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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Speaker 1 On today's part of my take, we have two great interviews for the people. We have Daniel Jeremiah.
It is draft week. We always have DJ on.

Speaker 1 We're going to have McShea on later this week, breaking down the draft, who he thinks is going to go in the top 10, some late picks that could be good, Overall thoughts on the draft.

Speaker 3 A crazy, crazy take that now I'm actually coming around on on Travis Hunter. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, actually, yeah, a shocking one.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 him.

Speaker 1 We finally kicked off all the playoffs in the NBA and the NHL. We're going to do who's back of the week.
Lottery ball.

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Speaker 1 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 part of my take!

Speaker 1 Welcome to Part of My Take.

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Speaker 1 Today is Monday, April 21st, and it is playoff season, PFT.

Speaker 1 It's playoff season. The Caps didn't have a game, which was bullshit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's tonight. Very excited to watch the Caps in the playoffs.
Nothing like having a team in playoff hockey.

Speaker 3 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm pumped to see maybe Wi-Fi versus Willie. Chucking some nuts.
Yeah. That should be a good matchup.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 and basketball games Sunday.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 This truly is sports season. Yeah.
This is sports season. Like, NFL season is football season because it's got NFL, college football.
It's great. Your weekends are pretty booked.

Speaker 3 But this is just sports.

Speaker 1 It's sports everywhere. It's my favorite week of the year.

Speaker 3 Meaningful sports all the time.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, I'm going to comment on it if Cody Rhodes wins.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and if he doesn't, it was rigged.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I can't see the screw job.

Speaker 1 I'm going to beat him. Scripted.

Speaker 3 Where is this one?

Speaker 1 It's in Vegas.

Speaker 3 Okay, the Vegas screw job. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 We're going to need to sim the draft.

Speaker 1 We're going to have to sim the draft at some point.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 You have to pick which one is going to get hot at the right time.

Speaker 1 Have you thought about playing them both at the same time?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 Memes is coming in. Memes has a memes' two looks are either Luka Doncic or I'm going to break and enter your home.

Speaker 3 This is wet bandit memes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he really, like, I don't know what, what's, what's with, what are you trying to look like someone who's going to come rob us?

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 1 Are you part of MS 13? No. Matt.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. Let's talk some playoffs.
Let's talk some ball. Let's Let's just go through it chronologically because we had eight NBA games, five hockey games, six hockey games.

Speaker 1 I can't remember how many hockey games we had. But let's start with

Speaker 1 the Pacers and Bucs. First tip off on Saturday.
I had a take that I wanted to just rip off right away.

Speaker 1 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'll be 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 two 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 was that impressive yeah be like that was this exhibition game yeah that is perfect for the play-in tournament yeah exactly it's a play-in tournament wear it for that uh maybe wear it for the in-season tournament too yeah the NBA Cup.

Speaker 3 Not a playoff uniform.

Speaker 1 I agree. I don't want to overreact to game ones.
I think the Bucs are in a lot of trouble. I think the Pacers are really good.
And I'm going to throw out.

Speaker 7 Game's coming back, though.

Speaker 1 Game is coming back. He got in a little.

Speaker 1 He actually was wearing a great sweater. He got into a jawing match with Tyrese Halliburton towards the end of the game.

Speaker 1 Pascal Siakam needs more respect. Okay.
He's so good. All right.

Speaker 1 And he's also consistently so good.

Speaker 7 He's so good, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. Like, he's consistently so good.
but he's. He's not flashy.

Speaker 1 He's not flashy. He's kind of a little bit of a throwback, and he's also not a number one.
He's not a number one. He's going to have a pretty game.
Right, but he's so good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 How Burton was not good shooting, and they still blew him out, and it was never really close.

Speaker 1 And Halberton 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 But every time he does pop up, it's because somebody's clowning him. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Does he lead the league and getting clowned in terms of the upper echelon players?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he's, I mean, 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 being an incredible shooter.

Speaker 1 But once he, like, if you win a game by 20 plus, and or I think it was 19,

Speaker 1 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. I just...

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You happen to pass to someone and they score.

Speaker 3 Especially a guy like Kuzma. Did you see that? Who has no problem just chucking it?

Speaker 1 Dang, did you see

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 Layer Ravens. ESBN, I think.
Oh, it was?

Speaker 7 Yes, this was on ESBN.

Speaker 1 And it was like upside, and

Speaker 1 everything was either Kyle Kuzma tied with Tatum or Kyle Kuzma beating Tatum. Yeah.
It was crazy.

Speaker 3 Think about it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to try to find it right now. But yeah,

Speaker 1 22 minutes, 0.0 rebounds, 0 assists.

Speaker 1 That's really hard to do.

Speaker 3 I could do it. I might be able to get an assist.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I would probably have more than two fouls.

Speaker 3 I would just pass the ball to Giannis.

Speaker 1 Right. It's pretty simple.
Pass the ball to Giannis when he's got a full head of steam.

Speaker 3 Yeah, just throw the ball up in there.

Speaker 1 Let Giannis catch it in the paint.

Speaker 1 It wasn't the assistant. Lakers insider 16, but it was.
But

Speaker 7 this goes around all the time.

Speaker 1 It was shooting.

Speaker 1 All right, so it was shooting. Kuzma was better than Tatum.
Okay. Passing, they were the same.
Defense, Kuzma was better. Potential, Kuzma was better.
Potential. Yeah.

Speaker 8 I like that.

Speaker 3 When you think about it, Jason Tatum is the Jalen Hurts of Kyle Kuzmas.

Speaker 1 Wait, break that down for me. That hurt my brain.

Speaker 3 Jason Tatum is the Jalen

Speaker 1 of Kyle Kuzmas.

Speaker 1 I don't get it.

Speaker 3 Just a little bit more put together.

Speaker 1 Jalen Hurts, okay.

Speaker 1 I think I get it.

Speaker 3 He's like a cleaned-up.

Speaker 1 Well, no, he's way more than a cleaned-up Kyle Kuzma. Yeah, cleaned up.

Speaker 3 Jalen Hurts plays way better in in championships.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's a good point, Max.

Speaker 7 Jason Tatum had great stats.

Speaker 3 Did he beat Patrick Mahomes?

Speaker 7 He was in the finals last year.

Speaker 1 It's crazy that he's been playing. He didn't beat Patrick Mahomes.
He did not beat Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 7 He did not.

Speaker 3 I don't think he could.

Speaker 1 Just like Shohei doesn't have a Heisman.

Speaker 1 Until Jason Tatum beats Patrick Mahomes, can you actually say he's good?

Speaker 3 Did you see Shohei what he was doing this weekend?

Speaker 1 He had a baby, right? Oh, not that.

Speaker 3 The more impressive thing,

Speaker 3 he filled up cups of water for all his teammates. Oh, I did see that.

Speaker 1 He went over to the water cooler, and

Speaker 3 he poured like eight cups of water, and he took it to all his teammates. None for him.
Great dude.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 he doesn't really seem to have much help at all.

Speaker 3 We'll see what happens when Dame gets back, but it does feel like this is the last gasp of the Dame experiment.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And maybe Giannis

Speaker 1 in

Speaker 1 Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 Yeah, probably.

Speaker 1 He might ask out. I don't know.
I don't want him to. I also do feel bad.

Speaker 1 I don't like the Bucs,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 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, he wants to play.

Speaker 3 Which is bullshit. He wants to play in Miami, right? Right.
Yeah, let Milwaukee enjoy Giannis. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. My favorite game, I think, of the weekend, you guys would agree, Nuggets Clippers.

Speaker 1 There has never been a more Russell Westbrook game. It was the most Russell Westbrook game possible.

Speaker 3 The end of that game, the play that Russell Westbrook made.

Speaker 1 Which one? Absolutely.

Speaker 3 With like 10 seconds left?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but all of them leading up to it.

Speaker 3 It was insane.

Speaker 3 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 with Westbrook.

Speaker 3 They didn't spend enough time talking about how insane he went on the court.

Speaker 1 So there was a perfect tweet from Kofi, who I think he's a, uh, is he an NBA guy or a streamer? He's he's very talented, but he uh, he had the perfect tweet.

Speaker 1 He said, Russell Westbrook truly is the item box for Mario Kart. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's so perfect because this Russell West, the best way I could describe it, if you miss this game, if you watch the last three minutes of Russell Westbrook, Russell Westbrook haters and lovers could both say, I told told you so.

Speaker 1 They could literally just point at each other and be like, told you so.

Speaker 1 This is what Russell Westbrook did

Speaker 1 to end the game. This is like three minutes left.
This is a back and forth game. He went

Speaker 1 offensive rebound and a putback. Then he missed a layup where he was forcing it on a fast break.
Then he made a layup. Then he bricked an open three.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Awesome play, bad play, awesome play, bad play. And also Russell Westbrook,

Speaker 1 I know that he frustrates people. I love watching Russell Westbrook because he basically is the,

Speaker 1 if you ever ask, like, what if someone tried just the absolute hardest?

Speaker 1 And like, what would happen? That's Russell Westbrook. Because he's like, his offensive rebound, he got, he was getting offensive rebounds.
He was out hustling the entire team.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 It's not going to work out for me. People are changing my name to Westbrook.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 All he had to do was just pass the ball out or dribble the ball back out. Jokic passed it to him.
There was like, maybe, yeah, like seven seconds left. He could have just passed it back to Jokic.

Speaker 3 Yeah, or it 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, wait, you're talking about the end of overtime. Yeah.
Oh, because the end of end of regulation when he just didn't get a shot off. Yeah, that was a good one.
He jumped up and threw it off the

Speaker 3 I think that he actually meant to do that too. I think that in his head, he was like...

Speaker 1 Well, he got caught jumping off.

Speaker 3 I think there's a chance that Russell Westbrook thought, you know what the best pump fake is?

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 He was just, it was pure Russell Westbrook. And he orchestra was great.
James Harden was great. I don't know why Kawhi felt like he was like, he had that.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He definitely has the most missed clutch shots, too. That's why, like, think about it.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He really is so perfect because whatever side you pick, you're going to be right. You just got to wait a couple seconds.

Speaker 3 I love watching him play, and I'm so glad that I don't have to root for him on my team.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, he made that three to go up two.

Speaker 3 Anymore. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He made that three to go up two, and it was like, this is the Russell West, like, he's the hero, and then he doesn't get a shot off at the end of regulation.

Speaker 3 They should pass him around. I mean, Jameis Winston might

Speaker 1 be in that same place.

Speaker 1 He's definitely in that conversation.

Speaker 3 Every team should have the. Every fan base should have the.
It's not even the privilege of rooting for Russell Westbrook. It's just taking him away from the last team that had to root for him.

Speaker 1 I think it's a lot more fun to watch Russell Westbrook if you do not have

Speaker 1 rooting for him on your team or even rooting against him.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but bad news for the rest of the NBA is Kawhi looks back. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's fully back. I feel like he could have asserted himself a little bit more.
I mean,

Speaker 1 they kind of, the Clippers should have won this game. They absolutely should have won this game.

Speaker 1 But I think this series is going to go long.

Speaker 3 It is fun to watch Kawhi when you know that he cares and that he's trying so hard. Oh, yeah.
He is a great dominant player.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 I don't know. I mean, James Harden, this was almost a heroic James Harden game.

Speaker 1 And it is a game one. Yeah, so we have to say real good.

Speaker 3 That was game one, not game six. Yeah, it was game one.

Speaker 1 And Jokic is still the best. Did you guys see that video of Jokic with the little kid? Yeah.

Speaker 1 That made me cry. Yeah, Ben Simmons on the Clippers is so funny because he's just a nothing.
He got a couple rebounds.

Speaker 3 Well, he is out there in part to try to frustrate Jokic if he can. Yeah.
Just like push this guy. But that video with the kid and Jokic was absolutely horrible.

Speaker 3 The kid giving the money straight to his mom.

Speaker 1 His mom saying, remember? Did you give him money? What?

Speaker 1 No, it was like

Speaker 3 a shoe dealer.

Speaker 1 It was like a shoe deal. The guy gave the kid money.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Guy gives him new Jokic shoes, gives him money. He gives it right to his mom.
His mom's like,

Speaker 1 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 to fucking get a little

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Can you find it, Max, so Hank could see it and get a little teary-eyed?

Speaker 3 I'll find it. That kid is so good.
I tweeted it out. He's so pure, so cool.
I hope that kid never logs onto the internet. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and fuck anyone who is like, oh, this was staged. Come on, guys.

Speaker 1 We got to be able to believe in something. Did WrestleMania end without us realizing it?

Speaker 1 Who won?

Speaker 8 Xena.

Speaker 1 Oh, never mind. God damn it.

Speaker 7 Yogic Van Gundy fighting for the ball is very funny, too.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. I mean, Van Gundy being...

Speaker 1 Van Gundy being whatever it is, 30 years later, and he's still, I mean, because obviously everyone was tweeting out him on Alonzo Morning's leg. Yeah.

Speaker 1 30 years later, he's still fighting. Yeah, he held on to that ball.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 He was a pair of heavy shoes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but yeah, Jokic,

Speaker 1 Jokic and JVG just going at it.

