Celtics HC Joe Mazzulla, Nuggets HC Michael Malone, NBA Play Ins, Gregg Doyel creeped out America + Fyre Fest

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On today's Pardon My Take, we have a twofer for the people, a great NBA preview for the

playoffs.

We have head coach of the Denver Nuggets, Mike Malone, who we had on last year.

Great guy.

Great interview.

Michael Malone. Michael Malone.
Whoa. I already fucked it up.
Michael Malone. We said we would protect him.
And then we also have head coach of the Boston Celtics, Joe Mazzula, who I'll just say must listen to interview because he won us all over. He's the man.
Yeah. We're going to talk play-ins.
We're going to get Hank's draft big board. He actually came through with it.
Just QBs? QB big board. I thought it was top 10.
No. It was top 10.
I was replacing Billy's QB bracket. Oh, okay.
All right. So we're going to get his QB big board.
He's watched the film. We got Fyre Fest and we're going to do a redemption pick with Mr.
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Okay, let's go. to be done.
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Today is Friday, April 19th and pft you like that the heart you like that i do like it because if you if you like that there's gonna be more of that coming i love you yeah i love that that's how greg doyle wishes that interaction had gone yeah he's like i'm in love with you sir yeah we're gonna talk about the plans but we have to talk about greg doyle and the most cringeworthy press conference i've ever seen which if you didn't hear can we actually put in the audio i don't know i don't think we should do that to the people yeah we're gonna put in the audio oh no this is greg doyle uh talking to caitlin clarker introductory uh press conference i don't even know like i've watched it so many times i've cringed every single time he went he did the heart emoji to caitlin clark asked if caitlin liked it and then followed up with uh one of the weirdest things ever uh when he said okay we'll start doing that to me and we'll get along just fine and then and then he uh then he then he wrote a column on it yeah and then he apologized in his column with maybe a weirder column no it wasn't as weird as the heart thing but it was almost as weird in the column he was it was just all about him and how weird he is yeah so i'm gonna read just part of it for you here okay he said what happened was the most me thing ever in one way but by the way right off the bat like him saying well that's just that's just kind of who i am i'm just greg with three g's i'm just just Greg being Greg. That's all.
He says, I'm sort of known locally, comma, sigh, comma. Oh.
Writing out the word sigh. Oh.
I'm sort of known locally, sigh, for having awkward conversations with people before asking brashly conversational questions. That's his problem.
The conversation was too brashly controversial. conversational conversational questions he's brashly conversational yeah brashly conversational good character trait to have for a reporter yeah by the way i've done this for years with colts coaches chuck pagano frank reich and shane steichen i've done it with purdue players carson edwards and zach edie I did it with I use Romeo Lankford talking

to them as people not as athletes notice something about all those names um they all

people they're all people they're all men oh shit so he doesn't know how to talk to a woman

I think that that part was clear oh we didn't need yeah we didn't need you to write a column

that you don't know how to talk to a woman and then he said that he went through all the stages

of grief excuse me the first two stages of grief after this happened. Okay.
Mourning his own passing on as an interviewer, I guess. Brashly conversational.
He said, denial. I didn't do anything wrong.
I gave Caitlyn her signature heart-shaped hand gesture as a way of introducing myself and welcoming Mert to town. I did this during a nationally televised press conference.
What kind of idiot acts creepy on national television? Me. And then he was in anger and he said, this is how I talk to everyone.
This is how I, uh, the male equivalent would be talking to, uh, Anthony Richardson. I have shown him the heart gesture and reiterated.
I like that you're here. Oh, and then he, but then don't worry.
He had a conversation with a woman. a woman oh thank god so he talked to a woman greg doyle he talked to a woman uh someone that he trusts that's close to him and they told him that you can't talk that way to a young woman there's a line and he crossed it i now realize what i said and how i said it was wrong wrong wrong i mean it was just wrong caitlin clark i'm so sorry oh so you know what the craziest part is he had another p part in that press conference that was almost equally as cringeworthy where he asked the indiana fever head coach he said so you get the keys to that what are you gonna do with it you'll be able to drive that thing i mean it was that was it like that would have led every story but then he obviously did the heart thing do that what was it wait okay we'll start doing that to me and we'll get along just fine he asked the coach like that might be too much woman for you yeah you have a key set of that damn what i wouldn't think over take that thing out for a spin it was it was very strange although it did make me think that when the bears draft caleb williams you should go to his press conference and show your fingernails.
Yeah. You like that? Be like, if you come cry in my arms after a loss, we'll be just fine.
Yeah, if you paint my fingernails, Caleb, we'll get along just fine. So it's obviously not the worst thing that's been done.
It's probably the most cringeworthy thing that's been done. But the problem with Greg Doyle is he is one of the captains of the Sk kings online.
So when you're a scold king and you mess up, we get to dunk on you, buddy. We get to dunk on you over and over and over and over again.
And it was great because you're a fucking idiot. And that was so cringeworthy.
You like that? Do more of that. What he should have done.
He should just disassociate himself from that conversation and then wrote a column pretending it was somebody that he doesn't like that said that. He should have pretended it was Dan Dockage did that to Caitlin Clark and then write the column about Dan Dockage and then do find and replace and substitute Greg Doyle in for everything.
Dan Dockage is getting to do a well-deserved victory tour because he's had a long, long history with Greg Doyle.

My ass.

My ass.

Also, Greg Doyle, he had, I think, his old tweets started to resurface.

And here's one from 7, 8, 2010, which I, listen, I don't love the old tweets thing, but again, he is the scold king.

He is the person who would do this to other people.

Yes.

He would be like, cancel this person for saying this 2010 was was truly though agree everyone a way long ago again i'm not i'm not judging on the tweet i'm judging on the cringeworthy press conference but i just wanted to share it with you just realized my lebron column references masturbation gang bangs and oral sex damn i'm twisted that was the decision was the decision. That was the decision.
That was the decision? Yeah. Calling yourself twisted is actually the worst part of this.
I've got a twisted sense of humor. I'm so twisted.
I'm kind of edgy sometimes when I talk about LeBron. Yeah.
Warning bangs. He's the kind of guy that would put a warning at the start of his call.
Warning. This column contains some serious hot takes.
If that offends you,ends you click the backwards button warning this author has been accused of being twisted by himself and then he does the uh the emoji the old school emoji where it's the uh i guess that would be the greater than sign and then the colon and then the smiley face so it looks like a guy that's smiling but he's he knows that he's just said something that's a little bit out of bounds damn you like that do more of that and we'll get along just fine it's so fucking weird all right we had to lead the show with that because i've just been laughing again it comes down to the fact that he remember we talked about him a couple weeks ago because he had the column after Purdue lost the national championship game that essentially Danny Hurley is an asshole and Purdue has all the class. Yeah.
That's where we're coming from with this twisted mind of Greg Doyle. Yeah, Greg Doyle.
And then Caitlin Clark got a shoe deal announced right after that for eight figures, which is I think now she's going to be paid more than she was at Iowa officially, right? So she's making upwards of what? What do you think eight figures is? 10. Somewhere between 10 and 99.
Yeah. I am enjoying the burning brush fire, tire fire online right now of just a bunch of people getting in debates about the economics of a league and no one actually having any expertise on it yeah it's very fun yeah it is people are are showing that they don't understand how uh how the economy works yeah it's because some people are saying that the wmba players are paid too low and then they're comparing them uh to nba players and showing what percentage of revenue the players get in the nba or how much money they get.
Way less. But NBA players obviously make way more money than WNBA players, but the league revenue is much higher.
So at the same time, they're making the argument that NBA players should actually be paid more for what they're bringing, but their salaries are artificially deflated by the collective bargaining agreement that they have. So it's just...

NBA players are fine.

No, I'm saying they make good money,

but if you were to see the percentage in league revenue compared to salaries...

It's just a fun...

The NBA also brings in a fuckload of money.

Everyone's going after everyone.

I've just been diving into...

You've seen Ravel?

Yeah, Ravel is just sticking with his,

that Caitlin Clark would have had a shoe deal at Iowa and all this stuff. we also had i saw real quick with revel his new company when i first saw his company yeah i thought it was called clit yeah i thought the name of his company was clit you're twisted i'm a little bit twisted but i you see i know it's got an extra c in there yeah but every time i see it i'm just like darren revel owns the clit yeah it's yeah he does he owns the clit we've been there but it's got an extra C in there.
Yeah. But every time I see it, I'm just like, Darren Revelle owns the clit.
Yeah. Yeah, he does.
He owns the clit. But it's just been every, it's basically the Avengers of the internet just going at each other.
Like Jamel Hill was going at Doug Gottlieb, which that's a fun fight. Then someone was calling him Gottdweeb, which I loved.
Like this is just the kind of stuff that's going on right now. All because of Caitlin, when we really should be focusing on Greg Doyle doing the heart.
Jemele Hill has the race card and then Doug Gottlieb stole it. Yeah, exactly.
But he wrote an apology. Yes.
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All right. Playing games.
The Chicago Bulls have advanced to the Friday night game, and the Philadelphia 76ers are officially inside the playoffs. Congratulations, Max.
Congratulations, Max. You made it.
We'll get to Mr. Pear later.
But, Max, thoughts on the game? You guys, that was a very classic heat, muck it up, make everyone look bad, almost steal one, but Joel Embiid just starts hitting some threes and the Sixers are going to the playoffs against the Knicks. Yeah, no, that's a game that the Sixers lose 10 times out of 10 with Doc Rivers and last year's team.
Oh. Nick Nurse actually can make an adjustment.
Halftime adjustments were very good. And Nick Batum, absolute beast.
Like, what a performance from Nico Batum. He was a legend.
And shout out to Chicken. Yeah, the free chicken.
Shout out to Free Chicken. Free Chicken turned it all around for years.
Oh, yeah. The stadium was absolutely dead.
They looked like shit. I think Calebin missed two free throws free chicken for the crowd immediate run sixers never looked back after the chicken shout out the chicken yeah that made all the we should do something on this show where free chicken like free a free part of my cheesesteak buffalo chicken cheesesteak yeah hank falls asleep on the podcast yeah i like that or he doesn't wake up uh yeah batum was awesome um i saw a great analogy for for uh nick batum this is from squeaky shooter he said nick batum is the lebron james of tobias harris's yeah okay pretty much perfect yeah no i like that i mean tobias harris still was absolutely terrible yeah i know well that's the thing it's like you expect one thing from Tobias Harris and you get LeBron James Tobias Harris still was absolutely terrible.
Yeah, I know. Well, that's the thing.
It's like you expect one thing from Tobias Harris, and you get LeBron James of Tobias Harris is coming up. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he was awesome. Both sides of the court absolutely kept us in it.
And then Embiid at the end of the game, finally, he has a good moment in a must-win game that those last three possessions where he went three and one, and then the pass to, to Ubre to get another and one. Now I have to ask this question, Max.
So the Sixers are favored in the series against the Knicks. Giannis, we don't know when he's going to come back and play.
That might be a problem for the bucks against the Pacers in their first round matchup. Is the East opening up for the Sixers? No.
I mean, the Knicks are a really good team. The Nova Knicks, it hurts that I'm going to have to go against my boys like this.
But it's kind of opening up for the Sixers. Yeah.
It's all about Embiid's health. You can even see last night that he wasn't at 100%.
He gutted it out towards the end, but it's a long playoff. It's a long playoff.
Sixers and five, right? I no longer think Sixers and five. I do think the Sixers will win.
You forgot about the Nova Cats. The Nova Cats or the Nova Knicks.
Also, Max, you brought up a good point. Embiid finally has a big moment in a playoff game.
Unfortunately, the playing games do not count at all. I didn't say playoff game.
I said must win. Oh, must win, but it doesn't count.
So it actually doesn't. He didn't have that.
No, he did. No, none of these stats.
Yeah, the record books will never show that. We've talked about this for three years.
I watched it. Kobe White had his career high in 42 points.
Does not count. I watched it.
But the stats don't exist. Playing game legend.
Yeah, I guess. I think once a playing game happens, you have to pretend it never happened.
It's also, by definition, not a must win. If they had lost this game, they would have gotten to play another game.
Good point. But that was such a game that everyone was so dialed in to be like, uh-oh, playoff Embiid's back.
He struggled with the playoffs. He still doesn't understand.
I mean, that would be the narrative right now. He still doesn't understand.
That would be the narrative right now. It was not a must win.
BFT, he still doesn't understand. Still doesn't get it.
Still doesn't get it. Max, I'm with you that I've been buying in on the Sixers.
Because if you look at the bracket and look how it shakes out for them, for the reasons we just went through, Hank, because Giannis is going to be limited, plus they have Doc Rivers, and then the Knicks, they don't have Randle, and they're a 500 team without Randle. So it feels like the Sixers get in a bead back.
I was very high on the Sixers. That first half especially, though, last night, did not make me confident in them.
Yeah, no, but that's the heat coming in with a good game plan, making things sloppy. You're going to have bad halves of basketball like that, but it's good to see them bounce back for once.
We've had halves like that against the Celtics, and then they just win by 50. Like bad first halves, they look sloppy, and then they just give up.
And it was nice to see that they didn't give up. They made an adjustment, looked good in half switch some things up put tobias harris on the bench put nick patum in the in the rotation it was it was good to see it was good to see it and be you can get a little bit more healthy max he didn't have his a game only things are looking up things are looking up okay hank from your perspective i'm curious to know as a boston fan who would you rather play in the first round The Bulls.
The Bull want to go to a game and you want to punish me why the bulls uh no i mean the heat obviously you know have had success against us no jimmy butler no i know but still it's like you just don't just don't mess about the heat yeah don't mess with it if you play the bulls it's much better i can go to a couple games dick had said he's going to come with me yeah um i'd much rather play did he say that yeah i said i did actually say i would go to one game um the you just want the free win which it would be a free win but that's okay yeah and it's like just don't don't tempt fate like you just want the free win i just want the free win and i'm and i want to go to a game i'm stuck in a spot where the bulls were awesome against hawks who are an unserious organization that just don't they don't believe in defense they do not believe in defense also Trey Young is their quote-unquote best player the only time I was nervous during that game was when Trey Young was on the bench uh because that's when they kind of came back in the game a little bit and it's I'm stuck because I love Kobe White he was awesome I owe come back he was awesome uh DeMar DeRozan is one of the most likable guys out there. Played the most minutes in the league.
Yeah, I mean, he's the best. And they try so hard, and they don't have a ton of talent.
And so when they get on the court, I'm like, I want these guys to win. But then I remember that Jerry Reinsdorf likes nothing more than getting a couple extra playoff game ticket gates for a team that has no chance of winning.
But at least he's going to contribute that money towards his other organization, the White Sox. Well, actually, unfortunately, for the future of the Bulls and the White Sox, Jerry Reinsdorf probably spent all the money last night because he got C-Red towels for everyone on their seats and Red Panda.
Oh, Red Panda's coming.

