NBA W/ Kirk Goldsberry, Randy Moss (Plus Special Appearance From Mike Tirico & Mage The Horse), Nuggets Up 2-0, Celtics/Heat & Fyre Fest

Speaker 1 Hey, pardon my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
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Speaker 1 See Mintmobile.com. On today's part in my take, we have Kirk Goldsbury in studio talking ball NBA playoffs with him.
Some of the things we said, we taped it on Thursday afternoon.

Speaker 1 Some of the things we said, we turned out to be prophetic with our knowledge of ball.

Speaker 1 We also have Randy Moss back on the show talking preakness, giving you some winners. He's got a couple races that he absolutely loves both Friday and Saturday.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk Celtics Heat game one.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk some PGA championship and Fire Fest of the Week. Great Friday show to send you into a great sports weekend.

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Speaker 1 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1 Now in the street, there is violence,

Speaker 1 and then a lot of work to be done.

Speaker 1 No place to hang out or washing,

Speaker 1 and then I can't blame all of the sun. Oh no, we're gonna rock down to Electric

Speaker 1 Welcome to part of my take. Today is Friday, May 19th, and Jamal Murray was

Speaker 1 on fire. The Jamal Murray game, PFT.

Speaker 4 I was going to say, Jamal Murray has arrived officially as like a clutch postseason player. That fourth quarter was awesome.
Go Nuggets.

Speaker 1 23 points in the fourth quarter, a game that it felt like for the first three quarters that the Lakers,

Speaker 1 the Lakers did what kind of we expected. They slowed it down.
It was a lot, you know, it was a lot slower pace,

Speaker 1 lower scoring than game one.

Speaker 1 You know, they had Rui Hachimura just being the Lakers, I'm expecting during this entire run,

Speaker 1 one of their guys will always step up and be that guy. Tonight it was Rui Knight.
I think he started seven for seven.

Speaker 1 But the story is Jamal Murray and him just absolutely being so on fire in the fourth quarter, winning that game for the Nuggets.

Speaker 1 And also the story is LeBron James looking old for the first time because he, PFT, whether it was the missed dunk, whether it was,

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, the flops will happen, but he missed a layup like when they were down four with about 20 seconds left where he stole the ball.

Speaker 1 He just, for the first time this, these playoffs, he looked a little off. You can maybe say it's altitude, but his three-point shooting is atrocious, which we'll talk to Kirk Goldsbury about.

Speaker 1 And it felt like one of those games that if LeBron had played just marginally better, the Lakers probably steal one.

Speaker 4 Don't forget his late turnover either. He also, he lost the ball in the paint for the second straight game at the end of the game.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he looked old. The missed layup or the missed dunk was hilarious because he tried to do, he tried to like send a message with a dunk.
He tried to do like a cool dunk on the breakaway.

Speaker 4 Just kind of dribbled off his leg. Shout out Rick Petino.
Went into the second row. And it was a...

Speaker 4 It was hilarious. It was one of the more funny plays I've seen LeBron make recently.
Two-handed layup counts for the same amount of points as a dunk, LeBron.

Speaker 4 Just a message to all the youngsters watching at home. Put that thing off the glass.
High glass, go up strong, come down under control.

Speaker 4 Also, at the end, he should have dunked it when he he tried to lay it up and he missed that layup. Just dunk it, LeBron.
You're huge. You can just dunk on people.

Speaker 4 Don't try to get cute with it and lay it up. And also, the flop was maybe my favorite LeBron flop of all time because he did get poked in the eye a little bit or near his eye.

Speaker 1 He got near his eye. His eye attacked Jokic's hand.

Speaker 4 Was his eye in the protected circle?

Speaker 1 His eye went after Jokic's hand, yeah.

Speaker 4 His eye poked Jokic's finger, and then he fell to the ground, and he slid about like 15 feet into the stands into the front row knocked a drink on him so maybe he was thirsty maybe he wanted just a gin and tonic we know that LeBron likes a little sip every now and again and then I do have as much as I love the Nuggets this year and last year and I love their fans they seem like they're very chill fan base except for the guy that got the shit kicked out of him at the Suns game last year

Speaker 4 They are kind of a bad sports town for giving LeBron a towel to wipe himself off with after he slid into the stands.

Speaker 4 You don't do that. You let him get up wet.
You don't try to make him comfortable. You don't dry him off.
You're not LeBron's towel boy. Okay.
Have a little respect for yourself.

Speaker 1 You actually should Jason Kidd it and pour even more of your drink on him. Remember when Jason Kidd

Speaker 1 accidentally dropped a drink to get an extra time out? Like, that's what you need to do. But

Speaker 1 yeah, I mean, this was a game I thought the Lakers, like, watch the first three quarters. You thought the Lakers were going to win because they were doing a pretty good job with Jokic.
And, I mean,

Speaker 1 he still had a triple double, right?

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, he still had an easily triple double and three steals yeah he he he I mean he's so ridiculous like he rolls out of bed and gets a triple double but with that said like it did feel like they were at least making him work a little bit more LeBron was guarding him in the fourth quarter and then Jamal Murray just stole the game.

Speaker 1 23. What do I say? 23 points.

Speaker 1 23 out of the 32 points the Nuggets scored in the fourth quarter were Jamal Murray, who, by the way, when we talked to Kirk Goldsbury, we had forgotten or never knew that he's Canadian.

Speaker 1 So a big one for Canada, huge one. They can't win a Stanley Coppers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they might be able to win an NBA title. But yeah, I mean, the Nuggets, they hold serve because I do think that

Speaker 1 this series is going to be who can win a road game. Like, I know the whole cliche series doesn't start to someone wins on the road.
The Nuggets have struggled on the road.

Speaker 1 It was clear the Lakers were struggling in the altitude. So will it just be one of those series where everyone just holds serve at home?

Speaker 4 I stand by nugs and six. And the dumb thought that I always have when it's hockey or when it's basketball that's being played in Denver is: does the altitude travel indoors? I don't know.

Speaker 4 They're playing inside a dome. Is the air inside good oxygen or is it thin air? I don't know the answers to these questions, but it certainly seemed like the altitude played some sort of a factor.

Speaker 4 Especially, you could make the argument on a lot of LeBron's misses that he had. He was missing long, he was hitting off the back iron.
Maybe the ball traveled just like half a foot further.

Speaker 4 Who knows?

Speaker 1 0 for 10 now from three point in this series.

Speaker 1 Just let him keep shooting them. He can't make them.
He hasn't been able to make them. So just let him keep shooting them.

Speaker 1 It did feel like they wasted the Rui Hachimura game. I did see a great anecdote come across my Twitter timeline that I wanted to share with you.

Speaker 1 This is from Myron Medcalf, ESPN. He said, One of my favorite Rui Hachimura stories is that one time he was in practice at Gonzaga and Mark Few said he'd made a dumbass play.

Speaker 1 Hachimura, who didn't speak much English then, smiled wide because he thought Few was comparing him to Demontis Sabonis, who was nicknamed Domas.

Speaker 1 So I like that. That's a Domas.
He seems like a fun guy. Yeah.
Domas.

Speaker 4 That also begs the question, why

Speaker 4 how many more good Rui Hachimura stories are there if he says one of my favorite Rui Hachimura stories before this?

Speaker 1 well, whenever a guy like goes, gets on fire this late in the playoffs, it's usually like anecdote season where everyone's like, hey, this one time I met Rui Hachimura. So, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 Like, was that what is he holding back?

Speaker 4 There's got to be some other good ones in the tank right there, for sure. It did, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 4 They messed up the Rui Hachimura game, and it feels like he's good for one of these each series.

Speaker 1 It is also funny that you, it's a great point by you. Like, whenever someone has these games, the the anecdotes, like,

Speaker 1 it's almost like a eulogy on Twitter of like, oh, this guy that no one knows about, let's just start talking about him and telling weird stories.

Speaker 4 Yeah, here's how weird this guy is that's scoring a shitload of points.

Speaker 4 Lonnie Walker, when we had the Lonnie Walker game that happened, the videos of him being in the hot car when he locked himself in a car with a dog to educate America about how hot it can get in a parked car when it's hot outside.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I love the weird stories where it's like, can you believe this is the guy that just dropped 20 on you?

Speaker 1 And this is like on our deathbed. Hopefully, we live long lives, but these are how sports fans pick up little stories about players that you'll never forget.

Speaker 1 Like, you'll never forget Rui Hachimura, you'll never forget Lonnie Walker.

Speaker 1 Like, all these guys, when they have their moments, they're seared into your brain forever, and you can answer trivia on them for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 And that's just, and like, you know, you'll forget birthdays, you'll forget, you know, numbers, you'll forget phone numbers, like important stuff in life to do your taxes, Hank, but you'll never forget these random players.

Speaker 1 And Ruby Hotchimore is more than a random player.

Speaker 1 He was a lottery pick, I believe. But still, this is how we gain knowledge as sports fans that we don't need, that we'll always retain.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I watched this game with my mom again, and I made a couple notes because

Speaker 4 she's not what you call like an NBA fan per se. I mean, she knows some of the players, but she was giving me running commentary.
So I want to walk you through her analysis of the game, if that's okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 on Jokic, she calls him Yok Yoke, which is, I like that name. I like the name Yok Yoke for him.

Speaker 4 She says, Yokioke looks like he should not be able to move at all, but he actually moves quite well somehow. I hate his haircut.
He would be more attractive with American hair.

Speaker 4 His head's too small for his body, but that's all right. It is.

Speaker 4 It's a little small. On offering.

Speaker 1 His body's just so large. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. That's a good point.
Like, Like, his head is probably massive.

Speaker 1 Yeah, his head's probably a fine size. It's just his body, his body's too big for his head, is really what it is.

Speaker 4 But that's all right. She made sure to say, but that's all right.
On Austin Reeves, he's the other white guy, right? Out of all the white guys, I like his haircut the best.

Speaker 4 I like his haircut better than Yoke Yolkes.

Speaker 1 Austin Reeves has a little bit of like the Alabama swoop going from like 20 years ago.

Speaker 4 A little bit, but it's not quite the full-on frat boy swoop.

Speaker 4 It's like the frat boy's friend from out of town that comes to visit once in a while because he wants to see what it's like at a big state school.

Speaker 1 I want to call my shot real quick. Austin Reed is going to get a cool haircut next year.
He's definitely going to, he's definitely going to upgrade his look and maybe add some tattoos. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I would like to see him go with a mullet, actually.

Speaker 1 That would be sick.

Speaker 4 That'd be sick.

Speaker 4 You show up on like a dirt bike.

Speaker 4 On Rui Hachimura, she said, he was on the Wizards and I try not to pay attention to them. Like mother, like son.
Yep. On LeBron, it would be hard to be him

Speaker 4 or be on a team with him. Facts.
And then that, yeah, I think that that puts it quite well.

Speaker 4 Like LeBron James, probably, yeah, he's got a good life because he's rich as shit and he controls basically the entire media right now. But at the same time, probably difficult to be LeBron James.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then she said, she asked me if he was better than Jordan. And I said, that's a question that you're going to have to think about for yourself and answer.

Speaker 1 And she said, well, she's listening to this back. No.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 she her

Speaker 1 point was that he's played more years than jordan so he's kind of a stat compiler so what she wants to do is just take how many years did jordan play it was like 13 14 or well if you don't count the wizards i want to say it's like maybe 15 let me pull it up well because also that's mean baseball uh that's mean to just say if you don't count the wizards like yeah no that doesn't count as his nba career well if you don't count them uh

Speaker 1 you should you should also remind your mom that we've had a great advancement in medical sciences and HGH.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I did allude to the fact that he has a strict diet of steroids and red wine.

Speaker 1 Oh, I nail it 15.

Speaker 1 Okay, so if you take 13, if you don't count the wizards.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, so 13. If you take, if you take LeBron's first 13 years, who scored more points?

Speaker 4 That was her question. I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it's a more fair way to

Speaker 4 judge it. And then she just wanted to know over and over again why they don't call traveling anymore.

Speaker 1 Yeah, all good points. I think she knows ball.
Yeah, she definitely knows ball. Big time ball more.
She, I mean, that's the Austin Reeves.

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, he's got the best haircut out there, probably, of all the white guys.

Speaker 4 Of the white guys, yeah.

Speaker 1 Out of all of them. Well, I guess it would be

Speaker 4 Jokic, and then it would be Christian Braun.

Speaker 4 Christian Brown, right?

Speaker 1 Brown, yeah. Brown.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. So other things we've got to talk about.

Speaker 1 PGA championship. Softest delay in the history of sports, the frost delay.
I got into it with grass Twitter this morning.

Speaker 1 I understand.

Speaker 1 Like there was a bunch of,

Speaker 1 you know, I don't even know what the major is. What is the major?

Speaker 1 I think it's just golf course management that they take, I believe, in college. So the golf course management majors all came out and they're like, look, you can't step on frosted grass.

Speaker 1 Totally understand. I get it's a major.

Speaker 1 but when you see i i guess it breaks the grass which is already broken because it's bent grass either way if you can't just like i woke up this morning getting like i was waking up with my kids like oh i'm gonna get to watch free sports early in the morning before like the world wakes up here frost delay you see frost delay that's that's soft that is soft there's frost on the grass we can't play it's a soft sport but in its own weird way like you have to take into account that these are golfers Of course.

Speaker 4 This is the most hardcore thing that a course can do to set the tone. That's what it did.

Speaker 4 It let the golfers know that it was there on day one, hour one.

Speaker 1 Although, as course guys, which of course had a great day,

Speaker 1 I would like the course to just step up and be like, I don't care if I have frost. Like, go ahead, step on me.
You break a little grass, that's fine.

Speaker 1 Either way, it was a great morning because I got to spend, like, I got to basically take the delay of the PGA championship and instead just get a bunch of people mad at me about grass where I was just

Speaker 1 literally laughing after every tweet, just being like,

Speaker 1 who is even arguing about grass? Like, I've started an argument about grass.

Speaker 1 This is my favorite argument I've ever been in because there's nothing you can do to change my mind to tell me that you can't play golf on Frost.

Speaker 4 You could play golf on Frost. I'm a sod father right now.
You could play golf on Frost. You know what's going to happen?

Speaker 4 There's probably going to be another Frost delay on like maybe sunday on the final round and then they're just going to have to go out there and play so the course will hopefully give another frost delay and then just be like bring it on bitch yeah i'll take you i'll take you anytime anywhere but this is why golf should be played indoors yeah built an indoor course give give me your best um and then the other two stories from it so bryson did play well which was unfortunate although i guess the feud's over So we can't hate him anymore.

Speaker 1 He also like

Speaker 1 I Bryson just got too skinny again. I liked when he was jacked.
I liked when he was just, like, looked like a freak and was just pushing the boundaries of how hard he could hit a drive.

Speaker 1 He went back to skinny Bryson.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I don't like it, but he also did hit a guy on the T. You see that? He had an errant drive.
I think he pulled it to the left, and this poor guy was about to tee off.

Speaker 4 I hope it was Patrick Cantley, but I can't be sure who it was.

Speaker 4 And he called for left, and the guy like ducks out of the way, and the ball just whomps him right on the T-box. That's very relatable.
Like,

Speaker 4 he is one of us now where he misplaces drive so badly that it lands in the fairway of the other hole.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 And did you see the video of Tom Kim, the golfer, who I've never seen anyone have more mud on them from, like, we didn't even get to see the angle of how he got the mud on him, but he was covered.

Speaker 1 He was absolutely covered. Did you see the video? It was incredible.

Speaker 4 Then he goes, You want to smell my hand afterwards? Fellas, we've all been there, am I right?

Speaker 1 It was fucking great.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that was, I mean, great day for the course.

Speaker 4 I give the course an A plus on day one of the PGA Championship.

Speaker 1 I'd agree. I'd agree.
All right. Anything else that we missed that we have to talk about?

Speaker 1 Oh, go see, go watch PM TV. Max's photo shoot that he didn't realize was fake.
And he came in on Monday morning and took a bunch of pictures with his soul patch. Great PM TV.

Speaker 1 Max is just shaking his head. Right now, for people who don't know, it's just me and PFT.
It's old school. We have everyone else back in studio with our guests as well.
But

Speaker 1 anything we missed? I don't think so.