Speaker 1 I feel like the Nuggets or the Clippers. He had a couple people helping him.
I feel like Jokic gets into these like once a playoff.

Speaker 3 I mean, it was the best when he got into it with the Sun's owner. Yeah, Ishbia.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Ishbia flopped.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Ishbia did flop.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I mean, what you said about Lee Corso was disgusting. Seeing it in.

Speaker 3 Good riddance?

Speaker 1 Yeah, good riddance.

Speaker 7 I mean, the Rizzler goes to lots of games.

Speaker 7 What's the difference?

Speaker 1 Happy birthday to the Rizzler, by the way.

Speaker 3 He is risen?

Speaker 1 He's

Speaker 1 nine years old. On Easter.
On Saturday was maybe his birthday.

Speaker 1 Clearly don't keep up with your Rizzler.

Speaker 3 I don't keep up with it. I don't have the Rizzler's birthday in my calendar.

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Speaker 3 Okay. Get a knock on your door for that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Why would you watch that? Listen, any playoffs I'm watching. I just am.

Speaker 1 But going from Russell Westbrook to Cam Payne was so entertaining because

Speaker 1 this was basically the Pistons' first try at the playoffs as this young core, and they were really good for three quarters. And

Speaker 1 as soon as it got to crunch time, it was like, oh, yeah, this is what a hardened team looks like. And Cam Payne...
and Jalen Brunson going for 17 consecutive points between the two of them, 21-0 run,

Speaker 1 was so awesome. And Campaign,

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 you know, being a Knicks legend on his first game as a Knicks legend

Speaker 1 in a playoff game.

Speaker 8 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 game.

Speaker 1 He's ahead of schedule.

Speaker 1 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 campaigns he won a series yeah yeah and his shot looks so bad but it goes in and you 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

Speaker 8 had his best playoff game ever were you like where'd that come from

Speaker 8 it's not easy to play in philly i guess I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah. There was, so I read an article

Speaker 1 this morning on the athletic written by Fred Katz, No Relation, and he was talking about campaign.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So the anecdote goes this. As a rookie,

Speaker 1 Campaign didn't appreciate his overall overall rating in the video game NBA 2K16, a 72-grade ranked 242nd in the NBA. So Payne solved the problem himself.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And he said, I got to give myself some love.

Speaker 1 I love that. It's great.

Speaker 3 That is exactly what I would do if I was in a sports video game. Sliders.

Speaker 3 Max all your stats out. That's the reason.

Speaker 3 I would absolutely get pissed off if I felt that 2K gave me the short end of the stick on my speed. Yeah.
Like I would go balls to the wall and be like, fuck this.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You love playing with yourself. I do.

Speaker 1 OG was awesome. He put Cade Cunningham in a torture chamber, and Chow Cat played some defense in the fourth.
Pistons collapsed. They did, but the Knicks also kind of ramped up the pressure.

Speaker 1 And, I mean, campaign, when campaign gets going, you can't stop him. When campaign is, he said his mind went blank.

Speaker 3 It was just all of a sudden. Yeah.
The game just completely flipped.

Speaker 3 It looked like the Knicks were out of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they were down eight with like nine minutes left, and then Campaign showed up. Are you worried about the campaign game next round? No, no.

Speaker 3 Hank's not worried about anything. Let me tell you something about Hank.

Speaker 3 He is cockier than ever right now. Hank has reached his peak level of I don't give a fuck about any other team.

Speaker 7 Why should I?

Speaker 3 Well, we can get to the Thunder in a little bit.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So we have Chris Finch, Minnesota Timberwolves head coach, coming up, interview. Great interview.
We taped it on Friday.

Speaker 1 We gave him some tips for this series, which he might have actually taken some series. I think so, yeah.
Because the Timberwolves destroyed the Lakers,

Speaker 1 absolutely destroyed them. And really good interview.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 like Anthony Ambers didn't even shoot well. He did a good job reading their defense.
I don't know what the Lakers don't have.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to overreact. You know what?

Speaker 3 I'm not going to overreact. They don't have an answer for Nas Reed.
You can have LeBron, you can have Luca, but you don't have Nas.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What was the

Speaker 1 Jamel Hill tweet where they figured something out?

Speaker 1 The Lakers figured something out at the end of the game here.

Speaker 3 Was that against the Nuggets? Maybe.

Speaker 1 Because you could make the argument, Bronnie getting into this game. They figured it out.
The Lakers might have figured something out.

Speaker 3 They had no matchup. Anthony Edwards, after the game, he was kind of talking shit about L.A.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's one of those somewhat small adjustments that can win a series. That was when the Lakers got swept.

Speaker 3 And I think after that was like just a

Speaker 1 4-1.

Speaker 1 No, last year was 4-1.

Speaker 7 Oh, this is 2-yok.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And also, just saying the sentence, Rui Hachimura on Jokic.

Speaker 3 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 L.A. is fun.
It's not hard like in Denver.

Speaker 3 Like, I've played in some tough environments before, like in Denver. That's hard.
So, I don't know. LA, are you a good sports town? Are you just going to take this?

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 1 the Timbrills are deep.

Speaker 1 They roll guys out there. They play with so much defensive intensity.
They had them.

Speaker 1 Like, Luca.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 this is LeBron James' 55th playoff series, and he's 31 and 24 in game ones, which obviously you're like, oh,

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 but he's 41 and 13 in series overall.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so what he has done in the past is like he uses the first game to like probe the defense, figure out what he wants to do, and then he turns it on in game two. That happens.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to overreact.

Speaker 3 Don't overreact. I am going to agree to disagree with Jay Billis.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Calling this game, which was such a bummer, turning it on and hearing him.

Speaker 3 I didn't know that Jay Billis was going to do NBA games. That's something that there should be like a TV rating that pops up.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like just Billis's face at the top left-hand corner of the screen before the game starts, letting all the kids know at home.

Speaker 1 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 him.

Speaker 3 Yes, do not attempt this at home. And Jay Billis,

Speaker 3 when LeBron started complaining about a missed call, and then Jay Billis goes, now LeBron's really getting into it with a referee, and this is interesting because LeBron's not much of a complainer.

Speaker 3 Agree to disagree, Jay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're being disingenuous.

Speaker 3 That was disingenuous.

Speaker 1 That was disingenuous of him.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I hope it's not the set because you're calling his games. I would think that ESPN would make sure that you've seen LeBron James play basketball.

Speaker 3 So it sounds like, ipso facto, you were being disingenuous.

Speaker 1 Yes, he was.

Speaker 3 I don't appreciate being lied to as a viewer.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's probably not going to happen again.

Speaker 1 But on the other side, I always like to,

Speaker 1 early playoffs, I like to look for Team of Destiny stuff,

Speaker 1 watching all these games, figuring out

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 who I think is the Timberwolves. Maybe he's like runs the Reddit, the Timberwolves Reddit.
He does an edit after every win that's Warren Zivon,

Speaker 1 Werewolves from London, and it's awesome.

Speaker 3 Werewolves of London? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 He's ball of the wild. I don't know if we can play it.
You could play it without the sound and I'll just do the awoo. I love PFT, so you can see it.

Speaker 3 I mean, Warren Zivon is like my favorite. Yeah, all right, here it is.

Speaker 1 Ready? Watch. See that edit?

Speaker 1 Woo.

Speaker 3 Does he add in like different lyrics?

Speaker 1 No, it's just a woo. It's the awoo the whole time.
Woo.

Speaker 1 That's the woo going the whole time. And it's just got cool Timberwolf stuff, guys dancing and everything.
Love that. And it just says zero days.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So when they've won a game, it's zero days since last a woo.

Speaker 3 I love that so much.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's pretty cool.
That is cool. Again, shout out to that guy.

Speaker 3 Will they shoot 50%?

Speaker 3 Probably not. Will they get another Nas Reed, Nas Reed game? Maybe.
Yes. Yes.
I love watching him play. He's one of my favorite players for some reason.
You know,

Speaker 3 you watch enough sports and you just develop fixations on guys and you're like, I just like that guy for some reason. Yeah.
Nas Reed is that guy for me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm not going to overreact because I think the Lakers will still be in this series because they have Luca and they have

Speaker 1 LeBron James. But Nico Harrison was happy watching this.

Speaker 3 He definitely was. He said defense wins championships.

Speaker 1 That was so funny on Friday night.

Speaker 3 He should not be allowed to take a victory lap.

Speaker 3 I'm banning Nico from taking victory lap.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, no, he can't. He knows he can't.
But

Speaker 1 the camera work,

Speaker 1 shout out Jake Bars. Shout out the guys in the truck.
The camera work to zoom in on Nico Harrison when Anthony Davis was limping to the

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 What a moment. It was good.
Good television.

Speaker 1 That was a beautiful, beautiful moment. Great television.
Nico Harrison,

Speaker 1 you know what? He's off the hook, or he's been let off the hook by the Mavs not making it. We just need to bring him up once a week.

Speaker 1 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 to be like, hey, remember Nico Harrison?

Speaker 1 What a fucking moron that guy is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the side eye. So good.
All right. You want to talk about the thunder, Hank? Sure.

Speaker 3 You look pretty damn good. Hank does not respect the thunder.

Speaker 7 Not going to overreact, right? That's the theme of this segment.

Speaker 3 Is that what we do on this show? We don't overreact?

Speaker 1 We don't overreact.

Speaker 7 Correct. The thunder.
So we're not going to overreact to wins or losses.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'll just say a couple facts.

Speaker 3 Fact number one: this was the biggest beatdown in the history of game one.

Speaker 1 Did you like my new Mike Greenberg?

Speaker 1 What's your new thumb rule? If you win a game one by 50 points, the series should be over. Because when this game was such a blowout,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 and the Thunder were like, no, we're going to finish this series in one game?

Speaker 3 I feel like a lot of teams would try to win by 50 points.

Speaker 1 It would be awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's only game one. It's got to be exactly

Speaker 1 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 one.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 If you told me before the game that Marvin Bagley would go 8 for 8 from the field and score 17 points and SGA

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they didn't even get an SGA game.

Speaker 1 He was 4 for 13

Speaker 1 and they won by 50 and it was never

Speaker 1 it it wasn't close I mean what the first quarter was a little no the first 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 overdone see ya see ya next one yeah this series I agree with that 51 points game one Jos said that there's only one way to go, and that's up.

Speaker 3 It won't get worse, is what John Moran said. Oh, it could get worse.
I think it could get worse because

Speaker 3 they, again, took their foot off the gas for much of the second half. After that first run, it was over.

Speaker 1 There was a moment in the game where our good friend, friend of the program, Alex Caruso, had zero points, and I think his plus-minus was 27.

Speaker 3 Yeah, how many points did he end up with? Because he didn't score much, if at all.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you scroll down,

Speaker 1 it was

Speaker 1 such an ass-kicking. Yeah, he had zero zero points.
He finished with zero points, plus 30.

Speaker 8 That's awesome. Desmond Bain with a minus 50.

Speaker 1 That's an insane plus-minus.

Speaker 1 That is insane.

Speaker 3 Would you like another stat? Yeah. Because we're not going to overreact.
We're just going to talk stats.

Speaker 7 If you're asking me if I want it, I don't.

Speaker 1 You don't want to say that? 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.

Speaker 3 We'll change the subject. Maybe you can give a stat.
What was the Celtics' record against the Thunder this year?

Speaker 7 0-2.

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 That's a set. Good set, yeah.
Good set. But you're not worried at all.
In fact,

Speaker 3 some would argue that you're slightly disrespectful of the Thunder.

Speaker 7 No, it's not that, PFT. I just, I know the playoffs, like, there's a lot of basketball to be played.
They're in a separate conference.

Speaker 7 I think once we get to the Western Conference finals, then I'll tune in on the two teams.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 A lot of good teams in the West.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Chet said, it's your job to come up with the narrative.

Speaker 7 That's y'all's job. We'll come up with the 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.

Speaker 1 We were wrong. Hey, guess what? Hands up, hand up, we were wrong.

Speaker 7 We were wrong. They have to make it there first.

Speaker 3 But you were worried about the Nuggets last year.

Speaker 8 You too have to make it there first.

Speaker 3 Good point, Max.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's true, and that's what I'm focused on. I'm not worrying about other teams.

Speaker 1 I'm worried about

Speaker 7 my team, the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 8 That's not what you're focused on. Yes, it is.

Speaker 1 Do you know what we're focused on? The next game. The lottery.
Pull it up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Bulls went up to 1.7%.

Speaker 3 That's huge. Yeah.
You doubled it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, because the heat got in.

Speaker 3 All right, sim it.

Speaker 1 Sim that shit.

Speaker 1 Brooklyn. Boom.
Bullshit. We'll do it till one of the three gets it.
Philly. Philly.

Speaker 1 Philly's winning this too much. I know.

Speaker 3 I don't like it with the 10%.

Speaker 8 No, there's no way they let Philly win it. I just hope they let us keep our pick.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 1 I don't know. What do you want me to say? Should we...
So I've made you guys aware of this.