That budget is probably blown.

Yeah.

It's probably.

He knows what the fans want.

Yeah, it is a very shitty situation where it's like,

I know they're not good enough.

They could maybe win a game against the Celtics.

And I also know that Jerry Reinsdorf,

nothing would make him happier than being like,

see, we made the playoffs and we got two extra games at home to make money.

But then they get on the court. And those guys, it's hard not to root for those guys who are trying really hard yeah kobe white seems like a good dude to root for oh he was awesome awesome and and yeah and demar de rosen is the best like he's just he's the best so we'll see what happens on friday night we'll see what happened no jimmy butler probably no alex caruso i'm i i honestly honestly just if my if I had to give you my take on the game it's going to be a one possession game with three minutes left then who the fuck knows how about Jimmy Butler playing though yeah like playing on a sprained MCL yeah pretty impressive but then it swells up it gets worse so he's probably out for the playoffs yeah they said two to three weeks so damn oh it's just all breaking for Hank he's's just got that hank smile on his face all right you know what let me get this hank smile off your face oh no no no no no your football owner's a fucking dickhead yeah so the report comes out after the dynasty documentary where robert craft does an entire 10-part documentary essentially tearing down bill Belichick.
We're like, all right, enough, enough, enough. The report comes out that Bill Belichick, part of the reason why he didn't get a job this year was Robert Kraft called Arthur Blank and essentially was like, he's really difficult to deal with.
Don't hire him. So in the response to it, I think the Krafts said that they did not say anything negative about Belichick during that interview process.
But owners might talk behind the scenes over the course of a frustrating season. It would have been funny if he just came out and he's like, I did not say anything to Arthur Blank.
All communication with Arthur Blank was done through Kraft LLC. Yeah, not my words.
Not my words. So where are you? This tough because it does feel like robert craft is like kicking a dead body at this point like why why would you go that extra mile like the breakup happens why go the extra mile and make sure that he doesn't get another job that's crazy to me yeah i feel like he they're like it's kind of the same thing with brady where they in the documentary they made it seem like you know brady just wanted like some attaboys and some some thank yous like it was probably the same with craft where he felt slighted for whatever reason just ego but what and belichick's not the type of guy to be like thank you so much robert like and kind of kiss the ring because he was giving him the rings yeah um but he's he sounds like a a a scorned X.
Yeah, he's had a bad offseason, I would say. It hasn't gone exactly how he thought it would go.
And he's entering territory where it's like he's going to start getting, like, booze, which is insane. But, like, he has set himself up for that where they're going to do an event maybe, like, it's like Tom Brady.
Like, the Tom Brady, they're doing Tom Brady Day 6-12. And I think they're giving him a statue or whatever at Gillette.

And I could see there being like booze or something where like that's going to rattle him. But he's done it to himself.

And it happens in sports from time to time where the owner deludes themselves

and thinks that they actually are what fans are rooting for.

It's like that's just never the case.

It was always Brady and Belichick.

It's never the case. And yeah, I don't – it sucks because now, I mean, he's set himself up for disaster because it's like, they have a four and a half win total over under this year.
They're not going to be good and everyone's just going to come at his neck. Oh, that statue unveiling is going to be a big day for you, though.
You have to nail that one. Yeah, they got to give him a bigger statue than AI.
I mean, they'll do them they'll do it right yeah the ai statue that was no that was bullshit no that was bullshit tiny little statue every single tiny little statue if i listen as a fan of the commanders we if there's one thing that we can do well that's honor our former players with statues correct and that ai statue was garbage that's every statue that goes into the garbage so they're all garbage but why why does Rocky get such a big statue? And why? Because it's not in front of the practice facility. Rocky's not even real.
Yeah. It's not in front of the practice facility.
This was like a bad take that the internet didn't know that all the other statues in front of that facility existed. And then they were like, fuck.
Are you saying we don't know statues? I'm sticking with the take. Why don't they just get bigger statues for everyone? They just don't value anything.
Also, why do they unveil it that way? It's an aesthetic. Yeah, but don't unveil it that way.
You guys don't know architecture. Don't unveil it that way then.
Don't do the fucking reveal like that when it's like, oh. Why did AI seem so surprised? Yeah, he was shocked.
AI is always surprised. No, it's not architecture.
It's a statue. It's not a building we're talking about.
It's an aesthetic. You don't appreciate the greatness that Allen Iverson brought to the city of Philadelphia.
Landscaping architecture. Of course, come on.
I grew up on AI. That was like the first fan I ever was of anyone.
Landscaping and architecture. Yeah.
Landscaping architecture. I think that's a thing.
You weren't a fan of your dad first? First jersey I ever bought was a... I don't know.
That was the first jersey I had, too. I also had a Brett Favre jersey.
Wayne Corbett. Do you ever take a picture in that Brett Favre jersey with your cock out? I was like four.
So probably. Honestly, yeah.
Probably the same size as Brett, too.

I was a naked boy, too.

I was a boy who loved to be naked.

Big meaty clankers.

Oh, naked Max.

Quick break.

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It's going to be awesome. Back to the show.
All right, so hank uh you have your draft prep because we have draft week coming up we have top mcshay coming on the show on monday and then we have daniel jeremiah on wednesday do you have your draft prep ready yes or internally yes okay this is a big occasion for you how do you want me to actually or do you... One of these guys is going to be your quarterback.
Yeah, so I broke down the film for everyone. I didn't...
I mean, I can rank them right now. I have just kind of notes on everyone, and I do have my consensus of who I would prefer the Patriots to take.
Your own consensus? Your personal consensus? Well, yeah. You can trust the analysts out there, but until you make your own decision...
Do you know what a consensus is, though? Yeah, it's me, myself, and I came to a consensus. All right, so do it in order then, right? Yeah, do it in reverse order so we can get the unveil of number one.
So start at the bottom and then go to one. Okay.
J.J. McCarthy.
He's the bottom. He's the bottom.
He's the bottom of this entire exercise. So Michael Pratt is ahead of him.
Spencer Rattler is ahead of him. Oh, I just did that.
I thought I was going for the people the Patriots are going after. Oh.
Top five. Oh.
Okay. So top five.
I'm not worried. Like, it's number five.
I thought we were getting all the quarterbacks. The Patriots aren't drafting Spencer Rattler at three.
Why not? Yeah, why not? Because that's just not good. You wouldn't know.
You didn't watch the tape. I think he's dating Caelan Clark.
I saw Instagram comments. Definitely not.
Okay. Maybe not.
Greg Doyle is dating Caelan Clark in his head. All right.
So wait, Hank, you have your top five, which means that you must have watched the film on the other quarterbacks if you knew that these were the top five. Good point, PFT.
What's the other quarterbacks I'm supposed to watch? Michael Penix. Watch him.
Bo Nix. Didn't watch him.
Bo Nix. Who is Bo Nix? No, where is Bo Nix projected to go? Probably could be a first rounder, probably a second rounder.

Okay.

Probably should have watched him.

Okay.

I got Bo Nix.

I mean, I got Michael Pennington Jr., J.J. McCarthy, Drake May, Jaden Daniels.

Okay.

Sorry.

So, J.J.'s your fifth.

J.J.'s my fifth.

And what are your notes?

Short throws.

Okay.

Everything across the middle, but throws it well across the middle.

Okay.

Better zip than Drake May.

That was a big contributing factor. Okay.
I really care about the zip and how quickly the ball comes out. Okay.
Gutsy runs, big ball sack. Okay.
Okay. All right.
Number four. Wait, wait.
But those are all positive traits. Why is he ranked number five? What's his downside? These other guys must be incredible.
He doesn't throw. He didn't see any long balls or all the long balls are wide open.
Short throws. Short throws.
He was, it's a, which again, you know, you kind of watch it. It's like he seemed like he was a game manager, system quarterback.
How long was the YouTube video that you watched? 13 minutes. Okay.
All right. That's a good amount of film.
Number four. It's Drake May.
Oh. He slid.
He's deceptively fast okay quite quicker than i expected uh great at selling pump fakes that's good sliding he's smart uh jane daniels there's a lot of runs he's taking a lot of hits drake may a lot of slides like gets out of the pocket moves around well but slides knows knows when to slide that's good youise quarterback. You want him there for a long time.
Can't be taking big hits. Does he try to kick his opponents in the balls when he slides? I didn't see any of that.
Okay, because that would be a good system fit for you guys. Well, no, we got rid of him.
And that was Robert Kraft. Belichick wanted him out.
Quick feet. Okay.
But this was the biggest deterrent and and the thing that i see happening the most the ball seems very heavy in his hands oh so he's got weak wrists maybe it just it just seems like it takes him a long time to get the ball up and out and it seems like he's putting a lot of effort into throwing it it seemed you know he's playing in the acc the film that i was watching if you're you know simulating nfl guys coming at him it seems like he's going to take a lot of hits. These guys are coming at him.
He's not going to be able to get the ball out fast enough because it's heavy in his hands. Ball heavy in his hands.
How do you like his frame? It's a little short, but good frame. No issues with his frame.
I don't think he's that short. Remember that picture you took with Sam Howell? He's actually 6'4".
Looks short in the film that I was watching. Okay, all right.
But yeah, that was... The ball seemed...
I want to see a QB... No world short.
That's the perfect size for a quarterback. Yeah, no, I guess if...
You know what? If he was doing which quarterback could play in the NBA, 6'4 would be short. But if he was that big, you'd think that he would be able to just zip the ball out.
It's heavy in his hands. Okay, got it.
Memes had this exact same take. Heavy in his hands? No.
He he was like he was like drake may's too short to be a good quarterback and i looked it up i was like he's 6'4 and he's like well he looks short okay like we had this exact conversation short energy he plays shorter than his body okay all right next uh michael pennix jr i think he he the only reason he's he's this far up is just because he's a lefty i'll i'll say that. Bias, lefty bias.
I would just love to have a lefty quarterback leading my franchise as a lefty myself. So beautiful throwing motion.
Accurate. Does a little bit of a heavier ball as well.
A little slower coming out. Seems a little bit interception prone.
A lot of throws off his back foot, which, again, you're trying to simulate how this would look in the nfl guys coming at him if he has time to set his feet he's accurate but it seems like he will kind of you know get a little wild throw off his back foot throw a duck he does the fadeaways but the thing about his fadeaways are they're insanely accurate like he will put the ball on a dime on an out route even though he's falling away from the ball but that's one of those things when you're you know playing in college and you're the guy that works when you're playing the nfl and everyone's fast that's not going to work yeah but he's a lefty so he he got bumped up above drake may yeah i think lefties look good in college but they look like witches in the nfl yeah two of them too good or bad it's good okay and yeah uh j Is number two. Or no, that was.
Caleb Williams is number one. Oh.
Nice. Okay.
Jane Daniels. I didn't even watch.
I just. We're not.
You told me a million times we're not taking Caleb Williams. I was thinking of this as just like.
Patriots. Patriots.
Yeah. Jane Daniels throwing on the move.
Great. Great on the move.
Quick feet. Gets out of the pocket.
Maneuvers sacks and stuff well. Does take a lot of hits.
Little Josh Allen. Smaller though than Josh Allen.
That's definitely a concern. Again, franchise quarterback.
You want this guy as your QB for 10-15 years. He scrambles a lot.
takes a lot of hits. That's a concern.
But great, fantastic, the best QB I've seen at hitting the sideline in the corner of the end zone. Oh, okay.
Like J.J. McCarthy just throws everything over the middle.
J.J. Daniels, deadly accurate to the corner of the end zone, deadly accurate to the sideline.
That's huge in the NFL. That's the thing thing i like the most what about his elbow elbow is weird but dang him i definitely dig him for the elbow and and again it's like if you get hit and you get hit in the elbow then what it's feeling yeah this is um you could see his bone coming out of his arm this has been a great exercise for one reason um hank has just realizing, admitted that he really wishes he could have

both of our quarterbacks.

And also said that the quarterback

that he's most likely going to get

is ranked either fourth or fifth.

So I love this exercise.

This won't hurt.

Is Ryan Thomas Jr. in the draft?

Was another question I had.

Because he's a stud.

What are we, Google?

No, I guess I didn't do my follow-up.

These are just the notes I was writing as I was watching this.

I don't believe so.

But you want him?

Yeah, I mean, his receivers, I think all of his deep balls were just wide open.

I think that's a receiver talent thing.