Speaker 4 I think it's

Speaker 4 pretty clean intro there. One thing that you did miss in the intro to the show, not only do we have Randy Moss and Kirk Goldsbury on the show, we also have Mike Torico on the show today.

Speaker 1 Yes, and Mage.

Speaker 1 And Mage.

Speaker 4 And Mage, the Kentucky Derby Champion Horse.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Now, they might only appear on the YouTube version of the show, so you have to subscribe to that to watch it.

Speaker 1 But watch it in the background.

Speaker 4 And credit to us for not not stepping over any lines when we saw Mike Torico pop up because we thought about saying a lot of things.

Speaker 1 And we didn't. Should we put Mike Torico and Mage in the title?

Speaker 4 Yeah, we should. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 With special appearances from Mike Torico and Mage the horse.

Speaker 4 It's a foursome for the boys today.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 1 Great guests for everyone.

Speaker 1 Okay. Let's kick it back to ourselves.
Back in studio. Also subscribe to the YouTube because I think Sunday night we will all be in studio and we are going to stream Celtics Heat.

Speaker 1 So, Jake versus Hank, Sunday night. Yep, yeah.

Speaker 4 Yep, definitely, definitely subscribe to that. We did miss talking about Dustin Johnson.
Did you hear what Dustin Johnson said on Wednesday when he was getting ready?

Speaker 4 He was doing like his press conference that all these guys do, where basically all the live guys go out there and then they have to answer questions about live for 20 minutes.

Speaker 4 They asked him about his bad back that he's been going through, and he insinuated strongly that he got a bad back back from banging his wife too hard which

Speaker 1 respect massive respect

Speaker 4 big paulina gretsky yeah hey i've got a bad back big cat you've got a bad back am i right yeah it's true i

Speaker 1 you know yeah things happen um

Speaker 1 also brooks loved having him back on i wish he had given us the quote i i would start stroking guys because he did say that when talking about uh penalties for slow play he said i would start stroking guys Could have used that on the show.

Speaker 4 Yeah, stroke them till they finish, Brooks.

Speaker 1 Make them finish. Make them finish faster.
That's what you do. Real fast.
It's actually

Speaker 1 you got to stroke them harder.

Speaker 4 If you stroke them and then you keep stroking them, you show that you're not kidding about stroking them hard, fast, consistently, and make that a thing that they can come to expect, they will finish.

Speaker 1 Maybe spit in your hand before you stroke them.

Speaker 4 I don't get it. What do you mean?

Speaker 1 Oh, one last thing we did forget to mention: hockey. The conference finals did start.

Speaker 1 The Panthers won, and then

Speaker 1 they didn't win. So they scored a goal in overtime.
Didn't count. Billy actually, probably the first time in PMT history, Billy tried to beat everyone to the congrats

Speaker 1 text, because usually when one of our teams wins, everyone will congratulate them on the text chains. Very nice camaraderie.

Speaker 1 Billy said, congrats, Jake. And I was like, dude, that's not going to count.

Speaker 1 And so Billy, maybe the first time he ever beat everyone to it, didn't actually count which is very billy but um the other hockey news we have is we are officially a golden knights podcast so

Speaker 1 we're alec martinez is an awl we found out um i still hate him for 2014 uh and the kings scoring the overtime goal against the blackhawks in game seven but we'll put the past in the past we needed a team We are a Golden Knights podcast.

Speaker 1 We were rooting for the Golden Knights. We want the Golden Knights to win the cup.

Speaker 4 Well, think that we said that we like the Golden Knights out of all the four remaining teams the best.

Speaker 4 We said the nicest things, but I think everybody else we gave what some might consider to be backhanded compliments towards when we talked about their cities.

Speaker 4 The Golden Knights are fun, I guess. They're the funnest team left.
And Alec also said that he listens to the show to not hear us talk about hockey.

Speaker 4 You picked the right podcast, buddy, especially this year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we almost forgot to talk about it. Also, I just wanted to, people see, I'm wearing an A's hat.
I feel bad for A's hands, A's fans. I decided.
I've been getting it.

Speaker 1 I listened to the Sonic Boom podcast. I think it came out like four years ago about the Sonics, Seattle losing the Sonics.

Speaker 1 And it just dawned on me that the A's are getting such a fucking raw deal, and the city of Oakland is getting such a raw deal. They lost the Warriors to San Francisco.
They lost the Raiders to Vegas.

Speaker 1 They're going to lose the A's to Vegas. So

Speaker 1 I'm standing with A's fans for all the, I don't know how many are left. I don't think there are any left.
So I'll be the last one standing. I'll turn off the lights at the Coliseum.

Speaker 4 What are they going to do about the possum that's living in the press box? You can't bulldoze the stadium.

Speaker 4 You can't explode a possum and its entire family with dynamite to get rid of a stadium, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, dude, they are.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's sad seeing every game where they're like,

Speaker 1 no one's there. It's basically they're doing major league, but there's no happy ending.
That's essentially what's happening right now. I actually saw a stat.

Speaker 1 Someone tweeted what each team would have to go for the remaining of the season to break the 116 wins in a season. And I think the A's have to go like 93 and 10.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, they're very bad.

Speaker 4 Are you, my proprietary formula is right on the money again this year. So I moved off the Bucs, the Buccos, the Pirates, and I'm fading the A's every game this season.

Speaker 2 It's a winning formula.

Speaker 4 It really is. Yeah.
Yeah. Shout out to Oakland, though.
I do feel bad for them. And also, it seems like there's some funny stuff going on in Arizona with the Yates.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 We got to talk to Biz about that and figure out what we need to do to keep the Yotes in Arizona.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it just sucks. Whenever a city loses a team, it fucking sucks.
And I was just, I was buying a new Cubs hat and I saw the A's. I was like, dude, their logo is awesome.

Speaker 1 And I feel really bad for their fans. So I stand in solidarity.
Fuck owners. Fuck cities that won't help out.

Speaker 1 Even though owners should probably pay for their own fucking stadium.

Speaker 4 But either way, A's fans i stand with you because it sucks i'll also say something nice about the a's they have the best grass in baseball yeah and they get that pattern cut into it and mowed exactly correctly i'm talking like light green dark green diamonds everywhere in the outfield that's that to me is like what i grew up watching and that's what i'll remember the most about 90s baseball probably is how fucking sick the outfield grass was in oakland and how big their foul territory is goes on for days

Speaker 1 so yeah if if you're an A's fan listening to this show, you're an AWL A's fan, tweet us and let us know that you heard it because we're going to stand with you.

Speaker 1 We can't do anything except maybe we'll just bash the owner of the A's like every couple weeks.

Speaker 4 Who is the owner of the A's? Let's find out.

Speaker 1 Fucking A.

Speaker 4 This guy, he's done our shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, actually, it's kind of fucked up that he not only is moving the team, but he's also somewhat anonymous. John Fisher.
Fuck you, John Fisher.

Speaker 4 Piece of shit.

Speaker 1 You fucking dick.

Speaker 4 You greedy dickhead.

Speaker 1 You're sucking my balls. John Fisher, if I saw you, I'd hiss at you.
I would hiss. I wouldn't, nothing physical.
I'd just go a nice

Speaker 1 right in your fucking face, John Fisher.

Speaker 1 I would pants you. Oh.

Speaker 4 Somebody should pull your pants down in public, John Fisher. I would distract him so that you could pants him.
With your hissing.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 The old double tap.

Speaker 1 Yeah, fuck you, John. Yeah, maybe we tabletop him.

Speaker 1 That's actually, I mean, that's a pretty embarrassing thing to get tabletopped. Yeah.

Speaker 4 It's been a minute since I've tabletop somebody.

Speaker 4 All-time schoolyard practice.

Speaker 4 We should get Billy. Billy's definitely not going to listen to this.
No way.

Speaker 1 We got to tabletop him. We got to tabletop him.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes. All right.
I'll go low, you go high.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah, and then he'll blame me.
He'll just be like, good damn it. You always poke with me.

Speaker 1 All right, let's kick it back to ourselves in studio. And a special fuck you to John Fisher.

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Speaker 1 oh boy uh

Speaker 1 in to quote the recently fired doc rivers don't play with your meat

Speaker 1 it feels like the celtics have a proclivity to play with their meat oftentimes.

Speaker 1 They were at halftime looked like they were going to cruise. You saw the heat give their best shot in the first quarter.

Speaker 1 And then the third quarter started and Eric Spolstra made some halftime adjustments and

Speaker 1 Joe Missoula was either getting choked out or watching the town.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And is Joe Missoula a weird guy? Can we just do a side side like for sure? He watches the town for four times a week.

Speaker 4 For sure.

Speaker 4 So that's, I saw that story and I did the math on it because the town is two hours long, which means he watches eight hours of the town per week, which means he watches 17 days worth of the movie The Town per year.

Speaker 1 He seems like he's giving off weird guy vibes.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 The Town is a classic. Yeah, but Hank,

Speaker 4 you have to admit, that's like Nick Siriani level without all the coaching prowess.

Speaker 2 Four times a week is a little much, but I'm not going to sit here and say I haven't seen that movie, I don't know, 500 times.

Speaker 4 Four times a week? Do you do anything four times a week? Besides golf? I don't know.

Speaker 1 I knew that was coming.

Speaker 1 I do like the phrase, whose car are we taking? He had that that sweatshirt. That is kind of a rally the troops championship DVD type of phrase.
But yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 1 Four times a week of watching a movie is a lot. Either way, Spolstra made adjustments, felt like Missoula didn't.
And then the Heat scored 46 third quarter points, completely blitzed them.

Speaker 1 No timeouts from Joe Missoula during that stretch.

Speaker 2 No timeouts. Zero timeouts.

Speaker 1 And then perfectly, the fourth quarter started, and the Celtics went on a 7-0 run in about 90 seconds. And Spo went immediate timeout.
Timeout.

Speaker 1 Being like, hey, why don't we stop letting them score all these points?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Hank, are you nervous or is this, because this is one of those weird games where it was bad for the Celtics, it was bad for Tatum in the fourth quarter, but you can also point to last series having the same thing happen in the first quarter and last year having the same thing happen in game one against the Heat.

Speaker 1 So where do you land?

Speaker 2 I, yeah, it's unfortunately I am a little bit nervous. I wasn't, you know, overlooking the heat by any means, but this is just unfortunately how the Celtics are.

Speaker 2 This is the team you have to live with. It was like this last year.
It was like this against Philly. Games that they should be winning.

Speaker 2 They just take quarters off, and then they lose.

Speaker 2 Not calling a timeout thing was crazy.

Speaker 1 Fun crazy.

Speaker 2 Watching that third quarter. They couldn't get a stop.
They didn't call a timeout. They didn't do anything.
They weren't getting Tatum the ball in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 Jalen Brown

Speaker 2 has had some terrible luck with just falling, like getting these crazy wet spots on the floor. It happened in the Philly series where he was just driving and hit a wet spot, smashed his arm.

Speaker 2 Happened again last night.

Speaker 1 They were getting Tatum the ball. He traveled on two possessions back-to-back with under two minutes, which when was the last time you saw that in the NBA?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was crazy. And the second one, I think that reps should actually call up and downs.
I don't like that it's a travel. Yeah, yeah.
It's called the penalty, the violation is called up and downs.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Game two's a must-win.

Speaker 1 Game two is a must-win. Oh.
Okay, that's smart.

Speaker 4 Now, I did see a stat that in the history of the Heat Celtics playoff series, the Celtics are 0-4 against the Heat in game one. So this is kind of tracking along with that.

Speaker 4 What is it, 2-2 lifetime?

Speaker 1 Well, 0-4.

Speaker 4 They're 0-4 now, and game 1 is against the Heat.

Speaker 2 They've played the Heat more than four times now.

Speaker 4 I don't think so.

Speaker 2 Played him three times in the last.

Speaker 7 2012 was the LeBron stair, game six, and then 20 last year, this year. Those are the four off the top of my head.

Speaker 1 So they're 1-2 in those series where where they start owing i guess oh and three until this year the the heat jimmy butler uh in the playoffs is seven and one in series when his team wins the first game the only one is last year when the heat lost to the celtics so it can be done so it can be done but this does take the the jake womp off the table it does so jake doesn't have to quit yeah he doesn't have to worry i so i i do think the celtics will win game two

Speaker 1 but this is weird to watch where they similar to last series, they kind of fucked around. And the Heat deserve a ton of credit because the Heat are better than the Sixers.

Speaker 1 And more than that, the Heat are just tougher, mentally tougher than the Sixers. Jimmy Butler has more mental toughness than the entire Sixers organization combined.

Speaker 1 They aren't going to be scared of a fight. And you saw it when Jimmy Butler's like, I'm taking over this game.

Speaker 1 What do you have?

Speaker 4 I think he had six steals.

Speaker 1 He was all over the place. Seven assists, six steals.
Shout out Kevin Harlan, by the way. He is is the best.
Jimmy freaking Butler.

Speaker 1 I was like,

Speaker 1 he intercepts him again. I thought he dropped the hard F-bum on that one.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I love that.

Speaker 4 Jimmy freaking Butler.

Speaker 1 Kevin Harlan is the best.

Speaker 1 He's basically a fan watching the game, but obviously incredible at calling a game. Like his enthusiasm matches the moment of a fan watching it.

Speaker 4 Jay Butt is also so smart. I don't think he gets enough credit.

Speaker 4 I think that he's super tough, obviously, but he's a really smart basketball player offensively, too.

Speaker 4 And they were running a bunch of plays where Jimmy would, like, drive towards the basket and then drive away from the basket towards the baseline and just find space on the court.

Speaker 4 The lost art of the mid-range jumper. Jay Butt's bringing it back.
Yep.

Speaker 4 And also to all the haters that said that Jay Butt wasn't athletic. Suck my dick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's very athletic.

Speaker 1 They are tougher, though. They're a lot tougher.
So that has to scare you a little bit, Hank. Even like Bam.

Speaker 7 One on four, there was one play where he just wrestled and got a jump ball out of it.

Speaker 1 Embiid is a better basketball player than Bam. Bam is tougher.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, it's not hard to be tougher than the Sixers. Like, that's kind of the thing where it's like

Speaker 2 pretty much anyone's tougher than the Philadelphia 76ers. But it still ultimately comes down to the Celtics beating themselves.
They had some open looks at the end of the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 They just missed. They missed a couple threes.
They had those two turnovers.

Speaker 2 I don't think the Heat beat us as much as we beat ourselves, which has kind of been the running theme with the Celtics the last few years.

Speaker 2 They missed a lot of free throws again, which is just infuriating.

Speaker 2 But if they play their game, they will win this series.

Speaker 2 They just have to not let up in the third quarter. They have to execute down the stretch.
So

Speaker 2 it's not good to lose game one. I think if we lose game two, I'll be officially panic button out.
But I think if we win game two, we're back.

Speaker 1 The Celtics as a team feel like they have ADHD. Yeah.
Like they really, like as a team,

Speaker 1 they need to be prescribed like Ritalin, Adderall, Vivance, because they just go stretches where it's like, are they even focused on this game?

Speaker 2 And they don't have the kill.

Speaker 2 They go up 10, and it's like, okay, this is when is this going to swing back? They don't have the like, all right, let's just go up 25, except for game seven, I guess, uh, against the Sixers.

Speaker 2 But most of the time, that's also the Sixers, right? Yeah, it's like, that was more like the Sixers just rolling over and, you know, us patting their belly.

Speaker 1 All right, that's enough. We're done.

Speaker 4 There's no more Sixers talk here.

Speaker 1 No, I think it's fair to compare. Why? I just got done with the series.

Speaker 1 The Sixers are done. The Sixers are dead.

Speaker 1 Let's go into

Speaker 4 what happened in the last season that they're going to be playing.

Speaker 1 It's a difference for this game.

Speaker 4 Because it is like night and day watching the Heat and the Sixers compete.

Speaker 1 Right. Like, I think the Celtics are in more trouble.
Who won game one of the last series?

Speaker 1 That's why we compare them. So

Speaker 1 let's see what happens. That's why we compare.