Speaker 1 As a journalist, I was doing some work on Friday night. Really awesome life I have.
Super exciting.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 He realized it was not going to be a friendly interview.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 will notice him on the camera.

Speaker 3 Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 We would never have that guy's back.

Speaker 3 So we can do good cop, bad cop.

Speaker 1 I still want him on.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we could make a 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 court side, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 We should all be free to wear whatever we want to wear and sit courtside. He's still a fan of the team.

Speaker 1 He's got to wear the shirt.

Speaker 3 No, no, no, big cat.

Speaker 1 You got to wear the shirt.

Speaker 3 He should wear whatever he wants. That's what our founding fathers fought for.

Speaker 3 If everyone in America in 76 was like, yeah, we'll just put on the red coats. You know what? We'd all be speaking British right now.

Speaker 3 We'd be talking English instead of American.

Speaker 1 You got to wear the shirt.

Speaker 1 You got to wear the shirt. So this, I was was made aware of this by our good friend Ryan Rossillo on Friday night.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And that's his friend he takes the game, who at least wears the right color, but he doesn't wear the shirt either.

Speaker 1 Juan Guerro wrote on Friday night, I think he might have deleted this. I'm going to say this in the most respectful way possible.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Rousseau then got blocked within like five minutes and I was like, I'm going to try to get this guy on. But yeah,

Speaker 1 I did reach out to him as a Big J journalist and he

Speaker 1 initially agreed. And since then,

Speaker 1 he has not responded. So yeah, I think

Speaker 1 I'm a big, you got to wear the shirt, guy.

Speaker 3 I'm going to take this guy's side just because it's working so far.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 They might not, though.

Speaker 1 That's good. That's why.

Speaker 1 It's going to be, it's going to be, you got, like, you look out, there's this intimidating crowd, everyone's wearing the shirt, and that guy's not wearing the shirt.

Speaker 3 There's a reason why.

Speaker 7 They might be the first team to ever go undefeated in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Not with this guy not wearing a shirt.

Speaker 3 There's a reason why they were the first team that was put on Wendy's Cities

Speaker 3 when he was buying the hotel rooms.

Speaker 3 The Oklahoma City Thunder were number one A on Windler's list.

Speaker 1 Was that true?

Speaker 3 I think that was the first one they said to us.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 He might have. I don't know if he put Boston on first.

Speaker 3 I mean, they had a historic regular season.

Speaker 1 They did. They were very, very good.
But this guy's shirt...

Speaker 1 Him trying to be different. They're not going to lose a game at home.
Hank, they are. No.
PFT.

Speaker 1 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 the shirt if they give you the wrong size? No.

Speaker 1 That's how good they are with the shirts in Oklahoma City. Any other place.
That always bothers me.

Speaker 7 What? When you're just like, you're like, oh, it's a cool shirt. Oh, it's a small.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 They wear the shirt. What is their shirt budget per game?

Speaker 1 It's got to be insane.

Speaker 3 It's got to be tens of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1 It's got to be fucking insane.

Speaker 3 And then some poor person's job is to just put those shirts on every single seat.

Speaker 1 You know what? Not some poor person. I bet you that guy or girl is essentially royalty in Oklahoma City.
She's got a shirt. You walk in,

Speaker 1 I guarantee you,

Speaker 1 there's some kid in middle school right now in Oklahoma City listening to this podcast. Shout out this kid.

Speaker 1 And he's like, yeah, my mom is friends with a guy who puts out the shirt.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 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 doesn't.

Speaker 1 He refuses to wear the shirt.

Speaker 3 I know, but does he try to take away shirts that he's not going to wear?

Speaker 1 That I would have a problem with. I just.

Speaker 1 You got to put on the shirt. It's crazy.
Hank, this is your PFT. You don't think he should wear the shirt?

Speaker 7 Why conform?

Speaker 1 He's doing what he wants to do. This is Oklahoma City, dude.
It's a free country.

Speaker 1 They are known for their shirts. You got to put on the shirt.

Speaker 7 Where has it gotten them?

Speaker 1 I mean, the best.

Speaker 1 Well, no.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 7 Where has it gotten him? In the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Where has it gotten him? He's gone to every single game.

Speaker 7 He paid for those tickets.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Might be the missing piece.

Speaker 7 It'd be a real shame if this guy is.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Well, Hank is just,

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Literally what you said.

Speaker 1 The biggest.

Speaker 3 Max, is that not what Hank said?

Speaker 1 Let's go guy for guy.

Speaker 7 I did not say that. Not even close.

Speaker 1 You went guy for guy? Hank said, let's go. 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.

Speaker 7 I was just trying to...

Speaker 1 You guys, Max was.

Speaker 3 You said guy for guy, everyone on the Celtics beats everyone on the other side.

Speaker 8 You just said if this team is healthy, there's no way they lose.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a fair.

Speaker 8 And then I said, you're not worried about the Thunder? And you said, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 All right, are you going to go guy for guy? We did go guy for guy. I would like to judge this guy.
It was closer than you thought.

Speaker 1 Do you have Dave Portnoy and the guy you won't put on the shirt? No. Okay, well, you should put that in the guy for guy off.

Speaker 1 All right, go.

Speaker 7 I don't want to do this again.

Speaker 1 You don't want to go for that guy?

Speaker 7 I'm going stat for stat, guy for guy.

Speaker 1 Just go guy for guy.

Speaker 1 Okay. PFT, would you like to start?

Speaker 3 Yeah, let's go guy for guy. I'll start with, I don't know, I'll say Hartenstein against Al Horford.

Speaker 7 I'll take Al Horford. Way better playoff experience, veteran player, big-time player, clutch.

Speaker 3 What are the stats? Who's got better stats?

Speaker 1 Again, okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 Bighead, who wins? I mean, I would take Hartenstein right now. Right now.
Al Horford's pretty old. Al Horford is a better player overall in his career.
Correct. Okay.
By far. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Christaps and Chet.

Speaker 1 I would go Christaps.

Speaker 3 I would lean Chet.

Speaker 3 Lou Dort, Peyton Pritchard.

Speaker 1 Lou Dort, Derek White. Or Jerry.

Speaker 1 I'm a Dortchard Chamber guy, so you know the answer to that. Listen,

Speaker 1 I love Lou Dort.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 I respect them.

Speaker 1 You always see the Thunder before you hear it.

Speaker 7 I respect the Thunder. That's a good point.

Speaker 3 You know?

Speaker 1 If the Thunder won't get

Speaker 1 you, the Lightning will.

Speaker 7 If the Thunder win the Western Conference, I will start to think.

Speaker 8 You were not respecting the Thunder. You're not.

Speaker 1 The way this conversation started. I'm not into my conference.

Speaker 11 But the way this conversation started was you were like,

Speaker 8 there's no way this Celtics team is losing if they are healthy. That's 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?

Speaker 8 And you said, no.

Speaker 7 I'm not worried about the third.

Speaker 8 So that is zero respect.

Speaker 3 It's an easy way to get gold. No,

Speaker 7 that's incorrect.

Speaker 1 That's correct.

Speaker 12 You said there is no way that you can get it.

Speaker 7 There's 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.

Speaker 3 I think that Hank just hates the Thunder.

Speaker 1 You guys don't understand.

Speaker 3 You hate the Thunder because it's the only thing that can get you to stop playing golf.

Speaker 1 Sounds like you're in the torture chamber right now. No,

Speaker 1 it's round one of the Western Conference Finals.

Speaker 7 There's a lot of good teams in the West.

Speaker 7 The Thunder have not fucking, this iteration of the Thunder haven't done it. Jack shit.

Speaker 12 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 okay what did the thunder do last year what last year the celtics did going to last year last year the celtics haven't done jack they made it to the finals but

Speaker 7 the does that mean it means you won the eastern conference that's pretty fucking hard

Speaker 1 which is a lot easier to do than the western conference so you scared factor fiction okay how come how come the philadelphia sixers done the afternoon

Speaker 1 what are you asking factor fiction we're not talking about the philadelphia Center.

Speaker 1 If the fucking Easter conference is

Speaker 1 going to be the first time, how come the Sixers can't even make it to the finals of the Eastern Conference finals?

Speaker 1 Because you said the Eastern Conference is so easy, Max.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's where the anger came out in this podcast. Listen, because this fucking guy won't put on a shirt.

Speaker 3 We're divided enough as a nation right now. We can't have another debate like this.
We can't. And Hank gets too.
Does that feel good, boys? Hank gets too wound up. Look at you emotional.

Speaker 1 Oh, you did.

Speaker 1 We're all trying to find the guy who wound him up.

Speaker 1 No, I'm not wound up. It's just like you guys, this happened.
I was shocked. I was talking to you.
I've seen this show.

Speaker 7 I was hearing it over and over and over and over again when it's like, you guys, are you worried?

Speaker 1 Are you worried? Are you worried? Are you worried? Oh, they lost the ball.

Speaker 12 But you talk about the Celtics like they're this five-time dynasty. They've won one finals.

Speaker 7 When was that finals? Oh, the most recent one? Oh, defending champions.

Speaker 11 But you know how hard it is to repeat?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 11 So like, this isn't.

Speaker 1 You're looking at this like it's a foregone conclusion. I'm just happy with all winning all NBA finals.
I'm happy that we have confidence. I'm happy we have Max.
Max has just entered the NBA playoffs.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 My whole NBA playoff is anti-Celtics. That is my NBA playoffs.
Welcome to the NBA playoffs, Matt.

Speaker 3 I just care so much about Hank that I'm trying to warn him against

Speaker 3 the dangers of Hubris.

Speaker 7 Right now, again, if they were in our conference, I would be like, you know, it'd be a different story.

Speaker 3 You're flying too close to the sun. You've got to respect her.

Speaker 7 If you play the thunder, it's not going to be be till June. Why would I be concerning myself? Because they're going to remember.

Speaker 3 That's y'all's job to do the narrative. That's what Chet Holmgren said.
And y'alls have done quite a job.

Speaker 1 Why are you hitting it with the y'alls?

Speaker 3 That's what Chet said. He said that's what that's y'all's job.

Speaker 1 Y'alls, Hank. You're getting hit with some y'alls.

Speaker 3 Have put up quite the bulletin board material. I hope that they see this in Oklahoma City.

Speaker 7 Okay, me too.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 7 You guys are now making a root against the thunder.

Speaker 8 You should want to root against the thunder.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.
You should. I think they're really good.

Speaker 3 You weren't previously rooting.

Speaker 3 Who are you most afraid of in the West?

Speaker 1 Clippers, he said.

Speaker 3 Clippers 1.

Speaker 3 Thunder 2?

Speaker 7 Thunder 2. I mean, personally, just like, although not really, it's not really a statistical based, but LeBron.

Speaker 1 LeBron. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Scare me. Yeah.
that would scare me uh you want to talk about the Celtics game yeah Celtics 103 Magic 86

Speaker 1 this is why the Celtics are really fucking good because their fourth option is Derrick White and he had 30 points Derrick White was awesome to that

Speaker 7 Lou Dort

Speaker 1 listen you could say you can you can say anything you want about the thunder if you fucking go after Lou Dort I will fight you okay I fucking love Lou Dort the guy brings energy he hits threes big threes defense defense He's got fat ass.

Speaker 1 He's Canadian.

Speaker 1 I understand.

Speaker 7 I understand it's hard to repeat.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 And it's like, are you worried about this team? Because they won one game.

Speaker 7 Celtics maybe lose one game. Are you worried? Answer is going to be no.

Speaker 7 This team is better than the team last year that won the championship. And if they stay healthy, they will repeat.

Speaker 3 That is my wholehearted belief for zingis does look fully healthy yeah he's making great plays on defense and derrick white's defense is obviously incredible did you hitting threes what would he shoot from three today because i feel like he made every single one 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 it listen the magic's team defense is very good and i feel like they can be competitive But at times, it did feel like the Celtics were fucking with them a little bit.

Speaker 1 The Magic just have, they have two guys, really good. Wagner and Paolo are really, really good.

Speaker 1 And the rest of their team, I mean, think about it. I think their third leading scorer was Jonathan Isaac with seven points.

Speaker 1 You can't beat a Celtics team that has... Derrick White is, again, Derrick White,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Tatum and Jalen Brown did not shoot well, and it does not matter because they have so many guys.

Speaker 7 So many guys. Any given night.

Speaker 1 Are you worried about Jason Tatum's wrist?

Speaker 7 No, he got x-rays. He said they came back negative.

Speaker 1 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, you want me to go in that locker room?

Speaker 3 It's a good mom.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Really good mom.

Speaker 7 I'm excited.

Speaker 1 How many tweets did you get being like panic button at halftime?

Speaker 7 I got a few, a decent amount.

Speaker 1 That's premature, guys.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You can't do it halftime against the Magic.

Speaker 3 Going back into my old Hank Nose ball files, you pretty accurately predicted the playoffs last year in terms of how many losses you were going to have.

Speaker 3 This year, what do you say it's going to be prior to the NBA Finals? How many losses total will you have?

Speaker 1 Good question.