If it were up to me.

No, he's not. Wait.
I think we talked about him with McShay. Brian Thomas? Brian Thomas.
Brian Thomas, yeah. Maybe it's Brian.
I was hearing. He said Ryan.
You said Ryan. He just said Ryan.
I was listening to the video. Oh.
So it probably was Brian. It is Brian.
Okay, stud. Wait a minute.
He is in the draft. You didn't watch? You just listened to the tape.
I'm saying they didn't have fucking subtitles. I was like Brian, like touchdown, Ryan Thomas, Brian Thomas.
I heard Ryan, but clearly it's Brian. That guy's a stud.
This is the best draft preview ever. If it were up to me, Marvin Harrison Jr.
trade up Michael Penix. That's my best-case scenario draft.

Okay, so you draft Marvin Harrison third overall.

Yep.

And then you trade up to what?

I don't know.

To get Ryan Thomas.

To get Penix Jr.

Got it.

Penix Jr.

Probably top 10.

Is he projected to go top 10?

Probably not.

Maybe.

It depends on if there's a run on quarterbacks. I thought he was late first round.
But it happens from time to time when there's a bunch of first-round graded quarterbacks. Once a few of them get drafted, then teams start to freak out, and that's how we ended up with, like, who is it? Brandon Whedon getting drafted in the first round.
Yeah, but teams might have gotten smarter because, like, Will Levis fell because it was like, all right, everyone can just wait and get him in the second round. But there is that phenomenon of wanting to get that extra year of control too.
Yeah. Like the Lamar Jackson trading back up into 32 and getting him.
So that's my analysis. I guess I'll watch some more film.
Maybe there's other guys that they could trade up for the Spencer Radlers. Yeah.
He just – we just did an entire exercise where he's like, I really want PFT and Big Cat's quarterback. So you have Caleb number one, Jaden Daniels number two.
Yeah. And then a long – Sounds like there's a big gap there.
Big gap. Panic shooter.
Panic shooter. Big gap.
Yeah. Drake May, J.J.
McCarthy. Probably undraftable.
But strength – no, Drake May can be good. He's just got to grow.
He can get some strength there. Yeah, he can do some bicep curls.
He just looks like he's throwing a medicine ball. Yeah.
He would look short in that Patriots uniform, too. Did you watch any of the games that he played in the rain? Is that maybe part of this? I didn't see many of those on the tape I was watching.
Literal heavy ball. All right, this was great.
Do we have anything else before we get to our interviews? This was great. Yeah.
Oh, Jontae Porter, he's gone. Yeah, he was gambling.
He was betting against the Raptors in some games. Yeah, like betting on them to lose.
What if this was Jokic? I don't think he'd be banned for life. But I also don't think Jokic would ever do it because he's making enough money that that would be the dumbest thing ever.
That's why it happened is he's a fringe guy. NBA money is so ridiculous.
I don't think he was getting that much money. The crazy thing is he was betting parlays against himself.
So he was betting the unders and rebounds. I forget what else.
Maybe assists, points.

And he put down 80 grand to win, I think, $1.1 million on a Jonte Porter under parlay. Yeah.
And it hit, obviously, because he was controlling it. And then the sportsbook was like, well, we're just definitely not going to pay this out.
One of the dumbest things ever. One of the dumbest ways to go about it.
How much do you think that that sportsbook see on any given night on jonte porter prop bets in general right it's probably nowhere close to eighty thousand dollars ever yeah he was on a two-way hank so he was getting nothing i mean they had to do it i i think that's the right move like you can't have someone betting on against yourself yeah so if had been different, if he had bet his overs in a parlay and if he had bet on his team to win and that had that had actually happened, what do you think the punishment would have been? Probably similar because he's a fringe guy. It's also he was telling other people to like he was using proxies to bet him, which that is very, very bad because then it's just the integrity of the game so i yeah the nba probably had to do it and it also i know people will then make an argument about gambling and like the legalization gambling without the legalization of gambling this probably never gets caught yeah yeah now you could every sports book has things in place where they see these like giant anomalies yeah and then they flag them to the league i wouldn't be shocked if there is maybe a little bit of a correction where some of the uh fringe players don't have props on a night-to-night basis that would make sense just because those are the guys like yokich would never do this because he's making hundreds of millions of dollars but a guy who's the 10th man on a bench who knows that if he bets something

checks into a game for a minute and then comes out he can win that is i i can understand where people like this is kind of a weird area where it can be manipulated yeah i like his excuse too he was saying that he had like a headache or his eye hurt yeah to come out of the game hit in the shoulder and then he's like my eye yeah my eye hurts my eye hurts so bad i can't play anymore coach can't play uh okay let's get to our interviews incredible interviews we got Joe Missoula Boston Celtics head coach wins us over big time and then we have Michael Malone Denver Nuggets head coach we had him on last year great interview great guy uh and then we'll do Fyre Fest and we'll have Mr. Pear come back out here before we Coach Missoula, Coors Light, there are plenty of chances in life to make things better by choosing chill.
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CoorsLight.com slash take. Okay, here he is, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzula.
Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzula.
Getting ready for the playoffs. The number one seed.
The best team in the NBA in the regular season this year. Coach, let's start there.
How are we feeling just vibes going into the playoffs because you've been coaching a team that knew they were the number one seed for a long time, knew that you were in the playoffs for a very long time. How are we feeling knowing that this is the start of the new season? Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on a great point there, the balance of you have to understand that you're a really good team, but you got to understand that like none of that really matters as much anymore because everyone's got the same record.
You know, we're all zero and zero and every series takes on a life of its own. So we've had a really good week of practice.
I think it was good for us. You know, a couple of those games that we had at the end of the season that didn't necessarily go our way.
But I thought we handled the regular season about as well as you can from a mental standpoint. And we got to go into the playoffs with that same balance.
We are a really good team, but we can lose at any time if we don't do the little things. And so it's important to have that mindset.
Yeah. Do people think that this season's been easy for you guys just because you've had so much success? Is that something that kind of gets lost in it, that it has been a grind? Yeah.
I mean, I think obviously on the outside, it probably looks as like, you know, we didn't hit a ton of adversity or, you know, we only had two game losing streaks. It could look that way, but, you know, I kind of said this a few times, it can be just as hard handling winning as anything else because you can get complacent.
You know, you could get prideful. you could take the details for granted and I thought like the the coolest part about our guys this year is they never took winning for granted I thought they handled it really well like every film session every walk through every practice we had there was a high level of attention to detail and execution and like even though we were winning the guys wanted to grow and get better I think that says a lot about just who they are as players.
Yeah. All right, so enough of the cliche basketball talk.
Let's get to the real interview. When was the last time you were choked out? The day after we lost to Atlanta.
I kind of punished myself there. I took it really hard on myself.
So can you explain the jujitsu? Because that story came out last year. It seemed really cool because it's like just learning about other guys in the height of their profession.
They have these hobbies. You have a jujitsu instructor who, for a while, you didn't know lived in Colorado and would come at the drop of a hat and do jujitsu sessions with you.
And also he talked about feeling the pressure of playoff basketball and it's similar to being in a chokehold. So you're just, you're just getting choked out by this guy who's flying in.
You have a guy flying in to choke you out. So we'll start there.
So when I, the coolest part about, you know, becoming the head coach of the Celtics and like, you know, achieving your dream at a relatively young age, you kind of look back and you look at all the stuff that you regret. And so like two of my biggest, not biggest regrets, but like two things I wish I stuck with were chess and martial arts.
So I did those as a kid growing up. And, you know, once my dad passed and my kids started to get older, I started to like rekindle the passions of the arts, like chess, piano, martial arts.
And I started to rekindle those with my kids. And then I get the job and I'm like, all right, like, you know, coaching the Celtics, you're in a fucking fight every day.
Like, so let's just simulate that. And I was like, let's rekindle my love of the arts.
And so, you know, my assistant and I, we find a jujitsu instructor and I fell in love with this guy like right away. So apparently he was in Denver when we called his office was in Boston, but he was living in Denver because of COVID.
And we were like, can you come by the house tomorrow for like an initial training session? And he just was like, this is a, you know, apparently this is the head coach for the Celtics. It's like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I'll be there tomorrow.

So this guy gets on a red eye and shows up to my house, full gi, black belt, like standing in the driveway. That's amazing.
In the driveway. Like we have our first lesson in the guest house, in the guest room of our apartment.
and from then on in he he's the guy that i go to to help simulate the stress the pressure

the anxiety like all the shit that you've got to be able to overcome. Like if you're not doing that as a person, then you can't do it as a coach.
And like and I like I give my players, our players so much credit, like being in the arena all the time. Like I feel like one of the ways I can connect with them is by feeling like them.
So like on a day where if it's a back to back, hey, I just train too. So like I'm tired too.
So it gives me a way to connect with the guys, but it gives me a way of being empathetic. Like I know what they're going through.
No coach understands what their players go through, what they sacrifice physically and mentally. So if I can get the shit kicked out of me from time to time, that's only going to help me get better.
Yeah. I like that strategy a lot.
And for listeners out there, do not look up online guys to fly in to come choke me out. That's a bad Google search to have on your history.
We lose the Atlanta game, right? We blow the 30-part B and I'm just pissed, right? So I go to the gym. We find a gym in most cities.
And for like two hours, we're just like – I still got a little piece of like the black eye from it yeah so do you do that um i mean i i appreciate what you said about how you want to put yourself through strenuous situations so you can empathize with your players and be tired just like they are do you find that the more you get put in those situations where you're either getting the crap kicked out of you are you getting choked out uh you're able to stay calm in those moments. And that translates to being in a game in high pressure situations.
Yeah. So like one of the things our Alex does, he's tremendous is he finds these concepts and themes that correlate to competition in general.
Right. And so one of the themes is like most people tap before it actually, like before the submission actually hurts.
Right. It's like the fear of being in the submission is when you tap and so like that can be applicable to handling uh championship expectations or success or being in a tough spot and like you know thinking that you can't get yourself out of it so you know it's a little dark but like one of the things in most submissions is you do want to find a comfort level because there usually is a way out you just can't see the way out because of the stress that you're under or because of the panic that you're under.
So like you're breathing skyrockets and you don't even notice the exit strategy because you're in a disadvantaged situation. So that's kind of one of the concepts that we work on is like, okay, you know, you're in this disadvantage.
Can you recognize the exits? Can you recognize the contingency plan, you know, using your, the details and the skill. That's badass.
I would have tapped out the minute he showed up in my driveway. I'd have been like, all right, never mind.
I'm tapping out. If a man with a black belt and a gi is knocking on my door, I would just move.
Yeah, just start tapping immediately. Two of the other cool themes are like the closer you are to winning, the closer you are to losing, Right.
So like you saw it at UFC 300 where Jalen Turner knocks the guy down, walks away and then loses next round. And then you see, you know, when Wei Li Zhang like pretty much chokes her out.
And most people can't handle the fact that you think you beat your opponent, but now you still have to fight them. Oh, yeah.
That's a major mindset shift in a game of like, okay, they look like they're dead, but they come back to life. How do you shift your mentality to keep winning? Or in Jalen Turner's case, you knocked a guy down, but he gets back up.
Now your expectations haven't been met. Yeah.
So we work a ton of those situations, you know, one minute left in the round, you're in a disadvantaged situation. You got to get yourself out of it.
Or like one minute left in the round, you got to go for the kill. Like you've got to find a submission because if you don't, if you give your opponent life, then, you know, he could come back and kill you.
That's, I mean, it's genius. You can see how applicable that is to basketball, especially a seven game series where there are those ebbs and flows where it's like a team goes up to oh and you're like all right they won and that's just not how it works it just always there's always a wrinkle and a team can get momentum back um yeah wow all right that was a i mean it does it sounds like sun su you mentioned before we started taping you read art of war or do you take like we listen to art of war when we train oh what's what's an art of war lesson that you can apply to basketball also one we use with our offense like with the guys is now this is i don't you know this is obviously different from when he wrote it but like there's only five musical notes there's only five primary colors and mixing all those together you know having the simplicity of only five but when you add get this beautiful, uh, you know, this, this array of colors of the beautiful music, uh, using simplicity to, to, you know, get complexity out of it.
Um, and really just like how you view your opponents. Like you have to have the ultimate respect.
The most respectful thing you can do for your opponent, uh, is understand that they can beat you at any time. Yeah.
But you can't have too much respect, right?

I think it's a balance and it kind of talks about our team.

So when we were fighting the first couple of months, once we started fighting, he stopped

around and he was like, you have too much respect for me.

You're better than you think you are.

But because I'm a black belt, you're treating me as if you suck.