Speaker 1 Let's see what happens.

Speaker 4 But I'm talking about game seven, which is the most recent game.

Speaker 4 If the Celtics went in five, do the Heat still have all this great, you know, rah-rah.

Speaker 2 Good question.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because

Speaker 4 this game was crazy.

Speaker 1 They should be here. Yeah.

Speaker 4 But was it Matt Barnes that said the Heat aren't your average age seed? No. And that's so true.

Speaker 1 Because Jimmy Butler, just in the playoffs, is totally different. My point, Max, that you got very triggered about, you're triggered.

Speaker 4 It's okay, you're triggered. You mad.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, it was enough. Well,

Speaker 1 my point is, I don't think the Celtics have a margin to fuck around as much against the Heat. That's really what my point is.

Speaker 1 Because you have not only the Heat being a tougher team, but the Heat being a...

Speaker 1 superior coach team. Spo is the best coach in the NBA, so

Speaker 1 you can't can't mess around with the heat. No.

Speaker 4 What sucks is you kind of squandered a Robert Williams offense game because he looked really good offensively, and then so did Marcus Smart. Would he have like 11 assists in the first half?

Speaker 7 Yeah, he was awesome.

Speaker 1 He had some sick passes. He did have some sick passes.
He had some sick passes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it wasn't the worst game. The third quarter was bad.
And I think the fourth quarter,

Speaker 2 I think Horford had a missed three, Jalen Brown had a missed three, and then they had those two turnovers. Like, two of those things goes the opposite way.
It's probably a closer game.

Speaker 2 Self-explanatory win. You can't have, you know, five turnovers and two missed shots in the last five minutes.

Speaker 4 And two travels.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, that's the turnover.
That's so crazy. Turnover is travel.
Yeah, but two travels were nuts.

Speaker 4 One was up and downs.

Speaker 7 As Joe Mazzoula mentioned, the Celtics did win three out of the four quarters.

Speaker 4 I was about to say

Speaker 2 it.

Speaker 1 He said it.

Speaker 4 We'll go back to Hank's stat from last year. If you win the majority quarters, you should win the game.

Speaker 1 That's it. Well, that

Speaker 4 was correct. So you're really up three to one.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, on aggregate, you guys are doing just fine. Yeah.
Just Just don't let a 46-piece get dropped on you. I'm going to watch the three really killing watches for 10 years.

Speaker 1 And Hank, you will be in the building. I'll be in the building Friday.

Speaker 2 Shout out to game time. Got to get some last-minute tickets.
Code take.

Speaker 1 PMT, PMT.

Speaker 4 Code PMT. You know what's funny is that that means that Joe Missoula watches probably,

Speaker 4 I'm going to say

Speaker 4 two minutes of RA per year.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Rear Army.

Speaker 2 To the filter, Dougie.

Speaker 7 Also, Denver, Miami, and the Lakers are all undefeated at home in the playoffs. Boston's four and four.

Speaker 1 Bad sports down.

Speaker 1 I think the Celtics and the Bruins are like two and seven. So, Hank, are you going to do something when you get there? Are you going to do maybe when Kyrie had the

Speaker 1 Sage?

Speaker 1 The Sage?

Speaker 2 I'm going to drop another sausage, get the vibes going.

Speaker 4 You know what you should do, Hank? You should go dressed as the nun with the mask from the town.

Speaker 4 Sit court side, get Missoula pumped up.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's a good idea. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you ever think...

Speaker 1 No, actually, I'm not going to do it. Kyrie would be perfect for this team.

Speaker 2 Jason Tatum has made the Eastern Conference Finals, I think, three out of his first five years or something, and the only two years he didn't was when Kyrie was on the team.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, a super skilled ball handler who can create offense and not have, make it so that Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum don't have to handle the ball.

Speaker 2 Marcus Smart had 10 assists in the first half.

Speaker 1 I know, but he also,

Speaker 1 I mean, there's times when Marcus Smart.

Speaker 2 Kyrie Kyrie Irving is a team killer.

Speaker 1 I agree with that. The Celtics have been better statistically

Speaker 1 on the team. Let me say it this way.
Kyrie Irving's skill set, not Kyrie Irving.

Speaker 1 A Kyrie Irving skill set would be perfect for this team.

Speaker 4 Yeah, one of the best ball handlers in the NBA.

Speaker 1 I'm saying taking away Marcus Smart and having him Kyrie Irving, but skill set.

Speaker 4 I think it's Jiu-Jitsu, which is his least favorite type of jitsu.

Speaker 2 I like Missoula. I just think, again, it kind of is similar to last series,

Speaker 2 keeping the guys locked in, calling timeouts when the other team goes on a a run. It's little things like that.
I don't think it's the team, the team build is good.

Speaker 2 This team is built to win a championship.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 We should talk real quick before we do some Kirk Goldsbury.

Speaker 2 Also, people that had to watch on YouTube TV, apparently.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Hey, hey, victory for the boomers.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Big time.
Yep. I.

Speaker 1 So I'm not. I don't, I'm not a cord cutter.

Speaker 2 I guess it was like with 10 minutes left, there was a little mermaid commercial, and then they just never went back to the game.

Speaker 1 Holy shit. That would drive me insane.
This is why, you know, I will pay all the money in the world for my cable bill to not have to deal with this.

Speaker 1 But my immediate thought was they better fucking figure this out before NFL suddenly.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I was thinking that too. And I would expect the NFL would just stop the game.
They would have to.

Speaker 4 If the TV went down, they would have to just be like, okay, we're taking an extended commercial break.

Speaker 4 The NBA, I guess they probably don't have that many people compared to the cable audience watching on YouTube TV. I'd imagine the younger audience does.
But yeah,

Speaker 4 that was tough for everybody out there that thinks that they're better than cable.

Speaker 1 There's not a lot of things in life that I'm like super passionate about that I would like, you know, put a lot of my effort and mobilize my energy behind.

Speaker 1 But if the NFL Sunday gets fucked up with YouTube TV, like I'll march on Washington. We riot.

Speaker 8 I'll Jan 6 that shit. We riot.

Speaker 1 No problem. Yeah.
I'll be fucking sitting in the capital with a bear mask on being like, give me my games back on TV. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm being dead serious. Like that is probably the one thing where I'd be like, yeah,

Speaker 1 you want to grab some fucking guns and zip ties and roll on Washington? Let's do it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I actually think that Roger Goodell, he could do it whenever he wants to the league.

Speaker 4 He can schedule games more unfairly based off rest. He can have Tuesday night games, Wednesday night games.
But if you can't watch the games when they're live, then there's no problems.

Speaker 1 Then we riot. We take to the streets.
Yep.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Guy Fox.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.
One last thing before we get to Kirk Goldsberry, and we'll talk to him about this as well. The Victor Wembanyama hype has gotten so hilariously out of control.

Speaker 1 There was a couple of things that happened in the last couple of days. Woge said he was maybe the greatest prospect in the history of team sports.

Speaker 1 People are saying he is a bigger deal than LeBron James, which is just factually incorrect because Victor Wembanyama is coming in a time when all the highlights are easily accessible.

Speaker 1 And I still think more people knew about LeBron James coming out of high school. His games were on ESPN.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And he was on the cover sports illustrated as a junior with the headline, The Chosen One. Right.

Speaker 4 And that, for all the shit that we give LeBron James, you have to give him massive amounts of credit for not fucking all that up.

Speaker 1 Well, no, remember, it's, we get the credit. Oh, that's right.
Yeah, we called it correctly. We called that correctly.

Speaker 4 But still, with LeBron, like, he delivered on everything that we told him he would do. So he held up his end of the bargain for what we put out there for him.

Speaker 4 But then you have to ask, would he have been that great if it wasn't for all of us gassing him up in the media and telling him how good he was?

Speaker 1 Probably not, but either way, LeBron was a bigger deal culturally than Victor Wembenyap. Yes.
I know that people like just have somehow forgot what it was like 20 years ago.

Speaker 1 But again, this pre-like internet being what it is today and everyone knew who LeBron James was.

Speaker 4 You know what the funniest part in retrospective the LeBron James hype was when they would play his game on ESPN and he would have to wear these big arm patches to cover up his tattoos.

Speaker 4 Because in televised high school basketball, you weren't allowed to show arm tattoos for some reason. It was a a weird world back then.

Speaker 1 He also, the craziest thing with LeBron, before his first game was ever played, he did a commercial where they got like the actual players in the first game to be in the commercial. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Mike Bibby in a King's uniform guarding LeBron James.

Speaker 4 I think we talked about that. It's crazy.
And we were watching it and we were like, holy shit, how do they NBA scripted? Yeah. This.
They're playing the game before the game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're playing the game before the game. And then Broussard, Brew Crew, shout out, said he has expectations for Wembinyama Wembanyama to be one of the best players ever.

Speaker 1 If Wembanyama is KD, Hakeem Elijah One, or Anthony Davis, he has not met expectations.

Speaker 1 He has to have a career like Kareem, Jordan, LeBron, Shaq, or Duncan.

Speaker 4 That's pretty lofty expectations.

Speaker 1 Top five all time. Yeah,

Speaker 4 I did see, if you're a Wimbinyama hater or a Spurs hater, you can go watch the video of Kenny Lofton Jr. posting him up.
Yeah, I retweeted him.

Speaker 1 Did you? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 It's a great video, and it's probably very selectively edited. I'm sure that Wimbinyama just ate his lunch for the rest of the game.

Speaker 1 He did block him on one of the shots.

Speaker 4 But Kenny Lofton Jr. just putting his big ass right into Wimbinyana's waist and knocking him off the ball.
Too scutting. That was also probably, I'd say, 45, 50 pounds ago for Wimbinyama.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's probably put on a little bit of weight since then. But, I mean, people forget Kevin Durant couldn't bench 135 one time when he was going to the draft.

Speaker 1 Either way, he's...

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 it's probably gotten a little too out of hand

Speaker 1 for him to be, if he's a failure, if he is not better than KD, Hakeem Elijah, and Anthony Davis.

Speaker 4 Combined.

Speaker 1 That's insane. Insane.
He's got to cure cancer.

Speaker 4 Yeah, or just be better than all those guys.

Speaker 1 He's got to win at least three Super Bowls.

Speaker 1 Somehow.

Speaker 4 If he's not the best NBA player of all time, bust.

Speaker 1 Bust. Huge bust.

Speaker 4 Huge bust.

Speaker 1 Would be, now we are Wembinyama podcast, but what if he actually was like a real bust?

Speaker 4 I mean, that we might just, you know what we should do? We should just become Scoot Henderson guys.

Speaker 4 Yeah. It's like Gray Goat and KD.
It's also very second guys, actually. Actually, shout out to Scoot Henderson.
All the confidence in the world.

Speaker 4 He said that he still thinks that he should be the number one pick. Ooh.

Speaker 1 I like that.

Speaker 1 I expect Wembinyama to be so good that it changes how we play basketball. And now no one under seven feet is allowed to play.

Speaker 4 Or just raise the rims.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, what is it? I know he's so crazy, but still.

Speaker 1 Akeem. Anthony Davis and KD.

Speaker 4 And Tim Duncan.

Speaker 1 No, no, that's. He has to have a career like Tim Duncan.
Okay. So he has to win five titles and a few MVPs.
Yeah. He has to have a career like Kareem, Jordan, LeBron, Shaq, or Duncan.

Speaker 4 I could see it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So yeah, good job. Victor, no pressure.

Speaker 4 You know what? I might root against Victor until he decides to play for the U.S. on the Olympic team.
I like that.

Speaker 1 I like that.

Speaker 4 Or, I can't wait to root against him in the Olympics if he's on France.

Speaker 1 I want everyone to dunk on him.

Speaker 4 We should get Vince Carter back on the U.S. Olympic team, dunk over another French guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, him and Rudy Gobert. Yeah.
Just dunk on both of them.

Speaker 1 Okay. Should we talk? We'll talk more basketball, playoff basketball with Kurt Goldsberry in person.
Then we have Randy Moss talking some preakness. Before we do that, PFT, you got a quick ad?

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Speaker 4 And now here's Kurt Goldsbury.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on our good friend in studio, Kurt Goldsbury, midway through the playoffs. Thought it would be a great time.
You're in New York.

Speaker 1 Thought it would be great to catch up with you, maybe clean up some of the takes you had before the playoffs.

Speaker 8 Did you have the Bucs winning at all?

Speaker 3 You guys gave me several chances to predict the future.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 3 That's right. Some of them are still in play.

Speaker 1 Okay, so, but you also said Jokic is just terrible at defense, and the Nuggets will not win anything because they suck at defense.

Speaker 3 I did say that he struggles on the defensive end, but he's the best offensive player in the league.

Speaker 4 Did you write an article that was like the problem with Jokic?

Speaker 3 I pointed out that some of his defensive stats were problematic, and I stand by that.

Speaker 4 Oh, what it was, it was like a highlight reel of five bad plays by Jokic.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And you're like, this guy stinks.
Aren't you happy you came in? Yeah, I am.

Speaker 3 I am very happy to be here. The playoffs are in full swing, and Nicole Jokic and Jimmy Butler both look like the best players in these playoffs.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay, so let's start with Heat Celtics.

Speaker 1 And we talked a little bit about it, but if you looking at it from the numbers and watching the games, what exactly is wrong with the Celtics?

Speaker 1 And I say wrong knowing that they're in the Eastern Conference Finals this series is only one game, but it does feel like there are times where they just kind of take their eye off the ball and they play with their meat, like Doc Rivers says.

Speaker 1 What do you see?

Speaker 3 I kind of agree with that.

Speaker 3 I'll set it up with this. They come into the playoffs as the number two ranked offense and the number two ranked defense

Speaker 3 in the NBA during the regular season. The teams that have done that in the last 25 years have all won the championship.
There's two of them, both Warriors teams. So you start there.

Speaker 3 This team on paper is stacked. a two-way juggernaut, but they do sort of F around.
And we saw it in game one against Miami.

Speaker 3 They dominate the first half and they come out of halftime and they fall asleep. Miami scores 46 46 points.

Speaker 3 And then the fourth quarter, sort of on the offensive end, that Tatum sort of falls asleep, doesn't shoot the ball once in the fourth quarter. So to me, that's sort of a fair thing to say.

Speaker 3 They are a very complete team that sort of takes naps. Right.
And they took naps a few dangerous times in that Philly series, and James Harden took advantage of it.

Speaker 3 And then it's hard to reconcile. How are they the team that did that in game seven on Sunday and then shows up for game one against Miami and sort of lays the egg, especially in that third quarter.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so coming out of halftime,

Speaker 4 we were talking about Missoula earlier. He watches how many, what,

Speaker 4 four times a week he watches The Town, the movie The Town. So that's about as deep as our analysis of his coaching goes.

Speaker 1 Well, he gets choked out.

Speaker 4 He gets choked out, yeah. But from your perspective,

Speaker 4 what is different about the Celtics offense or what was different in that third quarter that you can point at and being like, this is the adjustment that Missoula should have made that he didn't make?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think in in that third quarter, one thing that's been pointed out is he didn't take any timeouts.

Speaker 3 You know, Ben Affleck in the town needed a couple of timeouts, you know, when it got really hairy, but he didn't take any timeouts.

Speaker 4 Like, Jeremy Reynard disappear behind a light bulb, take a sip of Sprite, and then go out there and get shot to death.

Speaker 3 Take the 22nd T there.

Speaker 1 I think...

Speaker 3 They started with a nine-point lead at the end of the halftime break and ended on a 12-point deficit in that quarter. For me, that was more of a defensive lapse.
I call timeout.

Speaker 3 I changed the lineup around.

Speaker 3 They were getting beat in transition. They needed a talking to, and he just didn't stop it.
I don't think their offense was as much of a problem there as it was in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3 When the dude who just broke the record for points in a game seven on Sunday doesn't shoot the ball in game one on Wednesday.

Speaker 3 Again, what are we doing? Call a timeout. Set up a play for this guy.
Right. Like, I think that's a fair criticism, PFT, is

Speaker 3 knowing when to call timeouts. And we've seen it now multiple times in this postseason in that in that Sixer series, he didn't call a timeout in that key late game moment.