Speaker 1 Three.

Speaker 1 Three. One in the second round, two in the

Speaker 1 third round?

Speaker 7 I would say two and a half. I mean, I would take the under.
I would set the line at two and a half.

Speaker 1 And you would take the under.

Speaker 3 You think the Cavs are going to take two off you?

Speaker 7 I don't know. I don't think the Cavs are even going to make it.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Should we talk?

Speaker 7 I mean, they beat the shit out of the Heat. Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is why the play-in. I mean, the Heat are

Speaker 1 just not.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 They proved that on Friday night.

Speaker 1 Trey Young is just,

Speaker 1 I don't know how Hawks fans do it.

Speaker 1 His

Speaker 1 just standing around the last few possessions, having guys get rebounds over him,

Speaker 1 it was brutal to watch. And it was.

Speaker 1 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 in the end of that game. It was unbelievable.

Speaker 3 It was just a win for Heat culture.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 six games under 500. Yeah, the Cavs are better than the Heat.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 1 On Friday, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'd say probably.

Speaker 1 That's probably fair. But still,

Speaker 1 the Cavs are so much better than the Heat.

Speaker 3 I don't think it's going to be a sweep, though. I think that

Speaker 3 the Heat are going to win one, maybe two.

Speaker 1 The Cavs are so much better than the Heat. I would take the under on two.

Speaker 1 I think the Cavs are a lot better than the Heat, and they've been very good all year. And

Speaker 1 the Heat are not, I mean, they're just not a very good team.

Speaker 1 They're under 500. Yeah.
I don't know what else to say. Like, when you're under 500,

Speaker 1 we've proven over 82 games, you're not that good of a team.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and Spo has to be going out there understanding that he's probably going to lose every night. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Donovan Mitchell was awesome, scored 30.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think the Cavs are a very good team. And then we have, we're watching right now the Warriors kind of welcome the Rockets to the NBA playoffs.

Speaker 3 Are the Warriors officially back? Yeah. I think

Speaker 1 they might be back.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Oh.

Speaker 1 Okay. I'm just saying.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 Third quarter.

Speaker 1 I think.

Speaker 3 I think what Wendy said was completely accurate about the West. Just like pretend that they don't have the little numbers next to their names.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, this is a Warriors team that I don't. Their depth

Speaker 1 could be an issue because obviously Jimmy and Steph have to carry a big scoring load every single night. But,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 I did see Dylan Brooks. I wouldn't go against Steph Curry.

Speaker 3 Dylan Brooks tried to tackle somebody. I don't know who he hit.
It definitely wasn't Draymond because there would have been a

Speaker 3 full. Yeah, there was.
The nice thing, though, is he's got Stephen Adams to back him up. Yeah.
Which is a great guy to have behind you if you're going to pick a fight with somebody. That's a fact.

Speaker 1 That's a fact.

Speaker 1 Should we talk a little puck?

Speaker 1 We had two games on

Speaker 1 Saturday.

Speaker 1 I've made my future bet because Whitney told me that he thought maybe the Avs, I took Avs plus 750.

Speaker 1 I've also told PFT not that he cares that I would cash out if they played the caps in the finals because I would rather you win.

Speaker 3 You are free to do whatever you want with your bet.

Speaker 1 But I would.

Speaker 3 And I will not hold it against you if you don't cash out. But I would.
That could be a lot of money. I'd want to root for you.
I'm locked in our year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'd want to root for you. But that first game,

Speaker 1 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 Conner was so sick.
Cross ice just fucking buried it.

Speaker 1 And there's something about playoff games in Canada that are just incredible. I do like it.

Speaker 3 And the Leaf Senator series is going to be great because there's a lot of bad blood, and just both two Canadian teams, one has to go.

Speaker 3 I would like to see a Canadian team make it to the Saley Cup finals. Yeah.
I think that'd be fun.

Speaker 1 So the Avs beat the fuck out of the stars.

Speaker 1 Speaking of famous fans, I remembered that Glassbanger is in jail.

Speaker 3 Oh, he is? Yeah. He got locked up.

Speaker 1 He's in jail till the end of May. Now, I don't know what to believe on Twitter because anyone could say anything.

Speaker 1 There was a question of, like, where is he? And everyone's like, he's in jail. Oh, Hank might be right.

Speaker 1 The Rockets just cut it to nine.

Speaker 1 And someone replied, 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.

Speaker 1 I choose to believe these circumstances. Apparently,

Speaker 1 he's in jail for until like the end of May. So we will not get Glass Banger at Dallas Star's home.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 That's true. That's facts.
Do you think he's doing that? I think probably.

Speaker 3 If somebody just shows up and plays the game for him

Speaker 3 on their phone, he just gets to hit the cell.

Speaker 1 And then the Devils got killed by the Hurricanes, which when we had Whitney on last week previewing the NHL playoffs,

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 A lot of blowouts, yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And it was like, yeah, I guess this sucks because it was the one seeds and then the two seed

Speaker 3 defending champs. I've got a small bone to pick with the Winnipeg Jets.
Okay. Very minor.

Speaker 3 And also, they did win the President's Trophy, right? And I think that the last team to win the Stanley Cups was the Blackhawks

Speaker 3 that won the President's Trophy. And that was a long time.
What was that? 2012?

Speaker 1 I think in 2015, we might have. No, 2013.
When was the shortened year?

Speaker 3 The shortened year.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I think the shortened year was 2011.
No, no, no. There was the year where they started the season.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Yeah, my small, very minor bone to pick with the Winnipeg Jets, it has to do with their logo.

Speaker 1 Okay?

Speaker 3 It's a jet with a maple leaf. I searched for what jet is in the logo for the Winnipeg Jets.

Speaker 3 The AI overview says that it's an F-15 Eagle. That's not an F-15 Eagle.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 That is absolutely fucking lootly not an F-15 Eagle.

Speaker 1 So we're saying, wait, so

Speaker 3 they might have fucked up the design.

Speaker 7 Blackhawks 2012-2013.

Speaker 1 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 for forever.

Speaker 1 So wait, so explain it to me again.

Speaker 3 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.
That's, buddy, that's not an F-15.

Speaker 1 What is it?

Speaker 3 That's either a Hornet, I think it's a Hornet. But they're Jets.
They're are jets. They're both jets.

Speaker 1 So does it matter?

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, because that's not the outline of an F-15.

Speaker 3 If they're claiming that's an F-15, that's not an F-15.

Speaker 1 But it's a jet in their logo.

Speaker 3 It is a jet in their logo, yes.

Speaker 8 Also, who told you that it was an F-15?

Speaker 3 The AI overview. I'm looking at it right now.
The Winnipeg Jets logo features a fighter jet, an F-15 Eagle.

Speaker 8 I think your problem was with the AI.

Speaker 3 Did I get AI'd?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, this is no.

Speaker 8 Right? This is the.

Speaker 8 I've had some issues with the AI recently asking a question.

Speaker 3 So, what did you see?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 and then being made look the fool.

Speaker 3 I found another source.

Speaker 1 I thought this was your thing.

Speaker 3 Well, no, I'm telling you, if they're claiming that's an F-15, it's not F-15, but I just saw shouldn't you be able to verify that?

Speaker 3 That's what I'm doing right now.

Speaker 3 I read a source on the 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.

Speaker 3 Yes, but yeah. That's a straw man.

Speaker 1 Question.

Speaker 1 It's still a jet, right? Yep, it's still a jet.

Speaker 1 Still a jet. So that part, they're right.
They are right. They are the jet.
That is a jet. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 From my second source that I'm looking at, it does appear that it's an F-18.

Speaker 8 So it was the AI that was wrong. The AI was wrong.

Speaker 1 The AI was wrong. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Fuck that AI. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm stronger than the machine.

Speaker 3 My jet knowledge is better than Google.

Speaker 1 Do you know who was never wrong about this? Who? Me, because I always thought it was a Jet.

Speaker 3 It was a Jet.

Speaker 3 It's confirmed a Jet. Still a Jet.
But yeah, Winnipeg, good job having a properly sourced logo.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wait, hey, memes, what did 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. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And campaign popped off. Do you think maybe

Speaker 1 you take that guy? Nixon six. Oh,

Speaker 1 oh, bing-bong.

Speaker 1 Jerry was in Chicago this weekend. We just didn't see him.
Sucked. He was here for a volleyball tournament.

Speaker 8 I also looked it up.

Speaker 7 According to DraftKings, the Thunder have a better chance to win the West than the Celtics do to win the East.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 3 Shout out to DraftKings.

Speaker 1 Just saying.

Speaker 3 I'm just saying. That's y'all's narrative, Max.

Speaker 1 That is y'all's name.

Speaker 1 That's y'all's narrative.

Speaker 1 Okay, do we want to do

Speaker 1 who's back of the week? And then we'll get to our interviews. Great interviews.

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Speaker 1 Henry.

Speaker 7 Yeah, man, who's back of the week is playoffs.

Speaker 1 Playoffs?

Speaker 7 It's that time of year.

Speaker 1 Should we break down the games?

Speaker 7 Also in golf, though, Justin Thomas, for the first time in three years,

Speaker 7 won his first tournament in a playoff,

Speaker 7 the RBC Heritage. So Justin Thomas is back?

Speaker 1 Playoffs are back?

Speaker 3 When I saw RBC Heritage, I thought it was being played in Europe somewhere.

Speaker 7 I thought it was played in Canada.

Speaker 3 That's a big time, yeah.

Speaker 7 I don't know why.

Speaker 3 It feels like it's in Scotland, right? The RBC Heritage.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But then they showed the

Speaker 1 Ariels, and it was prime South Carolina, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Prime South Carolina.

Speaker 7 But the winner, I always thought it was Canada because the winner gets that jacket, the red jacket.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 7 The fifth major.

Speaker 1 First win in three years. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's major for him. We like JT.
Yeah, big win. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tough for our guy, Seewu Kim Tracker.

Speaker 1 Seewu Kim started the day in first, right?

Speaker 7 Yeah, his lights out.

Speaker 1 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. It's like, that's the way.

Speaker 3 Listen, I appreciate that he's committed to it. Yeah, like if you're a tracker, the losses should affect you.
Right.

Speaker 1 And listen, we all choose a path to the locker.

Speaker 7 I mean, the Brooks tracker is like gone.

Speaker 7 He's been gone, Rogue. Yeah, he goes off the map.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 our guy, Seewoo Kim tracker, we love him. And he,

Speaker 1 you don't choose this life. It chooses you.
And it happened to choose him to track Seewoo Kim, and he was brutal today. And that was tough.
Yeah, family all happy, laughing.

Speaker 1 And here I am maulding about the woo.

Speaker 1 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 CW Kim.

Speaker 3 He's probably got a pretty

Speaker 7 uncle at Easter being like, what's wrong, James?

Speaker 1 He's like, See Woo Kim?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 you got money on the Grizzlies? Nope. I just tracked CW Kim.
And that's my life. And I love it.
I respect him for it.

Speaker 3 There should be a Seewoo Kim tracker tracker that updates us on what CW Kim tracks. I think we are going through.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 We just did that segment. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What's up with Seewo Kim Tracker?

Speaker 3 I would like to see an account, though, that does it. So I can read it.

Speaker 1 Okay, PFT year, who's back? So, Hank, you just went with playoffs. Playoffs are back.
Got it.

Speaker 7 You didn't like it?

Speaker 7 It was good.

Speaker 3 It was good.

Speaker 1 You didn't want to say golf. It was really good.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, no, it was

Speaker 1 playoffs. Yeah, playoffs are back.
Were you happy?

Speaker 3 Was I happy? Yeah, see JT win?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Not really? I was happy to see Justin Thomas win. Yeah.
Same.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Good story.
Agreed.

Speaker 1 Good guy. Him.
Good golfer.

Speaker 3 My who's back of the week is the rivalry. The rivalry is back on.

Speaker 3 Which is. I have joined a softball team.
Oh, yeah. I'm officially on KDIC's softball team.

Speaker 1 And, man, the group chat is buzzing.

Speaker 3 Great vibes in the group chat. These are my boys.
Can't wait to have a couple beers with them, play some softball.

Speaker 1 It's going to be great.

Speaker 3 I'm fucking pumped.

Speaker 1 I'm ready to go. Pump for you.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 Same.

Speaker 1 Also, people should be blaming Max for not inviting PFT. Yeah, I'll go with that.
People were blaming me. It's like, dude, I invited myself onto a team.
I wasn't. I mean,

Speaker 1 you are kind of the leader of the team.

Speaker 8 I am not the leader of the team. Yeah, he is.

Speaker 7 The leader of the pugs?

Speaker 1 He is kind of the leader of the pugs.

Speaker 1 You are. You're Pugs boss.

Speaker 8 You and I both joined this team at the end.

Speaker 1 You're the best player. You're the dog daddy.
I'm not the best player. I might join Kiddick's team.
Dude, I've got.

Speaker 1 Let me tell you. I might join Kiddick's team.

Speaker 3 This team, I can tell. Do you need a pitcher? I can tell just from the group chat what kind of guys I'm dealing with, and these are some loyal dudes.

