Friday. No, Hank is a better baseball player than me. I will admit that.

We could go to a field. We could go to a field. We could go to a field. Okay. Let's go to a field. I'm down. Again, I don't know where the I didn't want the smoke came from, but I would love to. Let's do a 16-inch home run derby. Okay. Yeah, we've got to find a field with a fence. I have one. Okay, great. They might not hit any home runs, though. How many pitches? I think it's like first to five home runs.

That might take a while. It might take a while. Yeah, how far are these fences? Well, there's a softball field that we could play on. It's like 220. I'm kind of like a Jose Altuve guy. 220 is not that far. 60 inches. Yeah, 60 inches. It's tough to hit out. That's hard. Like, it's not... For people who don't know what we're talking about, 60-inch softball, the ball is like this big, and it's softer, and you don't... In Chicago, you don't play with gloves. So there's no gloves on the field, and the ball gets...

A little softer as the game goes. And it's a very fun game because as you get older, you don't really want to be playing 12-inch where someone like Max gets up to the plate. You're playing first base and he hits a rocket 100 miles an hour down the line right in your face. This is a game that's a little bit more skill than speed. And yeah, the ball gets a little softer. You can't really hit it. You can't hit like 300-foot bombs with 16-inch softball. Okay. The circumference is 16 inches. Yes. Okay.

For our podcast listeners. Maybe we set up our own outfield fence with just like a rope. We could do that. Okay. Where? I'm kind of a... Where? Like halfway between... Yeah, but I know... Oh, oh. We could just play it a little league. We could just play it a little league field. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We could find a little league field. All right. Yeah. We'll do that. That'd be good PMTV. We'll do it right after Max actually fucking does his Dingers Only league video. Yeah. Yeah.

We're about to have the draft for Dingers only. We have that set up. We have to do it before we play Dingers only again. But that team doesn't play. Yeah, actually, no, that'll work. That'll work. That'll work. The Cubs are playing right now. You can do it. Would you want me to pitch against the Cubs? Yeah. That'd be so awesome. Oh, my God. The wind's blowing out. Oh, that'd be so fucking awesome.

Okay, my who's back of the week is Big Dom. Not to be a trigger to you, Max, but Big Dom because Harry Roseman said Big Dom is the best in the NFL at finding out about players' red flags. Mm-hmm.

Said he's the best. I don't know how he does, but he does. Finds it out. And he stops problems. He stops problems before they start. Never been in a rest. Yeah. Also, my who's back is, how did Matt Fitzpatrick do today or this weekend? Did he play? He did, I think, but not great. I didn't know this story until I saw it, but he played an entire season with a four-ounce weight in his driver without realizing it. How's that possible?

I don't know because he's like quite literally the biggest stats data guy. Right. Like we did a whole. That exists. We did a whole full swing thing about him keeping track of every shot ever. And then he forgot to take a four ounce weight out of his club. He's tied for 38th. He is ranked 116th FedEx Cup rankings, 75th in the world. Damn. So is there going to be any punishment?

No, I think... No, it's not a punishment. It punished himself. You can have weights. Yeah. But he just thought he was, like... He cares so much about the data and, you know, knows all the shafts and weights and lofts and stuff. He put it in for practice. So he was assuming he was playing...

Like it's a leaded donut, like a batting donut. Okay, it doesn't add distance. Like he chose a 38-ounce bat, but thought in his head that he was hitting a 34-ounce bat. Oh, okay. I thought it meant like the head of the driver weighed more. No, he didn't cork. He didn't cork it. See what he just did to you? What? He doesn't think you know baseball. He's trying to dumb it down to you with ounces and bats. No, I understand the concept of the leaded donut. Dude, this guy's on a softball team now. Fat pitches only. Yeah. You don't have to talk to him like that.

He was really talking down to you. Hank is talking down to me. I can't wait to settle this on the diamond, Hank. Same. I'm scared. I'm ducking smoke. You don't respect me. You don't respect the Thunder. Two all-time greats. Hank, good call on this Warriors-Rockets game. Fuck. We'll get to our interviews. Maybe we'll give an update right before the lottery ball on who wins this game. But yeah, don't talk PFT.

Okay, you got this. All right, let's get to our interviews. We've got Minnesota Timberwolves. We're going to start with Daniel Jeremiah talking draft, and then we got Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch. Okay, before we get to Daniel Jeremiah talking draft...

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Okay, we now welcome on a recurring guest very special guest. It's a yearly tradition It is Daniel Jeremiah from the NFL Network move the sticks podcast chargers radio You can find him on Twitter at move the sticks. He is one of our draft experts and it's always great It's draft week. So let's start with this DJ great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on. Uh

Is it wrong to say that this draft does not have a lot of buzz? Because I feel like maybe, especially compared to last year, we're in draft week.

And it just feels like there's not a lot, not a lot of movement, not a lot of talk. Is that a fair assessment? I think it's fair. You know, it doesn't mean it's not a, like a quality draft. I just been saying it's starters, not stars. Like last year we had six quarterbacks. Like that's so rare when you have that many quarterbacks and quarterbacks provide the juice and the intrigue. And this year when you've got,

you know, Cam Ward seems locked in at one Travis Hunter seems locked in at two. So, you know, it, you know, there's not really that juice there at the top. Cause we, we kind of feel like we know what's going on there and then it begins at three. Yeah. So you, you just said starters, not stars. And that's what I've been reading about how it's a, well, you tell me how many blue chippers projected pro bowlers. And obviously this is all hard to do because the draft are,

Are there in this draft or where would you say if you're picking in this range, you're going to get a guy who has potential to be a bona fide star versus this is where the fall off is?

To me, and I think everybody's somewhat in this range. Some have a few more, but I think like Cam Ward in his own category is a quarterback. And I think there's six like premier players. Some drafts you might have, you know, 13, 14 this year. There's six. Now the difference is I'm at like, doesn't mean like the seventh, eighth, ninth guy aren't really good. But to me, that group is huge. Like,

Quinn Sean Judkins is in the early thirties for me. And grade wise is not going to be much different than who I would have going with the ninth or 10th pick. Right. So if we're looking at this year's draft, where would, if you were to put cam ward in last year's draft, where would you see him going?

I gave him the same grade as I gave Bo Nix. So they would literally be right there with him. And Bo, you know, look, he was the last of that first group to go. But outside of Jayden Daniels, you'd say he probably played the second best of all those guys. So I think Cam's not quite as polished as Bo was coming out.

but I think their skill set wise is very similar. And what were the six players that you would say are like, Hey, these are the blue chip guys. These are the guys that if you have one of these top picks, you're going to probably get someone who might be a perennial pro bowler.

I start with the little tier there at the very top. It's Abdul Carter, Travis Hunter. Whatever order you want to put them in. Give them the same grade. It's just whatever you need. Those two guys, I got the two tight ends in that mix. So Tyler Warren, Colson Loveland. I've got Ashton Gentry up there. I think he's my third player.

And then I've got Mason Graham in there. So does that get me to the six? Yeah, I think that gets you to the six. Yeah, I mean, I love Mason Graham. I think he's going to be awesome. I'm hoping he falls to 10, but I very highly doubt it. Okay, so that's a good big picture of the draft. What about in terms of strongest positions and weakest positions, just so people know going into this week?

I think defensive line overall, like just numbers, you're going to see a ton of D linemen. Edge rushers, DTs, that's probably the largest collection, the largest number of players if you're going to look at guys that can have starter potential. I think that group's probably the deepest. But from comparing a group to what they are historically, the tight ends and the running backs are really, really good. It's a really, really strong group of those guys compared to what we'd normally get. Not premier positions, but that's why I've argued –

Yeah.

You know, there's some years where it's like, hey, bang the table, you know, tackles, edge rushers, corners, receivers, like the premium positions, they get elevated. But this year to me, like some of these running backs and tight ends are so good. And there's such a gap as players with them and these other premier positions. Like, I think you almost got to throw that out the window. Yeah. Yeah. What about at the quarterback position with Shador? So some people are having Shador going some in the top 10. I've seen a couple of people like that. And then some have them falling more towards the end of the first round. Yeah.