He's like, if you believed in yourself and if you knew that you were better than you were, you would actually, you could have tapped me. You could have beat me a couple of times.
And so it was a really cool, like balance of like what humility really is. Like humility isn't like, oh, I suck.
And this guy's a black belt. It's like, you got to find the right balance of knowing like, I'm pretty good, but this guy's better.
I can still, I can win, but he could also beat me. And I thought a major shift in our training was when I didn't have too much respect for him, but I had enough appropriate fear.
You hear a lot of people talk about that. That's a real thing.
By the way, in this room right now, Hank, our producer, is a diehard Celtics fan. He's smiling ear to ear because you can feel it's shifting in the room that pft and i are

becoming huge joe missoula guys yeah minutes into this interview like he can he's he's looking smiling being told you yeah i told you this is my guy all right so so there's very few of those around so i appreciate it yeah uh pft do you want to ask a question about the town or do you want me to well i i had i had a question for i was just going to ask you how much a dollar bill weighs I mean

that's great

I gotta think about that scene right so they're in the box

yeah I had a question for it. I was just going to ask you how much a dollar bill weighs.
Ooh. I mean, that's great.
I got to think about that scene, right? So they're in the bar. Yeah, okay.
It's not even worth its own weight. It's not even worth its own weight.
Do you have it playing behind you right now on a big TV? So let's clarify that. Okay.
So as an assistant, I watched it two, three times a week. Easy.
That's too many. That's too many just so you know well you gotta think like we do most of our work after the games and so like you gotta stay up late at night like i never liked waking up with um work to do from the day before so like when i was an assistant and i would have to turn in my post-game edits i would go home and walk in like just work from like 11 to 1 a.m and so I needed something to like kind of keep me up or keep me going so there was like a three movie shuffle uh that I would turn on in order to get me through the game so that I could get to bed and the town ended up being one of them so like I'm not it's not something that I'm like you know I obsess with to the point where I'm still watching it but that was that was a part of my post-game process that kind of helped me.
Okay. What were the other two movies? Whiplash and The Dark Knight.
Oh. Okay.
Those are good ones. Those are ones where if they're on TV, I will always watch it all the way through.
Yes. If I stumble upon it.
Yeah. But you did.
You have to watch those three movies. Yeah.
I think you're downplaying your obsession with the town just a little bit because you did make t-shirts from the town well i mean like there's so many great like lines from that like the one the one where uh he fought where he finds out that uh dougie mccray's uh sleeping with the uh with the with the bank manager jeremy rennick's like smart i'm blowing the assistant manager am i being smart like he just flips out like like i'll like randomly throughout the day like this company assistants will just like throw phrases out there from the movie like i mean anytime i walk down north end i'm like say your prayers yeah i love that and i would imagine the tie-in with boston probably has a lot to do with with your uh your, too, where it's just like, okay, this makes me feel like a Boston guy watching this. I went to Fenway the other day, and I was literally looking at exit strategies.
Yeah, when I decided to rob Fenway, I was like, we could probably really get away with this. Yeah.
How could you not go to Fenway and think that you couldn't rob it? Yeah. The blueprint is right there.
I was thinking about that this morning, actually. I was just driving.
I was like, fuck, I really want to rob Fenway Park. It would be awesome.
Yeah. And you can't look at our armored truck the same.
No, definitely not. Definitely not.
That G.I. Joe in there where he ties his pants into his bootstraps.
Yeah, that guy. He's a Boy Scout.
Yeah. Are you officially retired from trying to block shots? I got forced into that.
Okay. So for people who don't know, there was the Suns game this year.
The Celts were playing the Suns. And Jalen Brown stole the ball in the backcourt, dunked.
The Suns called the timeout, but they had already advanced the ball. And I can't remember who it was.
It was trying to heave one from about 40 feet. And Joe Mazzula got onto the court and tried to block it after the whistle.
But were you reprimanded for that? I was slightly – a little slap on the wrist. Okay.
So, I mean, I like the energy, though. Like, the guys probably liked it.
I mean, that's out of war at its finest. Like, I don't understand how you could give your opponent any opportunity to feel good about themselves on your half of the turf.
And we've been doing that for two years. Like we do.
It started last year where at Cleveland, Donovan Mitchell took a free throw and one of my assistants just watched them and I berated him. And I was like, bro, what are you doing? Like, you can't allow the best player on the other team to just take a shot in front of.
I don't think there's anything more insulting than allowing your opponent to do that. I mean, and so we just put a stop to it from then on out.
And so we've had about four or five, you know, really, really good closeouts by the staff. And, you know, unfortunately, that one was on, you know, live TV and people saw it.
And, you know, so we can't do it anymore. But it's a gamesmanship thing.
NBA basketball is competitive, and I just think you've got to be able to find any little advantage that you can. So I'm not going to let a guy – and he hadn't been shooting the ball well the entire game, so what if that one kind of gets him the rhythm the rhythm that he needs to make one yeah true what about if a fan takes a shot so hypothetically

if the ball goes into the crowd the guy in the first row gets it and then they want to put up a

shot from the sideline if they're uh if they're on your team if they're hypothetically again a

celtics fan would you want them to shoot it and let it go in absolutely okay because we have

actually a guy that's here that lived out that hypothetical situation. Hank got the ball.
What game was that, Hank? I was Warriors finals game three, I think. Yeah, yeah, but he didn't have the courage to put up a shot.
He did the pump fake on it instead of actually taking the shot. Come on, Hank.
Do you wish he had shot that? Yes. I got Jordan Poole to bite, though.

So he, like, jumped at the pump, right?

Yeah, he was ready to block me.

Yeah, maybe.

You got to shoot that.

You got to shoot that.

Let it be known.

So Hank is a massive fan of yours.

He's a big Celtics fan.

And he's agreed to shave his head and his beard

if the Celtics win the NBA championship this year.

So there's a lot at stake here. Hank, do you have any questions for Coach? Yeah, I got a couple.
I saw J.J. Redick and LeBron were talking about how every player in the league will kind of, when they're down, they'll look up their highlights.
They'll go on YouTube. How often do you look up 2010 West Virginia versus Kentucky Sweet 16? Never.
Never? What? Never. Never.
Oh. That was such a lucky game from my standpoint.
You know the one thing I always try to prevent is like the older you get, the better you were. And I was not good.
17 points, first start, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins? I don't want that to ever become a thing where it's like the older he gets, man, he was such a good player. It's like, no, I wasn't.
I was like the worst player on the court at all times in the Big East. What about how many times did you have to hit Huggy Bear's treadmill? A decent amount.
Yeah. We've had Huggy on a bunch of times, and that treadmill doesn't sound like it was fun.
It depends on what your definition of fun is. My fun is not running.
My fun is being as combative as possible in a high-stress situation. There was a few times where we would exchange words while I was on it, and he wasn't.
I let him know that he wouldn't have been able to run on that treadmill. Yeah, I think you just like depriving your brain of oxygen in any form, whether you're getting choked out or running long distances.
You like getting that runner's high going. It's better than an armbar.
Yeah, true, true. You don't want to get armbar or leg locked.
You don't want to get leg locked. Hank, you got anything else? Yeah, who – you know, vibes are good.
It's after a practice, maybe after a win. Who's the guy on the team that will kind of chirp you the most or like is the most outgoing to try and get a rise out of the other guys on the team? Like who's the guy that will kind of come at you a little bit to get the other guys going? Who are players that come at me? Yeah, like chirp.
Like, you know, it's like after a good practice, after a win, like they're just kind of, you know, they'll chirp you though to kind of get a laugh out of the other guys. They probably do that more when I'm not around.
I think that's probably like the nature of coaching is like, if your team's not making fun of you, then you're not a coach. Probably like, you know, I'm sure they also probably spend zero time thinking of me outside of basketball, which I'd be perfectly fine with also.
But after practice, you know, it's a really cool environment. I've really enjoyed being around guys um you know you what you learn is like you can go to each guy and kind of each guy has their own thing that you can bust balls with you know what i mean like so i try to do that after every practice or shoot around is like just get a quick touch point with the guy and like if it needs to be a serious conversation but i don't really enjoy being serious ever um if not it's like you know what could we bust balls about and so i i really enjoy that so you're like derek like thank god you shaved your head no derek's more like he loves sarcasm so like we'll pick something and just like just stop mocking it with like severe sarcasm i like that i like that like we lose one game and it's like oh my God, how could we ever lose? Or like he'll have like a turnover in a game and I'll be like, bro, what are you thinking? Does Paul Pierce just live at the practice facility? No, but I enjoy having him around.
He comes around a decent amount. He's been good.
We did a little research on you. Maybe some questions that you didn't think that we would ask you.
Uh, those are the ones I love the most. Okay.
Uh, the first one is that your, your dad and you went to a baseball field together when you were a kid and something unusual happened. Would you care to elaborate on that? That is, uh, one of the reasons why I am today.
And I think it's an important thing in society is, uh, the alpha male challenge. It's kind of what me and my brother call it.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. I was myself that day and, uh, he put his money where, you know, he tried to have me put my money where my mouth is.
So it was a little rainy, uh, baseball field on the side of the road, uh, head out there and he closes the gate kind of like where the guys do batting practice. And, just said the winner walks out of here alive.
And did he win or did you win? I mean, so I remember vividly, like it was a little bit of rain. I saw some mud and I really didn't have a plan.
So like my goal was to like get mud thrown in his face and kick him in the nuts. And like, you know, at least like try to, try to you know get him a little bit but he had mud wasn't great catches my heel and then it's just a pulverizing beat down get back in the car and he gave me like the will uh the will farrell old school like if you tell anybody about this i'll kill you alpha male challenge i love it so we end up going to uh we always ate dinner most of the time at my grandmother's house Like typical Italian family So I'm just sitting there like in mud Like sniffing, crying, like just eating my food Like the loser that I was at the time And like just no one's talking to me And I'm just licking my wounds The alpha male challenge is just locking yourself in a fence And fighting your dad Yeah, that's good I like that From Okay.
I like that. Yeah.
What about – From that on in, it was like, you know, you better – if you're going to run your miles, you better be able to handle it. Yeah.
What about the fact that you're a head coach in the NBA, you know, obviously nice contract, very successful, still driving a minivan? That 90,000 miles, I got to get it to 100 Gs. What's up with that? What kind of minivan? I mean, it's a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica.
Okay. Oh, you're putting some miles on that thing.
Damn. Oh, yeah.
It's a nickname, Free Willy. Okay.
I'm shaped like an orca, my favorite animal. Okay.
Oh, that's good. At the time, it made a lot of sense.
I understand why it doesn't now. But, you know, I got to finish it out.
Okay. I like that.
I'll see it through. So once it gets to $100,000, are you getting a new minivan? Are you moving up in the world? It depends.
I haven't really seen something that I like. So it started because we were living in West Virginia, and we were always driving, like, either to Ohio or to, like, you know, beaches around the area, like in Ocean City or, you know, down south.
so it made a lot of sense. Our kids were a little bit young.
And so I was like, and you know, my kids had a bunch of friends living in the area. And so we always had like five, six people around.
So it made sense living in West Virginia. Didn't see all this happening.
Doesn't make as much sense living in the city of Boston, being the head coach. Yeah.
Yeah. I like it though.
That's a to the minivan, going to 100K. If you were to describe it from the outside, black leather interior, automatic doors, TVs in the back, you wouldn't know that it's a minivan.
Town always on for your kids. Yeah.
I like that. I like that a lot.
It's a good car, yeah. Hank, you have any more questions for Coach? I got a tip for Coach while you think about it Hank I'll take that all right okay so here's the tip so we are taping this right now on Thursday Bulls heat on Friday decide who the Celtics play if it is the Bulls could you please let the Bulls win one game that's just my only request uh but I got so I I've done a little scouting for you uh whether it's the Bulls the Heat.
I got one player I picked out on each team. So I'll start with the Heat.
Tyler Hero, here's my scouting report. Scores in transition, especially after makes, have to connect and direct to take away pull-up threes.
Prefers left-hand drives, likes to drive the slot. And then for Kobe White, he runs in transition, half his shots are threes, no open open looks can't let him split uh pick and rolls so just a little tip for you uh that actually is from you got that from my uh yeah that's from joe missoula so joe missoula's quizlet uh where he scouted every player in the nba leaked online and uh everyone has his his scouting report for every player it's a little dated now what happened there mean, it's such a funny story.
It also shows how attention to detail, because it's just a huge PDF of every single player. Yeah, so one, I didn't see any of this coming.
I just thought I was going to be the behind-the-bench slapdick for most of my career. And so that was kind of my introductory to people actually actually give a shit about me thing and i was kind of pissed about it but i mean when i made my quizlet i was like i didn't know how to make it private yeah i also didn't think people were going to hack into it so uh i always work with rookies so that i would i would give the rookies a well detailed like in quizlet gives you different types of quiz that you can you know decide to get through information on.
So we would, I would give the rookies a well detailed, like in Quizlet gives you different types of quiz that you can, you know, decide to get through information on. Um, so we would, I would, uh, the rookies and I would always take those before the game.
Oh, okay. That was like, that was my way of learning the league because I went, came from D2 to the NBA and then it was my way of like building a relationship with the rookies that I worked with.
Like how detailed can we be? And like, what are all the different ways we can retrieve the information, whether it's like, and some of them, some players learn differently. So some like matching, some like throw in the blank, some like, you know, multiple choice.
So like it gave, it helped me learn, but it also helped me learn how the rookies learn. Yeah.
Yeah. It's very cool.
I mean, again, it's attention to detail. Have you had a conversation with Derek White, though, about him? You had on his wants to throw his body into you and draw fouls.
Have you talked to him about it? Yeah. That was one of the things I was really excited about when we got him is we'll get to the free throw line more.
Yeah. It's smart.
Yeah. It is interesting, though, that any coach can get instant access to your mind, though.
Yeah. When they look that up put some like fake fake stuff that is not that's that's just scratched the surface about what's going on up here yeah it's a quizlet it's just a quick like hey let's

let's look you don't want to know what's really going on in my mind what's really going on in

your mind he's trying to rob fenway park yeah i mean literally how can i win every single

situation or environment like how can i how can i win the environment no matter where i am at

