Alex Caruso From The OKC Thunder, Comedian Ray Romano, Indiana Pacers Are In The NBA Finals + National Sports Podcast News

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On today's part in my take, we have an NBA finals set.

We also have our good friend Alex Crusoe from the Oklahoma City Thunder getting ready for the NBA Finals.

We also are going to talk to our good friend Ray Romano ahead of our chill week in Tahoe.

He'll be competing, talking about his golf game, comedy.

Great interview.

We're going to talk about the weekend sports that were.

We got a little national sports podcast stuff to hit.

Hot seat, or sorry, who's back of the week?

Got a little screwed up there.

Well, last week, Max sprung the hot seat cool throne Friday on us.

Well, no, I knew he told us that before.

Yeah, but then he sprung it on us.

He sprung it on us.

He likes to flex.

He did tell us that before.

And be like, hey, just so you guys know, I sold a hot seat cool throw.

But

we got a great show getting ready for the week.

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Today is Monday, June 2nd, and the Indiana Pacers are in the NBA Finals in 49 states.

It's just a game.

It's just a game.

In Indiana.

Yep.

It's life.

In 49 states, it's just basketball.

Congrats, though, to the Indiana Pacers.

Incredible season, incredible run through the playoffs.

They are so much fun to watch, and they take down the Knicks.

Let's glaze on the Pacers, though, before we talk about the Knicks.

Okay.

I can glaze them.

Pascal Siakam, well-deserved series MVP.

Right.

It was obviously people were talking about the moment where Tyrese Halliburton thought he had won the Eastern Conference Final MVP.

Now, PFT, you and I, I think, are in lockstep with this.

We've always said that the MVP awards in these series don't mean anything.

Tyrese Halliburton is the best player on that team.

He deserves respect for that.

Anyone who says differently is like silly.

That's the beauty of NBA basketball.

And the sport of basketball overall is it's about team.

Right.

And there's no I in team.

There's no MVP in team.

Right.

And you're like, that's Tyrese Halliburton's team.

You would never say, oh, whose team is it?

I mean, obviously.

Just because he won an MVP for a series, Pastor Siakamu is great.

Tyrese is a straw that stirs the drink.

Correct.

He is.

I mean, without Tyrese, none of this works.

The

instant baskets after a made layup, those don't happen without him outletting the ball down the court.

He is the most important player, I think, on the team.

Everyone would agree to that.

MVP, who cares?

Who cares?

You get the Larry Bird trophy.

Yeah, okay.

Very cool.

Who cares?

That is cool.

But people remember the team accolades, not the individual awards.

That's all.

Right, you agree with that.

Yeah,

in the finals, I think people tend to remember

individual awards.

I wouldn't have that same take in the final.

Yeah, in the finals, it's okay, that means something.

Series MVP, it's like, okay, well, sometimes the best players, they save a little something from the finals.

So it really matters whose name is on that trophy after it's all said and done.

Siakam, though, though, I think he had, did he have three games where he was over 30 points?

He was just an absolute monster in transition.

It felt like the entire Pacers team, pace-wise, which is obviously no pun intended, but they torched the Knicks in terms of pace, transition.

They outscored the Knicks 74 points in transition in this series.

It felt like on Saturday night, it wasn't even the Pacers playing their best game.

It was just the Pacers.

It was was actually the Greg Doyle.

Greg Doyle being a weirdo

asking for clarification on Pascal Siakam on how the Knicks tried harder.

It felt like every time there was a rebound, it wasn't even rebounds, too.

It was just made baskets.

They would get out so fast, and it would be Carl Anthony Towns, like running, you know, spinning around, getting a layup line on him.

And the Pacers, like, they just kept on pushing it, pushing it, pushing it.

And I also want to give a shout out to Andrew Nemhart, who was incredible.

Got head-butted.

He got head-butted.

He had Brunson.

I think Brunson scored four points in the fourth quarter.

They were playing ferocious defense on him.

Andrew Nemhart, though, through the playoffs,

when he is the primary defender, Damian Lillard in the first series, Damian Lillard had 23.3% field goal percentage, 14.3%

from three.

Donovan Mitchell in the second round,

23.3% field goal percentage, 16.7% from three.

This is all when Andrew Nemhart is the primary defender.

And and then against Jalen Brunson, 38.2% field goal percentage, 30% from three.

He was awesome.

He was great on defense, and Jalen Brunson looked, he continued to look shaky when he was handling the ball.

Like, he just doesn't see double teams coming ever.

Yeah.

And you can tell that he gets a little bit, I don't know, in his own head.

They make him nervous.

They did a good job of making him uncomfortable.

Yeah.

And then Nemhart playing just locked down defense.

That was awesome to see.

The Pacers, the pace of Indiana basketball is so fun to watch.

I don't even want to look ahead that much to the finals.

Yeah.

Because we can, well, there will be time for that because we don't play until Thursday.

We're going to have Brascillo on for a full finals.

Can I say one thing, though, about the finals?

Yeah.

Because obviously there's going to be a lot of the ratings discourse, which we've already said.

Who the fuck cares?

I actually think this is going to be a fun matchup.

I think the Pacers, obviously, are going to be tall tasks because OKC looks nearly unstoppable.

But if you look at just since January 1st, because the Pacers season, it started, Halliburton was dealing with some injuries.

Nemhart was dealing with some injuries.

They started kind of clunky.

They had, I think they got blown out a few times in the first couple of weeks.

I think they were 10 and 15 at one point with a loss to Charlotte.

So it was a bad start for the Pacers.

But since January 1st, the best two records in the NBA are the Oklahoma City Thunder at 53 and 13 and the Indiana Pacers at 46 and 18.

These are the two best teams since January 1st.

I'm very excited for this matchup, and I think the Pacers are very much deserving.

People are going to be like, oh, well,

this sucks.

Two smaller markets.

The Pacers are just playing great basketball, and they took advantage of an East that was a little topsy-turvy, but I actually think

they would have been here anyway, like the way they've been playing.

Yeah, it was Hicks and Six, and the Knicks, they would have beaten the Celtics regardless of the injury.

So let's remember that.

Hank, they were going to be up three to one against the Celtics.

They blew a much bigger lead with less time in game one of this series.

That's true.

That is true.

Yeah, that's true.

But

it's impossible to make that point.

Okay, well, I think that it's fair to say that

the Pacers played best, they played the best basketball the most consistently of any team in the postseason.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, so ipso facto, they are the best team in the East.

I can't argue that.

And Rick Carlisle.

Rick Carlisle needs some respect.

Give Rick Carlisle respect because the man is a great coach.

NBA champion, Rick Carlisle.

People forget that.

And Paul George needs some respect.

We alluded to it last week, but these are the Paul George finals.

Paul George was traded for, I think it was Sabonis and Oladipo, and then they became Tyrese Hallburton.

I think also some draft picks that I think Shepard was one of them.

And then also Paul George was traded from OKC that became SGA.

It's the Paul George finals.

But I don't want to look too much ahead to the finals and be like, oh, I think this is going to happen because there's a lot of that discourse going on out there right now.

I just feel good for the Pacers.

I feel good for the Pacers team.

They're a great team.

I'm excited for the matchup.

I know that.

And it was a great matchup between the Pacers and the Knicks for the Pacers in terms of the style of basketball that each one excels at.

It was as good as you could get for them.

They were great in the postseason.

Congrats to the city of Indianapolis.

Congrats to Mr.

Ursay.

He gets the assist on that game one.

Dan Dokic.

Dan Dokic, Caitlin Clark in the audience.

This is really a Caitlin Clark championship right here.

Yeah.

The stat?

I don't know.

You look like you're about to give a take.

Well, no.

I did some advanced research for for the Pacers.

Again, we're not going to do our finals preview to with Rossillo, but Caitlin Clark is the Indiana Pacers are 7-0 when Caitlin Clark is in attendance.

Yes, in these playoffs.

Now,

the first two games in Indiana, she has no conflicts.

Game six,

they have a road game, the fever against the Valkyries.

Okay.

Do you know where the Valkyries are from?

The Valks.

The Valks are from.

I'm not taking credit for knowing New Mexico.

No.

No.

No.

The Valkyries.

They're in WMB.

The Valkyries are Golden States team.

Okay.

So they also have a game.

I believe it's game six is June 19th is schedule.

The Valkyries are playing the Fever.

That could swing this.

I mean, if she's there on game three and four, the Pacers are going to win.

She has to go to every game, right, when she doesn't have a conflict.

And she doesn't.

Like, I looked at it.

She plays, I think, the night before game three, and then the next game's a home game, and then it's the same thing.

Like, the game four is the Pacers play, I think, Friday night, and the Fever play Saturday.

So she'll be there for those two.

I don't know what she's going to do with this problem with the Valkyries.

It's a Valkyries problem.

I think it's going to get there.

I don't know.

You don't think it's going to get to...

But no,

do the math, Hank.

Caitlin Clark attends game three and four.

It's guaranteed to go at least six,

but the Valkyries.

We need somebody.

We need somebody in the media to step up and be like, I believe in the Pacers.

I mean, I have

been in the conference.

I have this this entire

how did you guys feel Reggie Miller

when he showed up wearing black for the funeral.

Yeah, no shit, announcers usually wear black.

So when Reggie's like, yeah, you know why I'm wearing this outfit, it's like, yeah, that doesn't really look that much different from your normal outfit.

He also was just wearing a black vest.

He was wearing all black.

Yeah, yeah.

So that wasn't really funeral attire.

That's a funeral for somebody that your friend knew.

And you go along as moral support.

I've been standing up for the Pacers these playoffs.

I don't know what's going to happen.

That's what I mean.

That's what I mean.

In the next round.

I'll probably just stand up for him and just be like, fuck it, I was wrong.

Who cares?

I mean, you can't.

You were right.

I didn't understand the people that were upset at Reggie Miller for

presenting the trophy and celebrating, but like, who cares?

No, I agree.

I actually don't think he was wildly biased to calling the games.

Memes.

But obviously, he's a little biased.

I think just his presence makes it feel biased.

Memes.

It felt extremely biased.

Journalism.

Who is the next journalism?

Everybody play announcer for every game?

Mike Breen.

Mike Breen.

Mike Breen.

Mike Breen's a man.

Yeah.

Not biased.

He calls it straight, right?

He's definitely not biased.

Reggie Miller though.

But it is funny because New York does get,

they have a lot of bias in the media, and then one time that the pacers get one guy, everyone's like, how could this be?

Well, he's also maybe the most biased guy ever.

Reggie Miller.

Against the Knicks.

Yeah, but I don't think

I have no problem with it.

I don't think in calling the game, I never was like, holy shit.

No.

He's going over this.

He did it outside of the game.

I would be like, holy shit, what Reggie Miller just said was very dumb.

Right.

But I wasn't like, holy shit, what Reggie Miller just said was very biased.

Correct.

Correct.

Yeah.

Correct.

But yeah, I'm excited for the Pacers.

They're a very fun team.

Pascal Siakam, what a fucking move to get him.

Because he was, I believe,

remember they, remember they, like, overpaid for Bruce Brown like $20 million?

Everyone's like, what?

What the hell?

Defense.

And they basically were just like, no, we're just going to take this contract so that we can just trade it eventually.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure that was the Pascal Cakam.

Yeah, Bruce Brown.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was kind of like Pascal Siakam.

Both teams went all in with trading some picks for a Pascal Siakam and Mikhail Bridges.

Pascal Siakam was better.

Right.

So neither one of the teams in the finals are in the luxury tax, right?

Correct.

So they actually, the Pacers haven't been in the luxury tax in 20 years.

I heard Wendy say that they're going to get permission to go into the luxury tax afterwards.

That's huge.

So tax bills and teams performance.

Since 2012, the Pacers have not paid any luxury tax.

The Thunder obviously have because they had those teams where they had, you know,

KD and Russell Westbrook, and then they obviously had the Russell Westbrook, Paul George teams.

But yeah, it's pretty crazy that they actually, so I have

a chart in front of me.

They've paid zero luxury tax, and they have

51 playoff wins in that time, which is pretty crazy.

And I think they they have the same amount of playoff wins as all the other teams combined who didn't pay the luxury tax in those years.

Well-run organization.

Did you see Herb Simon, their governor?

Yeah.

After the game, the best tradition in sports, letting the owner get the trophy first.

Of course.

That poor guy, Reggie knew that he was not capable of holding the trophy on his own.

So he gave it to him and then kept his hands on it, helped him lift it up, and then immediately was like, get this shit out of your hands.

Let an athlete hold this, Herb.

Let someone else get it.

But yeah, it's cool.

It's cool.

Two small market teams.

I think the Pacers are the 25th biggest market.

I don't know what OKC is, but it's got to be probably lower.

It's got to be down there, yeah.

Yeah.

It's cool.

You could drive to the finals

11 hours back and forth.

That's pretty good.

The Subway Series.

Yeah.

Subway series.

All right.

So congrats to the Pacers.

We're excited for the Pacers.

John Halberton, he's got to get on the floor.

Get him on the wood.

Get him on the floor.

You got to get him on the wood.

I don't know.

I don't think they can.

Part of the terms of his parole are: you have to stay in the box.

That might be box of the year.

Yeah.

You got John Halliburton, Tommy Alter, all the heavy hitters.

All the heavy hitters.

I do think, I think McAfee probably needs to do, although you can't really do the same speech.

You can't be

OKC.

It sucks that

the Cougar, the Cougar Mellencamp, had to go out there and make that statement, apologizing for McAfee.

I don't know how John Cougar Mellencamp deputized himself as speaking for Indiana in all his songs.

But he was like, Hoosier Hospital.

Well, he says, I was born in a small town, right?

Yeah.

Indianapolis, not that small of a town.

No.

I just, that was one of the dumbest controversies ever because it's like McAfee did what he does very well.

You hand him a mic, he's going to

be an awesome wrestling person.

He's literally in the WWE.

Yeah, like he's like,

he might be the number one guy that you'd want to hand a mic to in a live sporting event and just let him talk.

And for anyone to be upset about that is insane.

Yeah, especially New York people.

Ben Stiller,

his tweet was crazy.

New York would never do this.

It's very funny how there's so many she would.