I feel like this is, maybe it's a prediction, but it feels like one of those years where we'll get through part of the first round and there will be a team that drafts in the top 10 that did not take Shador, that needs a quarterback, and then they come in back later for a second first round pick. And they're like, okay, now we can take Shador later on in the first round. Where do you have them going? And then, two, do you see that happening?

I think it's very, very possible. Like to me, I think there's a little bit of a game of chicken with three teams. So Pittsburgh, you know, they're in that market. They're picking 21 teams.

To me, there's like a bullseye on them of like, okay, if you're the comeback up team, then Sean Payton, Denver at 20, is probably going to be a hot spot where you're trying to get. And the Browns and the Giants, say if they both were in on, whether it's Shadur, whether it's Dart, they're competing against each other to see who wants to be most aggressive to go up and get the quarterback after already having secured, we assume will be Hunter and Carter.

And the cost isn't that much. So you're looking at, it would be the second round pick, let's say for the Giants, $34,000.

It would be one of their thirds. They have two thirds. It would be 65. And then a fifth-round pick, which is 164. So I would think if you're the Giants or you're a fan of the Giants and you come out of it and you've got Abdul Carter and then you come out and you end up with Shador or Dart, whoever your choice is there, you've still got a third-round pick. So that's a pretty nice haul there. You've got a quarterback of the future, but you also have a big-time premier player. Yeah, I was thinking it would make a ton of sense for the Giants because you've got a coach who's in save-my-job mode.

and you need a quarterback. You don't have an answer at the quarterback position. And so you take that premium player at the top and then you also double dip and come back in for Shador. So you mentioned Jackson Dart too.

he's that guy that like the closer we get to the draft, the better he becomes. Like the further away we get from watching him play football, he becomes better at football. But I've got some teams saying that like they might, you could see him as maybe a first round draft pick. So who did you have him above Shador or Shador above him?

I have on my list, I have Shadur. He's right around 18, 20, in that range from my list, and Dart's in the mid-30s. But to me, Dart, my comp on him was kind of off the wall. It was a little different, but he reminded me of Hertz just from the standpoint of

They're kind of built similarly. They're like strong, sturdy, tough guys. They got better each and every year in college, not arriving as like a finished product, but guys that, you know, I think you're kind of buying into the kid and the competitiveness of the kid and the toughness of the kid that he's going to eventually get there. And I mean, look, I was at Hertz, like one of his first training camp practices, and it was not good. You know, like there was like, oh gosh, what did we do type vibe there? But yeah,

he just proved he's just going to outwork everybody and he's going to figure it out. And, and, and he did. So I think that's the comparison there with those, like the trajectory of those two guys. So, uh, I know I would be a terrible, uh,

a scout or someone in the front office because I would overreact to a specific game more than every other game. Yeah. So that was good. Now it's helped me sometimes. I was, I was first on the bandwagon of Paxton Lynch is not good because I lost a lot of money in his bowl game, but the Jack is bowl game. Can I tell you the story about it? Yes, please.

I was at his bowl game and I wanted to see him. So I went, I don't think I've ever told this, but I went, uh, I went down on the field. I was working with NFL network, but I didn't want to, I didn't want anybody to kind of recognize me. I don't think they would have anyways. I probably could have worn an NFL shield and a Rob Lowe hat. Nobody would have known who I was, but I went down there right by the fence along the sideline. Cause I wanted to see like how he interacted with everybody. Cause I knew he was big and strong and athletic and all that stuff. Um,

The play on the field, he didn't play great in that game. But to me, I went down on the sideline. I did not see him interact with anybody. He'd come off the sideline. He wasn't talking to coaches. He wasn't around teammates. So that's when I kind of jumped ship on him at that bowl game. Yeah, that was so. So sometimes it works in my favor. Sometimes it doesn't. But the Florida game for Jackson Dart was horrendous. And when you're sitting in that meeting, is there.

Like, do you say, hey, look, there's one game, guys. We can't react to a bad game just like we can't react to a really good game. Or is it like, no, this might be a sign of something else that we got to be worried about long term?

Well, I mean, look, there's always going to be outliers and clunkers. Lamar Jackson, I want to say they played LSU in their bowl game, and it was not good for his final sendoff there. But this is the same thing, and I don't have the medical information, so I can't stamp this as 100%. But in talking to some people around the league, and maybe they're just apologists or have big grades on these guys, but you hear Will Howard might have been concussed in the Michigan game. You hear Jackson Dart might have been concussed in the Florida game.

I'm not, I don't have that documented. I'm just saying that there's that, that stuff floats around out there when you're talking to people, but it's not the first time somebody has had a stinker. Remember Josh Allen and who was playing with a junior high team when they went and played that Iowa game, but like had the interceptions and people just, just hung on to that one moment.

on him and punished him for that. And it's like, dude, that's, you know, he wasn't even fighting a fair fight with what he had in that game, but you're going to have a game like that every now and then. Right. Yeah. How do you weigh that? Like, I guess the real question I'm asking is how, how do you weigh traits? Like the, if a guy has a big arm, very accurate, et cetera, et cetera, against the games that you've seen him play most recently.

Well, I think big games are important. You know how you play in that. But to me, there was a lesson in scouting. And obviously, I had to learn it the hard way. But with Josh and with Mahomes, where it was like, okay...

There's some rawness to them. There's some issues that pop up. There's some development that needs to take place. But when you have a combination of size, ridiculous arm talent, and then incredible competitiveness, and then you go through the later on the process, you find out, oh yeah, by the way, they're unbelievable dudes who are incredibly smart.

like these guys are going to figure it out. Like I'll, I'll take my chances on those guys who may be a little rough around the edges. So it, you know, to get to your point there, I'm chasing ceiling with quarterbacks, maybe more than I'm looking at the floor that, you know, when you just look around the AFC and you look at the quarterbacks, you have to go through. It's like to me, okay. If I, if I take a guy who has like a mid-level ceiling, but I know he's going to hit it, like I'm confident he's going to hit it. And I have another guy with a wide range, but a higher ceiling, uh,

Well, either way, if I take the high range guy and he busts, I got to go get another quarterback. If I take the guy with the mid ceiling two years, three years now, I'm like, well, he's not good enough either. Like I got to go back and get another quarterback. So you might as well just take your swing. Yeah, no, it's a good way to think about it. And I think that as fans, we probably criticize too much on the swings because it's like you can't, you don't want to be stuck in that mediocre, you know, having a starting quarterback who's just good enough to get paid, but not good enough to win a Super Bowl.

Yeah. Just list. I mean, when you look at the AFC, uh,

And off the top of my head, you're talking about Mahomes, Allen, Lamar Jackson, Burrow, C.J. Stroud, Herbert. Like, you've got to navigate through that gauntlet, and you're going to go out there with kind of a middling quarterback. Like, you're never going to survive. Yeah. Speaking of Josh, we were talking about some of the bad games he had in college. Who is one guy in this draft that is from that next little maybe group of five school that you think might be a sleeper, a guy that you're going to get an excellent player, maybe you haven't seen him play that much.

but who's one guy that stands out? Well, I just go immediately to Gray Zabel from North Dakota State. First of all, they've put offensive linemen in the NFL. They know how to coach them. They know how to identify them. They know how to develop them. And then

Take guys from these non-traditional power four type programs and they go to the senior bowl and they not only hold their own, they're pretty dominant down there. That's a high batting average with those guys, man. And he can play all five positions. So, yeah, he's like that immediate name that just pops right into my head. Yeah. The running backs in this draft is very interesting because it's Ashton Jenney obviously is at the top and he's going to go in whatever the first six, seven picks. But you said there's a lot of depth at running back.

Who's your favorite of the next group? And is it fair to say that there's going to be probably five or six teams that are coming away from this draft being like, hey, we feel like we've got a guy who on his rookie contract is going to be a really good contributor to this team.