Thank you. Park.
Yeah. I mean, literally how can I win every single situation or environment? Like how can I, how can I win the environment no matter where I am at any particular time? What are the threats, the strengths and the opportunities? And like, can you look at every single situation, uh, as a life or death situation from the standpoint of like, this person's a threat, this situation is like, I won't walk through revolving doors because like one of them gets stuck and you're just a sitting duck.
Yeah, that's true. I haven't thought about that, but now every time I go through a revolving door, I'm going to think about it.
I'm going to avoid them. You're screwed.
So what about, okay, you go to get your coffee in the morning, stop in Dunkin' Donuts. And what goes through your mind? How do you win that situation? Just figure out where the exits are.
Look at the line on the way in. Study all the people.
Don't have your back to the door. In a restaurant, I never sit with my back to the door.
You've always got to sit to where you can have a vantage point of everything that's going on around you. That's fascinating.
And you never turn that off? No. That's an unfortunate thing for my family so like you're at home you're you're sitting on the couch you're watching cartoons with the kids what's your mindset then uh what can i take from this to like teach my kid a lesson like you can't just watch this just to watch it like there's got to be something here that's gonna that you got to learn from it yeah i i'm i'm falling in love with the coach missoula yeah but it it's not all positive right like it's not i'm not saying i'm a good person for it there are a ton of negative ramifications to that type of mindset yeah like your wife or kids come to you with like a very empathetic situation and it's just like yeah you're just telling yourself that yeah yeah right you're breaking it down like it's yeah like it's trying to trying to bust up someone's pick and roll strategy and you're just like no i like okay well you know how'd you get to this point you know yeah it's like no dad i just said i have a i had a bad day yeah sometimes sometimes your wife just wants you to be like yeah that person was very unfair to you yeah it's's like no like you can't let that person be unfair to you yeah yeah hank what was your you thought of one uh yeah you roll you roll a jujitsu mat on the on the floor after practice whole team tournament who's walking out there no injuries injuries are impossible whole team tournament who's who's walking out on top man so that's kind of the beauty of jiu-jitsu is like, you don't know, everyone's a weapon and everyone has a different weapon and you don't know that weapon until you get into the fight.
Like if you ever gone to a jiu-jitsu class, one of the most debilitating things to your own ego is like the three guys next to you that are like overweight just came from like work. They can barely do like the pushups and the sit-ups like in the warmup, but they're like brown belts and you get into a fight and you, you, you last like 10 seconds.
And it's like, how did I lose to this guy? Yeah. But like, it actually teaches you to respect everybody around you, but study each guy.
And like you study each guy's body type. And it's like, okay, like if I get into a fight with that guy, like he seems more of a leg dominant guy he'll probably have some like leg triangles or you know that guy's a little speed athlete so it you can't take anyone for granted and you have to have the ultimate respect for everyone because everyone's a weapon in their own way like that's the beauty of it so i i don't know because you don't know what any one person's capable of yeah i bet it's brad stevens i bet brad has a plan too to kill everybody in the room yeah he seems like the kind of guy that would have that speak speaking of brad has he ever told you you're coaching for your job um doesn't everybody tell me that well yeah i mean your job is to coach yeah yeah good point i kind of tell myself i kind of tell myself that yeah we have an old friend internet friend who would always tweet always tweet Brad Stevens coaching for his job, and people would get so upset.
He's like, well, his job is to coach. I tell myself that, though.
It's a good mentality to have. How much do you guys miss having Blake Griffin on the team this week? Oh, yeah.
Man, he's awesome, isn't he? Yeah, he was on the show on Wednesday. He's one of our good friends.
I of our good friends. I told this story yesterday.
Like I have the utmost respect for him. So when I get the job and we signed Blake Griffin and I'm like, shit, like this guy was the number one pick.
Like I don't know anything about this guy. I knew everyone else on the team for the most part.
And I'm like, how am I going to coach this guy? You know, like sometimes the hardest people to coach are like the guys that are a little bit aging. Like, they may still have it.
They may not.

You know what I mean? And so, we make a decision to kind of be, like, we go away from him for a couple games or whatever the case may be. And he comes up to me, and he's like, what do I have to do to get better? And I was like, damn.
Like, that said, everything I need to know about the type of person that he is, like, of his stature and, like, experience, to have the respect for a first-time head coach who, you know,

didn't have a first time head coach who, you know, didn't know what the hell he was doing to ask that question and to like, take it serious to where he was out there every single day. Like I have the utmost respect for him.
Did you, did you tell him learn how to dunk again? I told him we need to get a car out there. So we could jump over it.
Yeah. Yeah Yeah.
Blake is the best. And he has, he had nothing but high praise for you guys.
And he said that he was like very close to wanting to come back, but he didn't want to, he didn't want to cheapen it and like come back at the end of the year and not be with the guys all year, which I respect the hell out of. I refrained from begging him to come back because he, he told me he wanted to be with his kids.
And so like, you know, I know know how hard that could be but i would have done a lot to get him back in our locker room yeah so on that note we always said would say that like uh blake's the most important player on any team that he's on regardless of how much he was playing just because he's he's a good guy to have around he's kind of like this the straw that stirs the drink sometimes um outside of like the superstars on the celtics right now yeah uh who would you say would be the most important guy i would tell you like that range from like like eight and a half to uh like 14 like those guys don't get enough credit because they they really hold the locker room together because they could easily shut it down halfway through the year or have like a negative mentality you know what i mean yeah you know so like like you know like like peyton and sam they they have their minutes and um they've gone through that grind of like the inconsistencies and they've played their butts off this year and like have been great um but like the oshay the luke the tillman uh this fee i don't want to forget anybody here so so help me with that. But those group of guys that don't get it every single day and then you have a guy that gets an injury and now they're starting or it's a second night of a back-to-back and one of them's playing 20 minutes and you're being hard on them because you need them to help you win.
Those group of guys, really grateful because, like you said, I don't think they get enough credit for how they help the culture of the locker room. Yeah, yeah.
Jake Springer. Yeah.
Well, Coach, this has been awesome. We really appreciate it.
I got one last question for you. It's Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.
Promo code TAKE. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, even bathing suits now.
Roback.com, promo code TAKE. So we did have an inside source for this interview.

Your brother,

he brought up,

um,

something about an Italian bakery.

There's two of them maybe in your,

your hometown and there's a big debate about it.

So can we settle the debate?

Can you tell us the debate and settle it?

I mean,

the bait I guess is which one's better.

Yeah.

So which one is,

I mean,

I can't,

I don't want to do that to either company.

Okay.

I do want to talk about the Italian discrimination to the Big East Conference. Yeah.
Okay. All right.
Speak on it. Yes.
I couldn't – when I heard that, I was like, yes. Like, you got to think.
Like, Massimino, Carneseca, Gavitt. Like, of course there's an Italian discrimination to the league.
Yeah. You think that's why they didn't get enough bids in the tournament this year? Yeah, everyone's just tired of the tallies.
Max is pumping his fist right now. That rocked.
This is bullshit because I'm a Sixers fan. I'm not supposed to like you, but that rocked.
That was awesome. Yeah, you've even won over the Sixers fan here.
It's hard to do. I mean, when you said that, I was like, there's been so much mafia run through the Big East over the years.

People are probably tired of it.

Okay, so who's on your Mount Rushmore of Italians?

Oh, good question.

That's a great question.

Thank you.

Great question.

Putting you on the spot here, yeah.

Oh, I know.

I mean, Mario Balotelli's got to be up there.

Okay.

Yeah.

Play for the national team. Their goalie also, he's been around.
Buffon? Buffon, yeah. He's played for like 30 years.
Yeah. There's a whole bunch of naturalized citizens that have been up there along the way.
Yeah, you can go old school, like little Leonardo da Vinci. You can go with some of that stuff.
Yeah, Donatello, all the Ninja Turtles. All the Ninja Turtles.
I think I appreciate Donatello and Leonardo. Okay.
Yeah, it should just be the Ninja Turtles. Yeah, it should be the Ninja Turtles.
And Mike Florio, who's an Italian from West Virginia, so you got to mention him, Mike Florio. I think the Ninja Turtles are probably up there.
Yeah, all four of them. The best Italians should have your jiu-jitsu guy come over dressed as Michelangelo and choke you out that would rock who's the one with the nunchucks nunchucks is Michelangelo party dude yeah that's my favorite yeah he's the best I would take you as more of a Raphael guy, but that's more calculating.
But Michelangelo? Raphael's more my personality. Yeah.
Michelangelo is my son's favorite, so I flock to him. Okay, that makes sense.
It's good to have Italian representation in media like the Ninja Turtles. Yes.
No question. And bakeries.
Yeah, and bakeries. Coach, this has been awesome.
You've won us over. Good luck in the rest of the playoffs.
If it's the Bulls, I hope you can at least give us one game. If it's the Bulls, you've got to come by the office and maybe put us through a drill.
Maybe choke us out. If it's Chicago, we go through a jiu-jitsu session at in.
Done. And we work on contingency plans, exit strategies.
Yes. Uh-huh.
Yes, yes. Always a way out.
Yes. I feel like you would hate going to an escape room.
Ooh. No, we went to one this year.
Were you panicked in there? Were you like, I don't know how to get out? I love that. I wanted to make a room in my house in a escape room.
Because like you get so we move into so we get the job. Right.
And we buy a house. And, you know, my wife's like super excited.
Like it's one of the goals of her life, like to have a house like that. And she picked a really nice one.
And so what we have, we have jujitsu mats at the house. So Alex comes over and he's like, you know, this might not be a good thing.
Like, you know, the guy that lives in the townhome, isn't the guy that lives in this nice house. You know, the guy that, uh, drives a car to work is not the same guy that used to walk to work.
Like you can't let this, you can't let this change you. So like all, so then like the classes for that week were like all demoralizing to make sure that I didn't like enjoy the fact that we moved into this house so i'm sitting in bed with my wife and i'm like yeah i mean it's a nice house but we just can't let this get the best of us like we got a big we got we got you know stuff coming up we got to stay locked in like we can't let this change us and she like almost started crying like it's my dream.
You are an idiot.

You develop a rivalry

against the house. Every day you're trying to beat

the house. Yes, absolutely.

Alpha male challenge with the house.

Walk into the house and kick the door

on purpose.

This house is shitty.

Alright, well, coach, this has been so, so

much fun. And yeah, you have won us

all over. And best of luck in the playoffs.
And we'll talk soon. I appreciate it.
And last thing I want you guys to know, I came into coaching because I think NBA players get a bad rep. And you always hear about college coaches or people who say they can't coach.
I got the best group of guys. I think NBA players in general are misunderstood with what they deal with on and off the floor, like what they put their bodies through.
And like, just because they make a lot of money doesn't mean that it's easy. And so I got the best job in the world coaching the Celtics.
And I got the best job in the world because I got great players and they allow me to be myself and allow me to coach them. And, you know, I can't take that for granted.
So I want you guys to know that. And I'll come on anytime and bust balls with you.
Okay. And just so you know what you just said, that doesn't mean we can't say like, oh, I would have made that free throw.
Cause I will say that from my couch. Okay.
Absolutely. You have to say that.
Okay. Good, good, good.
Later. All right.
Thanks coach. Joe Mazzullo is brought to you by our great friends over at proper number 12 Irish whiskey.
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You can pick a bottle it for yourself original rich and smooth proper 12 irish whiskey or you can try crisp and fresh irish apple it's all smooth to the core and now here's denver nuggets coach michael malone okay we now welcome on a very special guest it is coach Coach Michael Malone, Denver Nuggets, NBA champs.

We haven't seen you since you won the NBA championship,

so let us be the last people to wish you congratulations on winning the NBA title.

We had you on last year around this time, and we want to talk about playoffs, the season, everything.

But the first question, very important question, how are we doing with the Mike versus Michael thing? Are people following the rules? Are they actually following the rules? You know, I think, I think I scared most people away when I, when I was very rude to a Cassidy Hubbeth on the sidelines of a play of a playoff game, but no, most people are following the rules. I think the streets are talking.
They know that if they don't call me Michael, my mother is going to come looking for him. No, I appreciate it.
You've got to put your flag in the ground to let people know. We were actually the Michael police last year.
When we saw people referring to using the wrong word, we would jump down their throat and say, no, you get it right. That's a future NBA championship coach right there and put some respect on his name.
I appreciate it. But, yeah, it was great.
We were rooting for you last year. Obviously, we believed in the Nuggets from, I think, like two years ago, we started to say get ready for the Nuggets because they're coming.
They're a great team. So thank you for making us look like we know ball.
It's a very rare occurrence where we look smart on the show. So we want to make sure to give you your credit for that.
And I just want to say that I'm looking forward to another potential Michael Malone championship parade. Because you had the best time ever at that parade.
And I think everybody watching was like, yeah, if I ever won a championship, that's exactly what I would do. So how long did it take you to feel normal after the parade? Oh,, I tell you a while.
And the worst part about that parade was that night we went to Las Vegas. And, you know, I started early that day, so I didn't last late into the night, unfortunately.
But the parade was awesome. My wife was next to me on the fire truck.
She kept on telling me to slow down, slow down. And I really didn't know what that meant.
We just won a championship, and I definitely went all out. And hopefully we can find a way to celebrate another parade because this city turned out, and that was one of the coolest moments of my life was not only winning a championship but celebrating with a city that had waited for 47 years to win their first NBA championship.
Yeah, even Jokic had fun at the parade. That's how you know that it was a good parade.
All right, so last question about last year, and then let's turn the page, all focus on this year. How many times have you looked down on your arm and been like, I really did get that tattoo? Sometimes I forget I have it, and then obviously I get out of the shower, I look look in the mirror and I remind myself I got Maxie the minor

and he's

going to be with me every step of the way moving forward

and I did save

some room though for some more trophies

and more tattoos so we'll see what happens

I like that so you said

almost immediately after you won you might

have even said it before you won your first

title that the goal was to establish

something long term to establish

a dynasty in Denver

when did you start thinking that it would be possible to even Thank you. you even said it before you won your first title, that the goal was to establish something long-term,

to establish a dynasty in Denver.