Speaker 1 And I'm pumped to play some stuff.

Speaker 3 I'm committed to the Pugs.

Speaker 1 Pugs, listen.

Speaker 7 What position do you want to play?

Speaker 3 Whatever position you play.

Speaker 1 No, in a perfect world, though.

Speaker 7 Like, let's say you're setting the lineup. You're putting yourself in the middle.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what do you excel?

Speaker 3 I I got to meet the boys. I got to see you.
I got to see. No, but in a perfect world.

Speaker 1 I got to get in where

Speaker 1 there's a lot of people.

Speaker 3 I got to start fitting in and not fitting out.

Speaker 7 But like in a vacuum.

Speaker 3 I would say pretty strong left field.

Speaker 8 Would you accept a DH spot?

Speaker 3 Yeah, wherever they need me.

Speaker 3 That's what kind of team guy I am.

Speaker 1 Yeah, 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 bad.

Speaker 1 I find myself. I did feel

Speaker 3 a small bit emasculated when the group chat started going, and we're talking about getting jerseys together. This team is really rallying around each other, which I love.

Speaker 3 I love being a group of guys like that.

Speaker 3 What's the team name?

Speaker 3 We are fat pitches only.

Speaker 1 Nice. Yeah,

Speaker 1 classic, right?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 So it's like medium, large, extra large, double XL, triple XL.

Speaker 3 And I was the only one that liked medium. So it's a bunch of big boys, which I'm down with.

Speaker 1 You're like when that happens on the burnerverse, always makes you laugh. When a guy's like,

Speaker 1 y'all cool if I have a day? And he posts like a picture of his fit pick, and it's like a Peter Millar medium. Yeah.
Everyone's like, dude, you probably weigh 130 pounds. You obviously are.

Speaker 1 You're as sturdy of a medium as they come.

Speaker 3 I'm a sturdy boy.

Speaker 1 I'm a little thick. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're not a true medium.

Speaker 3 No, I've gone from being a smedium to now I'm a marge.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You got to get a marge. When I rock the medium, it's like you're wearing a smedium.
No, that's a marge.

Speaker 1 That's a marge, baby.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm excited. I'm happy you found a home.
Yeah, I'm just too. Are you guys going to do a home run derby?

Speaker 3 Just pump to play softball.

Speaker 1 Or some kind of competition.

Speaker 3 Good question. I mean, I was down to do one with Hank, but Hank seemed like he didn't want the smoke on Friday.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 3 Hank is a better baseball player than me. I will admit that.

Speaker 10 We could go to a field and

Speaker 1 go to a field. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's go to a field.

Speaker 7 I'm down. Again, I don't know where I didn't want the smoke came from, but I would love to.

Speaker 1 Let's do a 16-inch home run derby. Okay.

Speaker 8 Yeah, we've got to find a field with a fence.

Speaker 1 I have one. Okay, great.

Speaker 1 They might not hit any home runs, though.

Speaker 3 How many pitches?

Speaker 1 I think it's like first to five home runs. That might take a while.
It might take a while.

Speaker 3 Yeah, how far are these fences?

Speaker 1 Well, there's a softball field that we could play on.

Speaker 3 It's like 220. It's kind of like a Jose El Tuve guy.

Speaker 1 220. I do have the softball.
60 inches. Yeah, 16 inches.
It's tough to hit out.

Speaker 1 Like it's not, for people who don't know what we're talking about, 16 inch softball, the ball is like this big and it's softer. And you don't, in Chicago, you don't play with gloves.

Speaker 1 So there's no gloves on the field and the ball gets a little softer as the game goes.

Speaker 1 And it's like, 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 hour down the line right in your face.

Speaker 1 This is a game that's a little bit more skill than speed. And yeah, the ball gets a little softer.
So you can't really hit it. You can't hit like 300-foot bombs with 16-inch softball.

Speaker 8 The circumference is 16 inches. Yes.

Speaker 8 For our podcast, for our podcast listeners.

Speaker 3 Maybe we set up our own outfield fence with just like a rope.

Speaker 1 We could do that. Okay.
Where? I'm kind of. Where?

Speaker 3 Like

Speaker 3 halfway between.

Speaker 1 IEO. Oh, oh, I'm going to go.
We could just play at a little league. We could just play at a little league field.
Yeah, yeah. We can find a little league field.
All right.

Speaker 1 We'll do that. That'll be good PMTV.
We'll do it right after Max actually fucking does his Dingers-only league video. Yeah.

Speaker 3 We're about to have the draft for Dingers-only.

Speaker 1 We have to do it before we play Dingers-only again.

Speaker 8 But that team doesn't play it. Yeah, actually, no, that'll work.
That'll work.

Speaker 1 That'll work. The Cubs are playing right now.
You can do it.

Speaker 8 Would you want me to pitch against the Cubs?

Speaker 1 Yeah. That would be so awesome.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. The wind's blowing out.

Speaker 1 Oh, that'd be so fucking awesome.

Speaker 1 Okay. My who's back of the week is Big Dom.
Not to be a trigger to you, Max, but Big Dom, because Howie Roseman said Big Dom is the best in the NFL at finding out about players' red flags.

Speaker 1 Said he's the best.

Speaker 1 I don't know how he does, but he does. Finds it out.

Speaker 3 And he stops problems.

Speaker 1 He stops problems before they start.

Speaker 3 Never been in a rest.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, my who's back is. How did Matt Fitzpatrick do today or this weekend? Did he play?

Speaker 3 He did, I think, but not great.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 7 I don't know because he's like quite literally the biggest stats data guy. Right.

Speaker 1 Like we did a whole.

Speaker 1 We did a whole swing thing about him keeping track of every shot ever and then he forgot to take a four ounce weight out of his club.

Speaker 7 He tied for 38th. He is ranked 116th FedEx Cup rankings, 75th in the world.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 is there going to be any punishment?

Speaker 1 No, I think

Speaker 7 you can have weights. Yeah.
But he just thought he was like

Speaker 7 he cares so much about the data and

Speaker 7 knows all of his shafts and weights and lofts and stuff. He puts it in the middle of the house.
He was assuming he was playing.

Speaker 3 Like it's a leaded donut, like a batting donut. Okay, it doesn't add data.

Speaker 7 Like he chose a 38-ounce bat, but thought in his head that he was hitting a 34-ounce bat.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 I thought it meant like the head of the driver's base.

Speaker 1 No, he didn't cork. He didn't cork.

Speaker 1 What? He doesn't think you know baseball. He's just trying to get down to you with ounces and bats.

Speaker 3 No, I understand the concept of the leaded donut.

Speaker 1 Dude, this guy's on a softball team now. True.

Speaker 3 Fat pitches only. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You don't have to talk to him like that. He was really talking down to you.

Speaker 3 Hank is talking down to me.

Speaker 3 I can't wait to settle this on the diamond, Hank.

Speaker 1 Same.

Speaker 1 I'm scared.

Speaker 7 I'm ducking smoke.

Speaker 3 You don't respect me? You don't respect the Thunder? Two all-time greats.

Speaker 1 Hank, good call in this Warriors Rockets game.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 1 Do we have to?

Speaker 1 We'll get to our interviews. Maybe we'll give an update right before the lottery ball and who wins this game.
But

Speaker 1 yeah, don't talk PFT. Okay, you got this.

Speaker 1 All right, let's get to our interviews. We've got

Speaker 1 Minnesota Timberwolves. We're going to start with Daniel Jeremiah talking draft, and then we got Minnesota Timberwolves head coach, Chris Finch.

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Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You can find him on Twitter at MoveTheSticks. 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 not a lot of movement, not a lot of talk.

Speaker 1 Is that a fair assessment?

Speaker 14 I think it's fair. You You know, it doesn't mean it's not like a quality draft.
I've just been saying it's starters, not stars. Like last year, we had six quarterbacks.

Speaker 14 That's so rare when you have that many quarterbacks. And quarterbacks provide the juice and the intrigue.

Speaker 14 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,

Speaker 14 there's not really that juice there at the top because we kind of feel like we know what's going on there and then it begins at three.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you just said starters, not stars. And that's what I've been reading about.
How it's, will you tell me how many blue chippers, projected Pro Bowlers?

Speaker 1 And obviously, this is all hard to do because this is the draft.

Speaker 1 Are there in this draft? Or, you know, 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 falloff is?

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 Um, some drafts you might have, you know, 13, 14. Um, this year there's six.

Speaker 14 Now, the difference is, I mean, like, doesn't mean like the seventh, eighth, ninth guy aren't really good, but to me, that group is huge.

Speaker 14 Like, Quinchon Judkins is in the early 30s for me, and grade-wise, it's not going to be much different than who I would have going with the ninth or 10th pick. Right.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 14 I gave him the same grade as I gave Bo Nicks, so

Speaker 14 they would literally be right there with him.

Speaker 14 And Bo, you know, look, he was the last of that first group to go, but outside of Jaden Daniels, you could say probably played the second best of all those guys. So

Speaker 14 I think Cam's not quite as polished as Bo was coming out, but I think their skill set-wise, very similar.

Speaker 1 And what were the six players that you would say are like, hey, these are the blue chip guys.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 14 I start with like the little tier there at the very top. It's Abdul Carter, Travis Hunter, whatever order you want to put him in.
I gave him the same grade. It's just whatever you need.

Speaker 14 Those two guys, I got the two tight ends in that mix.

Speaker 14 So Tyler Warren, Colson Loveland. I've got Ashen Genty up there.
I think he's my third player.

Speaker 14 And then I've got Mason Graham in there. So does that get me to the sixth?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that gets you to the sixth. 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 14 I think defensive line overall, like just numbers, you're going to see a ton of D-linemen. Edge rushers, DTs.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 But like from comparing a group to what they are historically, the tight ends and the running backs are really, really good.

Speaker 14 And it's a really, really strong group of those guys compared to what we'd normally get.

Speaker 14 Not premier positions, but that's why like I've argued, 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 Like I think you almost got to throw that out the window. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 What about at the quarterback position with Shadur? So some people are having Shadur going some in the top 10. I've seen a couple people like that.

Speaker 3 And then some have him falling more towards the end of the first round. I feel like this is, I have a kind of, maybe it's a prediction, but it feels like one of those years where...

Speaker 3 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 Shadur, that needs a quarterback.

Speaker 3 And then they come in back later for a second first round pick. And they're like, okay, now we can take Shadur later on in the first round.
Where do you have him going?

Speaker 3 And then, two, do you see that happening?

Speaker 14 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.
To me,

Speaker 14 there's like a bullseye on them of like, okay, if you want to cut, if you're the comeback up team, then, you know, Sean Payton, Denver at 20 is probably going to be a hot spot where you're trying to get.

Speaker 14 And the Browns and the Giants, say if they both were in on whether it's Shadura, whether it's Dart,

Speaker 14 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, you know, we assume will be Hunter and Carter.

Speaker 14 And the cost isn't that much. So you're looking at,

Speaker 14 it would be the second round pick. Let's say for the Giants, 34.

Speaker 14 It would be their, one of their thirds, they have two thirds, would be 65.

Speaker 14 And then a fifth round pick, which is 164.

Speaker 14 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 Shadur or Dart, whoever your choice is there, you still got a third-round pick.

Speaker 14 So,

Speaker 14 that's a pretty nice haul there. You've got a quarterback of the future, but you also have a big-time premier player.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was thinking it would make a ton of sense for the Giants because you 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.

Speaker 3 And so, you take that premium player at the top, and then you also double-dip and come back in for Shadur. So, you mentioned Jackson Dart, too.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Uh, but I've got some teams saying that, like, they might, you could see him as maybe a first-round draft pick. So, who do you have him above Shadur or Shadur above him?

Speaker 14 I have on my list, I have Shadur. Um, you know, he's like right around 18, 20, like in that range from my list, and Dart's in the mid-30s.

Speaker 14 Um, but you know, I get to me, Dart, my comp on him was kind of off the walls, a little different, but he reminded me of Hurts just from the standpoint of kind of built similarly.

Speaker 14 They're like strong, sturdy, tough guys.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And I mean, look, I was at Hurts. like one of his first training camp practices and it was not good.
You know, like there was, there was like, oh gosh, what did did we do type vibe there?

Speaker 14 But he just proved he's just going to outwork everybody and he's going to figure it out and he did. So I think that's the comparison there with those, like the trajectory of those two guys.

Speaker 1 So I know I would be a terrible

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Now it's helped me sometimes.

Speaker 1 I was first on the bandwagon of Paxton Lynch is not good because I lost a lot of money in his bowl game.

Speaker 14 I was at his bowl game. Can I tell you the story about his bowl game?

Speaker 1 Yes, please.

Speaker 14 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

Speaker 14 I went down on the field. I was working with NFL Network.
But I didn't want anybody to kind of recognize me. I don't think they would have anyways.

Speaker 14 I probably could have worn an NFL shield and a Rob Lowell hat and nobody would have known who I was.

Speaker 14 But I went down there right by the fence along the sideline because I wanted to see how he interacted with. with everybody.
I knew he was big and strong and athletic and all that stuff.