Dude, there's a boatload of them. But like Travion Henderson for me from, from Ohio state, just because you got home run hitter, which I love. But then you've got somebody who's he's arguably, and I have to go back through my notes, like from way back in like the early two thousands, I don't recall off top of my head, a better pass protecting back coming out of college. Like,

He's unbelievable at it. So you've got that, which is a hard thing to find, and he possesses it. Then you've got someone who, you know, he's not a smallish back like he's put together. He doesn't have a ton of tread on his tires because they've spread the rock around there at Ohio State. So he's one that I would think. Like I know...

and people will look at that and say, gosh, that would be insane if they did that with pick number 10. But then you kind of step back and look at it and you're like, okay, the biggest issue is you guys know they didn't protect last year. So we revamped the offensive line. And now we've got a running back

who can not only hit a home run, I can get him involved in the pass game, but come, you know, look, you come against some of those big time fronts, I got an extra, it's like having an extra lineman back there to help protect Caleb. So that would be maybe a little shock if that happened when he got picked, but I could easily explain it. So,

Like in terms of draft trends, it is a copycat league. Do you feel like the tide shifting in the running backs or even linebackers where it's like you saw what the Lions did a couple years ago and everyone's like, this is crazy. Why would they do this? They take a running back and a linebacker early. Our team's starting to open their eyes a little bit more being like, hey, this isn't as crazy as we thought it was five, six years ago.

I just think it's the order of operation. I don't think that I have an issue with taking a running back, and I don't think most teams do. I think the mistakes are when you're a terrible team and you take a running back, knowing he's got like a six-year, seven-year shelf life, and you're going to waste two or three years of those carries on a terrible team for...

what's the point? You're better off building up your team, and then the second I start the clock on the running back, it matters. All of his carries. Detroit had the offensive line. They'd already taken care of the marquee positions on defense. They had Aiden Hutchinson. So you drop Jameer Gibbs in, and he hits the ground running. And off you go. But to me, if you're a bad team, bad offensive line, you can disguise a good running back in a

with a bad supporting cast. So that's where the mistake is for me. And it's a really good point. It's why I feel bad for Giants fans who get made fun of for the Saquon deal. And it's like, but Saquon would like the Giants wouldn't have been good with Saquon this year. Saquon was added to a Super Bowl ready team. And that's why he flourished. He always has been a good running back. It's just that he was on a really bad team and it makes no sense to pay a running back on a really bad team.

A hundred percent. Yeah, it's to me, it's just that it's one of the final pieces there. Everybody talked about, you know, I think Seattle was the reason for this was kind of like you build up your roster, then you drop in the quarterback. I almost more believe so. It's the running back in terms of once you have everything built up, OK, drop him in there and off you go. And there's teams in this draft where you look at it. And that's why.

Normally, the teams picking the top 10 don't have those key bases covered. That's why you see some of these running backs that go up there maybe don't pop as much. The Bears are different. They're different. If somehow Gentry were to get there, they've invested in that offensive line. They have the quarterback in place. They have all the

key positions in defense they're in pretty good spot there um so that's why it's kind of a unique opportunity for them and um even if if genti was gone i would you know i'd be doing my homework on hampton who's a stud out of north carolina like i would love to see the bears come away with a dynamic back i think they're ready for him yeah yeah we have to dive into maybe the biggest controversy of all time in the nfl draft what's been going on with will campbell and his arm length measurement

So I know you're a big arm length guy probably. He measured in at 32 and 5 eighths inches at the combine, and that's just below the magic number of 33 inches, which is what you say you have to have to be an offensive tackle. Then was it at his pro day or was it at the senior day? Yes, pro day. He measured in at 33 inches. So he got up there. His arm length increased. Are his arms, is that 3 eighths of an inch good enough? Is that enough to make Will Campbell an elite tackle?

Well, the Armlet controversy goes well beyond Campbell because...

There were guys at the senior bowl who got their arms measured and, uh, bow. The, uh, tackle from Purdue is one off top of my head, whose arms magically shrunk an inch from the senior bowl to the combine. So like all the combine numbers this year were low. So I don't know if they've have different people doing it that, you know, used to be, you had the same guy would do it at the senior bowl is the same guy would do it at the combines. I'm going to go on a limb and say they have different people doing this who are doing it differently. Um,

So all the numbers are kind of jacked this year and you see the pro day numbers match more what the all-star game numbers were. So it kind of looks like the senior bowl is an outlier. But to me, the, you know, I've never been in a, in a draft room where it was like, he's 30, 32 and seven eights not touching him. Oh, he's 33. We're in on him. I think a little bit more of that gets made to me. It's just more about how do you play with your length and,

On the need length side of the argument, go watch the Super Bowl and go watch Joe Tooney, who's not long, and who the Philadelphia Eagles got into his chest and just beat the crud out of him in that game. And that was their plan coming into that game. He's a short arm tackle. We're going to rush long, meaning we're just going to get to his chest. We're going to get extended and get to his chest long.

And he struggled like that, that there is a reason why people care about arm. Like there is something to that, but I've watched Rashawn Slater every week with the chargers. Who's got 33 inch arms, but who's built like a wrestler. He's got unbelievable core strength. And even if you get to his chest before he can get on you, that's,

he can drop his weight with incredible strength and base, and the arm length doesn't even – it's not even an issue. So I think it's kind of – that's a long way to get to it. But I do think arm length matters, but I think you have to put it in a context. It's kind of like all these measurements where it's like the hand size. We joke about it.

But if you had a preference, you would rather have your quarterback have bigger hands than smaller hands because it's proven that, yes, there are quarterbacks with smaller hands who are good. But when it comes to elements, when it comes to holding onto the football, yeah, you'd probably want to have a 10-inch hand. That would help. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's across the board. I think it's not just in football. I think in basketball, if you had a good basketball player at six foot five with a normal wingspan and a, and a player that was six foot four with freakishly long arms, like, yeah, I liked the guy with a lot of length because that clogs up lanes and,

that helps you close out and defend. You're always going to prefer it, but you get in trouble when you discard good play and punish them for a trait, and you get in trouble when you elevate somebody because they have traits and they can't play. Yeah, so in conclusion, Will Campbell, you're not worried about him at all being a tackle?

No, I look, he's not as, he doesn't have the same core strength that Rashawn Slater has. I didn't give him as high of a grade as I gave Rashawn Slater, but with him, I think he can hold up. I think he's really good at recovering. He's got great feet. But to me, there are times where he's more so than his arm length. Rashawn's broad. He's narrow. Like will more, the wingspan probably bothers me than the arm length. He's just kind of narrow shouldered and guys can kind of get on his edges a little bit.

But he's such a great kid. He's so smart. He's so tough. I think the absolute worst-case scenario is he fails outside and he's a Pro Bowl-caliber guard. So I think from that standpoint, he has a higher floor. Another reason why this draft maybe doesn't have as much buzz is it's not just the quarterbacks but the wide receivers. I feel like we had a stretch here where the wide receivers were phenomenal and every year it would be five or six guys going in the first round. It was like, holy shit.

And it doesn't feel that way. Talk to me about the wide receiver class and then specifically Tett McMillan, because I feel like I've heard just everything. Like people saying he's a stud and then people ripping him apart. Where do you land on Tett and then as the wide receivers in total?

Sure. Big picture, I don't think we have the, again, the stars, like the big time, like top 10 caliber receiver that we've had in some of these previous years. But I think it's a really good group. I think there's a lot of twos and a good number of threes. I don't know that we have like a number one wide out in this class. To McMillan specifically, like this is an example of kind of maybe the polarizing nature with him. I call one team and say, hey, what'd you guys think of him?

Well, he's super smooth. Um, he's ultra athletic. He's got agility. He makes it look easy, you know, with his ranging and he go get it. You know, he has a volleyball background. I love, you know, love him, you know, really, really love the kid. Talk to somebody else. There's no urgency to what he does. Uh,

I don't see him really compete. It doesn't look like he strains much to try and make things happen. And he's a volleyball player. Come on, he's a volleyball player. So I'm like, literally, they said the exact same things, and one likes him and one doesn't like him. It's just kind of all how you view it. Yeah, yeah. And then wide receivers in total, is there another one that you like or maybe farther down the line where you're like, hey, this guy's probably not going to go to the second or third round, but he's going to be a solid pro?