Speaker 3 I think it was game four or game five, I forget. But if I had to pick one thing, it's like learn how to use those TOs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he hates timeouts. It is.
And Jason Tatum to me,

Speaker 1 I can't describe it. I think he is obviously one of the top five, 10, whatever you want to call him.
The Sunday game, 51 points was out of this world.

Speaker 1 And I see that, and I'm like, that guy should take over games because he has the ability to do it whenever.

Speaker 3 And and then you see Wednesday night and he's got two travels which you rarely ever see yeah he's missing shots in the fourth quarter I don't know like is that just the next evolution of Jason Tatum the consistency game to game yeah totally right and there's I'll put it one back like one of the bigger games of the season was game six in Philly sorry Max but he was one for 14 like he was he was en route to a major loss like and it would have been on him and to his credit guys one for 14 then he makes the three biggest shots of that game and saves the season.

Speaker 3 So he has that. But then one other big thing that's different in this series is a guy named Jimmy Butler, who is his primary defender.

Speaker 3 And I don't know about you guys, but I could not score on Jimmy Butler. That guy is playing defense at as great a level as he's playing offense.

Speaker 3 He's the leading scorer remaining in these playoffs, and his defense might be better. He had six steals in game one.
He held Tatum to, I think, two field goals when he was his primary defender.

Speaker 3 That's crazy. Nobody can score on Jimmy Butler right now, and that's part of the deal with this series.
Is Jason Tatum going to be able to do that against Jimmy?

Speaker 4 So, how do you stop Jimmy?

Speaker 3 Dude, I mean,

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 4 Do you just let him score 50?

Speaker 3 I watched Mike Budenholzer try to figure it out. I watched Tom Thibodeau try to figure it out.
Both of those guys have won a coach of the year championships.

Speaker 3 Now we have this rookie head coach trying to figure it out.

Speaker 3 Jimmy is a vibe. Jimmy is the best competitor of any player who walks onto any court, but you have to beat him in several different ways.
Like,

Speaker 3 he can start fast break transitions, PFT, with these steals. He had six steals again.
Like, that's remarkable.

Speaker 3 And then shooting, he hit that three last night that sort of went in and out and then came back in. And he just seems to be built for this in a way that...
that is unstoppable, to be honest.

Speaker 3 And I don't know how I would stop him. Jason Tatum, Marcus Smart, they have a lot of defensive weapons they can throw at him.

Speaker 4 Yeah, would you call him Hemi?

Speaker 3 I would.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah, wouldn't it? Is he the most most him?

Speaker 3 I'd definitely call him Himmy. Could you imagine if the Bulls had a player like that?

Speaker 4 Oh, my God. Or the Sixers? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Speaking of the Sixers, which we got to talk about a little bit right now, Max is shaking his head. Is Joel and beat a loser?

Speaker 3 Wait, did Max change his facial hair?

Speaker 1 That's fine. Is Joel Embiid a loser?

Speaker 3 He's the winner of the MVP, but his scoring average, one stat I saw was his scoring average dropped significantly in the playoffs. There were games where he just did not seem engaged.

Speaker 3 You know, we make fun of like Shaq sometimes for his analysis on Turner. But one thing he is, he's very fair with the Big Men.
He's like, you have to demand the ball and own these moments.

Speaker 3 And at his worst, I think Joelle in the playoffs sort of disappeared in a way that I don't think Prime Shaq would have ever disappeared.

Speaker 3 And I think one of the things we want to see, if you're an MVP, be the MVP in May as well. Yeah.
You know, and I didn't see it in that game seven

Speaker 3 and some of the bigger moments in that series. He didn't sort of have that MVP series that I had hoped he'd have.

Speaker 1 And obviously, he's not a loser, but he kind of is. Like, there's a kernel of truth.
He's never been past the second round.

Speaker 3 He's getting that Chris Paul sort of legacy. I mean, how much further do you go in your career where you can't, you know, T-Mac had this for a while?

Speaker 3 Chris Paul, is Joel Ebi'd the next one of those guys?

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe.

Speaker 4 So, how do you fix the Sixers?

Speaker 1 Oh, good question. Loaded question.

Speaker 3 Well, they're changing the coach.

Speaker 3 I think you could still build a champion around Embiid.

Speaker 3 He is an incredible two-way player. I think they need to to play with a little more shooting around him.

Speaker 3 You can probably win with James, but.

Speaker 1 Can you?

Speaker 3 Is he good in the playoffs?

Speaker 4 At the start.

Speaker 3 Are we talking regular season or playoffs?

Speaker 1 Playoffs. Playoffs.
Some people in this room thought when he scored like 45 points, like, oh, he's changed. And we said, just wait, just wait till game six and seven.

Speaker 1 And the real James Harden will be real. Well, he did it twice.
He did that twice. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 4 What games were those?

Speaker 1 I mean, he did it twice.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he did it twice.

Speaker 2 Well, you were saying that after game one, and then he did it again.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but then at the end.

Speaker 1 But then at the end, my theory tired. My theory tired.

Speaker 3 Was the second one game five, six, or seven?

Speaker 1 No, it was game four. So game four.
Yeah, game four.

Speaker 4 I actually think that James Harden doesn't want to win in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 4 at this point, we have enough analysis, and you can look at what he does at the end in important games where you could make the case, like, why would you, if you were James Harden and you're getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars, there's a case to be made for just not wanting to go to work the next month.

Speaker 3 I have personal experience with this. So when I was in the Spurs front office, we played James and Kawhi was hurt and I think Tony was hurt and we went to Houston for a game six.
I remember driving.

Speaker 3 We stopped at Bucky's, me and Monty Williams on I-10,

Speaker 3 getting some soft drinks there. And we just felt like we were going to a slaughter because we knew they were whole and we were beat up.

Speaker 3 And if you remember that game, that's the game where this dude just didn't show up.

Speaker 3 And we had Jonathan Simmons out there. He looked like the best player in the game.

Speaker 3 And that was one of the early data points in James's playoff resume that said, like, maybe this guy ain't it, but he just was invisible in a game.

Speaker 1 They should have walked all over us.

Speaker 3 And, and, you know, you're, it's kind of fair. We have a lot of these games where just like two for nine in the biggest game is.
It's weird, isn't it?

Speaker 1 And I think what happens, part of the explanation for James Harden in the playoffs, is it gets ref different.

Speaker 1 You get to see, you know, over and over and over, obviously they change the crews, but he doesn't get the same calls that he gets in the regular season where he lives on the foul line, the free throw line.

Speaker 1 And then you see the trepidation he has where he doesn't want to go and attack the rim. So like all kind of snowballs from there.

Speaker 1 Like peak James Harden is when he's attacking the rim, getting the free throw line over and over and over again. And you saw in game seven, he just wasn't, he wasn't going to do it.

Speaker 3 And one more thing about that is the regular season is checkers. Like teams, Greg Popovich doesn't.
concoct a really hyper-specific game plan for a regular season game in February.

Speaker 3 In a game four, a game five, and a game six, you're seeing coaching staffs, it's rocket science now. It is chess now.
And so

Speaker 3 they're getting hyper-specific with pick and roll coverages and matchups in a way that James, it's harder.

Speaker 3 to play basketball against those defenses when all the coaches are laser focused in on you and your act. It's harder to perform well in those moments.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that brought up something I was, I'm happy you're here because I wanted to ask you this.

Speaker 1 In that series, you saw Joe Missoula not go to that big lineup, rob williams and al horford both starting till game six or seven when you were in the playoffs with the spurs would pft's watch is talking to him shut up would you

Speaker 1 would pop ever deliberately hold back something like do coaches going into a series hold back a adjustment they know is going to work and being like we will wait until they make us get to this point so like they know almost in game one they're not putting out their primo You could even see it sometimes.

Speaker 1 Steve Kerr would do it when they go to the death lineup, yeah, and they'd start it.

Speaker 1 Like, do they consciously say, We're not actually putting our best team on the floor to start this game, game one, or playing our best rotations because we want to keep something in the chamber to surprise them later on in the series.

Speaker 3 Hell yeah, they do.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's crazy, though.

Speaker 3 But I'll give you a great example that involved the Milwaukee Bucks collapse

Speaker 3 three or four years ago, and Nick Nurse was the coach of the Raptors, and he didn't put Kawhi Leonard on Yannis Ansa Tacumpo until they lost the first two games of the series.

Speaker 3 And that's a really famous example of like, oh, that was staring us in the face. Sometimes it's a matchup.
Sometimes it's a lineup.

Speaker 3 Sometimes it's an ATO play that they have like and sort of break glass in case of emergency. We have this look.
We have this lineup. We have this play that we know that we're going to save.

Speaker 3 for those emergencies.

Speaker 1 I love that aspect of a seven-game series.

Speaker 3 No special is another one. Shout out, Max.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but knowing

Speaker 1 to use that. Yeah, knowing that you, well, yeah, that's true.
That's football, though. But yeah, the

Speaker 1 knowing like, hey, we're, we're going to, like, almost anticipate they're going to make this adjustment, so we're going to save a counter-adjustment for later.

Speaker 3 I would have liked to have seen that double big lineup, and I know a lot of Celtics fans wanted to see it earlier in that Sixer series thing

Speaker 3 so late.

Speaker 3 I mean, that lineup is really what took Hank Celtics from mediocre at the beginning of last year when they're sort of struggling to find their identity to the juggernaut they became that won the Eastern Conference.

Speaker 3 And the fact that we'd barely seen it at all in the playoffs when the Celtics were struggling against the Hawks

Speaker 3 and struggling in the early part of that Sixers series, it's like, yeah, that's another sort of fair question for Joe Mazzilla. It's like, what took you so long, man?

Speaker 3 Robert Williams and Al Horford at the same time, pretty good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, see, I didn't know if that was what took you so long or he was like, I'm saving this for when we actually, our backs are against the wall, which seems like a dangerous game to play.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a dangerous game. I don't think he would have saved it that long.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 Like, I don't think he would have lost. What was that series?

Speaker 1 It was 3-2. Yeah.
Yeah, 3-2. Yeah, Doc Rivers up 3-2.

Speaker 4 So you mentioned ATO stuff. You mentioned set plays from out-of-bound set pieces, as we call them in football.

Speaker 4 Which coach draws up the best set plays

Speaker 4 amongst the remaining four?

Speaker 3 Oh, amongst the remaining four?

Speaker 1 Well, let's see. There's a clear number one.

Speaker 3 Part of it is who do you have out there?

Speaker 3 And it's really good if you're Mike Malone to have Nicola Jokic in an ATO play because the ball is going to go through him and there's going to be a cut that sort of goes the opposite way that the defense is expecting.

Speaker 3 And he's the one. By the way, he created so many points with assists.
I think he created 32 points with assists alone in game one. So Mike Malone has that luxury.
Michael Malone.

Speaker 4 He'll get mad at you if you say Mike. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, he called my piece on Jokic a hatchet job.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's an honor.

Speaker 3 It was the first time I had a hatchet job in my career.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 3 that's a rate of passage in sports writing, I guess. Yeah, and my hatchet job, Michael Malone.

Speaker 3 And then I think, you know,

Speaker 3 Eric Spolstra is the best coach in the NBA, I think, with all due respect to

Speaker 3 Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich right now, what he's doing.

Speaker 3 But I don't know if the ATO is his strong suit.

Speaker 1 You failed. The answer is Brad Stevens.

Speaker 4 Is he still coaching?

Speaker 1 Well, he probably passed

Speaker 1 Shadow Government.

Speaker 4 He's definitely not because

Speaker 4 he would have given some plays to missoula yeah maybe he's saving because you would probably say that that missoula is the last one amongst the four remaining in terms of designing set plays right he is the he has the limit most limited resume but it is true brad stevens is in the building and he has a great encyclopedia of atos they could use yeah what about what about hustle stats do you have any hustle grit stats any metrics that would look at the heat because when you look at heat and celtics it's like The Celtics have a lot of players that would fall into that category of gritty players, but for whatever reason, it seems you don't think so.

Speaker 3 I wrote an article on ESPN last week about the Miami Heat, and it was all centered around this category of stats called hustle stats, because I was like, what is heat culture?

Speaker 3 Does it show up in the numbers? And when you look at the four remaining teams, PFT, you're like, the Celtics are the two-way juggernaut.

Speaker 3 The Lakers are sort of this defensive team that has two superstars.

Speaker 3 And the Nuggets are the offensive juggernaut.

Speaker 3 What is the heat? The heat is this heat culture thing. And what stats can you point at? Loose balls recovered, charges drawn, deflected passes, screen assists.

Speaker 3 They're far and away leading the NBA playoffs in all of these like pain in the ass stats, the hustle stats. I say they do the dirty work.
And I was finally able to track down a bunch of these numbers.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, the most important play of their playoff run is probably Kevin Love taking the charge on Giannis when he got hurt. But that's not unusual.
They take more charges than everybody.

Speaker 3 They dive on loose balls. And Jimmy leads the playoffs in deflected passes and loose balls are covered.
He's setting the tone there.

Speaker 3 But yeah, that heat culture, that identity, they hustle more than anybody else in the playoffs and it's not close.

Speaker 1 So they try harder.

Speaker 3 Honestly, yes. And I think

Speaker 3 my favorite description, it sounds ridiculous to say that about pro athletes, but like one of my favorite quotes from Spolstra this postseason is like, Balls in the air, balls on the ground, that's what we take pride in.

Speaker 3 And then he likened his own team to Navy SEALs. So I'm not going to say they're trying harder.
I'm not going to make the war comp, but there's a lot of that around PFTs.

Speaker 4 Like,

Speaker 1 you're waiting.

Speaker 4 No, I just sat up. I was like, this, now I might be all in on the heat.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're talking my language.

Speaker 3 But the metric is they do hustle more.

Speaker 3 And yeah, you can say they try harder. I'm fine with that.
They try harder.

Speaker 1 Julius Randall even said it. He was like, I think they might just want it.
Great point.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they do.

Speaker 4 That's the debate. Do they try harder or do they want it more? I think those are two separate things.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think they want it. They want it more.

Speaker 3 Well, Well, if we can sort of zoom into a loose ball, if there's a loose ball on the floor in the Celtic series and you're saying, okay, I gun to your head, who's getting that ball, I'm taking Miami Heat every time.

Speaker 3 Like these guys do dive on the floor faster and more regularly than almost any team I've seen in a long time.

Speaker 4 Did you see our friend Greene, the stat that he was pointing to of why the Heat were dominating the Knicks when the games were in Miami? He said, it's so hot in Miami.

Speaker 4 And the Heat have a hard time, or the Knicks have a hard time traveling down there.

Speaker 3 Is that South Beach is Undefeated or is that something else?

Speaker 4 I think it's just it's hot. I think Greene was just saying it's hot outside, so therefore cold weather teams play worse when they're in our city.

Speaker 4 I didn't know if there was any statistical background to that analysis.

Speaker 3 Well, I was at a finals game in 2014 when the air conditioning.

Speaker 1 You were the person who turned it off.

Speaker 4 You were upstairs at the time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, before we fixed the 2023 lottery, we had fixed the air conditioning. But the funniest thing about that story is like the 2014 Spurs are all old dudes.

Speaker 3 Like Manu Manu and Tony and Tim are like in their late 30s. And like if there's one team that's going to break down because the air conditioning goes off,

Speaker 3 it's not the Miami Heat who are all 27 in their athletic primes. It's like the old game.

Speaker 1 Counterpoint, have you ever been

Speaker 1 to an old person's house? They always have the heat on. They don't want that draft.
They feel that draft. Oh, whoa.
There's a little, yeah, there's a little draft coming in.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Pop might have been like, we can't afford to air condition the entire neighborhood.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 4 Remember that time when Manu Ginobly punched a bat out of the air?

Speaker 3 Oh, that's one of the most badass moments in like viral NBA history. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 4 He had to get rabies shots, yeah, that was insane.

Speaker 4 There was a bat that was flying around on the court, and man who just hit it out of the air, and they're like, Man, you're not supposed to do that, man.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I want to say it's like really cool, but the team was kind of annoyed because, like, I think he had to miss a game or two because he had to get rabies treatments.