When did you start thinking that it would be possible

to even compete for multiple championships?

You know, I go back to the bubble,

and I know we lost to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals,

but that's when I felt, you know what?

We have a special player in Nikola Jokic.

We have a special player in Jamal Murray, and now we have to make sure we bring the right pieces in to help those guys. And we had injuries after the bubble where we weren't whole in the playoffs, but finally being whole and healthy and adding guys like Aaron Gordon, adding guys like obviously Contavious Caldwell-Pope.
We have Michael Porter, who's just continued to get better and better. And last year having veterans like Jeff Green and Bruce Brown and a young player in Christian Brown who showed out and helped us win a play, a finals game on the road in Miami.
And it was, we knew if we were healthy, we had a chance to beat anybody. And last year was the first time in a while where we were completely healthy and it all came together at the right time.
So talking about this year, you've been coaching for a very long time. This was the first time that you're coaching and you have a championship team that just won a title.
What were the challenges like day in and day out? Coaching a team knowing like, you know, we talk about it all the time with sports. There's a switch that you can flip.
Was there moments where you're like you could feel that maybe the focus wasn't there because everyone's been there done that and they're just waiting for the playoffs was it a different set of challenges as a coach to get that motivation day in and day out because you already hit the top of the mountain and you got to climb back up yeah it definitely was I mean and that was our whole mindset going into this year, starting a training camp in San Diego. And, you know, I told our players, listen, we've gone from being one of the 29 teams that's hunting a championship, and now we're going to be the team that's being hunted by everybody else.
And with that, success comes responsibility to understand that and to own that. And now that means you have to work harder every day.
You have to be more prepared and understand 82 games this year, you're getting everybody's best. And I tell you what, we tied a franchise record for 57 wins this year.
We went 21-6 out of the All-Star break, tied for the best record in the NBA. I give our players a ton of credit for handling that responsibility in a very mature manner.
Were there times this year where I felt like I had to jumpstart the guys and remind them of that? Of course, 82 games is a long season, but here we are number two seed getting ready for the first round. And again, I think our players have done an outstanding job of handling that success while also not being satisfied and staying hungry because we want more.
Yeah. Yeah.
You mentioned responsibility. Do you feel a sense of responsibility knowing that you have maybe, you know, certainly a transcendent player in Jokic, a guy whose skill set we've never seen before in the NFL, or excuse me, the NBA, and a guy who moving forward could be an all-time great.
Do you feel responsible that you have to make sure that he's able to tap into all this enormous potential and tap into his ability to like the highest extent? Is that something that you think about? Like, I don't want to let this guy down. Of course.
And for Nicola, but for all the other players too, you know, we won a championship last year and I think we did something that I don't think any other championship team has done we went younger in hopes of trying to repeat so now developing Christian Brown, Peyton Watson, Julian Strother while having our five-man starting lineup who we know what we're going to get from them every single night but I always feel a responsibility to not only help Nicola but to prepare our team to put them in the best position to have success. And if we don't win a game, the first person I look at is me.
What could I have done better? What could I have done differently to help my team? And we always bounce back. We always stay together, very connected group.
And that's why I love coming to work every day, because I feel our locker room of players, my coaching staff, our front office, our ownership group, I think we have something special that I don't think you find in all pro sports very often. Yeah, all right, so bad memory question, but I'm very interested in your response.
So you guys were fighting for the one seed. Friday night you lose to the Spurs.
Get the two seed, still an incredible season. Like you said, franchise record and wins.
But what Wemby did on Friday night, can you tell us standing there and watching him like, there's never been anything like that in the NBA in terms of just his ability. Like he's so much bigger than everyone.
He's shooting threes. Did you ever catch yourself while playing him at any point this year being like, what am I even watching right now? This is insane.
Oh, definitely. And obviously, we played them four times.
And what was really impressive about watching Wemby this year, from early in the year to we played him in game 81, is the improvement within one season. And early in the year, you could tell, wow, this guy is really tall.
He can block shots. He's he's pretty skilled by the end of the season and I think pop did a great job that's why he's a great coach you saw Wemby handling the ball in the open court you saw him shooting pull-up threes but the one thing that really jumped off the page for me that I saw a huge improvement was Wemby's ability to be a playmaker his his passing ability.
He was making all of his teammates better. And for me, that's always a mark of greatness.
Yeah, you can be a really good player, but can you make those around you better? And obviously, it was a tough loss for us. But yes, you're watching Wemby and you're saying, wow, this guy is the future of the NBA.
He impacts the game offensively, defensively, playmaking. a competitor i mean he's only going to get better he's going to get stronger but i don't see any weaknesses in his game yeah i mean it was the game that he scored i think 17 points in three minutes and it was just like what is going on right now it's it's it's it's crazy he was shooting pull-up threes from 35 feet you know you're not used to seeing that from a player of 7'4", whatever he is.
You see that from Steph Curry, but now you have a 7-footer doing all those things, and it's kind of like, wow, this guy is going to be unguardable at some point. Yeah, with the longest arms ever.
So it's almost like he's got the arms of a 7'6 guy, and he's 7'4". It's like impossible to stop something like that you how do you go about game planning for a great individual player like that because we saw it just a couple weeks ago in uh in March Madness in the NCAA tournament where uh Hurley's strategy against Edie was basically you know he's going to get his points and we can let him get his points but we're not going to let everybody else on the court beat us when you're going up against a superstar player the NBA, everybody's good, right? Everyone can shoot the ball.
But is that more often than not your strategy of just accept the fact that the superstar is going to do some damage and try to limit everybody else? Well, I think it depends on the player, the matchup, who's around that player. There are definitely games and opponents will all say, listen, we know he's going to get his, but they're at their best when everybody else gets going.
So you let that certain player maybe get his 25 to 30 points, but you take with a three point line for their other players. Then there are certain nights where you say, listen, we can't let this guy get off.
He's scoring way too easy. We have to send a double team.
And that's not just in the post. That may be a player on the perimeter, like an Anthony Edwards, like a Jalen Brown, who are just really tough covers on the perimeter where you may have to send a secondary defender and then look to fly around behind that.
And obviously, you know, Danny Hurley, a tremendous job at UConn winning another title and his game plan against Zach Eadie in the post was terrific. They took away all the produce shooting and made Eadie be the one guy that was scoring.
And then there were times where they decided to double team, but their multiple effort and fly around mentality was outstanding. That was what impressed me about UConn was just their defense on the ball, off the ball for 40 minutes was just incredible.
So I had a question about that. So it's, you know you know, New Jersey high school players are having a moment right now with Danny Hurley winning his back to back.
You're you, you know, you went to a Seton hall prep for a couple of years in New Jersey, trying to go back to back. Did you play against, uh, it would be Bobby, right? Like he was at the time.
Did you have games against him? Oh yeah. Bobby and, you know, the other St.
Anthony's players, Jerry Walker, all the guys, Jasper Walker, different players. But, yeah, Danny was younger, but Bobby was more my age.
And, obviously, Bobby was an incredible player at St. Anthony's, at Duke.
And, unfortunately, his career in the NBA was cut short. But, yeah, I mean, that era of, you know, that tri-state New York City, New Jersey basketball was incredible.
You had Tallentine High School who had, you know, Malik Sealy, Brian Reese, Adrian Autry. You had Kenny Anderson at Malloy.
There were a lot of great players in that area at that time. And I always look forward to playing against a guy like Bobby because he was considered one of the best point guards in the country yeah tough tough New Jersey high school players into coaches are having a big moment right now the other the other one I had for you was your start in coaching Greg Campy who just won his first NCAA tournament game with our guy Jack Golke.
Did you talk to him after at all?

Because that was a very cool moment.

And for people who don't know, you basically got your start

doing anything for him way back in the day at Oakland University.

He's been there for 40 years, and he finally gets that one big moment

beating Kentucky.

Well, you know what the great thing is, so I got that job at Oakland

because my father was an assistant coach in Detroit with Chuck Daly, and they used to practice at Oakland University.

So my father had a relationship with Campy, and when I was getting out of college, I wanted to get into coaching, and my father put in a good word with Greg Campy, who hired me. Now, Oakland was Division II at the time, but I was a volunteer assistant coach.

And the coolest part about that job was Barry Sanders used to come over and play open gym.

And here he is the greatest, arguably the greatest running back in NFL history who loved hoops and having a chance to play with him was a memory I'll never forget. But Coach Campy and I have stayed in touch.
My father passed away this past October. Coach Campy was one of the first guys to reach out to me.
And when they beat Kentucky that night, I hit him up right away. I'm sure I was one of a thousand messages.
But for him to be there for 40 years and him to have that kind of a win behind the unbelievable shooting of Jack Volke was incredible. And I was so happy for Coach Campy, the Oakland program, and obviously Coach Campy's entire family.

Yeah, wait, you just glossed over something.

Barry Sanders playing pickup basketball.

What was his game like?

Well, I tell you what, I couldn't get over the size of his legs

and the size of his neck.

He was an incredible athlete.

And it's funny, man.

He was just – for the player he was and all the success he had and all the records that he had, very, very humble, very quiet, but loved basketball, wanted to come in. My sister Kelly actually worked for the Lions at that time, so I got to know him a little bit.
Unbelievable person, just humble, selfless, loved to hoop. And if you didn't know who he was, you'd think he was just a regular guy in there playing hoops.
And that's what I loved about him. Yes, he was a great running back who carried those Lions teams for years.
But I was just impressed with how he carried himself as a man. What was his comp, though? Player comp.
Player comp? Oh, I'm trying to think. I don't know.
Nate Robinson. Okay.
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's a very good one.
Did he travel a lot? He just stopped dribbling? Strong, explosive. Yeah, I don't know.
Nate Robinson popped into my head. I like that.
Yeah, I mean, it would be amazing just to go try to guard Barry Sanders in any sport would be incredible. Do you know, Jack? I made sure he was on my team.
Yeah, smart. That's a smart move.
You should bring Golki in for a tryout. Yeah.
He needs a look. The kid can shoot.
Well, I tell you what, UB Brown, who I got to know, my father was on his staff back in the day, one of the greatest coaches in the history of a game of basketball. And UB Brown had a saying, shooting makes up for a multitude of sins.
If you can shoot the ball in today's game there's a place for you and what jack golki did on the biggest stage in the country was really really impressive and i think there are a lot of jack golki fans i think most can't be even talked about it that night after they won that game people from louisville were buying oakland gear yeah they want to wear it and rub it in the Kentucky fans' faces. Yeah, so let's give him a trial because we're big Jack Golke fans.
We actually had him in our office and we have a full court basketball court, so he got to do a workout. We got to do some drills with him.
He can shoot. We'll tell you right now.
We'll be your advanced scouts. I don't know if you knew this.
Guy can shoot. Here's my question.
At a big cat PFT, who is the better shooter? Who's got the shot? That would be big cat. I'm more of a facilitator.
Yeah. You should – listen, next season when you're in Chicago, you should come by because we do run fives on Friday, and it's probably the worst basketball you could ever watch it's like those when you run uh pick up basketball and maybe the first game is like 15 minutes and then the second game everyone gets tired and it's like 35 minutes to get to 11 and you're like this is just atrocious to watch i look forward i will stop by when the schedule permits i'd love to stop by and see you guys yeah.
Coach, us up. I actually have a pointer for you.
I know that you've accomplished a lot as a coach. You can always get better, though, right? We're always looking to improve around the margins.
You're great at getting in the ref's face, at giving them a piece of your mind when you feel like your player's been fouled. They don't call it.
I saw it a couple times at Aaron Gordon this year. You're not afraid to let the the ref have it but there's one player that you don't do it enough for and that's yokich when he's trying his like three-quarter length three-pointer when he's getting fouled and and they never call the foul on him and it's a foul they get him on the arm i know that the reps are like oh this is weird why is he shooting it from the opposing foul line i think you need to get in the ref's face when they don't call that and let them know that's a foul well i tell you what so to clarify they are calling the foul but what they're not giving them is a free throws they're saying it's a non-shooting foul and i as a funny thing is i've had a lot of conversations with the refs as well as the league about it because i don't think people understand how smart nicola is.
He sees it before it happens. And so he knows the player is about to come up and he'll stop around 70 feet from the basket, raise up and let it go.
And I asked the ref one time, I said, be honest, the reason you're not giving him free throws is because of where it happened. Because, you know, well, what right-minded player is going to shoot a shot 70 feet away? And I but you shouldn't be worried about the location it's more about is he in his upward shooting motion and it's an ongoing debate and hopefully at one point we'll be able to get that but if i have to get thrown out one time i obviously i have no problem doing that yeah with the day that he gets that call is going to be incredible it's going to be amazing he's been trying for it for so long.
It also might ruin the NBA forever the second that he gets that call because then everyone's going to be doing that. But I want to see it happen the first time.
Yeah. Yeah, I want to see it as well.
I think he deserves it. He's probably around 0 for 12 in those attempts, and hopefully we'll get it one day.
Yeah, so speaking of Jokic, is there ever a time where you're like, hey, can you shoot more? Because he's so good at sometimes, you know, like a game will start and he's just facilitating to everyone. And he's maybe passing up shots to get everyone else involved.
Do you ever have to say like, listen, thank you for passing to everyone, but I need you to shoot because every time you shoot, it goes in. Yeah, well, he's one of the more efficient players that we've ever seen.
And that's why, obviously, he's a two-time MVP and potentially a three-time MVP. But, you know, there are times where I have to say, listen, you need to be a little bit more aggressive.
You know, certain teams choose to double team him from the get-go. Other teams choose to play him straight up.
It's pick your poison with him, like we touched on earlier. But there are games where he's such a great passer.
He's always reading the defense and he wants to get other people involved. That's why he's great because he's going to be one of the top three assists per game players in the league every year.
But yeah, sometimes it's like jokes. You gotta, you gotta be more aggressive.
Look to attack before the double team or when you have one-on-one coverage, go to work. He's proven to be unguardable.
And that's not a knock on anybody. That's to speak to his greatness and his ability to find and solve any riddle thrown at him.
And we've seen him do it time and time again. And none better than last year during our run to the finals and ultimately winning our championship.
But he is a great player. He's a great passer.
He's really unselfish. So usually I trust him 1000% to read the game and play the game the way he sees.
But there will be an occasional time where, yeah, hey, listen, like, go to work and look to score. And we know he can do that.
Yeah. And I think he's in really great shape, too.
I think that's a very underrated part of his game is his conditioning. People look at him sometimes, and he might not have, like, the muscle definition on the biceps that some other guys have.
But I feel like people don't give him credit. Do you think teams underestimate how in shape he is? I couldn't agree with that more.
And I think the perfect example was you go back, I think, six years ago, our first time making the playoffs. We had a game in Portland that went four overtimes.
I think Nikola played 60 minutes. And I don't know how many players can do that and play effectively and efficiently.
But Nikola, I think people always judge athleticism on how high you can jump. Well, if that's the only way you're going to judge his athleticism, what are you going to say, Nicola's not a great athlete? But it's more than just jumping.
It's hand-eye coordination. It's the ability to have unbelievable stamina.
He loves horses. And I say, you're like Secretariat, man.
He's got like a huge heart. Nicola can run for days.
And you look at how much we play him. And now that the playoffs are about to start, how much more we're about to play him because we know that when he's on the floor, good things tend to happen for us.
I think it goes back to that picture that always goes around of him as a kid. And so people see that picture, and they're like, oh, this guy can't run.
But no, he's always out there, and he's always running. Yeah, I do think it works to your advantage, though, that sometimes teams don't really recognize how great of shape he's in.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, I think the other thing that, like, you talk about the athleticism, I think the other really common misperception about Nicole Jokic is, oh, well, because he's not a good athlete, he's not a good defender. And I don't think that could be further from the truth.
I think Nicole is actually a very good defender. And you don't have to be a good defender to be a guy that's jumping and blocking shots above the rim.
He has unbelievable hand-eye coordination. He's one of the top guys in the NBA in terms of deflections.
You guys have seen him break up a lot of passes with his feet and his timing, anticipation. He's one of the few players in the NBA that's got over 100 steals and close to 70 blocks.
So I think that's also an area that people try to pick him apart, but he's proven people wrong time and time again. So one thing you're a lead at, and I've read a bunch of stories, and it's very clear when you talk about your team, is your ability to connect with each guy person to person and the stories of you going to visit Jokicic at his home did you ride a horse by the way when you went there so I didn't ride the horse but Nicola let me ride the carriage okay all right that counts he took me to practice one day and he goes coach come on and he told me what to do and I went around and he was really mad at me because he said it was a practice and I was supposed to go a lot slower and I was like Ben Hur man I was like let's go and uh but yeah so I did that one time and he'll probably never let me do that again that's fantastic so your ability to connect with guys you know one-on-one you know when you you had that quote about Jamal Murray's injuries and how he's going to be back I think you know when know, when it comes to coaching, the best coaches are able to get their teams to trust them on such a level that it's like, you know, what I'm doing is going to get you to a place where you can win a championship.
Was there a moment in these last few years where you could feel like my team is finally in, like they're finally all have bought into what I'm selling and they all are going to trust me no matter what I say they might not agree all the time but they trust that what I'm doing is trying to put them in the best spot yeah I mean that's a really good question and thank you I I go back to um you know the bubble um but even that first time making the playoffs you know we played San played San Antonio in the first round, and here we are playing the Spurs, right, and Coach Popovich. And we won in seven games.
And that was brand new for Jamal. That was brand new for me.
That was brand new for Nicola. And I think that's really helped that Nicola and I have been together for nine years, Jamal and I have been together for eight, and then we've added pieces around.
I think Aaron Gordon's been here for four and a half now.