Yeah, I like the day two group. Like there's two kids from Iowa State I think are really, really good. You've got Noel who's kind of a, you know, a power slot. Like he's a strong, sturdy slot who can really, really run, who give you run after the catch. He's just, to me, he's like ready-made, like drop him in and he's going to be super productive right away. And then you've got Higgins on the outside who's like more of the power forward type. You know, one of the things that I was talking to Purdy about this, I'm like, one thing I never understood, I don't know if you guys have ever tackled the subject, but

Why don't we include pass interference yards on totals for receivers and quarterbacks? Yeah. I mean, Joe Flacco would be even more elite. Yeah. Throw that deep ball. But I mean, like Higgins draws so many penalties. So like, if you just look at his numbers on paper, like, yeah, he's got good numbers, but if you added in all the yards and the first downs that he accumulated because he's so physical and fights for the ball and draws flags, like that's a skill and it's a more valuable skill in the NFL than it is in college. So yeah,

Those are a couple of day two guys. Jack Besch probably goes in the third round from TCU, who's another ultra, ultra competitive kid. So those are a few I like. I do think that there should also be an end one for wide receivers. If they get a pass interference call against them and they catch the ball, there should be an additional five yards on there.

I like that. Yeah. What about Travis Hunter? What do we think about? Are some teams looking at him and saying, yeah, you're only going to play cornerback? Or is every team that's picking up at the top, are they going to draft him with the understanding that he's going to play both sides?

I think everybody I've talked to has a plan to major in minor, you know, like you're a major in one side, minor on the other. And to me, look, we can debate all these other teams, what they're going to do. Cleveland's going to take him. He's going to major in offense. He's going to minor on defense. Really? Oh yeah. Yeah.

Oh, I think so, yeah. I always assumed it was the other way around. You have him graded higher as a wide receiver? I think he's more impactful as a receiver right now. And so, to me, I think that's where you start him, especially in a team in Cleveland who doesn't have the premier quarterback. And maybe they, you know, I do think they try and come away with one and get back in to take one. But,

To me, yeah, I think he'll be on the opposite side of Jerry Judy, and they'll get the ball in his hands as much as possible. So why do you have him – like why are you seeing him more as a wide receiver than a cornerback? Because everybody else that we've talked to has said cornerback first. They'll put him in on packages on offense.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, as an aside, he wants to play wide receiver. I think he says he wants to play everything, but if you told him, he would say he's a wide receiver slash corner and not the other way around. Okay. He touches the football more on offense, and this is not the old days. Like, he's not a press man corner, put him on one side of the field and forget about it, leave him alone. He's at his best where he can use his instincts and eyes, play off coverage, see things, set traps, drive on the ball, make some plays.

So, you know, I don't think he's not like a Pat Sertan, like coming out of college as a corner, whereas I think he is right now ready to go. There's a ton of ways we can get the ball in his hands. I just think he impacts the game more on offense at this point in time. And it's never really been done. Everybody that's had this two way ability, it's always been major on defense package of plays on offense.

So I realize in saying that, look, this is new. This is a new uncharted waters, so to speak. But to me, that's what makes the most sense for him. Yeah. I got a question about not this year's draft, but overall the way college football is going and then as it pertains to the NFL. Obviously, you followed the Nico saga in Tennessee. How's that going to impact how teams evaluate these guys going forward where it's like, hey,

I, you know, loyalty is kind of a stupid thing because, you know, there is no loyalty in, in these high level sports, but, you know, jumping around from team to team, having a situation like this where it's like he, you know, sits out and not, I don't want to say he quit on his team, but like there's that, that storyline goes. So how do teams kind of judge something like this? Cause it probably is going to happen a lot more going forward. Yeah.

The teams who don't need a quarterback or aren't picking high enough to take one are going to be very vocal about how upsetting this is. And the team, the teams that are picking up high and need quarterbacks are not going to give two cents about it. Like nobody's going to care. It's talent over everything. Right. So it's going to have zero impact on guys and where they go. And we're already used to this last year. I mean, shoot the last,

I don't know, maybe five years. You're more the rarity is the guy who's been at one stop. Yeah. All these guys have bounced all over the place. Now, what the motivation is for that, people can get upset about it if they want. But, you know, from a scouting standpoint with with Nico specifically, I haven't seen a ton of them, but I've seen a ton of the Tennessee offense. And it's kind of like that old Baylor Art Bryles offense where they're literally could touch the hand of the coach on the sideline.

It's hard to translate that to the next level from an evaluation standpoint. I don't know what exactly UCLA's offense is going to look like, but I'm kind of excited to see him from an evaluator standpoint in a different offense. It's a really good point because we get tricked by it. So going forward, we just got to remember that we're going to hear a lot of criticism of a guy like Nico or someone who has the same situation. It's just going to come from guys that would never have to pick him anyway. Yeah.

Exactly. What does it matter? Right. I mean, that's, that's my whole point. I mean, I just think there's, there's, there's teams every year that need upgrades and are desperate and they are not going to give a crap about any of this stuff. Yeah. And if one of those players falls to the team that's complaining, they'll change their tune and draft that guy. Anyways, I've been in a draft room where we had a player with some character issues that we viewed as like a third round pick and

and we had a black dot on him, which meant he was undraftable. And then all of a sudden in the sixth round, our director said, print up a new card, take the black dot off. He's been punished enough. How'd he work out? That's perfect.

He hung around for a few years. He wasn't a great player, but for a six round pick, he was, it was functional. Yeah. So what about, what about a surprise team? Are we going to get a team that we don't think needs a quarterback that is going to try to make a move? And it'd be very funny if the Falcons did it again this year. I know they won't, but is there a team like the Falcons from last year that you're going to be like, what the hell?

I mean, that would probably kill the surprise. I can't think of one. There's none that I'm looking at as a sneaky quarterback team. I mean, the Rams have been mentioned, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

I don't think they would do it early, but Matthew's older and, you know, maybe they take one on day two or something like that. But, you know, Tua's been hurt. Maybe that could be, you know, a surprise there, but they've paid him. It seems like that would catch me off guard. So if there is one, I'll be as caught off guard as anybody. Yeah. What about some of the tweener guys? I don't know if we still call them tweeners. I feel like I haven't heard that. Okay, good, good. Because I haven't heard that term a lot recently. It's like been changed –

to like a chess piece if you have somebody on defense. Versatile. Yeah, versatile. You move them around a lot. Are there any tweeners that we should have our eyes on? And then follow-up question, who are the guys that have been undersized that are labeled as tweeners that, in your opinion, have actually worked out? Yeah, yeah.

tweeners that have worked out well i mean like brandon graham is like kind of my classic tweener um he was kind of in between body type of a defensive tackle and an edge rusher and and you know it's like how where do we use him best i was there in philadelphia when he was there and i was like well his it's better to have his power advantage over a tackle than his quickness advantage over a guard but he's like you know kind of a classic example of a

of a tweener. When I'm looking at guys in this draft, you know, this draft, we have a lot of these DTs are all over 300 pounds. Normally we get some of these 275, 280 pound guys. We don't have as many of those this year. Like Elijah Roberts from SMU,

Probably like a third round pick, but he's one that you kind of go, okay, does he play inside? Does he play outside? Savion Jones from LSU is another one. Kind of a tweener there. So there's a few of them sprinkled in throughout here, but it's not a huge tweener year. Maybe the other one I would say is Nick Skorton from A&M.

Nick Skorton is fascinating because he is someone when I watched him, I'm like, gosh, I didn't see like big time juice and takeoff at A&M last year. And then I found out after the fact, well, they bulked him up to 280. They wanted him to be bigger. So he got up to 280 pounds. Well, he shows up at his pro days 257 pounds.

and he's moving around good he looks great um and that was you know teams like you got to go back and watch him when he was at purdue the year before because he was lighter and he looks like a different guy so he's one that's just kind of weird that you're going to see the guy when he gets picked and be like that doesn't look like the same human being uh yeah it's the guy that you saw last year uh all right this is an unfair question but i'm going to ask you anyway uh outside of the top let's say eight

Give me a team and player that you're like, I know this is what's going to end up happening. Because I think there are teams like the Packers or the Ravens. It's almost like if you follow any of their beat writers, you can basically telegraph what their pick is. So do you have – I'll give you two shots at it. And if you get one of them right, we'll just be like, DJ was right. He nailed it. So I'll give you two shots at a team player that you're like, I think this is going to happen. It's like you can almost write it down right now.