There's so many comedians that

actually have Reggie Miller.

They were like screaming at Reggie Miller last year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, the comedians without a sense of humor.

But also, you know what?

And I'm not defending Ben Stiller, but this is also like sports fandom is the great equalizer.

Yeah, because you're just like, no matter what, you could be the funniest guy in the world.

You could be the, I can go with every joke.

If your team loses, you just act like a little bitch for 24 hours.

That's just what you do.

I can't believe Dom Rickles told me to take his wife.

That's not funny.

That's not funny, Dom.

But it really is.

It just makes everyone a little bitch for 24 hours, which is,

you got to just kind of let it go.

Yeah.

It's just what people are going to are going to do.

So we have to have the conversation now about the New York Knicks.

Yeah.

Is this season a disappointment for the New York Knicks?

Memes?

Memes, we'd love to know your perspective.

No, it's not a disappointment.

Okay, but if anything, they definitely overachieved.

This was the best opportunity to get to the finals, but

they did overachieve.

I don't have a dog in this fight.

I can't tell another man whether or not it's a disappointment, but we do have one person that I think is very qualified to have this conversation with you.

That's Hank.

Hank, would you say that this is a disappointment for the New York Knicks?

I think right now it's easy to say like we overachieved.

We got farther than we thought.

I think, you know, when time comes and you look

back at this year, you're going to regret not going farther and you're going to understand how golden of an opportunity this was to get to the finals with all of the injuries and the path just opening wide up

and having a lead in game one with two minutes left, blowing the biggest thing lead in playoff slash NBA history,

losing in six games would have been seven.

You would have had game seven at home.

You want to talk about the what if game?

The game one what if

what if that

ball hits the rim, goes up 15 feet in the air, comes down, hits the rim, and bounces out?

What if?

What if?

I mean, Jim Harce died five minutes before the series.

That's a fact.

The Pacers are a team of destiny.

They had Thomas Bryan and Obi Top top in just making every single three yesterday.

There's nothing you could do.

Thomas Bryan, NBA champion.

Let's put some respect on his name.

Yeah, but that guy still shouldn't be hitting those threes.

Didn't he win one with the Nuggets?

Pretty sure he did.

Did he?

Regardless, it's just if guys let's go.

What team was he on?

I'm pretty sure he won.

I'm pretty sure he was on NBA championship team.

Was it the Lakers, maybe?

Go ahead.

Keep going, memes.

If guys like that are hitting threes, you're never...

You're just not going to win.

It's not.

I mean, that's...

That's basketball, though.

I didn't see any of the discourse until after the game, but it's like everyone's saying Cat is a cat's got to go.

Where was that before?

Why is that seemed to be such a popular opinion?

Yeah, he won an NBA title with the Denver Nuggets.

I agree with you, Hank.

I think Cat is the greatest scapegoat in

NBA history in terms of like this happened with him with the Timberwolves, too, where he is.

He gets scapegoated.

And I'm not saying that Cat is a perfect player.

His defense was bad.

He was getting abused defensively last night in transition.

I do want to say credit to Cat.

Like, you didn't see Cat just standing out at the three-point line,

just being passive and hoping that he would hit a couple of threes.

He was throwing his body at people last night, big time.

But

Cat is not like your...

Cat is defensively is a problem, but you have other problems.

Not all Cat.

He's still a big guy.

Yeah.

And you'd rather, if you have a problem on defense, you'd rather he be a large man than a small man.

So I think, like, if you're talking about pointing a finger on defense, you point the finger first at Jalen Brunson.

But again, you don't get here without Jalen Brunson and Kat.

But that's the thing, is that Jalen Brunson, obviously, for the correct reasons, is the golden boy.

What?

I'm getting a call.

Oh.

Who's calling you?

Hello?

Hey, and Cheeriolo.

Hey, what's up, that's crazy.

No,

we are just talking about the Knicks Pacers series on part of my take.

What's going on?

How are you?

How are you feeling?

Jerry, we're live to take.

Good.

I mean, I'm a little bummed out about that whole thing, about that whole thing.

What a crazy time to call.

Why'd you call him, Jerry?

Yeah, sorry.

I just happened to call.

I just wanted to say it was a fun season, Hank.

You know, I'm sorry

things didn't turn out well for your Celtics.

Things didn't turn out that great for my Knicks Knicks either.

I'm sure you were pretty happy about it, but it was all good fun.

And uh no, I was pulling for you guys.

I was I was rooting for Mr.

Bing Bong.

I'm sad that Mr.

Bing Bong's dead.

You're not gonna be able to bing bong.

You got you know,

well, he's not dead.

He's just no, he's dead.

No, he's dead.

It's over.

It's over.

You had a great, you had a great, you know, little run there.

It's never it's never gonna be like that again, but that it was a great run, and that's all that matters.

Let me ask you something.

Um

You run the Knicks organization.

Yeah.

Tibbs out, Cat out.

Brunson trading block.

Huh.

Blow it up.

Cat for KD?

Yeah, that'd be

okay.

That'd be a lateral move.

Now, are you saying that to

By the way, I believe in the state of Illinois, if I'm on air, you have to say you're on air.

Yeah, so we're talking about it on part of my take.

You're allowed to take.

Well, you didn't say this is on air, so I just said we're we are it's crazy you call.

We're talking about the Knicks Pacers on part of my take.

And memes said it, but you can't hear memes' voice.

Yeah, memes said live to tape.

Oh, okay.

I'm just saying I don't know.

But no, but Jerry, you called Hank.

Yeah, you called me.

I was literally like, I interrupted the podcast to be like, why is Jerry calling?

What's going on?

Listen, I'm going to be honest with you guys.

I'm taking a bubble bath right now.

I just don't know what's going on.

Oh, that sounds good.

All right, Jerry.

Well, we'll talk to you later.

It's weird you'd call.

Jerry, I have a question for you.

Is this New York Knicks season a disappointment?

Huh?

The Knicks season a disappointment?

Yeah.

No,

not at all.

Okay.

Okay.

That's loser talk.

Honestly, I have to say,

our championship was beating the Celtics.

Yeah, from the bottom of my heart.

I'm just saying,

we can't be upset.

I can't even blame

that game one

Eastern Conference Finals.

I don't even care.

We beat the Celtics.

I mean, honestly.

An injured Celtics.

A hobbled, banged up Celtics.

It's so funny.

I see your boss tweeting that out all the time.

I'm about to get into an argument with it, but I'm like,

why even do that?

Listen, we have another issue that we have to discuss on this show.

Listen, there's been some things said back and forth with my wife

and one of your co-workers there.

Look, I don't have my, I'll be honest with you.

My wife is in the other room.

I don't have her passcode or passwords or anything, so I don't know what's being said.

I can only

go on and see it on the hangout and see Jerry.

Jerry, Jerry, it's Big Cat here.

And I don't want to interrupt your bubble bath anymore, but I sent you a text.

I'm willing to make peace.

All I ask is she stops hitting on you.

This is my relaxing time.

Okay.

Just tell her to stop hitting on me, and then I will unblock her and we can make peace.

Okay.

I gotta tell you, I did see your

post about

my wife hitting on you.

Yeah.

And

we, hold on a second.

I gotta get out of the bathroom.

Sure, I don't slip.

Got to get the bath mat out.

I appreciate you calling me during your relaxing time.

That was nice of you.

Yeah.

Did see your post about

my wife hitting on you.

And

I actually

showed it to my wife

because my wife actually unblocked you.

So

my wife can actually see your...

Your tweets and stuff.

Oh, no.

Well, she can't see your tweets now.

I blocked her.

I showed her your tweet, and um,

and we did have a reaction.

Hold on a second, let me just go to the other room.

Is she walking around his house nude?

Yeah, he must be.

What's in the other room?

Yeah, here.

So, here, honey, uh, this is about um, that tweet where Big Cat said that you were hitting on him.

What is your response?

See, I made her giggle when she's around me.

We're laughing at you here.

No, Jerry, Jerry, listen.

I just remind your wife, I have three little kids.

I have a wife I love.

I don't want it.

I don't want any of this, okay?

Tell her to.

Hold on a second.

I'm happily married.

I think she's happily married.

Let's just.

Sorry.

Yeah.

You guys still there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, so we were laughing about it.

It's all fun.

Listen, it is tough that, you know

two of my best friends big cat and my wife because when we exchanged vows you know i basically was marrying my best friend

and when i come on to pardon i take and i manage your fantasy teams and i come on as mr bing bong don't worry everyone mr bing bong's not coming on anymore um this season

um

but

You know,

we're good friends.

So, Big Cat, I really hope you can find it in your heart to unblock my wife and see some of her content.

Okay.

Some exclusive Marvel content.

Okay.

It's also in Star Trek's Strange New Worlds.

So maybe

you guys can love Star Trek.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because, Big Cat, if I had to choose between you and my wife,

um,

let me think.

Yeah, I'm choosing my wife.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we'll work on it, okay?

Jerry, I have a question for you.

This is a PFT commenter here from part of my take podcast, Barcelona Sports, you left the tape.

Do you think Rebecca would be interested in following any of Adam Schefter's content?

That was a nervous laughter.

No, do you?

Because I happened to meet Coach Dable last weekend.

He went to a Knicks game when the Knicks were in the playoffs and the Boston Celtics were knocked out.

And Dable said he feels very confident about Jackson Dodd.

So maybe you should start to fear Mr.

Bing Bong.

Well, that's fine, Jerry.

I did DM your wife, and I just said, no DMs.

Promise.

I hope we can be friends.

Is that okay?

Okay.

Yeah, I don't.

Listen, it's not my call.

Again, I don't have her passwords.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we'll talk to you later, Jerry.

Thanks for calling in.

All right.

See you guys.

All right.

Love you.

Thanks for calling.

Bye, Jerry.

Yeah.

Bing ma.

Doesn't hurt anymore.

He just called you out of the blue?

I think I might have butt dialed him by accident.

I was wondering what the phone was.

Wait,

wait, you called him.

Not on purpose.

And then he called me back.

Had his contact.

That's a great move.

He called you.

Yeah, he was calling me.

When I picked up my phone, he was calling me.

Yeah.

His wife has his odds for me.

She's, she's.

I'm willing to unblock if Jerry means it, that we can get along.

But I just, she's,

she unblocked PFT and I on Saturday night, late night.

Hit me with a follow.

So, and me, too, which late night follow.

Some may be like, that's a booty call.

And then I woke up the next morning.

I was like, you know what?

I'm done with this.

I can't.

She's obviously interested in me.

I'm going to block her, and we're just going to go our separate ways.

And then she proceeded for the rest of the day to tweet about me and follow everyone in our office.

I blocked her.

Thank you, Hank.

That's my boy.

When she followed Stephen Chee and Brandon Walker, I was like, this is getting a little crazy.

Yeah, she knows what she's doing, and we know what she is doing.

She's trying to get my attention.

Listen, Rebecca,

no disrespect.

You seem like a very lovely woman,

immensely talented actress.

I'm married, and I really don't want you to no restraining orders.

I think it's

super cool that she married her best friend.

Like, there's nothing nicer than friend zoning your own husband, which is awesome.

And I support that.

I think they have a very healthy, solid relationship.

I would never want to do anything to get in between that, you and your best friend.

Like, he's such a great guy.

Yeah.

But just want to say hi, Rebecca.

I will be respectful.

The DM was just to let you know that I'm not going to send you DMs.

Okay, that's beautiful.

So if you want to DM me back, please don't because that would violate the no DMs policy.

All right.

Love that.

And I might unblock, but it's a lot of like, you know, middle school trying to be mean to me to try to get my attention kind of feeling.

And it's just like, hey, we're two adults.

Okay.

We're two adults.

Max still is just tweeting at her with the indented paragraphs, trying to fucking

be mister.

Oh, look at me.

He's the real pervert in all this.

So now it's perverted to just show some respect around here.

Your ha-ha yesterday was the most perverted ha-ha I've ever seen.

You did a ha-ha in the middle of a tweet.

Yeah, it was, that was a funny moment part of that sentence.

Okay.

I wanted to just make sure that she knew that it was so funny.

What's she saying?

She was saying that her husband sucks at fantasy football.

I don't remember.

Yeah, I don't remember something.

Max sitting on her back.

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

Ha ha.

Ha ha.

It was just, it was just showing respect.

Ha ha.

All right, let's go back to the Knicks.

We were talking about you don't want to commit to saying something that might be taken too seriously.

No, I've never heard of that move before.

No, you're.

What?

No.

Come on.

Luckily, my competitors are a lot like your your husband when it comes to fantasy you're talking about how bad jury is at at fantasizing ha ha then he said ha ha ha then he said ha ha that is straight unfiltered that it was from the tap pervert that what are you talking about ha ha that is

that is literally you're trying to laugh with her like ha ha it was it was funny it was funny it was funny you were hiding you were laughing at your own joke i just wish rebecca would understand that you're the real pervert here and if she's got to worry about anyone it's you What are you talking about?

I blocked her.

I've kept it clean.

I've kept it clean from the beginning.

Okay.

100% clean.

You said, hope you're having a great day, and then you just wrote your name.

You didn't even write respectfully, comma, Max.

You just wrote, Max.

You know who needs to put respectfully at the end?

People who it may be construed that they're not showing respect.

Not me.

Because it was obviously respect.

It's like when someone says with all due respect and then says something mean.

No, that's always the nicest thing that you say.

No, no, no.

Well, that's interesting, Max, Max, because the first time that you wrote her, you said sincerely, Max.

Word count.

Yeah.

You never want to go on people getting to read more.

You're right.

All right, let's get back to the Knicks.

So, Trade Cat, that's what Hank would do.

Pifty, are you in the trade cat?

No, I don't think I'm in the trade cat.

Here's what.

So, I think Cat has become a,

again, he's not a perfect player, but you have to admit that Jalen Brunson is a liability on defense.

Yes.

And you have to admit that you used a lot of assets for Mikael Bridges.

He's got to play a little better, although he played great, obviously, in the Celtic series.

And then you have to admit that something happened with Josh Hart where every time he tries to take a three, it painfully hurts to watch.

I think you probably make sense.

You sprinkle in a little campaign to give him the green light.