Speaker 4 That would have been a very fun.

Speaker 4 I want to go back and look at that injury report: Manu Dinobi, Manu Ginobly DNP rabies.

Speaker 1 So, speaking of like the elements, which is crazy to say in a basketball game,

Speaker 1 there's been a lot of talk about the mile high with Denver. Yeah, when you guys would go there,

Speaker 1 what was the difference in game prep or like conversations beforehand for the players?

Speaker 3 I mean, all the guys have played there so many times, it's just like you're going to get tired before you think you are, and you're going to have to have like a little extra element of like toughness to get through a 48-minute playoff game.

Speaker 3 Now, that's the thing that's that's different is

Speaker 3 the Lakers are

Speaker 3 a really good defense, but the Nuggets are the best offense in the NBA. And so now you're trying to stop the best offense in the NBA at elevation.
Right.

Speaker 3 And so this series to me is a little bit about elevation, but for me, it's mostly about will this

Speaker 3 really powerful Lakers defense that's been tops or tops in the West since the trade deadline find some answers. I think Denver scored 132 points, which is like an old school Nuggets 80 score.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, I think the Lakers have lost all four games when they've given up 115 points.

Speaker 3 They haven't played an offense like this. This series is going to be only won by the Lakers if they can bring that 130 down to 120, 110.

Speaker 3 But if they're giving up 130 points, whether it's at elevation or down at sea level at the crypto.com arena, on their home floor, they're in trouble.

Speaker 3 They need to get some stops, big cat.

Speaker 1 So speaking of your experience as well, and this might be just a dumb take because we do have dumb takes on here, but how much can you attribute the change in series to series where the Lakers spend the series against the Warriors chasing Steph around, chasing Clay around, like all their movement and everything.

Speaker 1 And then they go up against the Nuggets who have a big who can do everything. And it's a completely different situation that they're trying to guard.
Do you think this is stupid? They're pros.

Speaker 1 They know exactly, or is there something to be said for like, we just spent a whole series doing this. Now we got to do the exact opposite.
It's a little bit difficult to switch how we how we guard.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think LeBron described it to his own teammates before the Nuggets series as like a video game. Like you have to, it levels up with each round of the playoffs.

Speaker 3 And I think that's certainly been true. They played sort of a broken Grizzlies team and a really depleted Warriors team.
And now they're playing the number one seed, right?

Speaker 3 And the best offense, and they're healthy, and they're deep.

Speaker 3 I don't think, as great as LeBron James's career has been, he's ever had to play a player like Jokic in the playoffs. I was thinking about this on the walk over here.

Speaker 3 I was like, I don't think there's been, well, Jokic is such a unique force.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 But as a scorer, he's hyper-efficient and can put up 30. He's averaging a 30-point triple-double in these playoffs, which is insane.

Speaker 3 And his assists are leading to 25 or 30 points more for the Nuggets. So, like, it's really a hard player to beat because of his size.

Speaker 3 And then if you double team him, he will destroy you. And his teammates are going to create buckets on their end on those passes.

Speaker 1 The answer might be Dirk.

Speaker 3 Dirk Nowitzki.

Speaker 1 In terms of the size, being able to shoot everywhere. Yes.

Speaker 3 Hyper-skilled big, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then he lost that series.
Yeah, right. Exactly.
Scored eight points in game three or four. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And I mean, the thing with Jokic is like, with all due respect to Dirk, one of my favorite players, like 20-some rebounds, 15 assists it's like a 2k character who's like putting up these ridiculous stats a 30 point triple double nobody's averaged that this deep into the playoffs in the history of the sport yeah it is crazy on the altitude front have have there ever been like has there been an nba team that's had the oxygen containers on the bench like you see in mile high stadium i feel like i've seen that but on the spot i can't think of that but maybe they should they should think about doing that yeah getting some oxygen masks going on on um as far as lebron james is concerned yeah i feel like we've started to appreciate lebron more on this show he's hilarious his lies are very funny he is a very good player he's lived up to our expectations that we correctly set for him at the start of his career uh but in terms of his game evolving his game has changed over the years right oh for sure so if you were to look at it from your your like heat map breakdown or any other way that you can explain it to us what has lebron gotten better at later on in his career and what has he gotten worse at

Speaker 3 he's picking his spots better but i actually he was the first NBA player I ever interviewed in 2013. It was just terrifying.
But I asked him then about the evolution of his game.

Speaker 3 I didn't know at the time, like Tom Brady, he was at the end of the first half of his career.

Speaker 3 One Hall of Fame career is over, the second one just started. And at that time, he had learned how to make plays a lot better for his teammates.

Speaker 3 And he had learned a little bit of a post-game.

Speaker 3 And he had, in that particular season, he had stopped shooting so many threes. The formula, generally speaking, PFT, as a scorer, remains the same.

Speaker 3 He's the leading scorer of all time because he's the best paint scorer of our lifetime in terms of magnitude.

Speaker 3 He's led the league in points in the paint multiple times, and his jump shot is mediocre, and that's still the same. His mid-range shooting in his era, he sort of followed suit with the general trend.

Speaker 3 Like mid-range you

Speaker 3 takes a lot more threes. So almost all of his jumpers now, not almost all of them, but a bigger share of them are three-point jump shots.
A smaller share are mid-range.

Speaker 1 It does feel like, though, and obviously it's LeBron James, so you can't say, like, oh, this is what you want out of him because every time he has the ball, you got to be worried. But

Speaker 1 it does feel like teams are okay with him shooting threes.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they should be. I think in the playoffs, you can look it up, but I think it's like 31% or lower.

Speaker 3 You know, somebody. 25%.
25%. He's having a tough time.
The thing I would say about both him and Anthony Davis on offense, they're a lot scarier in the paint than anywhere else.

Speaker 3 And I would say the same thing about Anthony Davis on defense. He's not that scary on the perimeter.
He's terrifying if they keep him in there in the paint. But yeah,

Speaker 3 if you're game planning, if you're the Nuggets right now and either Anthony Davis or LeBron James are rising up for a jump shot, that feels good. It's the same thing I'd say about Giannis.

Speaker 3 And I would normally say about like Jimmy Butler, whose jump shooting numbers in the regular season are pretty bad.

Speaker 3 But I wouldn't say that about him

Speaker 3 right now. But yes, LeBron shooting a three doesn't scare anyone right now.

Speaker 1 So we're taping this on Thursday afternoon. It's before game two of the Nuggets Lakers.

Speaker 1 Who do you have winning?

Speaker 3 I think Denver is so good at home. They've been the best team in the West all year, so I have Denver winning.

Speaker 1 So that means game two is a must-win for Denver?

Speaker 3 It's a must-win.

Speaker 1 It's definitely a must-win. Because if they're so good at home, yeah, you got to win your home games.

Speaker 3 Yeah, the Lakers.

Speaker 3 Put it this way, if the Lakers win game two,

Speaker 3 they accomplished the cliche split, right? Like, we got what we want, and now we just got to win our home games.

Speaker 4 The battery starts at that point.

Speaker 1 Max is so triggered triggered that just the word must-win has him shaking his head.

Speaker 4 Must-win is the most infuriating two words in the English language to me right now.

Speaker 3 One of my favorite bits is like when y'all guys

Speaker 3 at Radio Row or whatever ask the Super Bowl people, like, who does that? Who does that bit? Is this a must-win?

Speaker 4 Oh, I think that's Dave Damash.

Speaker 3 That's a great bit. Is this a must-have? Would you say this is a must-win?

Speaker 3 But yeah, game seven. Do you guys think this is a must-win?

Speaker 1 Yeah, huh? Well, we James Harden knows.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we correctly told Max to pass. We told him game three was a must-win for the Sixers, and they didn't win.

Speaker 4 But if you split on the road, if you're the Lakers, then you go home, you hold serve at home for the rest of the series, boom, went to the NBA.

Speaker 1 So the Nuggets are must-win.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's a must-win.

Speaker 3 No, it's not a must-win. I mean, the Lakers, I mean, LeBron James is the guy who came back from 3-1 against 73-wins.

Speaker 1 No, but the Nuggets, it's a must-win.

Speaker 3 Oh, for the Nuggets?

Speaker 1 I do think so. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I have that as a must-compete.

Speaker 3 For the Lakers. Must-compete.

Speaker 1 No, no, for the Nuggets. I actually,

Speaker 3 looking at my notes now too, PFT, I don't have it as a must-win. I also have it as a must-compete.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 You have to show me some life.

Speaker 1 You have to fight.

Speaker 4 You're not going to get the crazy part about that first game was the Nuggets had all those lucky shots that went in. Off balance, falling away.

Speaker 4 They probably had five shots that had no business going into the basket. They made all five of them, and then they barely managed to squeak away at the end.

Speaker 4 So that was, would you consider that a moral victory for the Lakers in game one?

Speaker 3 That was the other way to look at it is that was about the Lakers' best offensive shot. I think AD had 40, LeBron had 26.
They were shooting well.

Speaker 3 If you look at their scores, like them scoring 126 is a pretty rare thing.

Speaker 3 I think that might even be their high in this postseason. Maybe they had one more.
But like I said earlier,

Speaker 3 this Lakers' offense isn't good enough to win a game where they give up 130 points very often.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I still like to think of the NBA in the NBA Jam terms. Yeah.
Growing up in the 90s, you play that video game, I'm assuming. Of course, yeah.

Speaker 4 If you were to reduce every team to an NBA Jam duo, who wins the finals?

Speaker 3 And who would those guys? Jokic and Murray remind me of the Spurs because they're like two foreign guys that nobody cares about. They think are boring in the national media.

Speaker 3 But they're really badasses, obviously. And that's underappreciated.
But Anthony Davis and LeBron James would be hard to, because they're both powerful scorers and powerful defenders.

Speaker 3 The Celtics obviously have two. And can I get two Jimmies for Miami?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'll give you two Jimmies.

Speaker 1 I forgot that I'm taking two Canadians.

Speaker 4 This is too many hems, though.

Speaker 1 It can't be. It's them.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They would be them. No, Jimmy and Kevin Love and you put Kevin Love in the corner for NBA Jam.

Speaker 3 Yeah, who would be the heat second guy?

Speaker 1 Bam? Yeah, but they love shooting. Maybe it's Bam.
Maybe it's Jimmy.

Speaker 3 That shooting main bar would be all the way at the same time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jimmy Bam, then Kevin Love. You have the three.
Or maybe Max Struce to one quarter. I forgot Jamal Murray was Canadian.

Speaker 4 I did too.

Speaker 1 When he said two foreign guys. Yeah.
I was like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jamal Murray is Canadian.

Speaker 3 Well, there is a movement that PFT has been following, I'm sure, about making Canada the 51st state, not quite there yet.

Speaker 4 I have seen that. So, like, Alberta wants to secede from Canada and join the United States.
First of all, I'm going to need to see at least like a PowerPoint from the government of Alberta.

Speaker 4 Tell me what you bring to the table. Your application is denied.

Speaker 4 I would be into it just because we would get Connor McDavid. And then maybe the Oilers would win a Stanley Cup and be like, America still has a standard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you could also tell Canada, like, do you guys ever, in the history of your country, ever want to win a Stanley Cup again?

Speaker 4 Join us. Join us.
Yeah, join and die. I would also, I would say we'd have to kick one state out.
I like 50 stars on the flag. It's easy to remember.
One state's got to go.

Speaker 3 Plus the shape of the map. Like, if Alberts is like, now we have some kind of tumor growing out of, like, Montana up there.

Speaker 1 I think you just make it the Dakota.

Speaker 4 One Dakota? One Dakota.

Speaker 1 One Dakota is fine.

Speaker 4 That's all you need. Just give Delaware to France.
Conference.

Speaker 3 Like I told you, a conference realignment's getting out of control.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Non-playoff.

Speaker 1 what are the Warriors going to do?

Speaker 3 I thought we were going Wemby. The Warriors

Speaker 3 are going to

Speaker 3 have some big questions about Draymond Green coming back.

Speaker 3 He's going to either come back for one year or he's going to be a free agent. The good news is they have Stephan Curry, who is a culture setter.
They have Clay Thompson.

Speaker 3 Almost any other team, I should say, about 25 teams would say, okay, I'll trade places with them. You have Steph Curry, you have Steve Curry, you have Clay Thompson.
You might have Draymond Green.

Speaker 3 I'll take it.

Speaker 3 That's starting on second, if not third base, for your next season. I think they tried and failed Big Cat to sort of develop their new core on the fly.

Speaker 3 Wiseman's no longer there. Kaminga hasn't hit.
Moses Moody

Speaker 3 is not quite there. Jordan Poole

Speaker 3 has not quite meshed with the older players.

Speaker 1 That's fair to say. Yeah, that's fair.
That's fair. You say he stinks.
He meshed with the older players. Draymond did say that if he didn't punch him, they would have won that series.

Speaker 1 That's accountability. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or he said maybe it would have gone different.

Speaker 4 Or if you punched him harder, maybe.

Speaker 3 He said they'd still be playing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they'd still be playing.

Speaker 4 If he had killed him with a punch, they might have won that series.

Speaker 1 Straight drafts to somebody else and say Jordan Buck.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I do think they should keep Draymond.

Speaker 3 How can you not? I mean, Draymond is

Speaker 3 that team, like I was talking about earlier with the Celtics.

Speaker 3 The Warriors dynasty is obviously about shooting and revolutionary shooting, but people sleep on the defense.

Speaker 3 They've been a top-five defense almost every time they've won, and Draymond has changed the way that teams play defense in this league, switch everything, small player skills at the center position, setting up his teammates.

Speaker 3 And Steve Kerr deserves a lot of credit for building this motion offense that plays through Draymond Green.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, they should keep Draymond, in my opinion, because he's such a core piece of their identity.

Speaker 1 I went as far as say he's the second

Speaker 1 most important player on their team.

Speaker 3 Who's the first?

Speaker 1 Steph.

Speaker 1 I agree. Yeah, yeah.
I think Steph, you kind of have to give it to to Steph. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I do think like if you, if they said like Draymond or Clay, like I, Clay is a phenomenal career, but you saw that it's not maybe not the same. Maybe he gets it back.

Speaker 1 He's gone through some crazy injuries, but like he, they were, LeBron was running away from Clay in that series to let him take open shots to go guard Steph.

Speaker 3 Draymond right now, I think still has that defensive edge. But, you know, when I look at the failure of this Warriors season, it's based on depth and defense.

Speaker 3 And Draymond takes accountability for that defense. And they have been top five when they've won the championship, including last year.
And this year, they were middle of the pack.

Speaker 3 They were not good on the road, obviously.

Speaker 3 And then the depth, the front office was unable to sort of surround. that core of dudes with the sort of auto-porter type players they had last year.

Speaker 3 Andre Igodala, Sean Livingston, earlier in the dynasty. JaVail.
JaVail. Like, yeah, you know, championship teams, you can't have like weak links almost anywhere.
The playoffs are too hard.

Speaker 3 And this, this year's Warriors team just didn't have like that Igodala, Livingston, even Otto Porter type players in those roles.

Speaker 4 You used the F-word. You said failure.
Was it a failure?

Speaker 4 Did you mean to say that?

Speaker 3 I knew you were going to seize on that.

Speaker 4 I mean, if you look at it from a life perspective, they got to travel a lot, hang out with their friends.

Speaker 3 They grew as individuals. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What, what, if.

Speaker 1 The Spurs, when they lose,

Speaker 1 what year did you start with the Spurs?

Speaker 3 15. Okay.

Speaker 1 So let's let's say what year they lose in the playoffs, if you walked in the offices after, and you're like, guys, I don't really think that was a failure. Like, we learned a lot about ourselves.

Speaker 3 We walk in. So the first year I worked there, I was like, finally, playoffs are over.
We lost, you know, take a break. It's like, no, now it's time to do the draft.

Speaker 3 So you walk in and it's like incredible effort on the draft.

Speaker 3 Nobody talks about it. You're just like, okay, we have 29th pick in the draft.
Like, get to work. And we have 59, too.
And we take that more seriously than anybody.

Speaker 3 So it's like, secretly, the hardest part of a front office is after the playoffs, when now you have to turn around and draft and prepare for free agency.