Well, you guys, I know, Dan, you talked to Harbaugh. So I don't know if he's into manifestation, but it just feels like I think every night he's going to bed with Colston Loveland's picture like on the wall. And he just stares at it like this is going to happen. I believe it. He will be here. So that's one. OK, say. And then I will say with the Houston Texans.

This one, I'll go with Booker. I'll go with Tyler Booker from Alabama. When you have the connection with Nico Ryans to Alabama, and then when I talk to the guys at Alabama about Tyler Booker, they say he was the offensive Will Anderson, who also was with the Houston Texans. So I'm like, there's a lot of stuff working together there.

Okay, so if you get either of those right, we'll make a graphic and be like, as first reported by Daniel Jeremiah seven days before the draft, he nailed this. DJ knows ball. Tell them to save their time on that graphic, though. Don't do that unless it actually happens, which the odds are very low. No, you got one of those. You got one of those, too. And I know as a scout, you fall in love with guys. I'm sure that you've experienced it where you're scouting somebody and you're like, this guy is going to go –

Way too late. I would personally have him way higher. Is there somebody that's going to be picked in the third, fourth round this year that you have fallen in love with? Ooh, that's a great question. Great question. Thank you. So I'll give you like an example of someone. He might even go beyond that, but there's a safety Woodson, Craig Woodson from Cal.

who's, I'm like one of those guys where I don't kind of, I don't know what I'm missing. Like he's, he's got enough size. He takes the ball away. He ran the mid four fours. I talked to the guys at Cal like super smart, great leader. Cal's been like a sneaky, good secondary factory over the years. There's certain schools that you kind of are surprised when you dig into it and you're like, gosh, there's a lot of guys playing in the NFL at this position from this school. So he's one, I think to me, I have him like in the,

like early to mid third round. And maybe he goes in like the fifth, fifth round, you know, when it's all said and done, but I think he'll look up and he'll be starting next year. Okay. I got one last question. It's been awesome. Thank you so much, DJ. You got to go D obviously everyone's going to be watching on NFL network on draft night, move the sticks podcast. The last question is row back question. You're wearing your row back right now. Rowback.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, everything. Rowback.com promo code take 20%.

All right, give us – I want to do a new thing where we're just going to call it Mr. PMT because there's obviously the Mr. Irrelevant.

Give us a sixth or seventh round quarterback that you're like, hey, this guy could, who knows? Just so we can then say, yeah, actually we had it first before anyone else. Not saying give us the next Tom Brady, but a quarterback you know is going to go in the last couple rounds that you're like, there's at least something there. So when his name gets called, all of our fans can be like, yep, that's Mr. PMT. He's going to be the guy.

And we're just going to take, we're going to do this every year for the next decade until we get one right. And then we're going to be like, we were the first to say it. Now this one's interesting because if you were to go in like the third or fourth round, I wouldn't be shocked because his plays really good.

But because of some other factors, mainly his size, I could see him falling into the sixth or seventh round. So it's not like I'm creating a quarterback out of thin air here. You guys all know him. You've all seen him play a bunch. But I would go with Dylan Gabriel. Okay. That's Mr. PMT. So I saw a picture of him wearing jet skier the other day.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, he was very impressed. He's got a strong arm, man. He is not – he is – you know, he's 5'11". He's older, but he's got a really strong arm. I've kind of advocated if you're the Dolphins, and I know they brought over Zach Wilson, but that'd be a – I mean, shoot, just bring him in there. If you can get him in the third, fourth round, knowing Tua is more than likely to miss some games, like I think he could do everything that, you know, Tua can do. Yeah, and are you going up to Green Bay? Yeah. Yeah, yep. I'm out there all week. What can we expect from Green Bay in this draft? Are they doing anything different?

I don't know, man. The only thing that I know is they have, we do the puppy thing. Like we bring in the rescue puppies and the one peed on me two years ago. So that's like the only thing I'm prepared for is just bring an extra shirt and try and work on my technique. It's like all the ball security stuff that they teach you in football. Yeah. Puppy security is like opposite. You got to throw all, there's no point. You want zero points of

pressure you gotta keep that thing out extended so that's that's all i'm really focused on to be honest it's a great point all right well we can't wait to watch you on draft night thank you so much dj we appreciate you and having you on every year and let's hope that dylan gabriel goes and you know wins a super bowl and we can be like yeah actually that was mr pmt

Oh, man. Are you kidding me? And then you've got to do a whole weekend like they do the thing in Newport Beach. I don't know where you guys want to take the guy if there's a cost involved there. I don't know if you want to be cost conscious, but you'd have to put together a whole weekend for the player like they do for Mr. Irrelevant. Yeah, we drive him around the basketball court using Max's wheelchair. Yeah. It'd be fantastic. And they can get as much lasagna as they want. Yeah. See, it sounds like a heck of a weekend. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thanks so much. See you, buddy.

Chris Finch is going to be brought to you by our great friends, our fantastic friends over at Game Time. It's live event season right now. Hank, can you look up tickets for... Let's look up Cubs-Phillies tickets. Cubs-Phillies tickets, Wrigley Field. There's going to be a lot of out-of-control Philly trash there. Anybody in particular?

I'll be there. I don't know about other Philly trash. No, let's talk about you. Max will be there. He's probably worth the price of admission on his own. Just go buy Max a beer. That's the day. Buy Max a beer Friday at Wrigley Field. He'll chug it.

He'll chug it. Yeah, that's a guaranteed fact, especially if it's one of those bats, one of the bats that's filled with beer. He'll drink a million of those. So at Wrigley Field on Friday, Phillies-Cubs, what are we looking at? You can get in the building for $14. 14 bucks? 14 bucks. That can't be true. That is going to leave you a lot of cash. I'm looking at it right now on game time. A lot of beer cash in the wallet for Max. Get your drinking pants on, buddy.

And guess what else is here? NBA playoffs are here. The only place to buy the hard-to-get playoff tickets is GameTime, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. They've got the best last-minute deals, all-in prices, views from your seat, and the lowest price guarantee. GameTime takes the guesswork out of buying NBA playoff tickets. Prices on the app actually go down the closer it gets to tip-off. You can save up to 60% when buying last-minute tickets.

Plus, on April 22nd for Earth Day, when you select and purchase a super deal, Game Time will plant a tree with the proceeds. If you're looking at those Cubs tickets or Hank, tell you what, look up the Celtics tickets. What are the Celtics tickets like in this series? It's going to be a long, hard-fought series against the Magic. I'm sure that you're convinced it's probably going to go the distance. Right, Hank?

No, I'm just going to look at game two is on Wednesday. That's probably the last game of this series that you can go to in Boston, at least. You can get in the building for $150. Okay, that's good for Celtics tickets. Yeah. Proud basketball sports. Actually, $138. Take it back. Fire deal. And guess what? It's going to be less than that, too. If it's your first time with Game Time, you download the app.

Create an account, use code PMT, and you can take $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem code PMT, get $20 off, download the GameTime app today. What time is it? GameTime. And now, here's Chris Finch. Ooh.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch ahead of the playoffs. Just so that everyone knows, we're taping this on Friday. They have game one Saturday night against the Lakers. We just told coach he's got to try to really win this game so that on Monday when we run the interview, everyone's like, man, Chris Finch, what a genius. Here's actually what you need to do.