Like, hey, Cam, tonight's your night.

We didn't get that this series.

There's still a good team.

There will be a good team next year.

I just don't know.

It just feels like immediately everyone hits the trade cat button every time you lose a game, and it's like he still is a matchup nightmare for other teams.

I mean, he won a game in this series, basically himself, in that fourth quarter.

I think that Tibbs is going to take a lesson that he always takes from anytime he loses something, which is you need to do exactly what you want to do, but you need to do it harder next time.

So he's just going to be like, we're not playing anybody off the bench.

Yeah.

Memes, what do you think?

Is it Trade Cat?

I don't know.

If it's Trade Cat and get Giannis.

That obviously makes sense.

That makes sense.

If you could get a tier one superstar.

I don't think that's going to go.

I don't think that's exactly how that trade would go down.

Jerry just sent me the photos of him in the tub.

Yeah.

Oh, no.

We just got a lot of Jerry O'Connell tub content.

Oh, my God.

That's a lot of.

Just blur out my penis bingo.

All right, well, we'll put it up for the YouTube listeners.

Yeah, I don't know what the Knicks do.

I mean, I feel like it's a weird spot that they're in where that was the best Knicks season in 25 years, but also you can look at the full situation and be like, man, we kind of blew a golden chance against the NBA.

Yeah, when you think about who you had to go through in the conference championship to get there, the Pacers, on paper, you would have loved to have that opportunity, right?

Against the Pacific Finals,

home court against the conference finals.

And you got that big lead at the end of game one.

You're going to look back and be like, damn, this sucks.

That was a mean oof.

Yeah, it was a mean oof.

It was a mean oof.

It was a very mean oof.

And the Celtics never blew two 20-point leads.

NBA champion Celtics last year?

The last year is

doing a lot of work in that sense.

Max just did a.

Max felt that for memes there.

You can't really get in a fight with him.

You can't get in a fight with Hank about this.

Memes, did you do the meme where you made the Statue of Liberty with Max's face on it?

No, I forgot about that one.

Still time.

It's the new crying Jordan.

It's a great year.

I mean, you guys got Kylie Jenner to Indiana.

Yeah, that's true.

That was a huge positive.

It still was a great year.

Yeah.

Completely ruined the Celtics.

They'll never be the same.

It was a great year.

That would be great for you if the Celtics just imploded.

But, I mean, now you got to just be rooting next year with the heat of the thousand suns against Hank and for them to just like blow the entire team up.

If they don't blow the entire team up, then that win ultimately won't really mean that much yeah

i think we're blowing it up no you're not blowing up

do you have anything else uh i i i still i'll i'll stand i know it sounds stupid but i'll i'll i'll still stand with knicks fans for celebrating the journey i know it looks dumb in retrospect everyone being like oh they raised the banner i still think there's just a difference between fan bases versus the actual organization what are you gonna say max we we had the the street signs when are they coming down that the street again and i think the street signs were stupid and that's the that's just again that's

That's whenever politics politicians try to gain favor by being like ooh cool sports stories It always comes across as cringe that always sucks I do I do love the Greg Doyle impact on this series though Yeah, that was that was gonna be my who's back of the week was Greg Doyle just making an ass of himself being super awkward talking to Pascal Siakam and To the point where Pascal Siakam, that like woke something up in him where he was like, you okay, man?

Who is this guy?

Who are you?

Why are you asking these weird questions?

What is it about Greg Doyle that makes him absolutely have to say the most awkward shit at the worst times?

Yeah, he's a weirdo.

He's a big-time weirdo.

Should we say anything about

the last game on TNT, NBA on TNT?

There was.

So they're still doing it next year.

I love the gone fishing at the end.

The gone fishing at the end was great.

I do think there's.

You can be sad about NBA, TNT being over because TNT had the best NBA coverage, whether it be the inside the NBA their announcers Kevin Harlan

it always felt I don't know it just always felt like when you were tuning in to TNT it's like this is a big game it felt a little different

you'd also be a little like they're one of the only channels where if you keep it on after the game and fall asleep you'll probably wake up to a good movie yeah you know sometimes where where yes pen you'll just you'll wake up to god knows what but TNT you'll get you'll get a movie after you'll mix in like a weird episode of charmed yeah something with emotion smoothing on your TV.

I still don't understand what it's going to look like next year.

I feel like they might fuck up the inside the NBA, which would suck.

But I'm going to at least give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll still be awesome and funny together.

The great part about it, though, if ESPN does fuck up inside the NBA, they will be the first people to tell you that ESPN is fucking it up.

Right.

Like, they'll just go scorched earth.

Charles and Shaq, and yeah, Kenny will just be like, yeah, they fucked this up.

Yeah, I liked at the end when they started dropping F-bombs and just being like, we've always been just in, in like fuck around.

Yeah.

Fuck around mode.

That's kind of what our show is about.

And then Ernie doing the very solemn, tearful goodbye.

Yeah.

Just when Ernie Johnson says anything,

you feel like at least somebody honest is on television telling you something.

Yeah, and I got a little sad when I saw someone tweet it out it was the evolution of the score bug from the TNT.

Yeah.

That made me a little sad.

It's like, damn, I've watched a lot of basketball on this station.

I feel like it'll it should be okay.

If you keep that core group of guys together, it should be good.

See, look, this is pretty cool.

Just looking at it, it's like, damn,

that is a long time.

That's a lot of basketball.

I love 2012 to 2014.

Yeah.

That's a great score bug right there.

And I do love

the first one, the 99-2000 one, where it was like, this station doesn't know how to do sports.

Yeah.

You know?

And they're like, hey, the Terminator's a good movie.

What if we played basketball on a Terminator score bug?

So I just wonder what they're going to do in terms of the production team behind inside the NBA.

Are Are all those guys going to stick around?

Are some of them going to leave?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I hope we get, I hope it stays as close to what it is as possible.

That's all I'm hoping for.

Okay.

Should we do some national sports podcast stuff before we get to who's back in the week?

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Okay, national sports podcast.

What do we want to talk about as a national sports podcast first?

Scotty Scheffler being incredible.

Scotty Scheffler.

Scotty Scheffler

is a man on a mission.

I don't really know what else to say.

He won back-to-back Jack Nick Klaus.

The Jack Nick Klaus tournament.

So he defended his title too.

The craziest stat to me was that Scotty Scheffler, he's now defended three titles that he has, and that Tiger Woods has defended 23 titles that he had.

That's just every time Scotty Scheffler does something awesome, it's really just a promo for how great Tiger Woods is.

Yeah, Tiger should be pumped about Scotty.

He should be pumped.

He should be rooting for him for now.

But yeah,

you had the other stats.

This is the meanest stat ever.

Win since May 2nd.

Scotty Scheffler, three

in four tournaments.

The Colorado Rockies, three in 28 games played.

That's just, that's an insult stat.

That's brutal.

Did you hear also Jack Niklaus afterwards?

He was as straight and to the point as possible.

He said, Ben Griffin's a nice player.

Seph Strzok is a nice player.

Nick Taylor's a nice player.

Scotty Scheffler knows those guys are not in his league.

They're not Scottie Scheffler.

That's it.

Like, it couldn't be more clear.

He's just playing at a different level than everyone else right now.

And it's fun to watch.

And then he also had the very relatable moment of his baby had a blowout and was handed a baby with poop in his diaper right after.

The greatest equalizer is a baby having a poop blowout.

Yeah.

Because it will humble any man.

I love it how every time he finishes a tournament, his wife is just first thing, like, hey, great job.

Also, now the baby, you're on the clock.

Yeah.

Whatever happens from this point forward, that's your responsibility with the kid.

Yeah.

Also, we had Jordan Speet almost kill a person.

Yeah, that guy rocked, though, that he hit.

Yeah.

He got hit in the back, and the guy immediately took his shirt off.

Yeah, he hit a guy.

That was a different guy.

No, that was different.

He hit a guy.

I think that was Ben Griffin.

That was was Ben Griffin?

Yeah, no, it's Jordan Speet.

Watch this.

I just hit someone too.

The guy ducks.

It's as direct as possible.

He ended up making par on that hole.

Yeah, this is what's crazy about golf is how close they put the spectators to the players.

And they just assume that the players will never have a mishit.

And this one was going right out of his head.

But the other guy that got hit, the ultimate bro, gets hit in the back and then immediately is like, I got to take my shirt off.

Because that guy had been working out.

That was the best day of that guy's life to get hit with the ball.

He's like, yeah, I'm going to flex on camera real quick.

By far.

Okay.

So, segue of Scotty Shefford.

We saw the stat, the Rockies, they're 9-50.

Yep.

That's a problem.

Fastest team to 50 wins in the history of MLB?

50 losses.

50 losses, I mean?

Yeah, beating somehow, they're worse than the White Sox last year.

By far.

It's crazy.

The White Sox last year at this point had like 16, 17 wins.

Yeah.

It's

fuck the Monforts, fire them to the sun.

They need to be sell the team.

9-50 is insane.

It's crazy.

Insane.

The other two things I had from National Sports Podcasts.

One was we have a Christian Yellich problem because he's getting hot.

I know he left with a contusion on Sunday, but he hit two home runs on Friday.

And he's getting hot.

And it's starting to make me nervous.

I'm not worried about it.

I'm not.

There's too many good lefties.

And if it gets to that point, I will go Tanya Harding on him.

Yeah.

So I sent him a text

after his second home run on Friday night, and I said,

alert, please read.

This message is for Christian Yelich.

Date of birth, December 5th, 1991.

You have been flagged by Major League Baseball.

Banned substance apartment.

Please report immediately to provide a mandatory urine sample.

If you do not comply, you'll be suspended from all regular season exhibition events, i.e., home run derby, etc.

Please reply yes to confirm your receipt of this message.

If no reply is received within 12 hours, it will automatically register as a positive test, and you'll be banned from all regular season and exhibition events, i.e., home run derby, et cetera, signed to MLB.

He did reply within an hour and a half, yes.

So

no, but I was hoping I was going to get him on that technicality, and then I was going to send it to MLB and be like, this guy is dodging.

He also said that literally everyone in the stands was talking about us eating each other's asses when he hit the second one.

I love that.

That's got to be good for his focus.

I've got an idea of maybe something we could do.

Okay.

Along those same lines, we should have somebody in this office take steroids and then piss, collect the piss, and then just mail all the piss to MLB.

I love that.

And just label it Christian Yelich's urine.

I love that.

And just send tons of it.

I love that.

Is there anything against the law about mailing piss?

No.

I don't think that there is.

I don't think so.

We just need somebody that would volunteer to take steroids and pee into a cup.

Ryan Braun.

Join the juice games.

Oh, the Enhanced Games?

Yeah, the Enhanced Games.

Those look so funny.

That one swimmer.

Hold on, he's looking up a illegally.

No, you are not legally allowed to mail urine.

Okay, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Tell the full story.

No, you are not legally allowed to mail urine indiscriminately.

Oh, that's a very key word.

We're not being indiscriminate.

This is we're targeted mailing urine.

This is as discriminate as it gets.

Yes.

Intentional mailing of piss to a certain actor.

Ah, yeah, it's a problem.

I don't think he's going to compete in this home run derby, but he did mention

the all-star game at Wrigley in a couple years, and that started to get me nervous.

Because it feels like he's going to.

I don't think he's going to do it this year.

I think he's getting himself pumped up for a big stand at one point in the next couple of years.

So he's got a finger contusion right now?

Yeah, finger contusion.

Why would he not do it this year?

Yeah, you got to strike while the iron's out.

He's got a finger contusion.

I mean, he's got a finger contusion.

He can't hit with a finger contusion.

I don't think

he should make sure the finger contusion is healthy.

Don't take any risks.

There's just so many good players.

So many good players that are lefties that I think MLB would, they don't want the storyline of the home run derby to be two podcasters licking each other's buttholes.

No, I'd agree.

Bad for the sport.

Speaking of so many good players, I wanted to do something real quick.

We need to give a shout out to Cal Raleigh.

Big dumper.

Yeah, he's a beast.

He is.

Now, Aaron Judge obviously is having an insane year.

Aaron Judge is almost hitting 400.

He's got 22 home runs.

Cal Raleigh is the catcher for Seattle Mariners.

He has 23 home runs,

and that's insane.

He's the fastest catcher to, I think it was 22 home runs by June 1st.

It's nuts that he's doing this as a catcher.

Like, Max, chime in.

It's insane.

23 home runs for a catcher.

And I think he leads the league

in throwouts to second.

Like, he's a very good catcher, too.

He's played every game this year.

So he hasn't caught every game.

He's DH'd some of the games, but that in itself is still impressive that he's played every game.

It's crazy.

He needs a lot more national attention, national sports podcast.

He won't win MVP, but he's got my vote.

Fair?

Yeah, no, Cal Rowley's great.

Probably Joe Maurer, the last very good hitting catcher to catch steam like this.

He needs more love.

It's just that every time Shohead hits home run, the world talks about it.

When Cal Rowley does it, crickets.

We just need to get Big Dumper going more because I feel like when Big Dumper gets a home run, that's a totally different.

And he's an elite fielding catcher, and he's doing this.

It's crazy.

He's got, I think, a 4-7 bore,

which that seems good, right?

And he's doing it.

He's got less at-bats than Shohei.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think he trails Shohei by 13 at-bats right now.

Yeah.

He's pretty awesome.

First catcher with 20 home runs before June.

That's crazy.

23 home runs.

Cal Raleigh, big dumper.

He's our guy.

Might go in the first round of the Dingers-only draft.

I think he's a great value.

Positional value-wise.

I had him two years ago on the Dingers-only.

It was awesome.

Positional value, I think he's easily 1-1.

Yeah.

Has to be.

All right, do we have any other national sports podcast things before we do who's back?

What else have we done?

National Sports Podcast.

TJ Watt has an offer on the table.

Oh.

But it's not to his liking.

From the Steelers.

From the Steelers.

That's good.

Because he hasn't been to OTAs.

It would be really weird if TJ Watt played for a different team.

What team could TJ Watt play for that would be the least weird?

Probably the Texans.

Yeah.

Just because the brother?

Yeah.

I mean, you...