Michael Porter for five.

So what you have with that continuity creates chemistry and trust.

So I've never felt like I had to win them over.

I felt like we've always been connected.

And for me, it's never been, this is what we're doing and just my way of the highway.

What I learned from a guy like Coach Popovich is when we talk about trust as part of our culture, I got to trust our players. So last year during our run to the finals, we're going through games and scouting reports and opposing plays.
I'm giving our players input. What do you guys see? What do you want to do in this play? So now I'm empowering them so we all feel a part of it.
And so I'm not a dictator. I'm very much a coach that wants to give our players input and not so I hope it fails.
But, hey, you're out there playing. And I think through all those conversations and all the time that we've been together, I think that's allowed us to get to a place where we trust each other.
It's not just them trusting me. I also trust our players, and we have great dialogue within that.
So off that question, you mentioned Aaron Gordon, who has been phenomenal for you guys. And what is it, though, putting a guy like Aaron Gordon, who is with the Magic, he's the best guy in the Magic, then he comes to the Nuggets, and his role's going to be a little different, and he's not the best guy anymore, but you need him to play winning basketball.
How does that process work when you have a new guy on the team, and you're like, look, you were the man, you're still the man, but there's other guys here who are going to be the man, and you're going to play off them a little bit more? Well, I think Aaron Gordon deserves the credit here. I mean, I could sit here and say, hey, we had conversations about this and that, which we did.
But ultimately, it's up to the man, it's up to the person, the player to understand I'm coming to a team that's really good. They've won.
They haven't won at the highest level yet, but I can help them get over the hump. And the funny thing is, right when we got Aaron Gordon after that trade deadline, we beat the Clippers in L.A.
when they were fully loaded and healthy. And that's when I think we all realized that we got a chance if we stay healthy to win and win big and win a championship.
Unfortunately, injuries happened that year, the year after. But then we finally had that chance last season.
But Aaron came in understanding that, listen, I'm going to do whatever it takes to help this team. I'm playing next to a great player who's one of the most unselfish players, highest IQs, and great passers.
I'm just going to play off of him. I'm going to play off of Jamal Murray.
I'm going to defend. I'm going to rebound.
And I'm going to be completely selfless in everything I do. And I think guys like Aaron Gordon, guys like KCP embody being truly selfless every single day, because when people talk about the Nuggets, it's Nicole Jokic, it's Jamal Murray and Michael Porter, Aaron Gordon, KCP don't get as much of the attention, but they're all just as important in our success.
Yeah. I mean, it's awesome watching a team come together like that, where you have pieces from all over the place and it's everyone kind of steps into their role.
It's, it's beautiful to watch when basketball works that way. Yeah.
And Christian Brown too. You mentioned him earlier, like as a spark X factor, is he, what would he have to do to get into like the starting rotation? Cause I know he's great in certain aspects of his game.
I think, I think I've heard you talk about him in transition before and how that is a key factor in his game. Is that a guy that you see ever becoming a rotation guy? Well, I mean, he's the rotation guy for us now.
And when we've had injuries, he started a bunch of games for us this year. His versatility is what you love about him.
He can be a small forward, a true guard. And he's actually been, when Jamal was out for a while this year, Christian has been our backup point guard at time.
So there's not a position he can't play. And you talk about transition.
I felt probably maybe halfway through this season, Christian wasn't playing the way I was hoping he would have played this year. He didn't have the same aggression, didn't have the same defensive disposition that I thought he needed to have.
And I called him in. We met.
We watched film from last year of how he helped us win, even clips from him in the NBA finals. And I said, this is what we need from you.
For you to be the best player for this team, we need you to be more aggressive. We need you be tougher we need you to be more disciplined and uh and to lock down on defense and to his credit from that meeting through the end of the season I thought he was tremendous for us he's put a lot of time into his game he's shooting the three ball really well he is a hell of a finisher if you go back to that Minnesota game some of the dunks he had in transition incredible.
Highlight dunks with his left hand on a guy like Rudy Gobert. But he's an important piece because he can fill so many holes.
And for me with Christian, CB is what we call him. It's always about his intangibles, man.
He's got an edge to him. He's won at every level.
I wanted to go out there and just be a dog and get after people, hit people, be aggressive. And when he does that, he's a difference maker.
And the other young guy that I think has really improved this year is Peyton Watson. Peyton Watson is doing things defensively, blocking shots at the rim, a lot of plays defensively that most guys in league can't make.
So Peyton didn't play at all last year. He's in the rotation this year, and it's going to be a great opportunity for him these coming playoffs to really step up, because we all know the playoffs is a lot different than the 82-game regular season.
Yeah, you guys got a lot of weapons. Coach, we asked this question to everybody.
It's a fun little segment that we do. It's called, who would you rather play in the first round of the playoffs? The Kings, the Warriors, the Pelicans, or the Lakers? Well, the good thing for us is that we know we're either playing the Lakers or the Pelicans.
They have their playing game down in New Orleans tonight, and I like to play whoever wins that game. Okay, that's smart.
That's what's going to happen. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a good answer good answer that's a good answer good answer yeah that's the best answer we've ever had in that segment yeah all right so I had a couple uh last questions um so we're ball knowers we know ball uh and these west playoffs are going to be great there's so many talented teams the one seed though the thunder they have had an incredible season some people nonball knowers, are being like, well, they're too young.
They don't know how to get through the playoffs. We obviously know that they're so talented.
Any team could win the West. Playing them, though, and seeing their young talent kind of go from, you know, they were not a playoff team last year.
Now they're in the playoffs. Obviously, that had to do with a lot of injuries, guys coming back.
But how impressive is it watching a team that young? I think their roster age is like 23 years old. It's pretty crazy.
It really is. And one, you have to give credit to Sam Presti.
Their GM has done a terrific job of handling the roster and building that roster up to what we see today. Very young but very talented.
A lot of high lottery picks in there. And it's not just about bringing talent in.
They brought talent in that fits, that complements each other. Then you go down to Mark Dagnall, who I think is coach of the year in the NBA.
I think he's done an outstanding job of building that team on both ends of the floor. And then you mentioned the players.
I mean, Shea Gilgis-Alexander is an MVP candidate for a reason. Unbelievable talent, can score the ball, can guard.
I think he led the league in steals. You have Chet Holmgren, who unfortunately isn't a rookie class, but Victor Wembenyama.
But Chet Holmgren, we look at his upside and his ability to impact offense and defense. Uh, young Jalen Williams, that guy is just, he's becoming a go-to player for him and he'll be a future all-star in my opinion.
Lou Dort's one of the best defenders in the NBA. And I think I give a guy like Josh Giddey so much credit.
There was so much noise around him early in the year with the investigation, all the stuff off the court. He was being booed in every arena he played in.
And he fought through that. And I think he's quietly a really important piece to that team because he can playmake, he rebounds, he defends, and he makes all of his teammates better.
So I don't buy into the whole, they're too young to win it. Last year, people thought, well, we've never won a championship, they can't win a win a finals and i go back to year one we beat the spurs in round one and we took the blazers to a game seven in the second round it's uh they have the talent they have the coaching and i think these western conference playoffs are just going to be so fun to watch i would not be surprised if there are a ton of upsets yeah it's going to be crazy to watch to watch.
Have you done any breakdowns or even thought, allowed yourself to think about the best teams in the East? Or are you just in the mindset of, let's handle our business in the West? Yeah, I mean, I'm just locked in on the Western Conference. The funny thing is, going into our game against Memphis, Game 82, all the games in the West started at the same time.
And I knew all the different, like this team wins or this seed in the East. I knew Boston was one.
And after that, I had no idea what was going on. So it's going to be hard enough getting out of the first round this year.
So we're going to take it one round at a time. And if we're able to get out of the Western conference again, then we'll turn our attention to whoever's coming out of the Eastern conference.
Yeah. All right.
So I had one last question. It's a Roback question.
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So we talked about the Hurleys. Have you thought about maybe getting on the court and pushing a player during action? No.
Did Danny do that? Yeah, he did that in the finals when they were up 15 with three minutes left. He just kind of blacked out, and he pushed Cam Spencer to be like, go and run the play.
Have you ever caught yourself getting too far onto the sideline? Shaka Smart does it as well, where he's basically a six guy out there playing defense in the corner but have you ever had to like stop yourself and be like oh i'm i'm basically standing on the court right now yeah i mean i'm sometimes i'm like uh you know the scene in old school i'm having an out-of-body experience man and i find myself like why am i on the other side of half court uh coaching my team years ago ter Terry Stotts was coaching in Portland at the time. He took a screenshot of our game, and I was all the way on the other side of the court in the other coaching box.
Sometimes my wife and my daughters will make fun of me because as the game is going on, that's why I like – we don't have to wear suits anymore. I can get in a defensive stance and do my slide up and down the sideline like I'm guarding, like I'm having any impact on the game.
No, it does. That does.
That absolutely has an impact. The coach getting up and slapping the floor a couple times, that absolutely has an impact.
I think the players probably laugh at it, but I think they respect it. I'm not a guy – like there are certain coaches that you you look on the sideline they'll be over there sitting on the bench with their legs crossed yeah and i actually said to my assistants if i ever sit on a bench with my legs crossed punch me in my face yeah i said i am a coach i'm into the game it's an emotional game and uh you know you're all competitors man you don't get to this level if you're not a.
And, you know, sometimes I definitely overdo it, and I got to remind myself to calm down a little bit. But at the end of the day, like my mother always tells me, you got to be yourself, and that's what I try to do.
Yeah, maybe if you just get one technical, then have the Jokic brothers be your get-back guy. And so if you get too far out there, they come down, they grab you back.
Well, that was one of my best moments last year of winning the Western Conference Finals at the NBA was going to hug Nemanja and Strahin, Nikola's big brothers and really big brothers, and them taking me like a rag doll and throwing me in the air. I mean, those are moments that you'll never, ever forget, and that's what I love about our group.
It's not just our players, but we have a very connected group, and I love being a part of it. Well, hopefully you get some more of those moments coming up in the next couple of months.
Coach, we really appreciate your time. We love having you on, and best of luck in the playoffs.
And let's not wait a whole year if you guys win again. Let's have you on right away.
So maybe at the parade we'll have you zoom in at the parade if uh at the parade if it happens again i tell you what that would be awesome to do if not i will see you guys in chicago and uh always being uh great being on with you guys and uh let's do it again soon all right thanks coach appreciate it and we'll don't worry we'll police anyone who says mike we got you we got your back we're your silent protectors we got you appreciate it coach malone was brought to you by part of my cheesesteak it's a pickup and delivery only restaurant bringing you craveable cheesesteaks tenders loaded fries desserts yeah lunch dinner late night snacks anything you want choose from the expanded menu it's got regular cheesesteaks chipotle cheesesteaks chip, Chipotle chicken, Buffalo chicken, chicken bacon ranch cheesesteaks. Order the Big Cat Combo.
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That's promo code PMC20 for 20% off your order at participating locations. Okay, we'll wrap up the show.
It's Fyre Fest. I'll actually go first this week with my Fyre Fest because it's the fact that we have a gambling turtle that's going to probably cost me a lot of money.
Well, he's 0- now own one i don't know the money line i wish there was some sort of metaphor though big cat for um something like kids fable that started out very slow reminded us that this was a marathon not a sprint okay so i have to stick with mr perry saying he might he might be the money line guy we don't know we might have gotten accidentally a money lineoise. Is it tortoise? He's a Russian tortoise.
All tortoises are turtles. Is that true? Can we say tortoise? That's what Max told me.
Oh, well, Max. Jesus.
Max told you that. All tortoises are turtles? Where'd you find that out? All tortoises.
No, no, no. Oh.
He's got it. Oh.
All tortoises are turtles, not all turtles are tortoises. So he's a tortoise, but also a turtle? So that might have been the turtle pig that he did yesterday.
He's looking so cute, Mr. Pear.
He's very gorgeous. Mr.
Pear. What's on his mouth? Yeah, he's looking...
It's calcium. He's got a lot of white stuff on his mouth.
Calcium? What has he been doing? Has he been drinking milk? No, it's calcium he's got a lot of white calcium what has he been doing you've been drinking milk no it's calcium powder they need it for the shell wait so did you put that on him no you put it on his food and then oh no way look at you mean he looks like a coke guy means is really he's doing a great job as a papa zoom in on his face and just make the i fucking love cocaine meme out of him. Look at this guy.
Why do you have a...