Don't tear your knee on Saturday night again, okay? Because then this would be an awkward interview to run. How is your knee feeling, and are you excited to actually be able to walk around this playoffs? Knee's feeling good, thanks. It's been almost a year, so it should be good after this long. But, yeah, I know we're excited to get started. It'd be fun to be back up on both legs for the playoffs again. Yeah, so your knee –

do you have a different strategy now going into this postseason? I always think it's similar to being at a dog park where you've got to keep a little bend in your knee because a Labrador might jump and cut you from behind. Do you have any new strategy on how you're going to be standing in the box in the playoffs? Well, I mean, I don't necessarily have a new strategy, but what I have noticed is how many times people actually start coming your direction. Your radar is

is, uh, you know, much better now when you realize that you could be taken out at any moment in time. So I actually thought there was a benefit to that where you'd be less likely to get teed up by a ref. If you're, you know, you got a big thing on your leg. You're like, Oh, it's just me. Like you're less of a threat that way. True. Yeah. Well, sitting in the second row, I could yell a little bit louder. So I'm not, they could, they couldn't really tell where it was coming from sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So we're getting ready for the playoffs. Uh,

Your season has been an interesting one because you guys started off slow. You came on strong at the end. What was the big adjustment that you were able to make, or was it just the guys fighting through things to get to a point where you're back to where you want to be in terms of a real contender in the West? Yeah, I think much, much, much of the credit goes to the guys, just figuring it out.

You know, understanding what they had to do, sacrifices, roll, rotations, you know, being ready to kind of change and adapt as the season was going along. The biggest thing was really our offense. Our offense was struggling out of the gate. We had a lot of turnovers. The ball was sticky. Spacing issues. Normal stuff, but...

You got to remember, we made that trade literally 48 hours before we opened up training camp. And Julius came into training camp still nursing the very last, you know, kind of remnants of a shoulder offseason shoulder surgery. So we really didn't have him for much of preseason anyway. So it took us a while to kind of.

figure out how to best play with him and around him. And once we started to do that early to mid-December, I could feel the team getting better, the momentum building.

Maybe we weren't always getting the results, but it just felt a lot more like the team that I knew we could become. Yeah, and you got a big matchup in the first round here. Obviously, JJ is somebody that you know. You went on his podcast. Do you look back at that and be like, I feel like JJ just asked me on his podcast that he could get info on me so that if I played in the playoffs, he'd be able to use that against me?

Well, I mean, it was fun being on JJ's podcast, but I don't remember talking about much other than JJ. Is there any element like in a pregame speech before the series starts where you do like a little like, hey, I'm Chris Finch. You know, I was I was a lower level player. I play grinded it out. I played in Europe and then you got.

the pretty boy, J.J. Redick, who we're friends with, Duke and all the accolades in a first-round pick. You've got to beef up that narrative and be like, hey, we're the dogs here. Yeah, no, I mean, we might play up on the underdog story, but it won't involve me, I can assure you that. One thing that, you know, in the NBA, nobody cares where you've come from. No one cares what you've done before.

We all got here through different channels. You know, all that matters is you know what the heck you're doing and, you know, you're fighting for your teammates and, you know, guys have confidence in that. Yeah, you guys are a very fun team to watch. You're a very gritty team, which I appreciate. Obviously, Ant gets a lot of the accolades, but is there somebody that you would say, you know, taking him out, who's the most important player? Maybe not the best, but the most important player for you.

yeah i mean i mean rudy gobert is just so impactful on both sides of the ball i think you know rudy uh is a very polarizing player in the league um but you know having been with him now for uh three years like he just his his value cannot be overestimated it's just so important um to everything that we do you know he cut brings it every single night

You know, and it takes a while for guys to learn to play with Rudy where you can really maximize him and he can help you. So he would certainly be up there. I mean, we have so many guys that are just so important to our success. You got Mike Conley. I mean, he's just kind of humming away in the background all the time, just super steady. When we need him to step up and do more, you know, more of scoring, he does it easy, seamlessly. Jaden McDaniels is kind of,

just took another big step forward for us this year. I think his growth and becoming a legitimate two-way player has been very, very important.

Yeah, it's really hard to just single out one guy. We've had so many guys with great seasons. Nikhil Alexander-Walker has been in many ways our most consistent guy from day one this season, both sides of the ball. Just really settled into his role. It's fun to watch him kind of become the player that he's become now.

You know, after some early struggles in the league, which is not unusual for a lot of guys who come in the league with a lot of expectation and put a lot of pressure on themselves. It takes them a minute to figure it out. But since he's been with us, it's just been...

Such a joy to watch, and he's been so important. Yeah. All right, so I saw some of social media, which you've had comments on, saying that using Joe Ingles as your Luca model in practice is not going to work. What is he able to do, though, to replicate it? Because it does...

Maybe he's not Luka, but he also has a lot of smarts and you're able to maybe give you looks. So how does that work when you're trying to mimic a player like Luka and how you're going to defend him in a series? Well, of course, it's, you know...

If we had an exact Luka replica, we'd probably be a 70-win team. Nobody can go out and replicate these players in practice. But Joe is extremely intelligent. He's an unbelievable pick-and-roll player.

You know, he understands like all the different coverages that a team would try to employ and he can understand how to try to manipulate that or take advantage of it. So, you know, it's it's it's what we've you know, we're fortunate enough to have him in a lot of ways. His leadership has been great for us and our young players this year. He hasn't been on court as much as we thought when we did sign him. But that was before the trade happened.

and we got Dante and we got a little deeper as a result, but all that being said, Joe has a incredible amount of experience and he can bring that to, you know, our preparation. I got a free tip for you. Uh, you don't have to take it, but have you thought about, we saw Luca go back to Dallas. He was very emotional when he saw the video. Uh, have you thought about maybe playing into that, maybe playing the same video when he comes to Minnesota, maybe, uh,

we get a couple fans wearing Luka Mavs jerseys in the front row. Maybe changing some of your play calls to just be like Dallas, Mavericks, like over and over just to keep reminding him about the Mavs and get in his head a little bit.

Yeah, I think we're going to leave Luka alone. Okay, all right. Hey, listen, I said free tip. You didn't have to take it, but just something to think about. Maybe you pencil in a little unibrow on Rudy. That might be a good, yeah, get inside his head a little bit. Just have him constantly be thinking about Dallas instead of thinking about the Minnesota Timberwolves.

All right, will do. What's the difference for a casual fan watching in the regular season as opposed to the playoffs in terms of how you approach it as a head coach? Is there anything that you're going to be doing differently for game one as opposed to if you were to play the Lakers in early February?

Well, I think, you know, yeah, there's certainly you're dialed in to another level of game plan preparation. I think sometimes in the league you play a game might be a back to back. You're playing on a quick turnaround. You have your base defense. You know what you're trying to do and you make the adjustments might be small sometimes.

You know, might be nothing super radical. And I don't think you go into the into the playoffs being radical either. But you do have a week's worth of game planning preparation and you can go through a lot of different scenarios, whether it be plan B, plan C, you know, that kind of stuff.

you become a lot more matchup focused, I would think. And also you just, you know, you try to take things away and you put a lot of time and energy and effort into that. So there are some pretty big differences, I would say. That is one of the huge advantages of, you know, avoiding the play-in is that you have a week to kind of

maybe reinvent yourself along certain lines. Yeah. So in a game-to-game, because I love watching the playoffs because it feels like every game you see adjustments and counter-adjustments. From a coach's perspective, you go into a series –

is it just a total feel of like, okay, now it's time to adjust after say game one, or is it sometimes you're like, Hey, we got to just trust what we came in here with and maybe not adjust till it's elimination time. Or how does that really work where you're weighing like, Hey, let's do something totally different after game one, because we got to change it. Otherwise we're gonna be in trouble quickly. Yeah. That's a great question. I think that's, that's based, that strikes at the heart of what playoff coaching really is. It's certainly, you gotta be,

ready to make adjustments, willing to make adjustments. But sometimes, you know, you got to just do it better. And so that's a feel thing. It's kind of like you'll know it when you see it sometimes. And

There's a lot, you know, in the playoffs, there's a lot of outside noise. Everybody's talking about, you know, game one and what's going to happen with game two. And there's so many extremes and, you know, everyone thinks what's just happened is always what's going to happen again. It's just not the case. You know, I think one thing that's kind of stands out when you see a lot of the playoffs in the modern era is you'll see a lot of blowouts in the playoffs. You never used to see blowouts in the playoffs 25, 30 years ago, unless it was a one eight series, you know, but yeah,

You know, now you'll see you'll see a team that's favored. They might get dumped by 20 plus points one night. You know, so I do think that, you know, the there's, of course, a reaction overreaction cycle that goes on here. And the last thing I'd say about adjustments is that you've got to be able to make them because.