Maybe the Chargers?

Yeah, 49ers, maybe.

Yeah.

49ers could like a historical franchise doesn't have anything to do with the Steelers.

Yeah.

I could see that.

I could see him being a 49er and it making sense.

But I, like, you don't want TJ Watt to be, like, a Jaguar or like a Seahawk.

No, one of the

strange teams.

Yeah.

I could see him.

I guess, unfortunately, a Packer would make sense.

You don't want him playing for the Ravens.

I don't think he would.

No, I don't think he would.

But that would also look cool.

Get a sick vibe.

Yeah, it would look cool.

Well, I mean, the Steelers would never obviously trade him to the Ravens.

But it would look cool.

But it would look cool.

It would look very cool.

Okay, let's do who's back of the week.

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Henry.

Who's back at the week is Taylor Swift.

Oh, you took mine, Henry.

Oh!

Why?

Big one.

Why?

She owns all her music now.

Thank God.

Even though she already re-recorded all of her music, so she owns all of her music twice.

Well, now she can make some money finally.

Are you being a hater?

I just know that my timeline was just a bunch of people crying and

it's the biggest thing ever.

And I'm not judging because I've seen a grown man cry after

a round one win for the Dayton Flyers.

Okay, so that

happens.

But

how big was this?

My understanding, PFT probably knows a little more, so I'll just give my thought and then he can enlighten me.

But she did not own her masters.

That was a Scooter Braun situation.

Governor.

But

she re-recorded all of her songs and released them again.

So she owned all the Taylor's version songs.

She owns all of them.

Yep.

So she had full ownership of her songs.

The new ones.

Which are the same as the old ones.

Yep.

And now she bought back the old ones, but it's the same.

So her fans, like, it's not like the fans are getting anything new.

Incorrect, Hank.

Incorrect.

Fans are getting nothing new.

Incorrect.

And Taylor Swift, the richest woman in the world, is a horrible thing.

You're a hater and you're a misogynist, and it's okay.

It's all right.

Just say it.

What's wrong?

I'm glad that you're saying it with your child.

No, I'm confused.

Tell me where I was wrong.

So Taylor Swift was basically working for free for the last 10 years.

No, she re-recorded all of them.

She didn't make any money.

She released a thousand versions of them.

So people have to buy and buy and buy and buy.

She's dead broke.

Buy and buy.

She's dead broke.

I'm sure that you were happy seeing her broke.

She was the most oppressed person in the world, basically.

And so now, because she bought her old masters.

But what about the re-releases?

Oh, she had to put a new labor for that, Hank.

Okay.

That was all

we re-released our shows?

Yeah.

Hank does.

He just does voiceovers for all them, calls them Hank's version.

No one would to that.

It's all Hank.

So was this a big deal?

Was this a big deal?

No.

There you go again, Hank.

You love putting women in their place, don't you?

Put it this way, Big Cat.

You're a Taylor Swift fan and you want to listen to a song.

You could have listened to it last week.

You can still listen to it tomorrow.

Nothing changes.

And now it feels less bad.

No,

Hank's like, well, she should have re-recorded all her songs from the kitchen.

No, I heard that one online, too, Hank.

And frankly, I think it's disgusting.

I respected the re-recording song.

I'll tell you what we got.

I'll tell you what the fans get different.

One of the funniest clips that was going viral for Inside the NBA was Charles Barkley being like, I'd never buy a woman a watch for Mother's Day because there's a watch on, or there's a, you can keep time on the kitchen.

And it kept on going.

It's like, how did this show never get cancelled?

Yeah, keep going.

All right, so, Hank, here's what you get different.

Here's the new stuff that her fans get:

the ability to add the old versions of their songs to new playlists.

So you don't have to just.

You just already have those same songs on that playlist.

Do you know all the emotional labor that her fans did avoiding clicking on the old

version?

Now I understand what PD's saying.

When you search for

love story online, you have to make sure that you're not clicking on the one that doesn't say Taylor's version next to it.

Now

the thumbs can just rapid fire.

and click on whatever they see.

Also, I think that there were some albums that she didn't do the Taylor's version of yet that she may have been working on.

But now, don't have to worry about that.

Got it.

Emotional labor, Hank.

Emotional labor.

Think about the emotional labor.

It's not just for Taylor Swift, Hank.

It's for her fans.

It's for her fans.

Who did a great job.

Also, did you see Travis Kelsey liked the Instagram post of her saying that she had a Harry Styles and Joe Burrow?

Love that.

Love that.

Travis Kelsey, who's dating her, liked it.

And so the nicest thing is, like, famously, Taylor Swift is the only musical artist that this has ever happened to where she didn't own her own music that other people were making money off of.

So now this will send a direct shot towards the music industry saying, you can't do this to artists anymore.

You tried it one time with Taylor Swift and it didn't work.

So good luck in the future.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You get it, Hank?

I'm in light now.

You get it now, buddy.

And I'm happy.

Emotional labor.

She did a great job convincing her fans to be like, you need to make me more money.

Yeah.

Great job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, PFT, you're who's back of the week.

All right, so Hank just took mine with Taylor Swift.

I hope I was able to educate you on that.

You were.

Thank you.

What are your final thoughts on the matter?

Are you happy for Taylor?

Are you so happy

Taylor Swift and her fans, and I love her music?

I can't wait to listen to all the versions

all too well.

I'm happy for them.

That's one, right?

That's a song, yeah.

I think.

Listen, everyone's got things they're going to be passionate about.

Crying about, you know, Taylor Swift recording a bunch of songs you could have listened to right before, but you forgot about the emotional abuse, Hank.

I say fair play.

Let those tears go.

It's not about her.

Yeah, she's back.

That's the other thing.

You don't understand.

All versions of her.

You don't understand.

It's not about her.

It's about what she represents.

I don't know what she represents.

I'm not sure, but it's about what she represents, and I'm happy for it.

What she represents.

Same, she's back.

It's a victory for me.

I almost said single cat ladies, but I didn't because that would have gotten us in trouble.

So credit to me.

And it's learned.

But yes, but also, yes, single cat ladies.

Yes.

And

even women with multiple cats.

Yeah.

Multiple cat ladies who have a boyfriend.

Yeah.

Or women who have boyfriends who know cats.

And single cat men.

Yeah.

All of them.

It's for everybody.

Not dog owners.

Yeah, I think if you have more than one dog, if you like hoard dogs, this is a win for you.

Yep.

Dog owners' wives.

Yeah.

It doesn't have to be just a winning woman.

Hank, you're doing it again, Hank.

You're doing it again.

Dog owners' wives?

You can't go two seconds without being misogynistic.

It's disgusting.

It's gross.

For podcasters,

Hank.

Disavow.

We don't own our own masters on this show.

I know.

Yeah.

You do.

Now it's all making sense.

Hank is a scooter braun.

If I own the masters of this show, I would not be here.

You are the scooter brawn.

You're the scooter brawn of part of my take, so it's making sense why you're not happy for your fans.

Good for Taylor.

Good for Taylor.

My other, who's back of the week?

I'm just going to say Bonnie Blue.

Bonnie Blue's back.

Oh.

She's going to double up.

She's now doing 2,000 men.

Put it on the list.

2,000 men while being tied up in a glass box open to the public.

Can I sound sound?

I'm not going to lie.

I didn't want to do it on this show, but

the question better to say the same thing as me.

I haven't wanted to think about it.

It doesn't make any sense.

Oh, I thought you were going to say you'd be down to be one of the 2,000 men.

Oh, okay.

No, I was just saying I'm.

I think I'm out on all of the body blue.

So out.

2,000 is just - these aren't even real numbers anymore.

From just a physical.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

And I don't really want to think about it too hard, and I don't want to see it, but it's like, that can't.

Like, 100 was like, holy shit, that's crazy.

I can't believe she did it.

But 2,000, like, that's not,

that's like saying, like, what if I threw 25 touchdowns in an NFL game?

Like, that's not a real number.

It's absurd that it's becoming an arms race, but now it's arms and legs, every whole race.

It's crazy to think that she's physically capable of sleeping with 2,000 guys at once.

And what sleeping guys?

Why the hell are they sleeping with?

Well, they cuddle, I'm sure.

I'm out on this pillow talk.

I'm out on the Bonnie Blue.

Because it's like she just keeps going up and up and up with the numbers, and

I don't have any wow left.

I am mostly ew.

What would shock you?

What would make you go wow?

I don't think it makes sense.

2,000.

I don't believe it.

I don't believe 1,000.

Like, it does not.

I think my last shot was at 100.

You think that these are like fake stats?

Yes.

Like, we're in the live, the juice balls era.

Yes.

Yeah.

Like, are all these guys coming?

I don't know.

Yes.

I don't know.

It's like, what is it?

I'll be honest.

I haven't seen.

That's the thing.

And you don't really want to think about it.

Right.

Here's the thing.

She just know that can't be true.

She could be lying about it because

I haven't watched a second of the video of the actual thing.

I just monitor it like you're refreshing the stats and then it says she did it.

And I'm like, oh, okay, she did it.

I just trust her.

Max is trying to find the videos.

Yeah, of course he is.

Yeah, you've got it.

Just go on your own.

But it's, yeah, it's absolutely insane that she's even saying 2,000 men.

The tied up in a glass box open to the public is...

She's going to get arrested again, right?

Didn't David Blaine already do that?

Yeah, he did.

Yeah.

So she's just ripping off David Blaine.

I would be more impressed if she didn't sleep with 2,000 men.

If she spent a weekend being like, I'm not going to have sex this weekend.

Yeah.

Watch me.

Yeah, if she was like,

I'm going to French kiss 2,000 guys.

Yeah, we're going to make out.

What do you think's the world record on the most Frenching

in 24 hours is?

I'm going to let 2,000 guys feel my tits over the bra.

Let's see.

Most men French kissed.

Now, if you could give 2,000 hand jobs to completion, that would be impressive.

Yeah, that would actually, I would start to think, like, oh my God, that's...

That's some record shit right there.

Yeah, because you're going to be sore, like your arms.

Yeah.

You're going to be jacked up afterwards.

Yeah.

You just got jacked off.

Jacked off.

All right.

I have a couple who's.

Are you looking something up right now?

Yeah, most men French kiss in 24 hours.

Let's see.

The most kisses received and given within a specific time frame.

Most kisses given in a minute.

Florian Silberazian gave 117 kisses in a minute during a live TV.

That's not that many kisses.

Yeah.

Most kisses in eight hours.

117 is.

Alfred Wolfram kissed 11,030 people in eight hours.

A second?

Damn.

I think that's a record that's meant to be broken.

Yeah.

11,000 people.

He tried to break it in eight hours.

No,

I'm not a kisser.

These lips are sealed.

I don't kiss and tell.

All right, my who's back?

Henry Lockwood.

You did some fucked up shit in Florida, dude.

Oh.

Come on.

Yeah, there's a cop in Florida named Henry Lockwood.

This is a fake article.

No, it's a real article.

This is a fake article.

No,

I got to pull it up.

How many times did you get tagged in it?

I got tagged in it a lot, and I was like, oh, no, this is bad.

Who is this guy that makes it?

What is it saying?

It says local town.

This is bullshit.

So this is where it's like, there's some AWL writing this.

Fort Lauderdale.

High-profile Fort Lauderdale detective fired after internal affairs investigation.

I'm just going to read the one part.

Abusing his authority makes it.

Lockwood's career highlights included co-leading a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway

in 2023 for hundreds of needy families.

That is not a high-profile fucking detective.

His career highlight was giving out turkeys as

a co-leader.

Local 10 investigates Fort Lauderdale detective Henry Lockwood wants a face of the department at future families.

For giving out turkeys?

Heck, he gave out turkeys to 1,200 families.

That's crazy.

He co-led.

He's got so many turkeys.

How many families have you given out turkeys to?

Tons.

You know what you got to do is you got to give out to more.

You got to body blue this.

You got to go 2,000 turkeys.

That way, the Henry Lockwood, you come up before him.

Yeah.

Detective Henry Lockwood.

But yeah, bad guy.

Disavouse.

Yeah, bad guy.

All right, my real who's back is the Stanley Cup final.

Obviously, Wednesday, we're going to have Whitney on

Friday.

And do we want to do predictions?

Because I also had a fun fact for everyone, if anyone wanted to hear it.

This is now 45 consecutive years that there has been a teammate of Yarmar Yager in the Stanley Cup finals.

That is a fun fact.

Crazy.

Yeah.

45 straight years.

Obviously, some of the guys before he started playing became his teammates, but still insane.

I think it's Oilers.

I got Oilers in seven.

I think it's Oilers.

I'll go Panthers in five.

What?

The Oilers is a more fun story.

Yeah, I agree.

You just are.

You hate Connor McDavid.

Just saying.

You do hate Connor McDavid.

That was like a book.

We always think I win.

I'm not sure.

I'm not a booth.

That was a panel move.

Oh, okay.

You're getting the logo up there.

Well, you didn't have to say Panthers in five.

More fun.

Take it back.

Yeah, you could have

a little bit different.

Get some interaction going.

Get the engagements up.

I know what Panthers in Four.

I take it back.

Sweep.

Okay, I like that.

And then my other who's back was, I mean, we, so Jerry randomly called you, but it was going to be Rebecca Romaine because she has the hot screen.

But I think think we're going to settle it.

I think we're done.

I think we're going to, I'm going to unblock her.

Not the first time a friend's wife has been, like, hates my guts or also has the hots for me.

So, what am I going to do?

Who else?

Actually, I don't know if anyone's ever had the hots, but definitely friends' wives have hated me.

I mean, obviously.

Oh,

this is a Taylor Swift thing?

No, just every, no, just being, yeah.

Everyone has that, right?

Friends, wives that hate me.

Or, like, friends, girlfriends, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

What are you talking about?

That's the most guy thing to have happen.

Oh, yeah.

Your friend's girlfriend hates you.

Because you're fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you're too much?

Yeah.

That's like the jealous.

I actually think that it's crazy.

If you don't have that, you're the weird one.

Max, you got that.

For sure.

Max is fun.

Yeah.

Max is a lot of fun.

Right, Max?

Oh, yeah.