Excuse me.

Why do you have a jersey underneath?

Did he poop on you and come on you?

Apparently, that's what their pee looks like.

Is white?

Okay.

And what if it's a female towards no squirt?

We don't know if he's female.

Yeah. It's a mister.
Oh, you've checked it? Nope. Oh, okay.
So we don't know. All right.
So that's my fire for us is that whatever this turtle picks, I'm going to bet. And we've somehow gotten ourselves back into this situation where a turtle is now deciding whether I win or lose money.
He's going to be good. Yeah.
All right. So he's going to pick the Bulls heat game.
Hank, why don't you go with your fire fest while Mr. Pear picks? No real fire fest for me.
I mean, the sleeping, sleeping the other day, dozing off. Not great.
Yeah. Especially after you slept until 1130 on last.
Yeah. I might have a sleep problem.
I've just been waking up early, which I think is a good thing long term. Okay.
He's not moving at all.

He's taking his time.

He's not moving.

All right, Hank, you just let us know.

Keep going with your fire.

I'm just addicted to watching old Masters broadcasts before I go to bed,

and that's been keeping me up.

What have you been watching?

Have you seen Scotty Stradler?

No.

Craig Stradler.

Craig Stradler. I've been like 2002.

They're a four-hour broadcast, but I'm'm like I'll just turn this on and fall asleep

And I watch for like two hours

You get really into it?

Yeah

You are addicted to golf

It's good

It's good

It's a good watch

What's he doing?

Jim Dance

He hasn't moved

He has not moved folks

Not one

He has not moved

Side of movement

I think we can put any food down for him

If he doesn't move by the end of the Fyre Fest

We have to just do a game to go to overtime. Yeah, so wait.
Why don't we put food down? Yeah, put some food down. He's not going to move if there's no food.
Or Max, just show him your ass. All right, so no Fyre Fest is just Hanks watching too much golf.
Yeah. Okay.
PFT? Good Fyre Fest. My Fyre Fest, kind of along the same lines of- Also taxes.
I did file an exception. I would like to clear for the record.
Why were people asking? Yeah. Well, people were chirping me and like they're saying like I'm going to get audited and shit.
Like I take the most out of my taxes so that I don't have to. Two taxes.
Not do taxes, but like so it's not, you know, it's not like, oh, fuck, I'm going to be down. Oh, here he's moving.
He's going to the heat. Oh, no, he's going to the heat.
He might, he only turns right so far. Yeah, we're gonna have to figure this problem out.
He's not an ambi-turner. Okay, keep going, Hank.
So you did your taxes, even though you did them late? I did, they're on, they're on the way. What? We're good.
What's today's date? It's the 18th. Oh.
Do you owe money? I will owe money, but not, going to get like they were late go to jail okay and if i have to pay a fine i pay it uh all right pft what's yours uh along the same lines as just the tortoise that stinks at gambling i've i tried to do something good and tried to get some advice and learn from experts on tortoises so we can find out more about our beloved Mr. Pear.
And I signed up for an account on tortoise forums. And a lot of hot discussion going on on tortoise forums, tortoises in the news, advanced tortoise topics.
And I made a post there under advanced tortoise topics, asking for advice with a gambling tortoise, because I assume this is a problem they've dealt with in the past. They know which types are good, which types not good i got banned from tortoise forum what they hit me with a band hammer the mods came after me after about it was one post you're the jonte porter of tortoise forum and i specifically said we're not doing weird sex stuff with them because i know a lot of those freaks on the tortoise message boards are into weird sex stuff yep you let that be known i let that be known, and I had several real questions about the tortoise, and then they hit me with a ban hammer right off the bat.
So I'm no longer blocked by OJ, but I am banned by tortoise for him. Wait, OJ unblocked you? No, he's dead, so he's not blocking me.
Right, but is his account? No, but he can't be blocking me if he's dead. But his account still blocks me blocks me yeah we got to get that fixed i know i'm okay with that i'm okay i wear that as a badge but the tortoise form thing is it's a real issue because we are going to have questions about it and that's the place to go to get your questions answered i'll sign up there's yeah you should and then and then do a little like intro post about yourself you know yeah i'm not trying to have sex with any turtles no sex stuff we've been very clear about that maybe i'll say listen guys uh i'm not trying to have sex with my turtle he also is a tortoise we're not going to talk about that part yeah just let everyone know yeah i are separate i looked around on the forum though and there's some great great topics like what did your tortoise do during the eclipse was a hot one that was in advanced topic section.
He's turning back to the middle. Oh.
He's 50-50. He's turning.
He's trying to escape. I think he's leaving.
He's leaving. This guy, Mr.
Pear. He's got a problem.
I mean, we can. If he leaves, we can say no pick.
He's looking at the Bulls. He's like 60% Bulls right now.
Okay. All right.
All right. Yeah, I don't really have a Firefest other than Mr.
Pear. You want to do a Taylor Swift album review? Yeah.
Crash. Wait, no.
Actually, no, I don't because it isn't officially out yet, right? But it's out by the time this is released. But Swifties have been very upset about leaks.
Oh. They've been doxing each other.
They've been infighting in the swifties well i did i did hear one song that i did not care for on the album okay it talks so wait you listened to it before it came out no i was forced to listen to it okay i was forced to listen to are there any music videos i was somebody kidnapped me and they said you have to listen to this i said no taylor's queen let's not take away from her streams yeah is there any videos i could watch i don't have any videos of it okay just let me know when it's in video for there's i've heard that there might be a very interesting video of her and somebody else oh um but you watch it there's one song that i don't like at all and i don't think anyone should listen to it's about how her boyfriend's friend is super annoying and always trying to get him to schedule things and trying to get him to stop coming to her concerts, trying to get him out to drink beers and just carry on and be a big psycho jock.

Don't listen.

And that's not who her boyfriend is.

But he has one bad, really bad influence of a friend that's very unorganized.

Yeah.

Okay.

So whatever that song is about, I don't like it.

Yep.

Agreed.

Jake, finish this off. Is he just not moving again? He's not moving.
He's that song's about, I don't like it. Yep.
Agreed. Jake, finish us off.

Is he just not moving again? He's not moving.

He's in the middle. It might be a no-pick.

Or we could just keep it running.

He's facing the bulls, but he's in the dead center.

Yeah, we'll keep him going. Come on, Mr.

Ben. Come on, Mr.
Ben. Can't rush greatness.

All right, Jake, what's your favorite place? The other

day, I was walking back from the grocery store, and it started

pouring. Right in the middle of the walk.

Oh. I didn't know you like to get wet.
We did have a crazy, a couple of crazy weather days. Thanks, Hank.
Oh, that's our baseball game canceled. Yeah, but it was like there was one day where it was softball.
It was raining, then 70 degrees and raining again. It's nice little.
It's like Florida. Mix it up.
Weather's been fine. It's been fucking 70.
every day. No, there's just one day.
Oh, little rain.

Oh, little rain.

Did you just do your Mr. Pear voice to me?

Oh, little rain.

I'm excited for your softball team.

I want to play.

I also think Hank is not going to be a good pitcher.

He's not taking it seriously.

What?

I asked who was pitching, and everyone was like, I don't know.

And then it seems like you're pitching.

I'm going to come.

I'm going to come. Don't come.
I'm going to come. Don't come.
And it seems like you're pitching i'll i'm gonna come and and i'm gonna come don't i'm gonna come don't come and max are you the manager pug we're the hugs the manager we're the hugs hug will you will there'll be a short hook on hank if he's not throwing strikes yeah it's a zero tolerance policy love that yeah all right i'll be ready i'm gonna i do softball so they're gonna get like hit. Strikes is one thing.
I'm fine with that. Well, no.
If you don't throw strikes, they're just going to walk on you. No, I'm saying that's fine.
Yeah. If we're giving up runs, there's nothing I can do.
That's my fielders. I don't know about that.
It's softball. Sounds like you're okay with getting shelled.
Yeah. Sounds like you're giving up meatballs.
It's softball. Sounds like you're throwing it too slow.
I have no choice. We'll see.
It's game zero. Cut me some slack.
All right, I'm going to show up in a big starter jacket with just over my right arm. I'll be ready.
Maybe I'll just sit in my car. We should find out what teams are playing against Hank, and then we should get you in the starting lineup for one of those teams.
Just take pitches. Take him yard.
Yeah. No, just take pitches.
Walks are way more embarrassing.

Grab the plate.

Oh.

Oh.

Is he going?

Not really.

Popped his head out.

I found how you can tell the difference between a male and a female tortoise online.

Should we check?

Yeah.

Maybe he doesn't like the food that's being presented.

I don't know. What is it?

Lettuce?

Let's check next time he does a pick because he's already in the middle of a pick right now.

We can't rush this.

Yeah.

This might take a while.

All right.

Should we do numbers?

And then you just want someone just want to stay with the camera and we can just have our pick be whenever he decides.

Yep.

And maybe Max or Meme say what the pick is after we do numbers so people who are listening can get the pick. That's fair.
All right. Numbers.
Oh, he's walking towards the Bulls. Eight.
Go, Mr. Pear.
Go, Mr. Pear.
Oh. Go, Mr.
Pear. Go, Mr.
Pear. He's going.
That's a big move. He's going.
He's doing it. He's doing it.
And Bulls. Yes, Bulls.
Let's go, Mr. Pear.
Let's go, Mr. Pear.
Mr. Pear.
Get you some lettuce. Yeah, fuck the heat.
That was actually good to know that he can go the other way. And he was very torn on it.
He actually probably, you can probably put in the graphics when he found out that Jimmy Butler was out. Oh, yeah.
Because he started going to the heat. Yeah, he's eating.
Yes, Mr. Pear.
Mr. Pear.
I love you, Mr. Pear.
All right, numbers. 8.
40. I'm going to go 73 for Mr.
Pear. 61 plus 12.
61, 12 is the number for a turtle. 61 plus 12, 73.
20. 20 for Max.
18. Three.
He's hungry. 99, Poe He just ate.
Are you? I just fed him.

He's supposed to eat one time a day.

He did all that coke.

He's so hungry.

Max, we should go on the Mr. Pear bar.

79.

Love you guys. I'm talking away.

I don't know what to say.

I'd say it anyway.

Today is all my day to find you.

Shine it away.

I'm coming for your love again.

Shine it away.

I'm coming for your love again.

Shine it away. Shine it on me.
Shine Bring on me Bring on me Bring on me Bring on me Come on Bring on me Bring on me Bring on me Bring on me I'm going to be on me I'm going to be on me I'm going to be on me So needless to say I'm going to be on me I'm going to be on me I'm going to be on me I'm going to be on me He's helping, he's helping Thank you. Take off me Take off me I'll be gone Into your I'll be gone Into your Things that I say Yeah, he's a little old.
Thank you. Take me off Take on me Take on me