you know, you gotta be able to execute them. You have to have it in your arsenal. Like the obvious thing might be to, let's say switch everything or not switch something or goes on. You have to still be able to do it. Like your personnel has to lend itself to be able to do these things. So it's not like you can just go out and do things that your personnel is not capable of delivering or, or, or systematically you can't be that radical and change everything. So, or,

Or you're not going to be very good at it either. So it's kind of a balancing act there. Yeah. I also am curious, going up against a guy like Luka, and obviously LeBron is LeBron, but the mentality of a player that you're coaching and trying to explain to them that, hey, he's probably going to get 30. We got to make it harder for him to get 30, but he's going to probably get 30. And how you get someone to mentally be locked in where it's like if someone puts 30 up,

you're going to be like, man, I didn't do well tonight. But Luke is such an incredible offensive player. And you could say the same for Ant where it's like, hey, it doesn't matter. We know he's going to do that. It's just trying to make it as difficult as possible with him and keeping everyone like not down on themselves when he does go for 35. Yeah, that's, you know, that's the that's the choice we make coming into a lot of these games, whether it be playoffs or regular season.

it's really hard to stop star players you know it's hard to take them out of the game completely and if you do so of course you're leaving other things wide open so you're daring other people to beat you and some of that is you know that i think that goes to a different level in the playoffs i think there's you'll see a lot of that just guys who are quote unquote unguarded to to so we can

you know, put more time and attention to the star player or take away something that team really is trying to do.

But we also have the benefit of measuring efficiency now. If you're going to give 30 points on 27 shots, generally that's a win for the defense as long as you're not fouling at a high rate too. So it takes a mental toughness. I have a great admiration for a lot of these players like Jaden McDaniels types who gets that matchup every single night,

you know, who's got to go out there and battle and it doesn't look like he might win. You know, we played Denver this year and, you know, of course, Jokic had 61 on us one time, the time before that he had 36, but, you know, in the 36 point game, we felt we had done a really good job on him. So, yeah,

and that was largely Rudy's matchup that night, and we didn't do a lot of doubling, and we didn't do a lot of gimmicky stuff, so it was just him and Rudy, and sometimes it's just about a war of attrition. Can you wear him down, and hopefully they miss one of the shots at the end? Yeah, you guys have had some incredible comebacks, too. I'm thinking to last year against the Nuggets is one. I think...

Oklahoma City this year. You might have been down by even more against Oklahoma City when you came back. Have you considered not getting down by 25 points and just playing with the lead the entire game? No, I haven't actually. We actually say let's get down big and race back into fourth and it'll be exciting for everyone. Yeah, I mean as a coach that must be like it's got to be a great feeling when your team executes. You're never out of it. You're able to come back but also the first three quarters have to be excruciating to be like I can't believe we're losing by 20 right now.

Well, I would tell you this. We just lost a game to the Milwaukee Bucks where we were up 24 to start the fourth and we lost in the fourth quarter. And that was far more excruciating than being down for three quarters of winning. So that's the league today, though. You know, these massive swings. I think that's what makes the league super exciting right now.

Not just the style of play, the pace of play, the three-point shot. I love the fact that the league has let more defense come back in. I think that's also aided in a lot of these runs and these big swings. So, yeah, I think it starts with defense. Of course, you never want to be down.

But it starts with your defense, and if you can play defense and get stops, you can turn any game around now with the pace of play and the three-point shooting. Yeah. Would you say that you have better blobs or slobs?

Oh, that's a good question. I would say we're probably better blobs. Okay. Do you have like two or three blobs that you're like, these are, do you have a blob that you, you have like breaking case of emergency? Yeah, we have a few of those. I love that. I love that. Do you have a couple that you're like,

If I were a coach, I would just have one blob that's like, I'm not going to break this out until game seven of the finals. This is the best blob I've ever come up with. Well, it's funny you say that because every year we do this, we have plays that we hold back for special situations. And maybe you never get to those special situations. And they're really, really good plays. So you'll go the whole season and maybe never run it but one time. So yeah.

We've started rethinking some of that. We figure like we might as well run this stuff just at any old time because if we feel it's good, it's, you know, we might as well try it. Yeah. Yeah. If I had a blob that I was in love with, I could tell myself that I'm saving it for the NBA finals, but then I'm coaching the all-star game. I'm like, we really need a bucket right now. I would not, I would not have the discipline to be able to hold onto my blob for that long. So, so credit to you. Yeah. Have you seen the all-star game? Yeah.

it's pretty easy to get a bucket. It is. It is. Yeah. But actually my two blobs I think would be the alley-oop off the blob and then the throw the ball off the guy's back when he's looking away. Yeah. And then catch that. Those are the only two I would ever run. I'd be very easily defeated.

You were talking about efficiency earlier. Do you believe in long twos? Because when I'm watching NBA games, my favorite two things to say are you don't need a three here when you're down big late. And then that's an inefficient shot if somebody takes a long two. What's your philosophy on those?

Yeah, I think there's, of course, I believe in the long too. It's part of the game for sure. I think there's definitely a time and a place to use it. You know, when we talk about shot selection with our guys, we have built in kind of,

that shot in certain contexts. What I would say is that like, you know, you got to make a lot of them to be really good. And with the number of threes that are shot in the league right now, it's just hard to keep pace. Sometimes if you're just going to live with the twos, which a lot of teams are willing to do defensively. So I always still tell our guys, you know, when it comes to hard shots or whatever, like,

You can make that shot, no one's denying that you can't. It might be at 45%, which is pretty good. It might be at 50%, which is great, but most likely it's in the low 40s. It's just really hard to make a living on that shot. So you just got to be so, so good at it and such high volume.

Just to counter what's going on at the other end of the floor more than anything else. Yeah. So Anthony Edwards, who's a phenom, and last year was kind of his coming out party in the playoffs. Obviously, he was good before that, but that was the national coming out party. When you're coaching him, are there games where you see it in his eyes or he tells you something and it's like, okay, we can just...

just let Ant do what he wants to do because he's got it right now. Like, is that a, is that a feel thing or does he actually say it to you? Like, Hey coach, I got this tonight. Like I'm, I'm feeling great. I mean, it's a, it's more of a feel thing. It's a look thing. You can tell, um, since, since I've got, since I got here, which was in the midst of, uh, Ant's rookie year, you know, you could tell, I remember his first 40 point game, which was against Phoenix shortly after the all-star break, uh,

it was kind of an awakening for him uh he has incredible confidence in himself and his ability to to to go out and do his thing always has even before he had figured out how to do it largely but once he started to kind of figure it out you know he's he's always had this incredible sense for the moment within a game of like knowing when to take over and

It could be defensively too. And then he gets on these mini runs and he could turn a quarter or turn a game around in a heartbeat. And it's pretty cool to watch, you know, kind of know when it's coming because you can feel it. He makes a few momentum plays for himself or his teammates.

And that's one of the things I think, you know, he's learned a lot in those, in these few early years, he's, you know, he's way more thinking the game than he had early on. I do think one thing that I've always let him do is I've coached him hard. We've held him accountable, coached him hard, but we give him incredible amount of freedom to figure it out. And I think that was the only way he was going to learn. You know, if he went into a super, you know,

you know, overly structured kind of patterned environment. I'm not sure that that would have benefited him early on. Uh, if he went into, uh, a system where there was a ton of like off ball movement and cutting and reading and all that kind of stuff, I'm not sure that would have benefited him early on. Like now he understands that, but, but just kind of giving him a big platform to, to do his thing and what was most comfortable for him. Um,

allowed these moments that you're talking about to come about. Yeah. Do you ever catch yourself like watching the Jumbotron a little too much when they're replaying a dunk or something, a big moment from him? No.

yeah no doubt it's been some of those don'ts to have a front row seat for i think most of them happen has have happened right in front of the bench too which has been kind of cool yeah yeah what's he like in practice has he done things in practice that just amaze you yeah like in practice he he'll he'll just take over part of practice you know one thing we preached to him when he was you know early on was like you know if you want to be the best player on team like you got to

You got to prove it to your teammates in practice. That's where if you can dominate a practice, you just take over. You know, he's not dunking on everybody in practice, but he'll, you know, when we go live and we're playing and the competitiveness is there in practice, you know, which is we don't often go live at NBA practice once we get out of preseason. But during preseason, you know,

He'll definitely have these days in a row where he's setting the tone and he's letting everybody know how good he is. Yeah. So we talked about Lucas' play. From a coaching perspective, do you have a game plan? Are you maybe getting yourself hyped up before the game being like,

I can't let Luca out-complain me to the refs. Like, I have to be ready for his complaining to the refs, and I have to match that. Like, are you looking in the mirror and being like, hey, you're the coach. You can't let him get to the refs before I get to the refs. Exactly.