Speaker 3 But when we would lose to Oklahoma City or we lose to the Warriors in the playoffs, of course it hurt, especially in the years where you think you could win the championship.

Speaker 4 Right. When there's that window and you don't strike, that is.

Speaker 4 It's okay to say that we failed at our goal this season. Yeah.
It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean that you wasted a year of your life.

Speaker 3 And that's a nice sort of turn of the language. Like, yeah, we failed to meet our goal.
Like, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 And, like, I actually agree with what Gianna said and what Damian Lillard said earlier in the season about Rings culture. And, like, Gianna sang failure.
It's not a personal failure.

Speaker 3 That's not what I'm saying. Obviously, you guys know that.
But, yo, they, they failed to meet their expectations with this title defense.

Speaker 2 That is, that is obvious.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So you mentioned the draft. Um, let's talk about Wimbinyama.
So congrats on rigging the draft. And San Antonio, great job, pop.
Third time that they've had the first overall pick.

Speaker 4 Third time they've gotten the best player ever to play play on their team. So that's big stuff.
Congratulations. We want to be first on the Wimbinyama is going to be a bust train.

Speaker 4 So can we say that he's too French? That's kind of the line that we're going with right now.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 4 No. He's very French.

Speaker 3 Yeah, heritage democracy PFT.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but like Rudy Gobert. They're too French.

Speaker 3 Maybe, actually. Yeah,

Speaker 3 I don't think he's that French. Okay.
He's Tony Parker French. He's Tony Parker French.

Speaker 1 He's Boris Dieu French.

Speaker 4 He's Gewell France.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's a surrender France. No, no.

Speaker 1 You got to have French issues. Yeah, you think there's the Spurs sitting there being like, so how French is he? He's fully French.

Speaker 4 Yeah, fully? Like, he's going to bring his own guillotine or what?

Speaker 1 Like, there's different kinds of French. That's what I learned from you guys.

Speaker 1 He's Tony Parker French.

Speaker 3 He's got the heart of a champion out there.

Speaker 3 He's a young guy, and like Tony, when we drafted him a long time ago,

Speaker 3 nobody expected him to become a finals MVP.

Speaker 3 This guy has very high expectations. Oh, you think?

Speaker 1 A little out of control.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, you guys have followed the Zion hype, the LeBron hype.

Speaker 3 It doesn't always work, but this guy is built to.

Speaker 3 I always say it's like if you challenged a 10-year-old to create a 2K player or draw on a piece of paper what an incredible basketball player would look like,

Speaker 3 a kid would draw a 7-5 guy who can dribble, pass, and shoot.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you think it's

Speaker 4 like how many championships?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And how what would be a failure for his career if you look at it?

Speaker 4 Let's set the line right now. I'd say if he wins fewer than four titles, failure.

Speaker 3 Chris Broussard, your man today, I saw on social media, said if he's not a keem or KD, it's a failure. Yep.
That's a little rich. But I mean, these are generational players.

Speaker 1 So obviously, we know how these guys turned out, but if you like went back the last 20 years, number one overall picks, LeBron,

Speaker 1 Anthony Davis,

Speaker 1 Dwight Howard, Maple Jordan, Anthony Bennett. Like, would you say he's on par with those type of prospects just coming in in terms of everything you've seen?

Speaker 3 I mean, even in a measured way, guys, like, all jokes aside, he deserves to be, in my opinion, the most hyped player since LeBron James has come into the NBA. Okay.
And it's largely a physical thing.

Speaker 3 Basketball is not rocket science, even though people like me try to make it that way. If you're 7'5 and you can run and jump, like, just imagine Big Cat trying to shoot against this dude.

Speaker 3 Like, just imagine trying to fucking put my ass into him and just he might not even be a center.

Speaker 3 He might be this terrifying like help defender that can stretch out with these like plastic arms and block any shot.

Speaker 3 So you're talking about one of the bullshit shots the Nuggets hit the other night.

Speaker 3 And I know one of them you're talking about is the Akjokic at the three-point line and AD extending as far as he could to block it.

Speaker 3 AD, probably the best single defensive impact right now in the playoffs. Wemba Yama blocks that exact shot.

Speaker 3 you're also telling me he's soft because he's not going to play center you said he was soft because he was french and i'm not saying that no he's double tony parker french two plot no he's going to be i think his his immediate impact is on is on defense i would say look the popovich dynasty is built on three things the first thing is lottery luck the second thing is defense and the third thing is foreign players what i like about this for the spurs is he sort of represents all three of those things to extend that dynasty into the 2020s he's the he's the perfect spur congratulations you got you You got the perfect spur.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 4 When you take into account the Greg Popovich factor, he's obsessed with wine, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, he's not. I'm sure women, yeah.

Speaker 4 But Pop is like a big wine guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Tell us about Pop. Did he ever take you guys out for like expensive bottles of wine? I've heard that he'll go in and like educate the sommelier on their own wine list in a restaurant.

Speaker 3 No, he loves his European wine, his Italian reds and his French reds. He loves some Oregon reds, but he is very knowledgeable, but likes to learn a lot.
He's got a growth mindset.

Speaker 3 So if he comes out to New York and goes to Perse or something like that, chances are the Psalm knows a lot about wine, and he's not sitting there teaching them.

Speaker 3 But yeah, those dinners with pop are legendary, in part because of these international teams he's built, and you're sitting across the table from

Speaker 3 somebody from a

Speaker 3 faraway land who's got an interesting story. And that's a big part of that Spurs culture.

Speaker 1 All right, so I had one last question. We love having you on, Kirk.

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Speaker 1 Four teams left. Hard to screw this up.

Speaker 1 Finals and champion. You've now had the most predictions in pardon my take history.

Speaker 3 How many predictions do I get?

Speaker 1 You only get one. Give us finals and champion.

Speaker 4 I'll give you three. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'll give you three.

Speaker 3 Okay, so.

Speaker 1 Give us your first best.

Speaker 3 I still think Boston and Denver

Speaker 3 are their

Speaker 3 top seeds remaining.

Speaker 3 Lakers, Celtics would be,

Speaker 3 man, that's just a classic because they both, I think I talked about this last time, both hanging on the 17th title and like the battle for 18 head to head would be pretty sweet.

Speaker 3 And then, yeah, I mean, Miami, Denver would be my third one. Okay.

Speaker 3 But my champion, it's either going to be the Nuggets, the Celtics, the Lakers, or the Heats. Okay.

Speaker 4 So the one combination you didn't pick, though, was Heat-Lakers.

Speaker 1 Definitely not happening. Definitely not happening.
I I don't think that's ever happened. I don't think that's ever happened.

Speaker 3 The bubble final?

Speaker 1 See, I'm adding that to my prediction list.

Speaker 3 In all seriousness, Boston, Denver. Boston, Denver, the most winner teams.
And I would take Denver, dude.

Speaker 3 I did write the article about Jokic's defense. I still think that's an issue for that team, but Boston's a real jump shooting, happy team.

Speaker 3 That weakness would sort of be deodorized by the style play of the Celtic squad. So I'll be wrong.
I love being wrong on your show.

Speaker 3 It is fun. Pardon my incorrect takes.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're like that nerd.

Speaker 3 I will also remind you, Big Cat, that in our playoff preview in Austin, I was clear that this is the most effed up postseason in NBA history. It's so weird.

Speaker 3 We have an eighth seed, oh, two eight seeds in the conference finals. We have the first play-in team winning a series.
We have two play-in teams winning series. It's just, it's parody.

Speaker 3 It's a lot like March Madness when we saw you guys in Houston and we're looking at the Final Four. We're like, How did these teams make it to the Final Four?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's fun. It's been an awesome playoffs.
It would

Speaker 4 If you're a fan of tuning into the show to hear us lose, listening to LeBron James beat Hank personally in the finals, that would be an all-time episode. I would love that.

Speaker 4 I don't want him to win, but that's a great consolation prize that we would have.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and there's a lot of good stories. Like, if Jimmy does this, like, that will be one of, if not the most incredible runs I've ever seen in the postseason.

Speaker 3 Jokic obviously would take his reputation to another level. But yeah, if LeBron wins this.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of legacies that's legacy talks.

Speaker 4 Jimmy, yeah, Jimmy

Speaker 1 becomes like something totally different.

Speaker 3 Tatum would be something different, too.

Speaker 4 Jimmy would become an all-time great if he won a championship this year. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Legendary. Does he want it more?

Speaker 1 Is he going to try hard? That's the question. I think yes.

Speaker 4 But you wrote him off. That's fine.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He did.

Speaker 1 Kirk, thank you as always. Great to see you.
Great to talk ball. And hopefully you're right.

Speaker 1 Hopefully it's Nugs.

Speaker 3 Nugs Celtics.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 11 Hey, this is Rhea from Chicks in the Office, and this season, we're heading home for the holidays with Abercrombie and Fitch. We all know our calendars are about to get chaotic.

Speaker 11 For non-stop plans, Abercrombie has the pieces to curate your perfect seasonal wardrobe, sweaters and denim for casual plans, party dresses for nights out, and comfy matching sets for everything in between.

Speaker 11 Keep the chaos cute this season in Abercrombie. Shop their new holiday outfits in the app online or in stores.

Speaker 1 And now for something completely different.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on our very special guest. It is recurring guest Randy Moss, head of the Preakness.
We talked to him for the Kentucky Derby, and he's wearing the recurring guest shirt.

Speaker 1 There you go. Randy, I don't think you understand what this means to us because...

Speaker 1 I think when we started this podcast, we're like, this will be a really good idea. We'll send recurring guest shirts to all of our recurring guests.

Speaker 1 I think we might have only sent like three of them out. I know you have one, Rachel Nicholas has one.
Blake Griffin is still waiting for his in the mail. Yeah, who else has one? It might just be two.

Speaker 1 Spencer Hawes might have one. He might, yeah.
But it is as rare as rare gets for you to have that.

Speaker 12 Hey, I embrace the recurring guest shirt. I really do.
I wear it.

Speaker 12 I bought it before with you guys, once before at Churchill Downs.

Speaker 1 But I had to bring it. That's awesome.
And also,

Speaker 1 I didn't text you till yesterday because we've just been busy. So you packed that.

Speaker 12 Just in case.

Speaker 1 I love it. I heard from you, big cat.
I packed it.

Speaker 12 And my daughter goes to the University of Oklahoma, as did two of my sons. So I've got to fly the

Speaker 12 OU shirt as well.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 All right. So

Speaker 1 great start to this.

Speaker 1 Not to get negative, but I think Derma

Speaker 1 Sotogato just finished the Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 12 He actually ran a good race when you go back and look at what happened to him at the start. I'm not saying he would have won.
I'm not going to make excuses.

Speaker 12 But to finish sixth with that start that he had last, being way back there, I was proud of the way the old Dermasoda got gay ran, but he didn't win and you didn't cash.

Speaker 1 That's loser talk.

Speaker 4 Respectfully, Randy, that's loser talk.

Speaker 4 He finished the race.

Speaker 4 If he had ran the entire race like you thought he would, he would have won, but he didn't. So he lost.

Speaker 1 But everyone, exactly. Yeah, everyone who bet on him gets a stamp on their tickets saying Randy Moss was proud of him.

Speaker 1 Hey, up to the mark, won the race before, though.

Speaker 12 So she had some money to bet on Dermasota Gake and lose it all back.

Speaker 4 That's actually exactly how my Derby Day went. So thank you for extending my enjoyment of that lovely Saturday.

Speaker 4 What was the issue with him out of the gate?

Speaker 12 He lurched to the left, slammed into the side of the gate.

Speaker 12 And whereas they wanted to be sitting third or fourth on the outside tracking the base, they were last when they left the starting gate and wound up being way back there.

Speaker 12 So was Mage, but Mage likes to run that way and Dermosotagake is used to being up close to the pace. He rallied in front of Mage.
He was

Speaker 12 fifth, I think, when they turned into the stretch. But Mage blew by him and he sort of ran evenly the rest of the way.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it was a crazy derby because we had the favorite be out before the race even happened. What was your take on all of that?

Speaker 1 I know that there was some sensitivity around horses because there had been some tragedies that that week. But

Speaker 1 for Mike Ropoli, it felt like he got kind of screwed because he had a horse that had beaten Mage

Speaker 1 twice in the last two times.

Speaker 12 And they clearly felt, Rapolle and his trainer, Todd Fletcher, that Forte

Speaker 12 was capable of running and would be just fine for the Kentucky Derby. But here's the deal.
We're going to be, there were five scratches in all. for the Kentucky Derby.
That's the most since the 1930s.

Speaker 12 There was one year in the 1930s that also had five scratches. But this is something that we're going to have to get used to because

Speaker 12 there is an increased emphasis, and not just because of what happened at Churchill Downs this year, on horse safety.

Speaker 12 The veterinary examinations pre-race are much more stringent than they ever have been before, which is a good thing. But you're going to see this.

Speaker 12 going forward, maybe not five every year, but there will definitely be more scratches right before Triple Crown races than we're accustomed to seeing.

Speaker 4 What are those veterinary checkups like? Do they do, like, do they, do they feel the horse's muscles? Do they watch it run?

Speaker 12 Both.

Speaker 12 They not only have a lot more eyeballs on the horses every morning when they train, but they also do up-close, hands-on physical examinations right before the race.

Speaker 12 uh one day two days before the race they'll feel the horse's legs they'll watch the horse jog on asphalt where sometimes if the horse has any problems it'll show up more jogging on asphalt than it will jogging on a cushioned racing surface uh they'll turn over every rock that they can uh in order to try to assure that the horses are perfectly 100 sound before a race and forte had had a bruised foot that they were dealing with right before the race um

Speaker 12 happened on wednesday They thought that he had turned the corner and the horse would be just fine to race, but the veterinarians thought otherwise.

Speaker 1 All right, so looking at the preakness, Mage is going to be the betting favorite right now, but we have a Bafford horseback. So Bafford's back in the mix, national treasure.

Speaker 1 Do you think from just like, you know,

Speaker 1 how it always works out is, you know, there's some horses racing in the preakness that didn't race in the Kentucky Derby. What does that mean for Mage

Speaker 1 racing just two weeks ago and the advantage for all the other horses?

Speaker 12 You know, generally in the past, horses from the Kentucky Derby have come back and won their races two weeks later in the freakness.

Speaker 12 But a lot of that is because the primary horses they were running against, the toughest competition, also ran in the Kentucky Derby. So they were all coming back in two weeks, right?

Speaker 12 Now you've got a phenomenon where you have horses like National Treasure and First Mission and Perform, who have more time off coming into the freakness than Mage does.

Speaker 12 And the two weeks, I think, is a disadvantage to Mage,

Speaker 12 even though they say he's been trained except

Speaker 12 you can't really tell. The best trainers in the world, Wayne Lucas will always tell you that the better a horse is, the more difficult it is to read.

Speaker 12 how much a race took out of the horse. Because the great horses, just like the great human athletes, they do things easily.
They make it look easy.

Speaker 12 And they're eager to train in the mornings and they're enthusiastic about doing their jobs. But then as

Speaker 12 my buddy, my colleague Jerry Bailey always says, you really don't know how much the Derby took out of the horse until you get to the quarter pole of the preakness.

Speaker 12 So I do think it's a disadvantage for Mage. And I also think that the pace

Speaker 12 that was a big advantage, as it turned out for him at the Kentucky Derby, it was much faster than we had all expected, is probably not going to materialize that way on Saturday here.

Speaker 12 And that also won't necessarily play in Mage's favor.

Speaker 4 Randy, I need you to talk me out of something because I feel like I'm being entrapped into making a bet that I will soon regret.

Speaker 4 And that's on the long shot for this race because the long shot, 50 to 1 right now, chase the chaos. You can't name a long shot.

Speaker 4 I can't have the long shot in the race be called chase the chaos and not bet on it because it's telling me that I need to chase the chaos because what if the chaos wins?

Speaker 4 So talk me out of betting on this horse.

Speaker 12 The only chaos that you're likely to experience betting on chase the chaos is maybe trying to explain to people afterward why you bet on chase the chaos.