Speaker 14 The play on the field, he didn't play great in that game. But to me, I went down there on the sideline.
I did not see him interact with anybody. He'd come off the sideline.

Speaker 14 He wasn't talking to coaches. He was around teammates.

Speaker 14 So that's when I kind of jumped ship on him at that bowl game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was so, so, so sometimes it works in my favor, sometimes it doesn't. But the Florida game for Jackson Dart was horrendous.

Speaker 1 And when you're sitting in that meeting, is there, like, do you say, hey, look, it's one game, guys. We can't, we can't react to a bad game just like we can't react to a really good game.

Speaker 1 Or is it like, no, this might be a sign of of something else that we got to be worried about long term

Speaker 14 well i mean i look there's always going to be outliers and clunkers you know lamar jackson i want to say they played lsu in their bowl game and it was not it was not good for his final send off there um

Speaker 14 but you know this is the same thing i've and i i don't have the medical information so i can't you know stamp this as 100

Speaker 14 but in talking to some people around the league and maybe they're just apologists or they're have big grades on these guys but like you hear will howard might have been concussed in the in the michigan game You hear Jackson Dart might have been concussed in the Florida game.

Speaker 14 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's had a stinker.

Speaker 14 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 hung on to that one moment on him and punished him for that.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 3 How do you weigh weigh that? Like, I guess the real question I'm asking is: how do you weigh traits?

Speaker 3 Like, if a guy has a big arm, very accurate, et cetera, et cetera, against the games that you've seen him play most recently?

Speaker 14 Well, I think big games are important, you know, how you play in that.

Speaker 14 But I, like, to me, there's 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 him. There's

Speaker 14 some issues that pop up. There's some development that needs to take place.

Speaker 14 But when you have like a combination of size, you know, ridiculous arm talent, and then incredible like 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.

Speaker 14 Like these guys are going to figure it out. Like I'll take my chances on those guys who may be a little rough around the edges.

Speaker 14 So to get to your point there, I'm chasing ceiling with quarterbacks maybe more than I'm looking at the floor.

Speaker 14 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 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.

Speaker 14 And I have another guy with a wide range, but a higher ceiling. Well, either way, if I take the high-range guy and he busts, I got to go get another quarterback.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 So you might as well just take your swing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, it's a good way to think about it.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Just listen, I mean, when you look at the AFC, and off the top of my head, you're talking about Mahomes, Allen, Lamar Jackson, Burrow,

Speaker 14 C.J. Stroud, Herbert.
Like, you got to navigate through that gauntlet and you're going to go out there with kind of a, you know, a middling quarterback. Like, you're never going to survive.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Speaking of Josh, you were talking about, you know, some of the bad games he had in college.

Speaker 3 Who's one guy in this draft that is from, you know, that next level, maybe group of five school that you think might be a sleeper, a guy that you're going to get an excellent player?

Speaker 3 Maybe you haven't seen him play that much, but who's one guy that stands out?

Speaker 14 Well, I just go immediately to Gray Zabel from North Dakota State. You know, first of all, they've put offensive linemen in the NFL.
They know how to coach him. They know how to identify him.

Speaker 14 They know how to develop them.

Speaker 14 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 like pretty dominant down there.

Speaker 14 That's a high-batting average with those guys, man. And he can play all five positions.

Speaker 14 So, yeah, he's like that immediate name that just pops right into my head. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The running backs in this draft is very interesting because it's Ash Niggeny, obviously, is at the top, and he's going to go in whatever the first six, seven picks.

Speaker 1 But you said, you know, there's a lot of depth at running back.

Speaker 1 Who's your favorite of the next group? And

Speaker 1 is it fair to to say that there's going to be probably five or six teams that are come 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?

Speaker 15 Dude, there's a boatload of them.

Speaker 14 But like Travion Henderson for me from Ohio State, just because you got home run hitter, which I love,

Speaker 14 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 2000s.

Speaker 14 I don't recall off the 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.

Speaker 14 Then you've got someone who, you know, is not, 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.

Speaker 14 So now he's one that I would think, and like I know,

Speaker 14 you know, the Bears and people will look at that and say, gosh, that would be insane if they did that with pick number 10.

Speaker 14 But then you kind of step back and look at it and you're like, okay, the biggest issue is you guys know, like, they didn't protect last year. So we revamped the offensive line.

Speaker 14 And now we've got a running back who can not only, you know, 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.

Speaker 14 I got an extra, it's like I have an extra lineman back there to help protect Caleb.

Speaker 14 So that would, that would be maybe a little shock if that happened when he got picked, but I could easily explain it.

Speaker 1 So, like, in terms of draft trends,

Speaker 1 it is a copycat league.

Speaker 1 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 of years ago and everyone's like, this is crazy.

Speaker 1 Why would they do this?

Speaker 1 They take a running back and a linebacker early. Are teams starting to open their eyes a little bit more being like, hey,

Speaker 1 this isn't as crazy as we thought it was, you know, five, six years ago?

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I think the mistakes are when you're a terrible team and you take a running back.

Speaker 14 No one has 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. What's the point?

Speaker 14 Like, you're better off building up your team. And then the second I start the clock on the running back, like it matters.
All of his carries. Like Detroit had the offensive line.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 But to me, if you're a bad team, bad offensive line, you can disguise a good running back

Speaker 14 with a bad supporting cast. So that's where the mistake is for me.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 14 100%. Yeah, it's to me, it's just that it's one of the final pieces.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I almost more believe so it's the running back in terms of once you have everything built up, okay, drop him in there and off you go. And there's teams in this draft where you look at it.

Speaker 14 And that's why like normally the teams pick in the top 10 aren't, don't have those key bases covered.

Speaker 14 And so that's why you see some of these running backs that go up there and maybe don't pop as much. But the Bears are a different, they're different.
Like if somehow Genti were to get there,

Speaker 14 they've invested in that offensive line. They have the quarterback quarterback in place.
They have all the key positions in defense. They're in pretty good spot there.

Speaker 14 So that's why it's kind of a unique opportunity for them. And even if Genty was gone, I would, you know, I'd be doing my homework on Hampton, who's a stud out of North Carolina.

Speaker 14 Like, I would love to see the Bears come away with a dynamic back. I think they're ready for him.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 So I know you're a big arm length guy, probably.

Speaker 3 He measured in at 32 and 5/8 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.

Speaker 3 Then, was it at his pro day, or was that the senior bowl? Yes, pro day.

Speaker 3 He measured in at 33 inches. So he got up there.
His arm length increased. Are his arms, is that three-eighths of an inch good enough? Is that enough to make Will Campbell an elite tackle?

Speaker 14 Well,

Speaker 14 the arm length controversy goes like well beyond Campbell because there were guys at the senior bowl who got their arms measured and Bo, the tackle from Purdue, is one off top of my head whose arms magically shrunk an inch from the senior bowl to the combine.

Speaker 14 So like all the combine numbers this year were low. So I don't know if they've have different people doing it.

Speaker 14 You know, it used to be you had the same guy would do it at the senior bowls, the same guy would do it at the combines.

Speaker 14 I'm going to go on a limb and say they have different people doing this who are doing it differently.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 But to me, the, you know, I've never been in a draft room where it was like, hmm, he's 30, 32 and 7.8s, not touching him. Oh, he's 33.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 Like the, the, on the, 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And he struggled. Like that, there is a reason why people care about arm length.
There is something to that.

Speaker 14 But I watch 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.

Speaker 14 And even if you get to his chest before he can get on you, he can drop his weight with incredible strength and base. And the arm length doesn't even, it's not even an issue.

Speaker 14 So I think that's, 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.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like all these measurements where it's like the hand size. We joke about it.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But when it comes to elements, when it comes to, you know, holding on to the football, yeah, you'd probably want to have a 10-inch hand. Like, that would help.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, I think it's across the board. I think that's not just in football.

Speaker 14 I think in basketball, if you had a good basketball player at 6'5 with a normal wingspan and a player that was 6'4 with freakishly long arms, like, yeah, I like the guy with a lot of length because that clogs up lanes and that helps you close out and defend.

Speaker 14 Like, you're always going to prefer it, but you get in trouble when you discard good play and punish them for a trait.

Speaker 14 And you get in trouble when you elevate somebody because they have traits and they can't play.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so in conclusion, Will Campbell, you're not worried about him at all being a tackle.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I think he's really good at recovering. He's got great feet.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I think the absolute worst case scenario is he fails outside and he's a Pro Bowl caliber guard.

Speaker 14 So I think from that standpoint, he has a higher floor.

Speaker 1 Another reason why this draft maybe doesn't have as much buzz is it's not just the quarterbacks, but the wide receivers.

Speaker 1 I feel like we had a stretch here where the wide receivers were phenomenal and there was every year it would be five or six guys going in the first round it's like holy shit uh and it doesn't feel that way talk to me about the wide receiver class and then specifically tet mcmillan because i feel like i've heard just every everything like people saying he's a stud and then people ripping him apart where do you land on tet and then as the wide receivers in total Sure.

Speaker 14 Big picture. I don't think we have the, again, the stars, like the big time, like top 10 caliber receiver

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I don't know that we have like a number one wideout in this class.

Speaker 14 To McMillan specifically, this is an example of kind of maybe the polarizing nature with him. I call one team and say, hey, what did you guys think of him? Well, he's super smooth.

Speaker 14 He's ultra athletic. He's got agility.
He makes it look easy, you know, with his range. And he go get it.
You know, he has a volleyball background.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I don't see him really compete. It doesn't look like he strains much to try and make things happen.
You know, and he's a volleyball player. You know, I mean, come on.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then wide receivers is total.

Speaker 1 Like, 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?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I like the day two group. Like, there's two kids from Iowa State I think are really, really good.
Um, you've got Noel, who's kind of a, you know, a power slot.

Speaker 14 Like, he's a strong, sturdy slot who can really, really run, who can give you run after the catch.

Speaker 14 He's just, to me, he's like ready-made, like, drop him in, and he's going to be super productive right away. Uh, and then you've got Higgins on the outside, who's like more of that power forward type.

Speaker 14 Um, 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?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, Joe Flacco would be even more elite.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Just throw that deep ball.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And it's a more valuable skill in the NFL than it is in college. So like those are a couple day two guys.

Speaker 14 Jack Besch probably goes in the third round from TCU, who's another like ultra, ultra competitive kid. So those are a few I like.

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 1 there should be an additional five yards on there.

Speaker 15 I like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 14 I think everybody I've talked to has a plan to major and minor. You know, like you have to major in one side, minor on the other.

Speaker 14 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?

Speaker 1 Oh. Yeah.

Speaker 14 Oh, I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I always assumed it was the other way around.

Speaker 3 You have him graded higher as a wide receiver?

Speaker 14 I think he's more impactful as a receiver

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And maybe they, you know, I do think they try and come away with one and get back in to take one.

Speaker 14 But to me, yeah, I think that's, 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.

Speaker 3 So why do you have him, like, why are you seeing him more as a wide receiver than a cornerback?

Speaker 3 Because everybody else that we've talked to has said cornerback first, they'll put him in on packages on offense.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I mean, first of all,

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 He touches the football more on offense. And this is not the old days.
Like he's not, he's not a press man corner, put him on one side of the field and forget about it, leave him alone.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 So 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.

Speaker 14 And I just think he impacts the game more on offense at this point in time. And it's never really been done.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 But to me, that's what makes the most sense for him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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 at Tennessee.

Speaker 1 How's that going to impact how teams evaluate these guys going forward? Where it's like, hey,

Speaker 1 loyalty is kind of a stupid thing because there is no loyalty in these high-level sports. But jumping around from team to team, having a situation like this where it's like he sits out,

Speaker 1 I don't want to say he quit on his team, but there's that storyline goes. So, how do teams kind of judge something like this? Because it probably is going to happen a lot more going forward.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And 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.

Speaker 14 So it's going to have zero impact on guys and where they go. And we're already used to this.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 But, you know, from a scouting standpoint, with Nico specifically, I haven't seen a ton of him, but I've seen a ton of the Tennessee offense.

Speaker 14 And it's kind of like that old Baylor Art Bryles offense where they literally could touch the hand of the coach on the sideline.

Speaker 14 It's hard to translate that to the next level from an evaluation standpoint.

Speaker 14 You know, 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.

Speaker 1 It's a really good point because we get tricked by it.

Speaker 1 So like 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.

Speaker 1 It's just going to come from guys that would never have to pick him anyway.

Speaker 15 Exactly, man.

Speaker 14 What does it matter? Right. I mean, that's, that's my whole point.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 3 And if one of those players falls to the team that's complaining, they'll change their tune and draft that guy anyways.

Speaker 14 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 we had a black dot on him, which meant he was undraftable.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 1 How did he work out? That's perfect.

Speaker 14 He hung around for a few years. He wasn't a great player, but for a sixth round pick, it was functional.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 what about a surprise team?