No, that's kind of a losing battle. I'm not sure you're going to win that one. I think what's important for us this series is for us to stay super focused on the game, leave the officials alone. That's the coaches and the players included. Yeah, that might be the good strategy. Just be like never say anything to him and let Luka kind of out-complain himself and just let him burn out the refs.

You know, you can go silence. Give the silent treatment to the rest. You could also learn Slovenian and then translate what Luca is saying so that you're like, hey, he just cussed at you. Yeah, that's right. You couldn't understand it. I'll just make up Slovenian and then I don't have to learn it. And then I can say what I want to say. That's also very smart. Are there any words that will get you teed up that maybe we don't know about? Well, the word bozo got me thrown out of the game earlier this week.

What was the context? I didn't realize it was that offensive, but yeah. Yeah. What was the context in that? Oh, God. I was actually having a sidebar conversation with Bradley Beal, and the official kind of overheard it. Bozo. I do feel like Bozo, that one stings. Calling somebody a clown, the ref is going to have rabbit ears for that. Was that the only word that you said?

Well, after he threw me out, I think I had a few more words for him. But yeah, but that was that was kind of it, you know, but, you know, these things are they all happen in context. And sometimes I always find after the after the fact, I was like, well, you know, what were you so angry about? You know, how did it get to that point? You have these things.

Kind of reflective moments where you're a little ashamed of yourself. Yeah. Is there, though, in your head like a strategic tech that you can take? Because we saw it in like the national championship game where the second half started and it was the refereeing was going one way and then Todd Golden, Florida's coach, got a tech and

And it then flipped. And it was like, I don't know if he did it on purpose, but is there in your head like, hey, there's a time when I should take a tech here to try to maybe bring a little bit more balance to the game? Yeah, I think we all reserve that right, and we've all done that. I'll probably use that less about the flow of the game, more about protecting the players. Yeah. So they don't get one or they don't get super –

frustrated or they know that somebody else is fighting the fight with them. Yeah, that makes sense. What was the first meeting between you and A-Rod like? When he was like, hey, I'm going to come in here, might own the team. I'm trying to think back. It was cool, pretty cool. He and Mark Lloyd came in. They talked to us before practice one day. Just trying to think. That was way back in kind of the COVID, still the COVID period after COVID.

And so it was just kind of limited. People were around the team at that point in time anyway. But, yeah, they've been great. You know, they've had a really positive impact on the energy of the team. One thing I really like about Alex is, you know, having played high-level sports, you know, he understands what, like, a winning environment looks and feels like and those cultures, you know,

But, yeah, you know, he's not a basketball guy, so he doesn't walk around pretending to know basketball. But he's super inquisitive. He'll ask a lot of questions, ask a lot of really good questions. And he wants to be educated. Very, very appropriate. You know, Mark's similar. Mark's the same. Like, Mark's really, really smart. He loves the numbers. He's into analytics. He builds his own models on whether, you know, trades or draft, you know, all that stuff. But he's not –

us about pick and roll coverages and substitutions and rotations and all that. So, yeah,

They've been really, really pleasure to have around and, you know, look forward to the future with them. Yeah. All right. So coach, I got one last question. It's been so much fun. We appreciate you joining us. A row back question, RHOBACK.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com promo code take. You had a, you had a, a comment to the, to the media the other day where you're like, Hey, I could just go on Twitter. Everyone knows how to coach better than me.

I found this guy named Ball Lover 6969 said, Chris Finch is a fucking idiot. I could do the rotations better than him. Do you want to maybe take his criticism? Should we connect you with him? No, man. I think he's probably right. This is pretty easy. We just...

You know, we just throw up any old person that we think so can do the job out there. And, you know, we just kind of go from there. I also made up that one, but I did. You actually, I looked for Chris Finch idiot, and it wasn't as much as you'd think. So I think you're doing an okay job. Like it wasn't that bad. Oh, you got to wear the throwback jerseys. Is that the plan? The white throwback jerseys that say Wolves on them?

No, that was last year's. Those are the cleanest jerseys. I think those might be the best jerseys in the NBA right now. You got to bring them back. Yeah, I was disappointed that we didn't have those in the rotation this year. But hey, if you want to hear a good one. So Chris Finch, idiot. I'm sure it's out there. You just probably didn't look hard enough.

When I was living in England, I lived in England for about 10 years. And that was at the height of The Office, the British version of The Office. And one of the characters there who was Todd Packer, like Todd Packer's equivalent, the outside sales guy. His name was Chris Finch.

So that was some fun years because he was basically like the village idiot in that show. And so everybody kind of latched onto that and tried to rope my name into it. Oh, that's funny. That's a tough one. Yeah. If you look up Chris Finch Bozo on Twitter, you will find a couple comments. That's way worse than calling you an idiot. Yeah. These guys should all be blocked. Yeah. All right. Well, Coach, best of luck in the playoffs and great having you on.

Okay. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks, man. Part of my take is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's talk numbers. Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session. That adds up fast. But with BetterHelp Online Therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. And this month, BetterHelp is giving you the biggest discount on starting therapy that I've ever offered on the show, 90% off your first week. Guys, don't miss this. Therapy should feel accessible.

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Okay, let's do numbers. The Warriors have won game one. Welcome to the playoffs, Rockets. Listen, everybody wants to crown the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Warriors look really good. They do. Everybody out there is putting so much respect on them. Feels a little bit disrespectful to the one-time champs, the Warriors. The one-time champs? Yeah, well, I mean at one point. Yeah, one point. Former champs. I give credit to the Rockets for fighting. I thought that game was over. Yeah. They fought back. Made it like a four-point game. But yeah, Warriors, different. I think this would be a good series, but...

Little welcome to the NBA press. All the young teams. The Rockets. What? Continue. All the young teams that are welcoming themselves to the playoffs. The Rockets. The Pistons. The Magic were in the playoffs last year, but tough. Any other young teams? Well, the Thunder were in the playoffs last year. Oh, just this year. I'm saying the Rockets, they had a really good season, but they're very young. Same with the Pistons. Might be a year too early for them.

And that kind of went the same way where it's like fourth quarter, the older team, the veteran team, like, hey, this is winning time. I agree. Okay. Numbers. 19. 19.

Oh, memes didn't have his fucking thing. I have to adjust the camera. Did you want three? No, I'll go 17. Take three. No. For what? You keep three. Okay, I'll keep three. What are you going 17 for? That guy who won WrestleMania, number 17. Oh, we don't say his name. Yeah, we don't say his name. Travis Scott. Travis Scott. Champ. I think people were upset about WrestleMania. You know what? Put me in that camp. I'm fucking pissed. Yeah.

I'm just too. I wanted Cody Rhodes to win. This is the Rocks' fault. Yeah. 99, Pug. I'll go 89. Sure. What did you say, PFT? 93. Memes, I see, by the way. All right, we'll do the number. I'm probably going to get it. I'm probably going to get it. Oh. So close. Memes, I see that you're running with this I'm never going to get the 50-50 lottery. You're never going to get it. Yeah. Never. The thing that it's like.

I do probably 20 times a year, and it's a one in 20,000 chance versus the thing you do three times a week, one in 100 chance. Yours is technically 50-50. That's a good counterpoint. All right, let's do one more. Three. Damn it. 19. 17. 60. Just 60. One. 99 per. 32. 34. I feel like 34 has been hot. That's double 17, memes.

Love you guys.