You didn't understand what I was saying?

No, I just, it took me a second to find out who that one was in my head.

Oh, I have more than that.

And that one might have a podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you guys have seen her hate me.

Oh, yeah.

I'm confused by what PFT is saying.

Sorry.

I don't know.

Never mind.

You're a lot of fun, right, Max?

Yeah.

Yep.

Either way, I think I'm going to squash a beef with Rebecca Romaine, even though I will not,

I'm not going to move off the take that she is interested in me with how she acted.

You'd agree, right, Hank?

I mean, she was giggling.

Like, she didn't really disavow.

Yeah, she just started laughing on the the phone.

I was giggling.

I have a theory about that phone call that we got.

AI.

Do you think that Jerry just

did the Max Delente invitation to the White House with Big Dom to us with his wife?

Oh.

Was that Jerry doing a woman's giggle?

Oh.

We know he's a talented voice actor.

But we did hear him get out of the bathtub.

By the way, and all right, because I'm trying to make

trying to fix everything with.

I love Jerry so much that I want his wife to not either be attracted to me or also hate me.

I want her to just be platonic.

I thought his bathtub would have been nicer.

Yeah.

Is that crazy?

No, that's...

You know what that bath is.

That's crazy.

You know what that bath is, though?

The bathtub on the Mayflower.

Yeah, that's the bath that he does not share with his wife.

That's the secondary bathroom where he's allowed to bathe.

Okay.

Yeah.

Either way, her bath is way nicer.

I'm pretty.

I think I'm going to unblock her and we're going to make amends.

I think at the very least we need to make a new rule.

Anytime anyone from that household calls into part of my take, it has to be from the bathtub.

They have to be taking a bath.

Doesn't matter who you are in that house,

man or wife, either way.

That's the podcast room.

Max?

Ha ha.

Ha ha.

Disrespectful.

It was a ha ha.

That was a joke.

Ha ha.

No, that was disrespectful.

That was a big time ha.

We're kidding.

No, no.

No big time.

Also, never.

Also, who's back college baseball?

Because it rocks.

I tuned in some.

Vanderbilt, huge loss.

Vandi Whistler.

I think they were the first number one seed to not make a regional.

Yeah.

Ever.

I might have made that stat up.

Either way, there's been...

No, no.

To make

a regional, not super regional, the regional.

They were the number one overall seed, I believe, and they didn't make the regional.

That makes no sense.

It starts at the regional.

What did they make?

To lose in the regional?

Oh, they didn't make it to the regional final.

Sorry.

Yes, yes, there it is.

They're the first number one overall seed to not make it to the regional final.

They lost to Wright State.

That's embarrassing.

I also love this.

I don't know if

there's anything to back it up statistics-wise, but it feels like the first weekend of the regional finals

this Sunday, every single game is like 15 to 14.

And it's a lot of fun.

You should just bet the over.

What do you got, Max?

Did you find it?

Insanity.

The Commanders lose 5-4 to Wright State.

Vanderbilt is the first number one overall seed to miss a regional final.

There it is.

That's crazy.

Shout out Wright State.

Okay.

Let's get to our interviews.

We got Alex Crusoe, then Ray Romano.

And then we'll finish with

lottery balls.

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Okay, we now welcome on our very, very good friend and a very, very, very special guest.

It is Alex Crusoe from the Oklahoma City Thunder, ready for the NBA Finals on Thursday night.

We actually were just saying this.

I did a bad job because we were talking about it before, but

how badly do you want the NBA Finals to start right now and sitting here being like, let's just get this thing on?

Also, congratulations.

Yeah, thanks To start,

thanks for having me again.

Excited to be back.

Even though it's not in the studio, you know, this counts at least a little bit.

Yes.

Yeah, dude, I'm ready to play games.

Like, that was the hardest thing we talked about before this was the eight days and nine days in between, you know, end of the season, first round, and then first and second round.

And like, the opposite in the last two rounds.

Like, we played game seven Sunday and then played Minnesota on Tuesday.

So,

much rather just play games.

And, like, this whole week is going to be just interviews and trying to tell people, you know, the same five responses to every question.

Can you give us those five responses?

Yeah, just give us all five right now.

We won't even ask you the question.

Five is an arbitrary number, but like, you know, like

they're going to ask about, you know, how do you feel about being in the finals?

And it's going to be like, oh, it's great.

We're excited for the opportunity.

And then they're going to ask about Indiana and it's going to be like, well, they won three Series 2, so they're going to be confident coming into this.

This is good.

Like, you know, any generic coach speak answer you can give, like, that's, that's where this is going to have us on deck ready to go.

How important is like getting out to a fast start?

Yeah, I mean,

you want to win game one.

You know, game one, you take control, and you get in the driver's seat.

You prepare all week to win game one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex, PFT commenter from Part of My Take here.

How do you plan on slowing down that fast break at the Indiana Pacers?

Yeah, we're going to try and play defense.

It's this newfound thing.

You know, it's pretty good.

You get back in transition and you try and play defense and stop the other team.

Okay, that's a great answer.

Good answer.

Good answer.

Alex, big cap for pardon my take.

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

We've been looking over the past.

The analytics team's gotten to us.

It's at least six to seven.

Depending on the weather, honestly, rainy nights, he gets a little more enthusiastic.

PFT commenter from Barcelona Sports, Part of My Take Podcast, Alex, have you thought about how to best neutralize the John Halliburton factor?

Yeah, well, they did that for us.

I think they put him up in the suite.

He can't be on the court anymore.

That's a good start.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, SGA's dad, didn't he just win Western Conference Final MVP?

Yeah.

That was so funny.

I didn't even know that was happening because, like, everyone's taking pictures and stuff.

And, like, my family's on there, so I'm hanging out with them, and everyone's in their own little circle.

And then I see it, like, probably the day later, he's like tossing it up in the air.

And Shay's like, you won.

I was like, yeah,

that checks out for the few times that I've met Shay's dad.

Are you a little nervous, though, for real, real question about actually playing in the finals for the first time here?

Because, I mean,

I was wondering how long.

it's gotta be like I would imagine like the guys look at you and they're like hey man you've been here and you're like dude I haven't like we played in fucking literally Mickey Mouse's house there were no fans it doesn't count it was a little different however however the ring is still in the closet so

like like anything that counts uh it's been it's been fun with the guys that they

I can't remember who it was.

Somebody made a joke about that too.

It's like, and are you excited about going to the finals for the first time?

I was like, what do you you mean?

It's like, you know, with fans.

I was like,

it would be kind of funny if, like, the first three minutes of the finals, the fans kind of fucked you up a little bit.

You're like, oh, shit, this is so different.

Honestly, going into the playoffs this year, like, we had the win series against Milwaukee my first year in Chicago, and then

a couple playing games, but like the playing games aren't the same as, you know, playoff series.

And the first game against Memphis this year at home, I had so much adrenaline that I like,

I had to like calm myself down.

Like I had to like switch up my music and I had to like start like actually getting into some breathing because I had so much adrenaline pumping through me, especially going through like layup lines.

Usually I'm like a chatter.

I'm throwing out phrases to guys like, let's start fast.

Like, you know,

be ready to go.

The whole warm-up of game one against Memphis, I was just...

dead silent.

I was so quiet and I was like trying to figure out how do I get myself out of it.

And then once we we got in the game, it freed it up.

But yeah, dude, that was that was probably the closest I'll be to being nervous before a game.

Yeah, I feel like you just get out there and you fight your way through your first screen, and then you're like, Okay, now I'm focused.

Now, I can, now I know that we're playing basketball.

Yeah, it's like it's like what do they say with like football?

It's like you need to get hit.

Like, when the quarterback plays his first game ever, it's like once he gets tackled for the first time, all of a sudden he like locks in and like starts throwing dimes.

That's kind of what it is.

You get out there, your first screen, your first whatever it is, you know, you get a little sweat going, all of a sudden it's just basketball so is it an art fighting through screens because you are like the best at it yeah i mean we we we got

we got a handful of guys on our team that are you know they each have their own superpower defensively but yeah we talk about it we do a good job too like when we watch film whichever guy is like in the play like we'll gas each other up for sure like there'll be a play where like lou will just not get touched for like 10 seconds and like three different people try to screen him and then he you know chests somebody at 30 feet and takes the ball.

Kaysen just rips people, dub just rips people, and then there'll be ones where like

I just get skinny and I'm getting over all the screens, and we just turn into like a highlight reel.

The players do, the coaches are obviously, you know, trying to like coach us and tell us to do stuff, but like the players, we do a great job of gassing each other up whenever there's a couple like that.

So, how do you get skinny?

I feel like that's something that this podcast could definitely learn how to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's a that might be the summer brand right there is to get skinny pod.

pod yeah

slipping all the screens

just get as close as you can to the other guy like a lot of it's just anticipation and i'm also like i have a good frame for the get skinny you know motto um like i'm i'm a i'm a 190 guy and i'm just like straight up and down compared to you know who's like 6'3 but he's you know 200 something pounds muscle so for me it's just literally get skinny like get as close as you can to the guy and get through it yeah i mean you're great at getting skinny skinny, but you're also you have the capability to get big with it, like just bump into a guy.

When you were defending against Jokic, what was, yeah, what was that like just banging against Jokic for like the entire game?

Just I'm gonna throw my body into this huge human being, yeah, dude.

I was exhausted after game seven.

I'm not gonna lie to you.

That was that was like the most physically tired I've been all playoffs.

Like going into

going into game one against Minnesota,

I was definitely like

there wasn't a full recovery between playing Jokic for 25, 30 minutes and playing game one against Minnesota.

Luckily, you know, our team's really good.

So me at like, you know, 85, 90% is still passable.

But yeah, dude, I was exhausted.

It was one of those things, too, where it's like

you use that adrenaline to your advantage.

Like in the Memphis game, I told you, like, I had some, or before the first Memphis game, I had so much adrenaline that it was almost a negative thing.

But like in game seven, at that point, we had played every other day and then had two days.

So we had two days to rest up for game seven and like recover.

So the whole game, I was just like, all right, like, I'm, I will die on this court, like, if I have to, like, fatigue isn't going to be a reason that we don't win the game.

But there was a couple of possessions, man, where I'm like laying on him.

And like, luckily, we have great team defense.

And like, there'll be a couple where like I'm fronting him and then running underneath.

Like, the dude's, I don't know, I don't know what his official weight is, but the dude is like, he's like offensive tackle strong.

Like he's like immovable, right?

And then he doesn't

like make these super aggressive moves to get into the post.

He just like takes, takes a foot, bumps you, takes another foot, bumps you.

So yeah, it was, it was, uh, it was a long night in the cold tub after that one.

Yeah.

What, did, would, did Jokic, like, uh, talk shit or get, like, because it felt like you were frustrating the hell out of him.

Was he getting...

Bro, he doesn't talk.

That's got to be actually the weirdest thing, right?

He's got a little bit, like, you know, you've seen those clips of people talking about like Tim Duncan was like a silent trash talker.

Yeah.

You're like, like, you've seen like the KG clip where he says he's like, he'll hit you in phrases.

Like, he'll say, like, nice try.

Like, you'll get it next time.

Like, that stuff.

Like, yoke, at least to me, and like playing against him, I've never heard him

talk.

He literally is just like serial killer face, you know, like post you up, get to the jump hook, make it, jog back down the court, get a steal, push in transition, no look pass, jog back down, like just a blank slate the entire time.

That's got to be like very weird and awkward to have someone not talk any shit whatsoever.

I have a question about the screens.

This is a dumb question.

I would assume like everyone's still calling out every screen, right?

Is there times when someone, one of your teammates, and maybe not on the thunder, but before, like, just forgot to call it out and you just get, you get, like, crushed?

Yeah, that happens.

That happens.

Um, most of the time, not most of the time, the bigs always feel bad when they, when they do that, because, like, it usually happens on the guy that's, like, picking up full court.

Yeah.

Those are the ones where it's like, you are picking up full court, so you're turning the guy, trying to, like, make him work, and then all of a sudden you, like, plant and go, and you take that first slide, and then you just get rocked.

Yeah, that one's

that one.

You look at the big and you're like,

like, what's going on?

And they usually give like a, you know, hand-up accountability moment.

My bad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because that feels like, like, that's something like when you play pickup, you yell out screens.

But if you don't yell at a screen in an NBA game, you could really fuck someone up.

Yeah.

Well, the hard part, too, is like,

especially for us at Paycom, like, we'll go on a run.

And the crowd will be so loud while we're on defense that we can't, like, you know, you can't hear your guys talk.

Yeah.

There's been times where I'm yelling at Chet running down the middle of the floor and like I'm

three feet away from him telling him there's a guy behind him.

Watch out.

He can't hear me.

And it's like sometimes it's at a detriment for us because it's like we're playing so good and the fans are so loud.

But obviously I'm not going to, you know, that's not a, I don't want to trade off them being loud for us being able to communicate because it obviously affects the other team.

Right.

Do you know, do you notice, speaking of the crowd, when there's somebody in the crowd that's not wearing the t-shirt that everyone should be wearing?

yeah, what was the deal with that?

Y'all are on her.

Well, you got to wear the t-shirt.

You got to wear the t-shirt.

Yeah, no, you got to wear the t-shirt.

Right.

If it's there.

If you're a fan of the team and we're at home, you've got to wear the t-shirt.

Unless you're Thundor, in which case, don't wear a shirt.

Unless you're a staple, you know, have your own get up that that's like, you know, people know who you are.

Yeah.

Super fan stuff.

With your defense being as good as it is, I've always thought that practicing defense is like the worst part of playing basketball because it's just exhausting.

Does it suck any less practicing defense when your defense is really fucking good?

Yeah, honestly, the practice part in general is just terrible at this point.

Like, I just don't enjoy practices at all.

And I think that just comes with like after a certain number of years in the NBA, you just get over it.

Like, you play so many games, like, you understand,

you know, there's like I'm not learning anything new pretty much.

Like, I got like pretty much every coverage that the NBA does, I've seen or heard or know.

Um,

so at that point, it's just like, you know, get through the drill, know it, and get to the game to be able to do it.

Yeah.