Speaker 3 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 uh is there a team like the falcons from last year that you're going to be like what the hell

Speaker 14 i mean that would that would probably kill the surprise i i don't i can't think of one there's none like that i'm looking at as like a sneaky quarterback team i mean the rams have been mentioned you know but i don't know i mean 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 two has been hurt Maybe that could be

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 It's like been changed to like a chess piece if you have somebody on defense.

Speaker 14 Versatile.

Speaker 1 Yeah, versatile.

Speaker 3 You move them around a lot.

Speaker 3 Are there any tweeners that we should have our eyes on? And then follow-up question.

Speaker 3 Who are the guys that have been undersized that are labeled as tweeners that, in your opinion, have actually worked out?

Speaker 14 Yeah,

Speaker 14 tweeners that have worked out. Well, I mean, like, Brandon Graham is like kind of my classic tweener.
He was kind of in-between body type of a defensive tackle and an edge rusher.

Speaker 14 And, you know, it was like, where do we use him best? I was there in Philadelphia when he was there.

Speaker 14 And I was like, well, 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

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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?

Speaker 14 Savion Jones from LSU is another one,

Speaker 14 kind of a tweener there. So there's a few of them sprinkled in throughout here, but not, it's not a huge, it's not a huge tweener year.

Speaker 14 Maybe the other one I would say is

Speaker 14 Nick Skorton from AM. Nick Skorton is fascinating because he is someone when I watched him, like, gosh, I didn't see like big-time juice and takeoff at AM last year.

Speaker 14 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, and he's moving around good.

Speaker 14 He looks great.

Speaker 14 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 even look like the same human being as the guy that you saw last year uh all right this is 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.

Speaker 1 Because I think there are teams like the Packers or the Ravens.

Speaker 1 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 got 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

Speaker 14 you guys i know dan you talked to to harbaugh so i don't know if see if he's into manifestation but it just feels like i think every night he's going to bed with colston levelin's picture like on

Speaker 14 the wall and he just stares at it. He's like, this is going to happen.
I believe it. He will be here.
So that's one I would say.

Speaker 14 And then I will say with the Houston Texans, this one I'll go with Booker. I'll go with Tyler Booker from Alabama.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 So I'm like,

Speaker 14 there's a lot of stuff working together there.

Speaker 1 Okay, so if you get either of those right,

Speaker 1 we'll make a graphic and be like, as first reported by Daniel Jeremiah, seven days before the draft, he nailed it. DJ knows that

Speaker 14 save their time on that graphic, though. No, don't, don't, don't do that unless it actually happens, which the odds are very low.

Speaker 1 No, we got you got one of those. You got one of those two.

Speaker 3 And I know as a scout, you fall in love with guys. I'm sure that you've you've experienced it where you're scouting somebody and you're like, this guy is going to go way too late.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 14 Oh, that's a great question. Great question.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 14 So I'll give you like an example of someone.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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 are like super smart, great leader.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And you're like, gosh, there's a lot of guys playing in the NFL NFL at this position from this school. So he's one, I think.
To me, I have him like in the early to mid-third round.

Speaker 14 And maybe he goes in like the fifth round, you know, when it's all said and done. But I think you'll look up and he'll be starting next year.

Speaker 1 Okay, I got one last question. This has been awesome.
Thank you so much, DJ. You got to go.
Obviously, everyone's going to be watching on NFL Network on Draft Night, Move the Sticks podcast.

Speaker 1 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 16 Sebastian Menascalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is coming to Hulu on November 21st.

Speaker 1 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd. Bezos now ripped to shreds on his super yacht, and the boxes keep

Speaker 1 coming.

Speaker 16 Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, premieres November 21st, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 1 All right, give us...

Speaker 1 I want to do a new thing where we're just going to call it Mr. PMT because there's obviously the Mr.
Irrelevant.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 14 Um, now this one's interesting because if he were to go in like the third or fourth round, I wouldn't be shocked because his play is really good, but because of some other factors, mainly his size, I could see him falling into the sixth or seventh round.

Speaker 14 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, okay, that's Mr.

Speaker 1 PMT.

Speaker 3 So he, I saw a picture of him wearing Jets gear the other day.

Speaker 1 Oh, there you go.

Speaker 14 Yeah, he was very he's got a strong arm, man. He is not, he is, you know, he's he's 5'11.
He's older,

Speaker 14 but

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 If you can get him in the third, fourth round, no one too is more than likely to miss some games. Like, I think he could do everything that, you know, Tua can do.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And are you going up to Green Bay?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yep. I'm out there all week.

Speaker 3 What can we expect from Green Bay in this draft? Are they doing anything different?

Speaker 14 I don't know, man. The only thing that I know is they have,

Speaker 14 we do the puppy thing, like we bring in the rescue puppies and the one peed on me two years ago.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Puppy security is like opposite. You got to throw all, there's no point, you want zero points of pressure.
You got to keep that thing out extended.

Speaker 14 So that's, that's all I'm really focused on, to be honest.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And let's hope that Dylan Gabriel goes and wins the Super Bowl and we can be like, yeah, actually, that was Mr. PMT.

Speaker 14 Oh, man. Are you kidding me? And then you 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.

Speaker 14 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. Arella.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 We drive him around the basketball court using Max's wheelchair. Yeah.
It'd be fantastic.

Speaker 1 And they can get as much lasagna as they want. Yeah.

Speaker 14 Sounds like a heck of a weekend.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Thanks so much.

Speaker 14 See you, buddy.

Speaker 1 So, y'all know that we're big fans of Cracker Barrel. And this holiday season, I will be sat at their table with a big plate of country-fried turkey.

Speaker 6 And, Brandon, I'll be right there with you, and I'll check it off my Christmas list in the country store while I'm at it.

Speaker 4 It'll make a nice holiday tradition.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's so cute of you.

Speaker 6 Enjoy all the more holiday traditions only at Cracker Barrel.

Speaker 3 And now, here's Chris Finch.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 They have game one Saturday night against the Lakers. We just told Coach he's got to try to really win this game

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 15 Knee's feeling good, thanks. It's been almost a year, so it should be good after this long.
But yeah, no, we're excited to get started. It'd be fun to be back up on

Speaker 15 both legs for the playoffs again.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so your knee,

Speaker 1 like, do you have a different strategy now going into this postseason?

Speaker 1 Like, 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

Speaker 15 cut you from behind are you 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 have necessarily well i don't necessarily have a new strategy but what i have i have noticed is how many times you know people actually start coming your direction you just you you 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.

Speaker 3 Like, you're less of a threat that way.

Speaker 1 True. Yeah.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I think

Speaker 15 much, much, much of the credit goes to the guys, you know, just figuring it out over time,

Speaker 15 you know, understanding what they had to do, sacrifices, rolled, rotations, you know, being ready to kind of change and adapt as the season was going along. The biggest thing was

Speaker 15 really our offense. And our offense was struggling out of the gate.
We had a lot of turnovers, ball was sticky,

Speaker 15 spacing issues, the normal stuff. But

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 you know, kind of remnants of a shoulder off-season shoulder surgery. So we really didn't have him for much of preseason anyway.

Speaker 15 So it took us a while to kind of figure out how to best play with him and around him.

Speaker 15 And once we started to do that early to mid-December,

Speaker 15 I could feel like the team getting better, the momentum building.

Speaker 15 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And you got a big matchup in the first round here. And, you know, obviously JJ is somebody that you know.

Speaker 3 You went on his podcast.

Speaker 3 Do you look back at that and be like, I feel like JJ just asked me on his 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.

Speaker 15 Well, I mean, yeah, it was fun being on JJ's podcast, but I don't remember talking about much other than JJ.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 I was a lower level player. I grinded it out.
I played in Europe.

Speaker 1 And then you got the pretty boy, JJ Reddick, who we're friends with, Duke, and all the accolades in a first, you know, a first-round pick.

Speaker 1 Like, you got to beef up that narrative and be like, hey, we're the dogs here.

Speaker 15 Yeah, no, I mean, we might play, we might play up on the underdog story, but it won't involve me. I assure you that.
One thing that, you know, in the NBA, nobody cares where you've come from.

Speaker 15 No one cares what you've done before.

Speaker 15 We all got here through different channels.

Speaker 15 You know, all that matters is you know what the heck you're doing and, you know, you're fighting for your teammates. And,

Speaker 15 you know, guys have have confidence in that.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, you guys are a very fun team to watch. You're a very gritty team, which I appreciate.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 Maybe not the best, but the most important player for you.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I mean, I mean, Rudy Gobert is just so impactful on both sides of the ball. I think, you know, Rudy is a very polarizing player in the league.

Speaker 15 But, you know, having been with him now for

Speaker 15 three years, like

Speaker 15 his value cannot be overestimated. It's just so important

Speaker 15 to everything that we do.

Speaker 15 You know, he brings it every single night.

Speaker 15 You know, and it

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 When we need him to step up and do more, you know, more of scoring, he does it easy, seamlessly. Jaden McDaniels just kind of just took another big step forward for us this year.

Speaker 15 I think his growth and becoming a legitimate two-way player has been very, very important.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's really hard to just single out

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 just really settled into his role.

Speaker 15 It's fun to watch him kind of become the player that he's become, 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

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah. all right so i i i saw some of social media which you've had comments on uh saying that using joe ingalls as your uh luca

Speaker 1 uh you know model uh in practice is not going to work uh what is he able to do though to replicate it because it does maybe he's not he's not luca but he also has a lot of smarts and and you're able to maybe give you looks so how does that work when you're when you're trying to mimic a player like luca and how you're going to defend him in a series well of course it's you know,

Speaker 15 if we had an exact Luca replica, we'd probably be a 70-win team. Right.
So

Speaker 15 nobody can go out and replicate these players in practice. But Joe is extremely intelligent.
He's an unbelievable pick and roll player.

Speaker 15 You know, he understands like all the different coverages that a team will try to employ, and he can understand how to try to manipulate that or take advantage of it.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 He hasn't been on court as much as we thought when we did sign him, but that was before the trade happened.

Speaker 15 And we got Dante and we got a little deeper as a result. But all that being said, Joe has an incredible amount of experience and he can bring that to, you know, our preparation.

Speaker 1 I got a free tip for you.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Have you thought about maybe playing into that? Maybe playing the same video when he comes to Minnesota. Maybe we get a couple fans wearing Luca Mavs jerseys in the front row.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I think we're going to leave Luca alone.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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 we'll do okay

Speaker 3 are you guys like what's it what's the difference for uh 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 are there anything 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, I don't know, early early February?

Speaker 15 Well, I think, you know, yeah, there's certainly

Speaker 15 you're dialed into another level of game plan preparation.

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 might be small.

Speaker 15 You know, might be, nothing super radical. And I don't think you go into

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 you know, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 15 You become a lot more matchup focused, I would think. And also, you just, you know, you try to take things away

Speaker 15 and you put a lot of time and energy and effort into that. So there are some.
pretty big differences, I would say.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 1 So, so in a game-to-game, because I love watching the playoffs because it feels like every game, you see, you know, adjustments and counter-adjustments.

Speaker 1 From a coach's perspective, you go into a series.

Speaker 1 Is it just a total feel of like, okay, now it's time to adjust after, say, game one?

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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 going to be in trouble quickly.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's a great question. I think

Speaker 15 that strikes at the heart of what playoff coaching really is.

Speaker 15 It's certainly you got to be ready to make adjustments, willing to make adjustments, but sometimes, you know, you got to just do it better.

Speaker 15 And so that's a feel thing.

Speaker 15 It's kind of like you'll know it when you you see it sometimes. And

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 You never used to see blowouts in the playoffs 25, 30 years ago, unless it was a 1-8 series, you know, but 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 a of course a reaction over reaction cycle that goes on here um and the last thing i'd say about adjustments is that you got to be able to make them because

Speaker 15 You know, you got to 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 go zone.

Speaker 15 You have to still be able to do it. Like your personnel has to lend itself to be able to do these things.

Speaker 15 So it's not like you can just go out and do things that your personnel is not capable of delivering

Speaker 15 or

Speaker 15 systematically. You can't be that radical and change everything.

Speaker 15 Or you're not going to be very good at it either. So it's kind of a balancing act there.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I also am curious, like going up against a guy like Luca, and obviously LeBron is LeBron, LeBron, but the mentality of a player that you're coaching and trying to explain to them that like, hey, he's probably going to get 30.

Speaker 1 Like, we got to make it harder for him to get 30, but he's going to probably get 30.

Speaker 1 And how you get someone to like mentally be locked in where it's like, if someone puts 30 up, naturally you're going to be like, man, I didn't do well tonight.

Speaker 1 But Luca 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.

Speaker 1 It's just trying to make it as difficult as possible with him and keeping everyone like knocked down on themselves when he does go for 35.

Speaker 14 Yeah,

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 It's hard to take them out of the game completely.

Speaker 15 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, I think that goes to a different level in the playoffs.

Speaker 15 I think there's, you'll see a lot of that, just guys who are quote unquote unguarded to, to, so we can,

Speaker 15 you know, uh, put more time and attention to the star player or take away something that a team really is trying to do. Um, but we also have the benefit of like measuring efficiency now.
It's in game.