Speaker 12 The odds are, you know,

Speaker 12 the odds are representative of the horse's chances of winning, put it that way. You're not getting a bargain.
if the horse is 30 to 1 or 40 to 1.

Speaker 12 If you want to bet a long shot, and I don't know how much of a long shot he's going to be, he's 15 to one of the program, perform

Speaker 12 as an outstanding chance to win the race, despite the fact that he's likely to be double-digit odds.

Speaker 12 If you go back and watch his last race, which was here at Pemlico, trained by Sugar McGee, the horse got in more trouble than a sailor on shore leave.

Speaker 12 I mean, it was like he had no chance to win watching the race. And he only got a chance to run like 100 yards when he finally got clear.

Speaker 12 And then he just erupts and he mows by horses and looks really good winning. Now he's been in a lot tougher competition.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 But he's got a great trainer. He's coming into the race the right way.
He's, you know, he's improving.

Speaker 12 He's got a really good chance to win at a nice price.

Speaker 1 So what is your pick for the preakness? Because we also, there's first mission as well. There's a lot of people are going to take National Treasure.

Speaker 1 Which horse do you think is going to win the preakness?

Speaker 12 I'll take National Treasure. Okay.

Speaker 12 I think he's going to control the pace. This is obviously on dirt.
That's, that's of primary importance. He's never been in a situation where he had that advantage before in any of his recent races.

Speaker 12 They've always felt like he was a really, really good horse. Just never quite got over the hump, never quite showed them

Speaker 12 everything that they thought he had. They're putting blinkers on, which a lot of times will

Speaker 12 help if a horse maybe isn't 100% focused all the time. And with the inside post and John Velasquez and a lack of competing early speed, plus the blinkers, I think you'll control the pace.

Speaker 12 To me, that gives him the edge.

Speaker 4 Okay. This might be a dumb question, but do they monitor how much the horses sleep the night before the race?

Speaker 12 Monitor. It depends on your definition of monitor.
They have night watchmen on hand.

Speaker 12 Even if they have a camera and the horse will stall, they don't go back and check that. So, no.

Speaker 12 I just wonder if there's any correlation between a well-rested horse running a good race just like a human a well-rested human would perform better usually oh i'm i'm sure there is i'm sure if a horse had a restless sleepless night for whatever reason uh he would be tired

Speaker 12 and would not run as well but they take every precaution you know to make sure that there are no disturbances around the barn you know they have the night watchman making sure that there's no commotion outside to wake a horse up or anything like that.

Speaker 12 So, you know,

Speaker 12 it's hard to say if a horse has a restless night, but if they do, it wouldn't be advantageous. I don't think it happens very often, though.
Horses like their sleep. Yeah.
Just like they like to eat.

Speaker 12 They like to eat.

Speaker 1 That's why I'm a horse fan. So we can see you as well on Friday with the black-eyed Susan.
Let's talk about that race real quick.

Speaker 1 Give us your take on the race and maybe even maybe even exotics where, you know, which horses you you think are going to maybe maybe not win but finish in in one two three

Speaker 12 well i i'll give you what i think is a is a is a really solid exacta it's it's probably not going to pay a whole lot it's not going to be 15 to one like perform but faza over merc

Speaker 12 okay and you got the bob bafford thing here again and the in the black-eyed susan the thing about faza

Speaker 12 uh She's undefeated, right?

Speaker 12 I think she's six for six.

Speaker 12 I believe it's six for six maybe five for five but she's never been beaten she won the sand denito oaks by six and a half lengths normally in most situations uh per the churchill downs rule this year the owner of faza

Speaker 12 who is a guy named michael lund peterson one of the founders of pandora jewelry uh would have transferred the horse to another trainer which would have permitted Faza to run in the Kentucky Oaks.

Speaker 12 But Peterson said, no, and I'm not doing that. He said, Bob Baffert's my man.
Bob Bafford is the guy who's given me every bit of success I've ever had in thoroughbred racing.

Speaker 12 I'm going to stay loyal to the team. I'm not going to give the horse to another trainer.
We can't run in the Kentucky Oaks. Okay, so what?

Speaker 12 I'm from Baltimore. We'll just run in the Black Eyed Susan instead of the Kentucky Oaks.
So the best three-year-old Philly in the country was not in the Kentucky Oaks.

Speaker 12 but she will be in the Black Eyed Susan against much easier competition than she would have faced in the Kentucky Oaks anyway.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. I like that loyalty.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah, yeah. So I think FaZe is a standout in the Black-Eyed Susan.
And I really like Marlaza's last race at Oakland Park. So

Speaker 12 I think that's a

Speaker 12 pretty solid exacto on Friday.

Speaker 1 I like Marlaza's, my favorite jockey's on Marlaza, Floren Giroux. He's got

Speaker 1 his mother-in-law used to be a

Speaker 1 waitress at Arlington Heights where there was a racetrack. And every time that she would, like, if I, if we had her, just bet Flora Giroux all day, and he would win everything.

Speaker 12 Yeah, he's a good rider. Joelle Rosario wrote Merlaza in her last race at Over.

Speaker 12 They switched to Flora Giroux, and Rosario's agent was not particularly happy about that switch. So, you know, she is a horse that's got a good reputation.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 How many preaknesses does this make for you, Randy?

Speaker 12 Well, it was my 43rd Kentucky Derby this year,

Speaker 12 and I'm one shy on the preakness count. So, this will be my 42nd,

Speaker 12 my 42nd preakness.

Speaker 4 So, you gave us some good flavor with what to expect if you're going to the Derby for the first time.

Speaker 4 I'm from the DC area, so I know a little bit more about the preakness and the port-a-potty relays that they do up there. But, from your perspective,

Speaker 4 if you're going to the preakness for the first time, what should you expect as a spectator?

Speaker 12 The infield, if

Speaker 12 your tastes run to

Speaker 12 raucous celebrations, to raucous

Speaker 12 sort of party atmospheres with good music, by the way.

Speaker 12 The infield is much more, I think it's more fun

Speaker 12 at Baltimore than it is at Churchill Downs.

Speaker 12 They've tightened up security at the Kentucky Derby infield a lot more than they have the Preakness Infield.

Speaker 12 So, you know, if you if you really like that sort of thing, and who doesn't, then the Preakness Infield is a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 That's a very classy way for you to say it's a shit show, it's just a shit show.

Speaker 12 You've seen the port-a-potty runs, yeah.

Speaker 12 Uh, the grandstand, the facility itself, I would say, if people have never been to the to the preakness, have never seen the second leg of the triple crown,

Speaker 12 uh, and I'll try to say this in a diplomatic way: keep your expectations low.

Speaker 12 Uh, the Pimlico is uh, is not exactly the garden spot of american horse racing the uh the grandstand is in various states of disrepair a portion of it is condemned down at the end uh where they can't put fans in it anymore the plan and it can't come soon enough is to tear it down and rebuild a facility here uh which the preakness greatly deserves but on the other on the flip side it is traditional um you know i mean you can definitely come to the preakness and say that the grandstand looks exactly like it looked 60, 70 years ago.

Speaker 12 It just needs

Speaker 1 a little help and it will get it.

Speaker 12 But it's a fantastic, fun event. The people of Baltimore embrace it wholeheartedly.

Speaker 12 It's one of my favorite weeks of the year. It's always

Speaker 12 a great week of racing. And as Chick Lang, the guy that used to run Fimlico for years called Mr.

Speaker 12 Preakness, what Chick Lang always liked to say: the Preakness has something that the Kentucky Derby will never have. It has the Derby winner.

Speaker 1 That's true. That's true.
Good point. That's a great point.

Speaker 1 All right, last question.

Speaker 1 Any other race, any other horse you're looking at that people can keep their eyes on either Friday or Saturday?

Speaker 12 Do you have the entries in front of you there?

Speaker 1 What race?

Speaker 12 Go to the dinner party stakes on Saturday. I think it's the seventh race, maybe something like that.

Speaker 1 Okay, hold on.

Speaker 12 All right.

Speaker 12 Trader Graham Motion has three horses that he has entered in the dinner party stakes. And the only reason I'm asking you to do this is because I had to rush out here and I meant to.

Speaker 12 Oh, wait, wait, I've got my computer with me as well. If you can't find it, there is a horse I gave you up to the mark.

Speaker 12 There's a horse that I like just as much

Speaker 12 in the dinner party stakes, and I've got it right here.

Speaker 1 I got it.

Speaker 12 His name is Hurricane. Hurricane Dream.

Speaker 12 All right.

Speaker 12 he looked so good so good winning his last race he looked like he's going to be one of the best turf horses in america just like up to the mark when he won the uh the old forester turf classic so i think you can in my opinion you can confidently bet hurricane dream and the dinner party stakes

Speaker 12 uh which race is that

Speaker 12 that is race dinner party stakes

Speaker 12 is the eighth race.

Speaker 12 Love it. The eighth race Saturday.

Speaker 1 all right okay what is

Speaker 4 what is hurricane what are the odds going to look like for hurricane dream

Speaker 12 i'm going to guess about seven to two three to one something like that of the program he is seven to two

Speaker 12 uh i think he might go a tick lower than that but uh that would be a wise investment okay i love it i'm on it i love it all right well randy Thank you as always.

Speaker 1 You are the best. We appreciate your time as always.
And love the shirt. Love the shirt.

Speaker 1 There you go. There you go.
All right. Thanks so much, Randy.
Talk to you later. Thanks, Randy.

Speaker 12 Oh, and

Speaker 12 by the way,

Speaker 12 that is Mage.

Speaker 12 I don't know what you can see in the little gap there.

Speaker 4 Can we say hi? Can we say congratulations?

Speaker 1 Oh, look at this.

Speaker 4 This is my favorite part. I think we did this one year when a horse got busted for doping and we apologized to it.

Speaker 1 I think it was, was it Nyquist? No, we kicked Nyquist off to one of that fat pieces of skip. Hey, Mike Toricos.
Hey, Mike Torico. Mama Mia.

Speaker 12 Hey.

Speaker 12 I'm not the VIP. VIP's over there.
Go.

Speaker 1 Mike Torico. Come on, part of my take.

Speaker 1 Jake's got to be.

Speaker 12 One of the many things that makes Mike Torico so good. He's out here at the barn.

Speaker 1 Love it.

Speaker 12 In the afternoon.

Speaker 1 Oh, there's Mage.

Speaker 4 Hey, Mage. Just want to say on behalf of Part of My Take, congratulations on your derby win.

Speaker 4 But the Derma Satagake would have beaten you if it had ran its total race.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Randy was proud of Derma. Not you, Mage.

Speaker 4 all right all right guys thanks randy see you

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Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 let's finish up with some Fire Fests of the week.

Speaker 1 Hank?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 1 You're stressed?

Speaker 2 I am stressed. I'm moving next week.
A lot of things going on. Not built for

Speaker 2 balancing, planning ahead, packing, organizing, scheduling.

Speaker 4 It sucks.

Speaker 2 It's not great. And I'm going home this weekend, which is part of my Fire Fest, so that just adds an extra wrinkle.

Speaker 2 So I'm just stressed, but it's really, there's nothing to be stressed about other than just the fact that I have to

Speaker 2 be proactive with a lot of stress.

Speaker 4 Right, which I'm not stressed about other than stress itself. Moving,

Speaker 4 buying a new house, getting rid of your furniture, and your favorite basketball teams down 01.

Speaker 1 Oh, and don't forget fixing the car that he crashed. Yes.
But besides that, smooth sailing. Easy week.
Easy week. Yeah, these are

Speaker 1 being in adult rules for the most part, but you'll have these times where it's like, this sucks. I really wish I didn't have to, like, just the act of making decisions, planning things.
It sucks.

Speaker 2 This is going to sound a little crazy/slash-dramatic, but I was... packing yesterday and I legitimately like closed my eyes and was like,

Speaker 2 could I just fast forward a week and a half?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like,

Speaker 2 it's opened my eyes, and it's, I'm, I'm in Chicago and I'm

Speaker 2 moved out, moved in.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 2 it sucks, but I'm, I'm, I'm excited for a week and a half. I'll just say that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 My other Fire Fest, so I am going home this weekend. Stella Blue Coffee just announced a partnership with Kane's Donuts, which is a donut shop in Boston.

Speaker 2 They have some in Saugus, they have one downtown. And Future Me, we were in a meeting talking about it.
They said, Hank, you're going to be in Boston anytime soon.

Speaker 2 I said, Yeah, I'll be home next weekend. And then I said that I would go to a Kane's donut.
I'm going to give out some Cella Blue coffee hats, but I'm playing golf at 9:30, so I'm going at 7 a.m.

Speaker 2 on Saturday,

Speaker 2 which

Speaker 2 Future Me was like, Yeah, sure, I'll just do it first thing in the morning. And now, again, like adding that to the plate of things that I have going on is

Speaker 2 just doesn't make me less stressed.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, you got to get up to play golf anyway. Might as well have some great donuts.
Yeah, Kane's Donuts. There are multiple locations.
Actually,

Speaker 1 when Massachusetts got gambling legalized, we went up to do streams, and we were there for the weekend. I went to Kane's Donuts, walked in, got my donuts,

Speaker 1 walked to the car, and the woman who owns Kane's Donuts poked her head out, and she's like, Are you big cat? And I was like, Yeah. And she's like, Oh, I'm a huge fan.

Speaker 1 And then they now carry Stella Blue Coffee. So great, like, great story, great people.
And Hank, you will get to meet them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm excited to go. I'm just not excited to wake up and I got to make sure, you know, I get up for it.
But I will be there Saturday morning, 7 o'clock, downtown location.

Speaker 2 I will be giving out Stella Blue Coffee hats if you get there early enough. So come out at 7.
An incredible donut. Stella Blue coffee.
Get a donut. We're going to have some custom

Speaker 2 six Boston cream pie donuts they're making for me.

Speaker 2 So yeah, come out and get some.

Speaker 1 Also, if you are

Speaker 1 listening to this and you work at a donut place or own a donut place around America, let's talk. Let's get it going.
Let's build.

Speaker 1 DM the Stella Blue Coffee account on Instagram or Twitter because I want to carry Stella Blue coffee in all the donut shops. So, shout out Maria from Kane's Donuts, who was the first to jump aboard.

Speaker 1 You can get Stella Blue Coffee if you're in the Boston area, you're getting donuts. Stella Blue Coffee at all Kane's Donut locations now.
Beautiful.

Speaker 10 You're fucked.

Speaker 2 Again, like,

Speaker 2 everything

Speaker 2 I've spent a lot of the last two days just like,

Speaker 2 because usually it's like, you know, in the flow of a work, we could have one or two things, extra things that you have to focus on. Yeah, no, you're fucked.

Speaker 2 I have like 10 things, and every time I'm just like, just don't even think about it. Get me to a week and a half.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, you're fucked. You're fucked.
You're fucked. You're completely fucked.

Speaker 2 But if the Celtics fucking lose on Friday, I'll be... I'll not be a happy camper.
Sue season?

Speaker 1 But I will be a happy camper. Suey season? No, just

Speaker 1 I'll be happy. happy.
Okay. Put a smile on your face.
Yeah. All right.
PFT.

Speaker 4 My Fire Fest of the Week is that I've become addicted to minus signs. I go minus sign hunting.
Yeah. And for the last couple weeks,

Speaker 4 I've been betting pretty heavy on pretty heavy favorites or taking a lot of props where

Speaker 4 I'm doing the adjusted overs where it bumps it down a few slots. So the odds are terrible, but I'm laying a lot of money on it, and I've been winning on them.
And

Speaker 4 I'm going to get doinked again.

Speaker 4 is basically like I know I see this train coming I'm standing on the tracks and I'm gonna get hit by it eventually but so far I haven't and it's uh it's giving me a very false sense of confidence that I'm an excellent gambler now yeah so I've been my my thing is I'm a big ass guy I've been going at the overs for assists for various players each night and and so far the asses are pulling through but again that might have something to do with the fact that all the overs are hitting yeah no every game's playoffs yeah I mean both the first games uh went like 30 points over the total so all the overs hit i know hank you know you're big you're a big plus sign guy but a lot of people think that it's actually more courageous it takes bigger balls to go after a minus sign than it does a plus sign because you got to lay so much on it actually yeah

Speaker 2 that's like bail you're like a bail bonds guy yeah what do you mean that's definitely not true you're just like 30-year fixed income stocks I agree with him.