But for me, like,

like you said, I'm, I'm a defensive guy, so, like, that stuff kind of comes natural and easy to me.

Whereas there's some people in the league that probably should work a little harder on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, do you ever think that you're a tryhard on the court?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Good.

Because there was the moment I'm talking about was the game six against the Nuggets.

You guys were down like 14 with like two and a half minutes left.

And you basically tried to

win the game yourself.

And you almost did.

I think you got two steals in a row and hit a three.

And it was like, holy shit, is Crusoe going to just do this himself?

But then I look back and you still end up losing by like 12.

I was like, that was kind of a tryhard move.

Yeah, you know, it's the playoffs.

If you're not trying hard, you're you're probably not playing anymore.

True.

It's also, I do that in regular season games.

Dude, I don't know what else to do.

Like, we're going to be out there.

You might as well play.

I like that.

I mean, that's a good answer.

And that's also why you're, you're, you know, get all the accolades on defense.

You should be trying hard in the NBA playoffs.

Yeah, I think that's a fair take to have.

That's probably a positive thing, I think.

Yeah, but that was a try-hard move by you.

Yeah, no, it's more, it's more fun on the road, too, just because, like, obviously you try hard at home the fans like even if you lose they're like oh it's okay you get next time

like you sit on the road and like fans might get a little nervous and then afterwards they're like uh-huh we weren't we weren't nervous at all like yeah we knew we were gonna win the whole time it's like all right we're gonna win the next game yeah do you remember the moment i'm talking about because you did kind of make the fans nervous for like a brief second which was crazy because the the nuggets were up like 14 and it was like back-to-back steals we went small and we just i mean at that point like what like you said, like, you're down that much with that much time.

It's like, all right, let's just try and get a bunch of steals and rip a bunch of threes or get layups.

They also just didn't guard me on the corner three that I shot.

I was just wide open.

Do you feel disrespected when teams do that?

No, and I'll tell you why not.

I used to.

I used to think that it was like disrespectful to me.

And I guess there maybe there's like 10% still like disrespect.

That's just like the ego of nba players but like you you literally like teams have to decide what they're willing to like live with

and like shea getting 50 isn't something that they're willing to live with which respectfully so like i i would probably have the same idea if i was on the other team so like you know i just get open shots and it's great for me i love open shots yeah Yeah, I mean,

open ones are easier.

Yeah, yeah.

It makes sense.

So what was your reaction when Magic Johnson tweeted about you after you won game five?

Is that just like the best?

Said that to me, and I just started laughing.

Because I've seen his tweets before where it's like, you know, it's just like an AP memo release.

It's an AP news tweet.

Like, congratulations

for advancing.

Yeah, no, it was great.

Great representation and recognition from Magic.

Yeah, because it's usually like a day after the thing happens, he'll tweet about it.

But this was like right when it happened.

The first thing he had to do was say, Congratulations, former Laker and NBA champion Alex Caruso, who now plays for Oklahoma City Thunder and is headed to the NBA Finals.

Did you get a text from him in addition to that, or was it just the tweet?

No, unfortunately, just the tweet.

No tag either.

So, you know, we don't get any followers or any credibility off that either.

They got to like, some people probably saw that and are like, who's Alex Caruso?

Yeah.

We're following Magic Johnson.

Yeah.

I got a question that that I bet you you're going to be asked, but let me try to ask it in a way that's not as boring.

Your coach, Mark Dagno, who's been awesome, he was your coach when you were on the G-League Oklahoma,

what is it, the Oklahoma City Blue?

Yeah, the blue.

Yeah.

Have you had like a private moment where you're like, hey,

this is pretty awesome?

Like

we were both at a level where you're at the G League and you don't know if it's going to work out for either of you.

And now you're four wins away from winning an NBA title at the highest level as head coach and a major contributor.

Yeah,

maybe not as direct as you just put it.

But like we both know

how cool it is.

Like he came in the, he came and saw me.

I live in Austin in the offseason.

He came and saw me work out and we went to lunch afterwards one day.

And we were just breaking down the team and like, you know, I'm a basketball junkie and he's obviously a basketball nerd, guru junkie whatever you want to call it and so we were just talking about the team and like how everybody plays and stuff like that

and then we like obviously like bring on like

you ever think that you'd be driving to Austin and watch me work out to get ready for you know an NBA season and nine years ten years ago he's like no I'm not gonna lie I don't I didn't think I was like yeah me either so we've indirectly you know

throughout the year, like I think we understand like there's just like that

that's probably the best way to put it.

There's just like that understanding that, like, yeah, we were in the trenches.

You know how long ago that was?

It wasn't even the G League, it was the D League still.

Oh, wow, wow, that was the last of the D League.

That is crazy, and that's just a cool, that's like a cool sports story where it's like these two guys had the,

you know, there's a lot of guys who the path isn't one-one and being a superstar and getting all the way up there.

It's like there's a lot of different trials and tribulations.

So it's, I love the story.

I hope they talk about it on the broadcast.

If they don't, I'll tweet about it.

If they don't talk about it, you know, I'll give you, we'll name a prize, a cash prize that I'll give you if they don't bring that up at some point.

Yeah.

Speaking of cash prizes, have you gotten your watch that SGA got you appraised?

How much was that?

I don't know.

I don't know the actual appraisal, but like the market's somewhere around like 15 to 17.

Oh, I thought it was more.

He kind of cheaped out on that.

That's kind of cheap.

Don't worry, he buys 17 of them.

Well, if I ever,

if I ever win NBA, MVP, I'm going to buy you a $100,000 watch because that's the kind of guy I am.

That's fair.

Yeah.

Richard Milley, please.

Yeah, oh, wait, did he custom for everyone?

Is yours different than everyone else's?

There was like a handful of different ones, like a couple

subs.

I had a Bluesy, the

silver and gold with the

blue face.

There's a couple of black and gold ones.

I think somebody got, maybe there's two Sky Dwellers in there.

There were a couple of different colors.

Yeah, it was a mix.

Okay.

Is it engraved?

I don't think so, no.

That would kind of rock if you got everybody watches that just said SGA on it.

Oh, like SGA.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did he get the guy who, did he get like staff or was it just players?

No, it was just players.

Oh, because I was going to say, he probably, like, you got to get one for the guy who does rebounding for your free throw practice for him, right?

Yeah, well, I mean, there's like there's unwritten ways, unwritten rules of like taking care of guys that you know, at the end of the year, like playoff bonuses, you get you shell out some of those, you know, a percentage of that to those guys.

Yeah, yeah, that was by the way,

it was a subtle joke about him being a free throw merchant.

You didn't have to, I didn't, yeah, I didn't.

He actually, I saw a stat, it's like, not he's like not even the top 300 of free throw attempts

in the playoffs.

Like, uh,

I saw another one.

It was like, of all the 30-point scores in NBA history, he averages like two or like two and a half less free throws than all those guys.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

Have you, I was going to say, have you had a moment where you've thought to yourself, damn, it's pretty cool that I've got two guys named Jalen Williams on the team?

Yeah, to be honest.

Although we don't ever call him Jalen Williams, so it's like hard to like, it's either J-Dub or Jay Will.

Which one's which?

Jay Will is the, is the post-player.

J-Dub is like the all-star this year.

He was the wing guard.

Interesting.

Did you know that those are the only two Jalen Williams to ever play in the NBA?

Is it really?

And you're hogging them all.

Yeah.

Holy.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Fun with the more you know.

Yeah.

There, um, uh, another

backhanded question coming your way, Alex.

Uh, big cat from part of my take.

Are there any times when SGA gets hit and he goes down and like guys on the bench are like, oh my my god he might really be hurt and you're like listen guys I've been through this with LeBron he's fine

I bet you're not gonna get that question in media I didn't think you were gonna tie it back into Braun yeah that was nice right kind of brought it all the way around

that was that was good journalism

that's professionals

no no I haven't had that that that

okay based my past experiences i haven't had the ability to to teach the guys what that's like okay well we have to ask about the the Lakers.

It's part of the contract if you're in NBA media.

There's two things that when I come on, there has to be a Mickey Mouse championship and a LeBron question.

Yeah, well, let's be honest.

Let's be honest.

If you're so lucky to win the NBA Finals this year, which ring are you going to feature more prominently in your house?

Good question.

Honestly, though, I mean, you have to put them right next to each other, no?

No, me personally, I wouldn't.

I will say, so

I got fitted for the first one on my pointer finger because it's like, you know, you get one, you have one on your finger.

Like, you know, Tom Brady has like, however many seven, right?

Yeah.

He's got seven fingers.

Like, I want to keep doing that.

So, like, it'll be on the second finger.

I love that.

The middle finger is the better finger.

Yeah.

And we have, I don't know if you've heard.

It's the best finger of the hand.

Yeah.

We've had the debate.

I don't know if you want to chime in, but

if the Thunder go on to win the NBA Finals this year,

we have, we've gotten ahead of it, and we think this actually will be the worst Thunder team to win a title in their dynasty run because you guys are probably going to win like six in a row.

So you're saying this is the worst?

Yeah, we're going to look back and we're going to be like, can you believe that team won?

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a hot take.

That also insinuates that we're going to win like six.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We're already like, we're way beyond that now.

If you don't win four, then that's a disappointment.

We're already ranking all of the championships you guys are going to win, and we've already put this one at the bottom, dead last.

Okay, yeah, that's fair.

Well, if that does happen, I'll shake your hand and we can agree that this was the worst one.

Okay, yeah.

Do you ever get jealous that you're not in all the commercials with Chet and SJA and all those guys?

The ATT ones?

No, I'm glad I didn't make them sing this year or whatever they did.

Yeah.

I'm not going to lie, being on their team this year, it's more bearable to watch.

Whenever the first one came out last year, when it was just Chet and Shay, I think

it came on so much, dude.

And I was watching so much bad.

I was like, I swear to God, if I have to see this again, I'm going to like break my laptop or throw something to my TV.

Yeah.

Now, the other team is jumping.

Oh, yeah, it's a great commercial.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Well, Alex, you're the man.

We've been rooting for you all playoffs.

You're the only team I have is just you personally.

You texted me.

You told me.

Yeah.

I am.

I'm rooting for you.

We said that you're the face of the NBA.

Yeah, you are.

Somebody said that to me the the other day.

Oh, is Tommy?

Tommy, yeah, Big Cat.

Oh, yeah, I texted you yesterday.

So, yeah, what's the debate?

Yeah, because it said embrace debate.

And he was like, what's the debate?

Yeah, that's a good debate.

That's the face of the league.

Yeah.

All right.

So I have one last question.

Roback question.

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Well, no, we're not going to do any jinxes.

We're rooting for you to win.

We want you to win.

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

Oh, for sure.

Okay, hell yeah.

That's it.

Hell yeah.

That's probably the next level of our bonding as

being y'all's friends in a show guest is like actually being adults and going to get some beers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, well, if you didn't get traded, you were going to be in our office all the time on the simulator.

That's true.

It was going to be, yeah, but we weren't going to be winning as much, so it was going to be like

sad beers instead of happy beers.

I think if you win the NBA championship, you come on the show drunk, that puts you in the Joe Burrow pantheon as part of my take-hess.

Yeah.

Wow.

We'll have to do it.

We need to do it in a different spot, though.

Like, not in the studio.

It needs to be in a

special special.

Thunder's house.

What'd you say?

Thundor's house.

Yeah.

Thunder's backyard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He invited us over.

Yeah, I think what should happen is you should have, since you play for the Thunder, you should have, we should go storm chasing together.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, we'll think about it.

We'll see.

We'll see.

Let's win it and then we'll talk about it.

Okay, that's fair.

All right.

Do you have any questions for us?

Because

you should start lobbing questions at the media in your press conferences.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's up with Joe's new guy, Zach?

Oh, Zach's here.

The McDonald's?

Yeah, he's McDonald's order.

Is he here?

Yeah, he's here.

Did you think that was too much?

What's your problem with it?

No, I just, I wanted, I was, I was interested to two-part.

One, the 10 to 20 nuggets.

How do you determine?

And also, how many sauces?

So I guess that's a two-part first question.

Yeah.

Zach,

so usually nuggets go tail in.

So like if you're not feeling the full 20, you can kind of pop four or five before the sauce.

And if you're feeling up for it, like, oh, I'm going to house these.

Then you start dipping into the different sauces.

Four to five dry?

That's crazy.

You go four or five dry?

If they're still warm, you pop a couple, like put them on the plate.

Yeah.

You put four or five, you eat four or five dried nuggets to see if you're really into that nugget mood.

Okay, that came off wrong.

It's just like as you're assembling the plate, you know, you're reaching in the container, a couple might land on the palate in your mouth, a couple might fall out of the container into your mouth.

Second question, second question: what flavor ice cream?

So, all time, Netflix and Chilled is my favorite, Ben and Jerry's flavor.

But I will say, last night I did have, they have a chocolate caramel cheesecake flavor I tried.

You should definitely give it a shot if you're ever in the mood for some ice cream, man.

Okay,

post-post-season in the off-season, i'll i'll get after that that's a crazy word i'm just gonna say crazy crazy

crazy

especially dude the five dried nuggets

zach real quick did you ever think that when you shared this at two in the morning coming back from indianapolis you'd have alex crusso on the precipice of going to the nba finals uh being like dude what's up what's wrong with you not even a little bit i don't really know what to think right now but

but uh if you need any other ice cream recommendations i'll definitely send you over a short list of some flavors they have that are absolute hitters.

Benjiers only, or is that like a.

Oh, no, we can definitely switch up brands if you have like a one, like a hometown favorite you enjoy.

Bluebell ice cream, yeah, bluebell ice cream.

It's a southern bluebell.

Okay, yeah, I can get into a little bluebell.

They got that classic vanilla from bluebell.

It's a little like it looks a little yellow in the tub, but oh, it's fantastic.

Yeah.

They got like a birthday cake one, too.

Oh, Crucian, you know, cream, man.

That's that's awesome.

Yeah.

It's a cream team.

He's listen, he'll do some market research for you.

I will farm him out to you

to get you honed in on exactly what you want for ice cream.

Bring him to Thundor's house.

Yeah, he's in.

He's in.

I'll do whatever you need, Mr.

Cruzo.