Speaker 15 And we can, if you're going to give 30 points on 27 shots, you know, that generally that's a good, that's a win for the defense

Speaker 15 as long as you're not fouling at a high rate too so you know it 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 um 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,

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 And, you know, sometimes it's just about a war of attrition. Can you wear them down? And hopefully they miss one of the shots at the end.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You guys have had some incredible comebacks, too.
I'm thinking to last year against the Nuggets is one.

Speaker 3 I think Oklahoma City this year, you might have been down by even more against Oklahoma City when you came back.

Speaker 3 Have you considered not getting down by 25 points and just uh playing the lead the entire game no i haven't actually we we actually say let's get down big and race back into fourth and it'll be exciting for everyone yeah no 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 we're i can't believe we're losing by 20 right now Well, I would tell you this.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 And that was far more excruciating than being down for three quarters and winning. So

Speaker 15 that's the league today, though. You know, these massive swings,

Speaker 15 I think that's what makes the league super exciting right now.

Speaker 15 Not just the style of play, the pace of play, the three-point shot.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 So, yeah, I think

Speaker 15 it starts with defense.

Speaker 15 Of course, you never want to be down, but it starts with your defense. And if you can play defense and get stops, you could turn any game around now with the pace of play and the three-point shooting.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Would you say that you have better blobs or slobs?

Speaker 15 That's a good question. I would say we're probably

Speaker 15 better

Speaker 15 blobs.

Speaker 1 Okay. Do you have like two or three blobs that you're like, these are, do you have a blob that you have like break in case of emergency?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I have a few of those. I love that.

Speaker 1 I love that. Do you have a couple that you're like,

Speaker 1 if I were a coach, I would just have one blob that's like, I'm not going to break this out until like game seven of the finals. Like, this is my, this is the best blob I've ever come up with.

Speaker 15 Well, you know, it's funny you say that because every year we do this, you know, we have plays that we hold back

Speaker 15 for special situations. And then 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.

Speaker 15 So 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,

Speaker 15 you know, we might as well try it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I would not have the discipline to be able to hold on to my blob for that long. So credit to you.

Speaker 15 Have you seen the all-star game?

Speaker 15 It's pretty easy to get a bucket. It is.

Speaker 1 It is. Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Those are the only two I would ever run. I'd be very

Speaker 3 easily defeated.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And then that's an inefficient shot if somebody takes a long two.

Speaker 3 What's your philosophy on those?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I think there's, yeah, of course I believe in the long two.

Speaker 15 It's part of the game for sure. I think there's definitely a time and a place to use it.

Speaker 15 You know, when we talk about shot selection with our guys, we have built in

Speaker 15 kind of

Speaker 15 that shot in certain contexts. What I would say is that, like, you know,

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 which a lot of teams are willing to do defensively. So I always tell our guys, you know, when it comes to hard shots or whatever, like,

Speaker 15 you know, it's, it's, you can make that shot. No one's denying that you can't.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 It's just really hard to make a living on that shot. So,

Speaker 15 you know, you just got to be so, so good at it and such high volume

Speaker 15 that just to counter what's going on at the other end of the floor more than anything else. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, Anthony Edwards, who's a phenom, and last year was kind of his like coming out party in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Obviously, he was good before that, but that was like the national coming out party.

Speaker 1 When you're coaching him, are there games where you're like, you see it in his eyes, or he tells you something, and it's like, okay, we can just let Ant do what he wants to do because he's got it right now.

Speaker 1 Like, is that a feel thing, or does he actually say it to you? Like, hey, coach, I got this tonight. Like, I'm feeling great.

Speaker 15 I mean, it's more of a feel thing. It's a look thing.
You can tell.

Speaker 15 Since I got here, which was in the midst of Ant's rookie year,

Speaker 15 you know, you could tell, I remember his first 40-point game, which was against Phoenix shortly after the all-star all-star break. It was kind of an awakening for him.

Speaker 15 He has incredible confidence in himself and his ability

Speaker 15 to go out and do his thing, always has, even before he had figured out how to do it largely.

Speaker 15 But once he started to kind of figure it out, you know, he's always had this incredible sense for the moment within a game of like knowing when to take over.

Speaker 15 it could be defensively too.

Speaker 15 And then he gets on these mini runs and he he can 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.

Speaker 15 He makes a few momentum plays for himself or his teammates. And that's one of the things I think he's learned a lot in these few early years.

Speaker 15 He's way more thinking the game than he had early on.

Speaker 15 I do think the one thing that I've always let him do is, I mean, we've coached him hard. We've held him accountable, coached him hard, but we give him an incredible amount of freedom to figure it out.

Speaker 15 And I think that was the only way he was going to learn. You know, if he went into a super,

Speaker 15 you know, overly structured kind of patterned environment, I'm not sure that that would have benefited him early on.

Speaker 15 If he went into

Speaker 15 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 have benefited him early on.

Speaker 15 Now he understands that, but just kind of giving him a big platform to do his thing and what was most comfortable for him allowed these moments that you're talking about to come about.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you ever catch yourself like watching the Jumbotron a little too much when they're replaying a dunk or something that a big moment from him?

Speaker 15 Yeah, no doubt. It's been some of those dunks that have a front row seat for, I think most of them

Speaker 15 have happened right in front of the bench, too, which has been kind of cool. Yeah.

Speaker 3 What's he like in practice? Has he done things in practice that just amaze you?

Speaker 15 Yeah, like in practice, he, he'll, he'll just take over part of practice.

Speaker 15 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 a team, like you got to, you got to prove it to your teammates in practice.

Speaker 15 That's where if you can dominate a practice, you just take over.

Speaker 15 You know, he's not dunking on everybody in practice, but he'll, you know, we go live and we're playing and the competitiveness is there in practice.

Speaker 15 You know, which is, we don't often go live in NBA practice once we get out of preseason, but during preseason, he'll definitely have these days

Speaker 15 in a row where he's setting the tone and he's letting everybody know how good he is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So we talked about Luca's play.

Speaker 1 From a coaching perspective, are you, do you have a game plan or are you maybe like getting yourself hyped up before the game, being like, I can't let Luca out-complain me to the refs?

Speaker 1 refs like i have to be ready for his complaining to the refs i have to match that like are you saying 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

Speaker 1 no

Speaker 15 no that's uh that's kind of a losing battle i'm not sure we're gonna you're gonna get that one um i think what's important for us this series uh 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.

Speaker 1 Just be like, never say anything to him and let Luca 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 refs.

Speaker 3 You could also learn Slovenian and then translate what Luca is saying so that you're like, hey, he just cussed at you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 You couldn't understand it.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 3 That's also very smart. Are there any words that'll get you teed up that maybe we don't know about?

Speaker 15 Well, the word bozo got me thrown out of the game.

Speaker 1 What was the context?

Speaker 15 That offensive, but yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What was the context in that?

Speaker 15 Oh, God. It was.

Speaker 15 I was actually having a sidebar conversation with Bradley Beale, and, you know, the official kind of overheard it.

Speaker 3 I do feel like Bozo, that one stings. Like it's, you know, calling somebody a clown.
The ref is going to have rabbit ears for that. Was that the only word that you said?

Speaker 15 Well, after he threw me out, I think I had a few more words for him. But yeah, but that was kind of it, you know.
But

Speaker 15 these things are,

Speaker 15 they all happen in context. And sometimes I always find

Speaker 15 after the fact, I always think like, well, you know, what were you so angry about? You know, how did it get to that point?

Speaker 15 You have these kind of reflective moments where you're a little ashamed of yourself.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Is there, though, in your head, like a strategic tech that you can take?

Speaker 1 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 it then flipped.

Speaker 1 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, you know, balance to the game?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I think we all, you know, reserve that right and we've all done that.

Speaker 15 You know, I'll probably probably use that less about the flow of the game more about protecting the players yeah you know so they don't 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 have you uh what was the first meeting between you and a rod like and he was like hey i'm gonna come in here might own the team

Speaker 15 I'm trying to think back. So it was cool, pretty cool.
He and Mark Lord came in. They talked to us before practice one day.

Speaker 15 Just trying to think. That was way back in kind of the COVID,

Speaker 15 still the COVID period after,

Speaker 15 you know, 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, they've had a

Speaker 15 really positive impact on the energy of the team.

Speaker 15 One thing I really like about Alex is, you know, having played high-level sports,

Speaker 15 you know, he understands what like a winning environment looks and feels like and those cultures.

Speaker 15 But yet, he's not a basketball guy, so he doesn't walk around pretend to know basketball, but he's super inquisitive.

Speaker 15 He'll ask a lot of questions, asks a lot of really good questions, and it wants to be educated.

Speaker 15 Very, very appropriate. You know, Mark's similar.
Mark's the same. Like, Mark's really, really smart.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 But he's not questioning us about pick and roll coverages and substitutions and rotations and all that. So

Speaker 15 they've been really, really

Speaker 15 pleasure to have around and look forward to the future with them.

Speaker 7 Yeah. All right.

Speaker 1 So, Coach, I got one last question. It's been so much fun.
We appreciate you joining us.

Speaker 1 Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase, Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code take.

Speaker 1 You had a

Speaker 1 comment to 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 um this guy named ball lover 6969 said chris finch is a fucking idiot i could do the rotations better than him do you do you want to maybe take his criticism should we connect you with him

Speaker 15 no man i think he's probably right you know it's 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.

Speaker 1 I also made up that one, but I did. You actually,

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 15 No, that was last year's.

Speaker 1 Those are the cleanest jerseys. I think those might be the best jerseys in the NBA right now.

Speaker 1 You got to bring them back.

Speaker 15 Yeah,

Speaker 15 I was disappointed that we didn't didn't have those in the in the rotation this year so

Speaker 15 but um hey if you want to hear a good one so uh chris finch idiot i'm sure it's out there you just probably didn't look hard enough but

Speaker 15 when i was living in england i lived lived in england for about 10 years and uh that was at the height of the office the british version of the office

Speaker 15 and uh

Speaker 15 the one of the characters there who was todd packer like todd packer's equivalent the outside sales guy?

Speaker 14 Yep. His name was Chris Finch.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's funny.

Speaker 3 That's a tough one. Yeah.

Speaker 3 If you look up Chris Finch Bozo on Twitter, you will find a couple comments.

Speaker 3 That's way worse than calling you an idiot.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 These guys should all be blocked. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, Coach, best of luck in the playoffs and great having you on.

Speaker 15 Okay, appreciate it, guys. Thanks, man.

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Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 let's do numbers. The Warriors have won game one.
Welcome to the playoffs, Rockets.

Speaker 3 Listen, everybody wants to crown the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 The one-time champs? Yeah, well, I mean, at one point. Yeah, one-former champs.

Speaker 1 I give credit to the Rockets for fighting. I thought that game was over.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 NBA Plus. All the young teams.

Speaker 1 The Rockets. What?

Speaker 7 Continue.

Speaker 1 All the young teams that are welcoming themselves to the playoffs, the Rockets, the Pistons. The Magic were in the playoffs last year, but

Speaker 1 tough.

Speaker 7 Any other young teams?

Speaker 1 Well, the Thunder were in the playoffs last year.

Speaker 7 Oh, just this year.

Speaker 1 I'm saying the Rockets, like, they haven't. They had a really good season, but they're very young.
Same with the Pistons.

Speaker 3 Might be a year too early for them.

Speaker 1 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, numbers. Three.

Speaker 7 19.

Speaker 1 Oh, Memes didn't have his fucking. I have to adjust the camera.
Did you want three? No, I'll go 17.

Speaker 1 Take three.

Speaker 1 Now, for what? Three? Okay. I'll keep three.

Speaker 3 What are you going 17 for?

Speaker 1 That guy who won WrestleMania, number 17. Oh, we don't say his name.
Yeah, we don't say his name.

Speaker 3 Travis Scott. Travis Scott.

Speaker 1 Champ. I think people were upset about WrestleMania.

Speaker 1 You know what? Put me in

Speaker 1 that camp. I'm fucking pissed.
Yeah. I wanted to.
I wanted Cody Rhodes to win. This is the Rock's fault.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 99 Poke. Okay.

Speaker 1 89. Sure.

Speaker 1 What did you say, PFT? 93.

Speaker 1 Memes, I see, by the way. All right, we'll do the number.
So I'm probably going to get it. I'm probably going to get through it.

Speaker 1 Four. Oh, so close.
Memes, I see that you're running with this.

Speaker 1 I'm never going to get the 50-50 lottery. You're never going to get it.
Yeah. Never.

Speaker 1 The thing that it's like I do probably 20 times a year, and it's a one in

Speaker 1 20,000 chance versus the thing you do three times a week, one in 100 chance. Yours is technically a 50-50.

Speaker 1 That's a good counterpoint. All right, let's do one more.
Three.

Speaker 1 Damn it. 19.
17.

Speaker 3 60. Just 60.

Speaker 13 One.

Speaker 1 99 Poo.

Speaker 1 32.

Speaker 1 32 for track.

Speaker 1 34.

Speaker 7 I feel like 34 has has been hot.

Speaker 1 That's double 17 memes.

Speaker 3 Love you guys.