Speaker 1 No, but I mean,

Speaker 4 you're putting more money on the line. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're You're just investing in Apple, McDonald's, Google.

Speaker 4 You're playing safe. No, but you're not playing safe when you put so much money on it to make like a third of what you just bet.

Speaker 1 Right, but it's more likely to happen, and you're basically saying, I don't have the balls to bet something that's wildly unlikely to happen.

Speaker 4 That's not what I'm saying at all.

Speaker 2 Billy is the worst gambler and crazy, like not even really a gambler, and he's agreeing with you. That's all you need to know.

Speaker 4 Who had the best record in NFL gambling this year?

Speaker 1 But that was straight spreads.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm just saying. That had nothing to do with with it.
But Hank's bringing up gambling records.

Speaker 2 No, I'm saying Billy literally has a system where he just bets both sides so he can say he won like a dollar. Right, he's not gambling.

Speaker 1 Billy doesn't bet that he's saying that

Speaker 1 Billy's actually so scared of gambling, he bets both sides, and he's saying, you're right.

Speaker 8 Because it would be worse to lose like a minus 200 bet.

Speaker 1 But it doesn't take bigger balls. Like the betting, the unlikely outcome is the.
Most people can't bet like, oh, this plus 10 underdog, I'm going to bet a money line. That's bigger balls.

Speaker 4 But the pay

Speaker 1 minus 10, like taking, like, oh, Celtics minus, let's say, 275 against the Sixers in game seven. If you were going to bet that money line, you shouldn't brag about that bet.

Speaker 13 But the risk rewards higher.

Speaker 1 You know what? Never mind. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're risking more money, but it's not like

Speaker 13 right. Yeah, the risk reward is higher.

Speaker 1 So you could lose.

Speaker 8 In my brain, every bet has the same ability to win or lose.

Speaker 4 Okay, well, now I feel a little bit less happy about my recent wins.

Speaker 1 I like what you're doing. It obviously doesn't take

Speaker 1 ice.

Speaker 4 When you put in the amount, I guess for me, it feels riskier because I'm going into

Speaker 4 fully well aware of the fact that this could lose in disastrous fashion because I have been doinked in the past, and that was a big wake-up call.

Speaker 4 But I'm still, I'm addicted to minus signs on the course, Hank, and in my betting life.

Speaker 8 Hank said it was giving him anxiety when he saw it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it takes balls. I wrote exactly.
Takes balls. But then, did you have what happened?

Speaker 1 Like, so we were texting last night and you said, Marcus Smart over four and a half assists, like minus, it was like minus 200 or something.

Speaker 1 I bet it with you, solidarity. Yep.
And then he had nine assists in like 10 minutes. And I was like, well, that was stupid.
We could have won so much more money.

Speaker 4 Yeah. So I did feel that way.
But then I also, it was great because I got to spend the rest of the three quarters of the game worrying about my other bets. Right.
Right.

Speaker 1 So that's just like, let's check one off the board.

Speaker 4 Yeah. But yeah, so that's, that's one problem.
Also, still a lingering Fire Fest is next week I have to go up in that F-18.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 yeah, now it's becoming scary again. I was pumped and then I was scared, then I was pumped.
Now I'm scared again.

Speaker 1 Just schedule, just accidentally schedule like a

Speaker 1 reunion rugby tournament.

Speaker 4 Oh, you know what?

Speaker 4 I actually did get an invitation.

Speaker 1 This would be good for one of those a year.

Speaker 4 Odds are safe. Yeah, I'm retired until next October again.

Speaker 1 And then I'll come back.

Speaker 1 I accidentally did this.

Speaker 4 But the likelihood of getting injured is far higher playing in one rugby game than it is going up in one warplane.

Speaker 1 Yeah, true. Although

Speaker 1 the injury is more severe in the warplane. Possibly.

Speaker 4 I would say definitely. Possibly, yes.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't even call it an injury. Yeah, I don't think you strain your

Speaker 1 calf muscle in a F-18.

Speaker 4 But if you are looking to go to the air show, I think it's going to be next Saturday and Sunday. We'll get a promo code up there.

Speaker 4 So we're going to have discounted tickets if you live in the Scranton area or the Poconose area. Nice, nice.

Speaker 1 Okay, my Fire Fest, it's pretty simple. I just,

Speaker 1 I'm just never going to sleep again. I just realized that

Speaker 1 this week, especially.

Speaker 1 I think I'm going to be tired for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 It just happened. It's just, I think obviously the third kid helped with that.
But yeah, I had the realization

Speaker 1 like five to six hours of sleep for me now is like, I did good. And that's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 So going back to what we were talking about earlier about how being a grown-up kicks ass, there are times when I'll just stay up late just because I remind myself, oh, yeah, I can stay up late whenever I want.

Speaker 4 But when you have kids that interrupt that, then it's not your choice. No.
And it's them messing with things.

Speaker 4 A related thing, probably not, it's not impacting my lack of sleep as much as yours. But I'm having to pee more in the night.

Speaker 4 Like, I'm getting up twice in the middle of the night now to go take a piss, which is, that's pretty bad, too. That is bad.

Speaker 1 Prostate your prostate checked. You want to check it? Well, we're doing that together, PFT and I.
Yeah. We get them at the same time.

Speaker 8 It's dangerous.

Speaker 1 On our birthday kiss.

Speaker 4 I got to get on those kegels.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But it does suck.

Speaker 1 And, Hank, you can't relate to this. I don't know.
A lot of people probably can't, but just being like, I'll never sleep again. I don't know when I'll, I don't know the next time I'll sleep.

Speaker 1 Sunday.

Speaker 4 Me, that's for the PGA championship. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But no, that won't even take a little nap. I don't think so.

Speaker 1 I am the king now of 10-minute naps. Yeah.
I can fucking, I'll nap for 10 minutes in everyone's face. But yeah,

Speaker 1 it's a pretty shitty feeling being like, oh, yeah, when's the next time I can sleep? Yes. Never.

Speaker 4 Sleep, I think as you get older, sleep becomes better than sex.

Speaker 1 It's the best thing ever. You have energy, you like eat better, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Billy.

Speaker 8 I got cucked by Business Insider.

Speaker 8 But it's kind of my fault.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 8 So the JP Morgan AI surveillance thing was all true.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 8 But I was kind of like, I try to fire early on some of these stories just like before all the facts are out and before I can confirm just to be first to it. Yep.
Yep.

Speaker 1 That's how news gets available on it. That's exactly what Jake learned freshman year.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Always be first.

Speaker 4 You'd rather be first than write.

Speaker 14 Exactly.

Speaker 13 Be first or be a parody site.

Speaker 10 And then,

Speaker 8 so I fire off a lot of stories and they end up in the pending review tab of the blog

Speaker 8 back end. So some don't get posted and then this one just got caught up with all my pending like crazy blogs.

Speaker 1 Can you read off your pendings real quick? Okay. I'd like to see probably got a lot of them.

Speaker 4 This sounds like the worst thing Business Insider has ever done to us here.

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, actually, they were the ones who took down the Reddit post.

Speaker 8 So I was getting DM'd because they wanted to be first of the story.

Speaker 4 Oh, fuck them.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, fuck them for a lot of reasons.
Yeah, for a lot of them.

Speaker 4 Well, that's also, Billy,

Speaker 4 the fact that they took down the Reddit post, I think you said was you saw a reply to a reply that told you that that's why it got taken down.

Speaker 8 Well, no, no, that's ended up why.

Speaker 13 Oh,

Speaker 8 they first thought it was JP Morgan, but then they're like, oh, no, it was Business Insider because they didn't want to leak their

Speaker 8 source. Because I was getting DMs from JP Morgan managers talking about about AI because we were talking about it.
I was like, okay.

Speaker 8 Then once I saw the Reddit post, I was like, okay, I'm writing this shit.

Speaker 1 I want to see your last, just read off your last five blog titles. By the way, I forgot one other Firefest.

Speaker 1 I think we're just chicks now.

Speaker 1 So Jason Whitlock was writing about Pat McAfee and he wrote, no amount of money, security, and attention satiates a weak man. He behaves no differently than a woman.

Speaker 1 The moment a woman secures a Louis Vuitton bag, she covets a Fendi. The bag seduces men to act like women.
Pat McAfee's the latest example. So wanting money is female behavior.
It is. So

Speaker 1 unfortunately, guiltiest charge, I think I'm a chick.

Speaker 4 Fellas, is it gay to have a bank account?

Speaker 1 Fellas, fellas, is it gay to have a 401k?

Speaker 4 Dude, imagine carrying around a bunch of watted-up pieces of paper with pictures of dudes on it.

Speaker 1 Imagine saving. Imagine saving money.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Never catch me in that.

Speaker 2 Female behavior.

Speaker 1 Chick behavior.

Speaker 4 I also like the undercurrent and all that is just like, at all costs, do not be a female. That's kind of what Jason's saying.
Which is, that's sus.

Speaker 1 Whitlock is like, I would love to study his brain. It's just, it actually is a rotten.
It's like a rotten apple. Yeah.
I think there's worms inside of his brain.

Speaker 4 The bag he's securing is funny. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. I got him.
All right.

Speaker 4 The results of the Mincey experiment.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 8 Travis Kelsey spiked a Lombardi trophy.

Speaker 1 Okay. We went through that yep.

Speaker 8 The Pinkertons raid a YouTuber's house over Magic the Gathering cards. Bikini Lady combats hunters with methed up deer in a duct tape bikini.

Speaker 4 Okay, that one should have been posted.

Speaker 14 Okay, yeah. It turns out it was fake.

Speaker 1 Oh, no,

Speaker 1 no, I was trying to get on first.

Speaker 2 Besides the Mincey, I think you're all fake souls.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they're all fake. I actually think that people are just writing stories specifically so that Billy will blog them.
Yeah. Because that meth bikini hunting zombie deer thing,

Speaker 4 that's like something that you dreamed while you fell asleep listening to Joe Rogan.

Speaker 8 Yeah. They killed the world's largest toad, dead animal, not allowed to be posted.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 1 Derek Wolfe. That's literally a Billy rule.
Wait, I'm not sure. That's literally a Billy rule.
At the top of the blog, it says don't stop posting dead animals and Nazis.

Speaker 8 Yeah, so the second part had nothing to do with me. We have two rules.

Speaker 4 I'm looking at the back end right now. Rule number one is be funny, don't be not funny.
Rule number two is no more dead animals.

Speaker 1 That's it, and that's it.

Speaker 8 Derek Wolf saves town from giant cougar, falls under dead animals.

Speaker 1 And Nazis are off limits, too. That's the other part of under no more dead animals.

Speaker 8 Andrew Tate just caught a case. I was on the Andrew Tate beat, but we didn't post him.

Speaker 4 Okay, tough beat.

Speaker 8 Sam Bankman Freed made

Speaker 8 tens of millions of dollars of illegal campaign donations.

Speaker 1 Is that true or false? Fake?

Speaker 8 I was getting there first.

Speaker 14 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 See, that one actually could get you sued.

Speaker 1 Yeah, easily.

Speaker 1 Baker Mayfield. Imagine if Sam Bankman Freed comes out on top after all this.

Speaker 1 He has to give back hundreds of millions, but then he he also gets to take hundreds of millions from Penn Entertainment because of Billy.

Speaker 4 The bank accounts equal out to defrauding people of billions of dollars based on Billy's enormous amount of libel cases. There's always money in the banana stand.

Speaker 8 Baker Mayfield is anti-turf and thinks big turf is behind ankle injury.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 the rest we're gonna look around. Well, that one sounded good.
Give us one more. That last one that you just kind of trailed off.

Speaker 4 Dead Nazi bear killed by Jewish bears.

Speaker 8 Tom Brady taught Mac Jones a dirty trick. Oh.
That was also not real.

Speaker 1 Ah,

Speaker 1 damn. Okay.
Well, it's good we have filters in place.

Speaker 1 You are creed thoughts. Even for the internet, it's quite shocking.

Speaker 1 Okay, good, good fire, fats, Philly. So the story was real,

Speaker 13 but.

Speaker 8 The other stories that I thought were real that didn't get posted sort of put it into that category.

Speaker 2 Right, got it.

Speaker 1 You got a reputation. It was a reputation foul.

Speaker 8 Look, I just shoot from the hip.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you got a reputation tech.

Speaker 4 You should start your own blog that's just things that I think are real.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Please note this blog is not real. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right, Jake, finish this off.

Speaker 7 Yeah, this one's pretty simple. I'll send you guys the picture right now, but I ripped my jeans yesterday.

Speaker 4 Uh-oh.

Speaker 7 And I was just sitting at my desk, and I saw my boxers when I looked down. This would not have happened if I was wearing mugsy.
I'd get myself more mugsy.

Speaker 1 But it was a pretty big

Speaker 1 photo. This is Cake Marsh.
Pretty big rip.

Speaker 4 Jake, this is an extremely graphic thing to send to your co-you're basically

Speaker 4 like Roman Roy.

Speaker 1 Oh, damn, Jake. Yeah.

Speaker 4 You're sending us graphic pictures.

Speaker 2 Double-cheeked up on a Thursday.

Speaker 1 Tough. That's a weird pose.

Speaker 7 It was just putting my foot up so I could.

Speaker 1 I don't think anyone can see that you had a rip in your jeans.

Speaker 4 Jake, who probably have you sent this to?

Speaker 7 Some people wouldn't pay for this. Nobody?

Speaker 2 I wear ripped jeans for

Speaker 4 maybe two weeks after they actually.

Speaker 1 Oh, easily. Yeah, easily.
But near your balls.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no. Yeah.
Yeah. That's where they rip every time.
Unless your actual dick can flop out, I'll wear rip jeans.

Speaker 2 I also rip a pair of jeans once a month.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What's up with that?

Speaker 2 I get cheap jeans.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Gotta go mugsy.
Yeah, I gotta go mugsy.

Speaker 2 Gotta go muggy. That's less than that.

Speaker 1 Max is allegedly going to the gym. He sent us a Photoshop picture.

Speaker 4 It was not a Photoshop. That was a real picture.

Speaker 4 Sure, it was. On the elliptical?

Speaker 2 Yeah. No, it was actually on the treadmill.

Speaker 1 I was doing incline walk. Whitlock's going to call you a chick if he catches you on that elliptical.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's finish off. Memes.
Where's memes? Has he ever gotten this?

Speaker 1 Memes!

Speaker 1 Let's do numbers.

Speaker 4 I'll go one.

Speaker 1 26.

Speaker 1 I'll go 17. 18.

Speaker 1 Hey, memes. Have you ever gotten this?

Speaker 1 20. No.
Okay. What's your number, memes? One.

Speaker 4 Oh, I just took one. He took one.

Speaker 1 17? I already have 17. 99.
99 is available. Yeah, there you go.
All right. Say your numbers real quick again.

Speaker 4 One. 17.
26.

Speaker 1 18. 20.

Speaker 1 Come on, memes.

Speaker 1 I'm actually rooting for memes.

Speaker 1 12.

Speaker 1 12.

Speaker 1 Okay, we'll see everyone on Monday.

Speaker 8 Love you guys. Chimps will hunt Columbus monkeys.

Speaker 8 Days are not dangerous to find shy away.

Speaker 8 I'm coming to your love up here.

Speaker 8 I'm coming to your love up here.

Speaker 8 You don't want me

Speaker 8 to make

Speaker 8 me young.

Speaker 8 I'll be gone.

Speaker 8 You don't want me

Speaker 8 to say, I'm all the same. It's about me, stole a little way.

Speaker 8 The learner's life is okay. Say after me.

Speaker 1 It's for better to be safe than zombie. It's for better to be safe than zombie.
It's for better to be safe than zombie. They gone.

Speaker 1 I need gone.

Speaker 1 Things that you say.

Speaker 1 Just away that love.

Speaker 1 To be remembered, shine away.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for you anyway.

Speaker 1 Coming for you anyway.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for you anyway.

Speaker 1 Take on me.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 me up.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 all

Speaker 1 your fears.