Just let me know.

He also just calls us, sir,

constantly.

Yeah,

Mr.

and sir.

That's professionalism.

Yep, it is.

It is.

All right.

You're the best.

Good luck in the finals.

And hopefully we're getting drinks and

you're putting it on the second finger.

Yeah, man, four more to go.

Appreciate it, guys.

Twin Peaks is the best in the game.

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And now here is Ray Romano.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest, recurring guest.

It is Ray Romano.

We're getting ready for the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament in Tahoe.

Ray, you are going to be there.

We wanted to have you on to talk about everything, but also your golf golf game.

By the way, we went last year for the first time.

We're going again this year.

The best event possible.

Like, it is heaven on earth.

It's incredible.

But how are we feeling?

Well,

I mean,

do you golf?

Yeah, I used to.

I just quit recently, and it feels great.

Yeah.

Well, I golf.

I don't know what, yeah.

How good are you?

What's your handicap?

Do you know?

Terrible.

I think it was at its peak about a 24.

So not not very good.

Yeah, well,

I'm like a 14-15.

But

so I stink and I suck and I go, you know, I go in streaks where

maybe I can shoot in the 80s.

I've only broken 80 once in my life.

I shot 79 about two years ago.

And that was, you know, that's the pinnacle for me was my goal was to break 80 once in my life when I did it.

But my goal when I go to Tahoe, you know, there's these elite athletes right um

it's there's 80 of us let's say or 90 and they're all celebrities but most of them are from the sports world so there's about 20 from the entertainment field you know and my goal is to i just want to because golf is the great equalizer golf is you know i can play with steve young who's uh you know five-time Super Bowl.

I've been, he's got five Super Bowl rings or whatever.

And I can compete with him.

You know, I can't compete with

Aaron Rodgers or Steph Curry, but my goal is to try to come in the top 50.

I've been playing 20 years there, and I've never broken the top 50.

So that's my realistic goal when I go there is to just break the 50 marker.

I love it.

And also, also,

because Barkley's getting better.

He's getting better, Barkley.

I don't want him to beat me.

Yeah, that's a fair goal to have.

So what happened the year that you were at your peak at this tournament?

What was it about when you were at your best that you were trying to recapture?

When was I at my best, though?

I guess when you were

the top 60?

I've never broken 50.

I think the best, and another thing is it's the staple for it system.

So you get points, you know.

And if you double bogey, you get minus points.

So my goal is to be in the plus.

The highest I ever scored was

plus

eight.

I believe I finished plus eight, you know?

So, so my, I, I've 20 years, I've, I've finished in the plus four times maybe.

So that's my goal is also to finish in the plus.

But I go in streaks like

five months ago, I was a nine handicap and I've never been a single digit handicap ever.

And it was my short game.

You know, somebody gave me a little tip on the short game.

And that's the key, man.

The short game

can save you and

you know, you can recover from a shitty shot.

Sorry, can I say that?

Yeah, you say whatever you want.

Wait, wait, give us the tip.

Oh, man, I don't know.

It was just chipping.

One guy gave me a tip not to break your wrist in any chip shot.

Not to just keep a straight wrist for every shot, even like a 50-yard shot and a little chip from the side of the green.

I started doing that.

It started working.

I got to a nine-handicap single-digit.

Now I'm back to a 13-14 because, like any tip,

it works for about four or five rounds and then it just starts going away.

Yeah, I have a tip that never goes away, though.

Maybe you can use this this year, break the top 50.

You just cheat.

If you just cheat at golf, then that's my other problem: I'm very anal OCD and I play every rule.

I play it when somebody plays with me,

I really think I annoy them, you know, because I'm not good, but if I hit it OB and I can't find it, I got to go back to the T and hit.

And they're like,

what's this guy doing?

He's going to shoot a 101 and he's worried about it, but I am.

I don't cheat.

Yeah.

Well, I actually, I'm going to correct you.

I don't think it annoys people.

I know it annoys people.

I warn them.

I warn them ahead of time, man.

I don't take any gimme putts.

I do the whole thing, man.

And, you know, whatever.

Whether they play with me again is a question.

I think you can definitely beat Barkley.

I think that's a good goal to have.

As long as you can stay ahead of him, then nobody's going to question it.

You know,

he doesn't have the hitch anymore.

I don't know how much, you know, that

hitch.

Yeah.

He got rid of that.

You know, that was a.

That was a psychological thing, and he was trying for years.

And I, I feel for him, man.

I feel.

It's like, it's like somebody put a curse on him or something, you know?

So how do they work out the pairings for that?

How do they work out who you're going to be playing with?

I'll tell you the thing.

20 years ago, when my show was still on the air and

I had a little more clout

and

I could, and my boys, you know, I got three boys and they come every year and they were like in their

they were 12 and 11 then.

And

I could request who I could play with, you know?

So I'd always find some New York jet or somebody.

I played with a bunch of jets, you know.

And then little by little, I lost some of that clout.

You know, because I have no one could, you can't really request who you play with.

I mean, Steph Curry, of course, plays with his father and Travis Kelsey plays with his brother.

But otherwise, it's just random.

I get who I get.

And

I usually get the comedians.

I get Baumgartner.

I get Larry the Cable Guy.

I get Rob Riggle.

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

I got paired up with Trump.

And I think, you know, that's where the stormy, what was her name?

Stormy Danny was.

She was out at that tournament.

That was at that tournament, yeah.

So

I didn't see her, but I saw him.

And he plays the same style as you, right?

Like if he hits it out of bounds, he says, I'm taking it back to the T.

No gimme's.

Yeah, except except he's hitting one on the T.

I'm hitting three on the T.

But you know, he's a pretty solid player.

I think he was like about a 10 or an 11 handicap.

But that was pretty interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How are you feeling about the Jets season?

Also, where have you been for the Knicks?

Have you not decided to go sit courtside?

Like, what's the matter?

You know, I'm in a money, man.

If I was in New York,

I'd try to be there.

But Timmy Chamolet has all the seats, tickets now.

I know.

Yeah, I mean, tonight, right?

I mean,

listen,

I'm more a Jet fan and a Yankee fan.

I didn't follow basketball as much, but I was always a New York fan.

And I was at a playoff game for the Knicks, I think it was against the Portland Trailblazers, maybe 20 years ago.

So I'm there.

If I was in New York, I'd try to muscle into the game for sure.

But

it looks rough, though, boy, I'll tell you.

Yeah.

So, so, how are we feeling about the Jets season?

Are you all in on Justin Fields?

Have you gone through the process?

Here's how it feels.

It looks there.

It is.

Now, listen, Ray, I can give you, as a Bears fan, I've gone through the whole Justin Fields

story arc.

So, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about Justin Fields and your new quarterback.

I guess my question is:

Do we have a chance?

He's a great guy.

He's a runner, right?

At least we got a runner.

Yeah.

Great guy, runner.

I always have faith.

I always have faith.

You know, I think last time I was on with you guys, I made some stupid prediction about the Jets.

And I, you know, Aaron Rodgers, I played golf with him once, and I was really rooting for that to happen.

And my boys, you know, my boys are super diehard.

I have twin boys, and they took the red eye from L.A.

for his first game, and they were there when he ran out of the movie.

No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we've,

and the sad thing is I became a Jet fan after,

almost immediately after they won the Super Bowl in 69.

So it's been a long, long stretch.

Yeah.

But look, you're a Bears fan.

I mean, you don't give up, right?

You don't give up.

No.

Also, is that now, like, if you became a Jets fan right after Joe Namath won the Super Bowl, is it the Ray Romano curse?

Is that what we're going to go with?

Let's not.

So you became a fan of the team.

I was a Yankee fan, too, and they won.

Yeah, true.

They had some good.

Yeah, they've won a lot of.

It doesn't apply to baseball.

You're right.

So you saw them win a Super Bowl and you said, that's a team I'm going to root for at that time.

I was young.

I was like 11 years old and didn't, I wasn't really locked into

rooting then.

And I was following my older brother.

You know,

when it came time to pick a baseball team, when we were real like eight and nine,

and my cousin was older than us, and so we, we asked him for his advice.

And the only two teams we knew were the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.

Okay.

And we had to like decide who we were going to root for.

And we made the right choice on that one.

How do you feel about Juan Soto going across town?

You know, my boys don't like it.

My twin boy says, nope, can't ever root for him again.

I'm like, I don't know.

Business is business, you know, but I mean, I don't know the super details of it.

I mean, if he's staying in New York,

you know,

and didn't the Yankees offer him more money?

I think it was comparable.

It was close.

I think the Mets Michaels was a little bit more than a year ago.

Yeah.

I broke it down with the boys.

It sounded like it was the same, but if you broke it down, it wasn't.

You know, I'm not a New York fan where I can't, if I like the Yankees, I can't root for the Mets.

If the Yankees aren't there, I'll root for the Mets also.

I was at the

my father took us to the game where

they won their division for the first time when they in 69, when they, you know, when they won, he took us to when they clinched the division.

And I remember running on the field as a young kid in 69.

And

I had the Mets on my show.

Everybody loves Raven.

I had about nine Mets on the show for one episode.

We had really everybody except for Tom Seaver.

So

I got a little soft spot for the Mets too, but I'm not rooting against Soto.

I won't tell my boys that because my boys are, you know,

they're at a different level than me.

I actually have a question about baseball and your show.

So, on one episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, you met Barry Bonds.

Your character met Barry Bonds.

Yes.

Your character was also a sports writer.

Yes.

Would your character vote for Barry Bonds to go into the Hall of Fame?

That's a tough one.

That's like a Pete Rose question, too.

I got to get more details.

I don't know.

i gotta be more informed just like with pete rose you know i'm uh

i think if i i only know the stuff on the surface and from what i hear you know and he never bet on his team and what's going on now with with gambling and how it's everywhere i mean i i i might be inclined to vote for rose to get in you know yeah yeah i agree i also think barry bond should be in the hall of fame because everybody everybody was using steroids not everyone but most players most of the power hitters were and he's by far the best hitter to ever play the sport so I feel like Maguire was Maguire caught using stuff oh yeah yeah the whole Andrew Bond one there yeah

yeah

yeah the uh it's a museum at the end of the day it's got to tell the history of the sport you can't just be like oh the guy Pete Rose just didn't exist that's crazy Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, now, what do you think?

Do you think he's going to get in?

I do.

Yeah, I do.

I think he probably will.

Yeah.

Which is a shame that they do it after he dies but yeah i know i know i know yeah what are you gonna do um i got a i got a weird question for you ray uh i'm ready so i the i'm not i don't think i'm gonna apologize for this but i'm gonna acknowledge that i'm weird uh i don't know if you remember this i think about it every now and then uh when you we last saw you you were actually in our offices when we were still in new york We're in Chicago now, and you came on the YouTube show I do during the day, and I asked you if you think your your twin boys ever kissed because I have a theory that all twins have kissed at some point just because I know that if I saw someone who looked like me I'd I'd kiss them

I don't I'm not gonna apologize for it but I'm gonna say hey hand up that was kind of a weird question to ask you yeah not only do I remember it I I had to go to therapy for it

I do remember it.

And my boys, I told my boys yesterday that I was coming on the show and they brought it up again, you know?

and they and they they actually told me that there was a top 10 most embarrassing thing it made it made a list

yes

yeah

I don't I don't mind it okay reminded me of I used to do a bit in my stand-up about my twins

but this and this was a based on an absolute true story is that when they were like four

They were in the bathtub.

I was running the water for them.

They were in the tub.

I don't know.

I got a phone call.

I stepped out.

And then from the bathroom, I heard,

ew.

I'm like, oh, no.

And then I hear,

now let me see.

And then, ew.

And in my act, I was like, I didn't want to go in.

I wanted to like shellac the door shut.

No.

And I went in and true story, sure enough, one of them was bending over.

The other one was stretching the cheeks apart.

Oh, so they definitely have kissed.

There's nothing weird about that.

That's how me and Big Cat prep for each show.

Yeah, we do.

Yeah, yeah.

Just because we just got curiosity.

And then I said,

hey, listen,

I did that as a kid, but in the mirror.

I never had.

Right.

But that's life with twins.

Yeah.

Yes, that's when you have someone who is basically you, you don't have to look in the mirror.

You can look at him.

But one of them got married last year.

I had two kids get married last year.

Awesome.

Congrats.

Yeah, by the way.

You tell that story at the wedding.

That would have been a great toast.

I did not.

You know what?

I wish I would have thought of that.

Because I said some stuff that my wife said I probably shouldn't have at the wedding.

Yeah.

The full circle of the twin kissing question is that a guy in the room with us who did the who a very talented guy here at barstool who used to do the show with me he three months ago had twin boys and so when he had twin boys I kind of was like uh

maybe I have to revise this theory of mine and he was like nah keep with the theory it's fine we'll we'll find out

were they identical I don't think they're identical but I I like literally when I found out the first thing that popped in my head was was our interaction he said the same thing happened to him where he's just like yeah I uh yeah I guess that was a question that was asked.

And now we, someday the twin boys are going to see this and just be like, oh, shoot.

I do remember one day we were driving because

that's the, there is such a uniqueness to identical twins.

Yeah.

And we were in the car

and one was in the front, one was in the back, and they were, I don't know, seven or eight.

I probably shouldn't have had the guy in the front.

And the one in the back, I don't know what he's doing, but he just says,

hey, Greg, yeah, he goes, goes, no matter what you do, don't squeeze your testicles.

At least they help each other out that way.

That's good advice.

That's really good advice that I never got.

I needed to get that advice from a twin.

Just being like, don't do that.

At my age, it's try not to sit on them.

Did you ever dress them to be the same, or were they always their own individual?

My wife would give them the same clothes, but

Greg had green and Matt had red.

We had green for Greg.

So we could, you know,

my mother could never tell them apart.

Nobody could really tell them apart, you know?

That's so funny.

Yeah, yeah.

I have

another story.

This is not a, this is a more cute, but the only time we, when they were real little, the only time we traveled with, without both of them, I had to come to LA for something, for some audition or something.

And my wife came with me, and they were like three years old.

And we took one.

And

this was the first time traveling.

And we got to the hotel and we have the one twin.

And we put him in the hotel and we're unpacking our bags, whatever.

And from the other room, we hear a thump.

And we go in there and it's him standing next to a full-length mirror.

And he thought he saw his brother and ran into the mirror.

Oh, twins rock yeah it does

sounds like fun honestly yeah i'm changing my opinion on twins i think that everybody in the world has a secret twin somewhere like you might you might never meet them but there's somebody that lives somewhere that looks exactly like you like like wow i've seen unfortunately when you're you know when you're in the public eye you get

They let you know when they look like you, you know?

Yeah.

And usually the look-alikes,

it's not a very flattering look-alike.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, but most of the time, it's like, okay, I guess I got to get my hair dyed or something.

Yeah.

All right.

Another weird question.

I actually don't think this is weird, but it's more like a grown man saying to another grown man, I loved your work in Ice Age because I have three little kids and you're phenomenal in Ice Age.

I think there's a new one coming out.

Is that weird for an adult to say that to another adult being like, hey, the woolly mammoth that you voiced,

you knocked that out of the park.

Well, thank you.

And that brings up

another bit I'm doing in my act, in my stand-up now.

You know, my daughter got married at the New York Public Library.

And I don't know if you've ever been there.

It's like, it's literally like the Capitol building.

It's like the White House.

It's this majestic building.

And I can't tell you how expensive the sweating was.

So in my act, in my stand-up, I tell the audience how expensive it was and they kind of laugh.

I go, no, folks, you don't understand.

I got to do Ice Age six six now.

And that's what we're doing.

Yeah, we're doing ice.

I did that joke before it came up.

And then they called me and said, hey, we're thinking of doing another one.

And here we are, man.

I can't, I mean, look, the real, the ice age didn't last this long.

It's been 25 years since the first one, man.

It's crazy.

But, you know, it's yes.

If you have kids, it's

fun to do it.

And have now there's a new generation going to watch it.

So

I'm, you know,

I don't know

what a new story they can make out of this.

You know, I know we're going to be running away from something,

but we're getting the gang back together and doing another one.

I love it.

And it is, they are genius kids movies because

they start it with the squirrel or whatever the animal is.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's just, that gets the kids hooked right away.

Like, if if you can get a little kid to laugh out loud within the first 30 seconds of a movie, they're going to watch the whole movie.

So they figured it out.

How old is your kid?

A six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

You're in there.

A lot of ice age.

Yeah.

We'll be, we're, we're, I'll tell you right now, we're in for ice age seven and eight.

Okay, so we're, we're, we're, sign us up.

Oh,

I listen.

I'm not going to.

That's the thing.

You don't want,

you don't say no to it, you know?

Yeah.

It's not the hardest work in the world.

And I don't want to talk about the money, but the money's not bad, also.

Yeah, how long does it take, like, when you do a movie like that, when you're doing the voice?

How many, like, is it days?

I go in, I go, well,

it's a lot of days.

It's not a lot of days in the booth, but you go into the sound booth and you do like a four or five hour session.

And then you come back months later and do another one, and then a month later, and do and they it could take up to a close to a year until they get all the audio down from me, you know.

But the thing is, I've done five of those movies, I've never been in the studio with another actor.

It's just all you piecework, it's this, yeah.

You know, you're on one page, and then you're on the next, and they have to tell you, okay, you're now you're running away from a dinosaur, but there's a lava pit, and they have to fill you in on where you are, and yeah.

But it takes about a year of getting into the studio.

Do you get to watch your character as you're doing the voice work for it or do they take your voice and then they match the voice?

They don't animate it till after they get the audio down.

And then when you come back the next time, they'll show you a piece of that, you know?

Yeah.

What they animated.

But it's a different animal.

It's a it's and and and and sometimes like you're you're running away from a you're going to get killed, and you're screaming.

And they tell you, you know, your head was this far off the mic.

You got to do it this way.

You got to keep your face right in front of the mic, you know?

Yeah.

It's a little weird.

What's more difficult work, doing voiceover like that or acting in a movie for Barton Scorsese?

I would say the, believe it or not, the animated is a little more tedious that way, but nothing's more scarier than doing a movie

for Scorsese, and not because of him, it's just because of me, you know.

I mean, I don't know if I, I don't know, tell me if I repeated, told this story last time.

I know you guys wouldn't remember, but when I did my first scene with

De Niro,

right?

First of all, I can't even believe I'm on this movie.

I can't even believe it.

What am I doing here, right?

The Irishman, yeah.

Yeah.

the Irishman, yeah.

And I'm face to face with De Niro, and I'm his lawyer, and I'm asking him, Did you do it?

It's a big scene, and it's like day two.

And we do it, it takes, you know, you got to do it from this side, this side, this side.

Scorsese standing right there, and De Niro, you know, De Niro, I love De Niro, he doesn't say much, you know, he doesn't talk a lot.

Uh,

uh, you know, when

the cameras aren't rolling.

Um,

and we're there for like three, three, four hours cut,

go go home.

That's the end of the day.

And everybody leaves, you know?

And I'm like, I don't need somebody to pat me on the back, but I need somebody to tell me I'm not going to get fired, you know?

Right.

And nothing.

Everybody goes home, you know.

And I, we're staying at a hotel in Long Island.

I drive to Long Island and I'm like, I call my wife and I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm going to have this job tomorrow.

I don't know.

Nobody, we there for so long and nobody said anything.

She goes, calm down, calm down.

I get to the hotel.

I check in

and I'm like in my head like that.

And then I hear Ray and I look and it's De Niro and he's checking in.

He's got his guy with him or whatever.

And I go, oh, hey, he doesn't say one word, walks over, kisses me on the cheek, walks away.

I call my wife.

I say, I don't.

I think I'm okay.

It's a mafia movie.

You know, a kiss on the cheek sometimes can go either way.

Yeah.

But did you kiss him back?

No,

this is not like the twins.

Oh, man.

No, no, buddy.

I mean, that was, yeah, it was like he talked, he kissed me off a ledge.

That's all it needed.

All it needed.

Well, I got one last question for you.

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Anything else just wouldn't be proper.

Like we said, Ray and a bunch of guys are going to be out at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship in Tahoe.

We'll be there.

So, my last question is: when was the last time you hit a patron there?

And is that an active thought in your head?

Because we've, I think we were offered to do the pro-am, and we were like, I we don't trust ourselves.

This will be bad.

I

probably hit one person every year, you know.

i'm listen if you average it out i'm not even joking because well you've been there you've seen the crowds yeah they're everywhere yeah and we're all hackers you know i mean some of us are good but even even the good ones hit hit crappy shots you know but the the scary one was about

four years ago and it was during you know on wednesday you have to do the you do the corporate round Every celebrity has to play with four corporate guys, you know.

And it was during that round and the spectators are there.

And I hit a nine-iron

and I kind of scolded a little, so it didn't go up, but it wasn't a line drive.

And it was by the green, and we yelled four,

and there was a bunch of people around.

And then I walked up, we thought people scattered.

And when we got there, there was a woman on her back.

And there was some, here was the scary part.

There was someone next to her saying, Carol, stay awake.

Stay awake, Carol.

Stay awake.

I'm like, what the fuck?

You know, what's going on?

And the paramedics had to come.

The good news is she was, she, she recovered.

She was okay.

And the funny news is

I finally got to on my knees and said, hey, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

And she said, from laying down, she says, can I take a picture with you?

And I laid next to her.

We have a picture lay because she couldn't get up.

I'm laying next to her.

But she went to the hospital.

She had black eyes.

I, you know, I kept in touch with her for a little bit.

It was, it was one of the scariest moments for me.

Um, I thought I was going to withdraw from the tournament and all, but she ended up being okay.

Yeah, but I do.

I hit one, I hit a guy, I hit a guy that's uh

one of you guys' competition.

Oh, man, I'm gonna forget his name.

He works for the guy in Ryan Rossillo.

Is that it?

Florida in Florida.

No, oh, the Lebatard show, yes, yeah, yeah.

And and and the guy was there covering it, and he was he wanted,

the weird part was he's married to my cousin's daughter,

my first cousin's daughter.

And so he, the guys were telling him, you got to tell Ray, you're related to him, whatever, and whatever.

And on the 17th hole,

I didn't even know the guy was there.

I never saw him before in my life.

I hit that guy.

And he was ready to come over and talk to me.

And then he didn't talk.

After I hit him, he didn't talk to me.

He didn't get hurt.

But then eventually we talked about it on the show that I actually nailed him.

Yeah.

I'm glad that that lady was okay.

It would be a very, it'd be a very embarrassing lawsuit if you hit somebody and then they took you to court because your golf game was so bad that you

the thing is on the ticket they you know they there's no legal recourse they can take because if they come on the course they know but are you guys going to be there this year yeah we will so actually i i think we're going to try to do the get hit by ray romano challenge we might just follow you around and stand like 200 250 away and hope you hit us and then we'll sue you if you're 250 away i won't reach you okay we'll stagger it i feel like a par three is good a good option for that

they 150.

okay all right that's a sweet spot but yeah we'll be there and we'll uh we'll definitely say hello and and thank you for coming on as always always fun to have you on and let's let's go is this is this aaron live monday today monday oh okay i was gonna say go next but it'll be over by then right no you can say it yeah maybe it will be game seven.

Maybe it won't.

Maybe it won't.

Yeah.

Keep the faith.

We need that cat to step.

How's he doing, by the way?

Is he playing?

Yeah, he's doing okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Big purr.

I think he'll be okay.

Yeah, I know he's got a knee.

His knee is okay.

He's going to play, yeah.

He's got to play.

He's got to play.

Okay, I mean, he played.

He played.

He got back in the game that night, so I would assume he's okay to play.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we'll say hello and thank you as always.

And let's break 50 this year.

We're going to watch.

We're going to be Ray Romano breaks 50.

That's the goal.

That's the goal to come in below 50th place.

I tell you what, if it hits me, I'm actually going to direct it towards the green for you.

Yeah, I'll throw it.

I'll throw it to the hole.

You play it where it lies, wherever it goes.

Yeah.

We need an army out there helping you.

Yeah, let's do it.

We got you.

We got you.

I'll take it.

All right, guys.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ray.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

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Okay, let's wrap up the show.

By the way, I had this as a who's back, but then I looked it up and I guess it's like a month old.

I don't know if you guys saw it.

I think it went viral this weekend.

But it was Mark Ingram telling the story about how Jameis Winston once did a pregame speech that started in prayer and ended in the Monday Night Football theme song.

I love it.

So good.

I love it.

He's the best.

So good.

He's the goddamn best.

Yeah.

Good show, boys.

Good show.

Zach, did we have anything we missed?

Also, good job of handling yourself with Caruso.

That was nerve-wracking.

Thank you, sir.

One thing.

Earlier, we were talking about

Knicks blowing that 14-point lead in game one.

May have been the biggest

fourth-quarter deficit blown.

The Milwaukee Bucks actually,

or no,

the Milwaukee Blues actually blew a bigger lead.

They had 29 points in the fourth to the Atlanta Hawks this one time.

Oh.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

In the playoffs?

I'm sorry.

I take it back.

Fuck you, Hank.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

So, next season, no longer a disappointment.

Yeah, that was huge.

That was a huge crux.

Good point, Zach.

I like that.

Zach Boy.

Yeah.

Would you trade Cat?

For Giannis, I'm down.

Okay, nice.

That's a good GM right there.

It's a real good GM.

Cat for Giannis.

Who says no?

Yeah.

No one.

I haven't heard a single person say no to that.

Yeah.

Let's get it done.

Let's get it done.

Okay.

Numbers?

Three.

I think that was Hank.

Yeah, that was Hank.

Memes had the Echo Echo 3.

I think that was Hank.

Jack,

you're in charge now.

You just demoted Pug?

Wow.

Did you storm the Capitol on Pug?

Pug's not here.

Yeah, but

that was pretty fucked up what you just did, memes.

That was a bloodless coup on Pug.

I don't know who got three first.

That's who you guys think got three first there.

Yo, Pug.

The host of the show.

I'm pretty sure the host of the show sounded off.

Give Pug your headset right now, memes.

I think that was was Pug.

You said something?

Yep.

Memes, can we get more headsets in the back room?

Memes just straight up demoted you.

He said Zach's in charge.

He made Zach present.

Not that mic, this mic.

This room's not.

There's a speaker in there?

This room's getting crammed these days.

Wait, there's a speaker in the back room?

Why does every time you have to put on headsets?

Because you would hear the speaker through the mic.

So we need more headsets.

Technically, yes.

Okay, let's just get a couple couple more.

All right, let's just get that done.

You know what, Zach, you get us headsets, okay?

You're gonna get us headsets.

I got headphones in my backpack.

I can do that.

Okay, how many?

Okay.

We'll get more headphones.

We'll get more headphones.

On it.

All right.

Pog, you decide.

It was Hank.

I thought it was Hank.

Oh, I wasn't here.

It's kind of hard to.

It was Hank.

Okay.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Oh,

a fair president.

All right.

That's two out of three.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Memes up one, nothing.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Ty.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Hank.

One, one, rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Ty.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Ty.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

Hank wins.

Oh, ball, don't lie.

Hank wins.

That was a great podcast.

Make it rain.

That was a good battle.

Shout out to AWLs.

All right.

One with with all three.

Yeah.

Memes, would you like to pick a number?

Got it?

Six.

Yeah, all three.

That was a good one.

All right.

Everyone else's numbers?

61.

11.

99.

Poke.

27.

21.

Let's go, Zach.

I'll go 55.

I'll go 42.

Zach, what was yours?

55.

55.

Come on, 54.

15.

Oh, Zach, that's Mellow, isn't it?

That's correct, yeah.

That's your favorite player of all time.

That'd have been nice to hit, but hey, shout out to Mellow.

Shout out to Jackpot.

Shout out to Mellow.

Great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Damn,

it happens.

Love you guys.

Thank you.

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Heads up, IT managers.

Support for Windows 10 ends October 14th, 2025.

That means no more standard security updates for evolving cyber threats.

It's time to upgrade your business to Windows 11 Pro PCs with Intel inside.

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Upgrade today at www.windows.com/slash business/slash Intel.