The Floundering Cavs, OKC-Boston Gut Checks, and Lottery Karma Power Rankings With Ryen Russillo

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Coming up, an action-packed weekend of NBA playoff basketball.

Rasul and I broke all of it down.

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I have a new rewatchables coming for you Tuesday.

Not Monday, Tuesday.

We did Death Wish with Charles Bronson because it is big-ass 70s month.

So the reason it's Tuesday instead of Monday is because I'm going to do a podcast on Monday.

We're going to do a podcast after Celtics Knicks and after the lottery lottery and just doing it.

And I think the schedule might be Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and either Thursday or Friday this week.

So I think I'm doing four on this feed this week.

So rewatchables will be Tuesday.

That's Deathwish.

You can watch it on Ringer Movies as well.

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Russilo and I, we recorded a bunch of this earlier today right after the Denver OKC game.

And then the top part of the podcast is right after Cleveland, Indiana, which was an absolute debacle for one of those two teams.

We're going to talk about it next.

First, our friends from ProJam.

All right, taping this top part of the podcast here.

It is 7.30 Pacific time.

We're doing that during the Cavs Pacers game because that game ended about an hour ago, even though they're still playing it right now.

And James Johnson just came in.

The Pacers, 25 assists in the first half, which is a number I did not know was attainable.

And they absolutely ran Cleveland off the floor.

And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, the third quarter started and Donovan Mitchell was nowhere to be seen because he apparently hurt his ankle.

And the Cavs are now down three to one, heading back to Cleveland for game five.

And the Pacers have completely, thoroughly, totally, and unequivocally outplayed them and have momentum.

And this is now looking really dangerous, not just for this season, Muscillo, for the Cavaliers, but big picture.

If you get wiped out like this by the Pacers, I'm not sure what you do heading into the summer.

And I'm not even sure

what the fixes are.

And maybe you look at it and you take a breath and you go, all right, just wasn't our round, I guess.

Let's run it back.

We won 64 games.

I find it hard to believe that's how it would play out because this is really bad how this has played out.

Yeah, the assist number at one point, it was 20 to 2 in team assists.

And, you know, they're just flying around.

I mean, this game is like overwhelming.

I'm still a little in shock.

Now, look, two things here.

If Cleveland goes 82-0 and they lose this series, do they go 82-0 next year?

No one's going to care because people are going to say there's this fundamental flaw with this team.

If you're Cleveland, you're going to probably run it back and you'll start to make excuses, which I think are worth bringing up.

Game two, we're missing Garland.

We're missing Mobley.

We're missing Hunter.

And you still, if you inbound the basketball, you could win that game.

Mitchell leaves.

They weren't coming back in this game, even with Mitchell being out.

And you're you're like, hey, Garland was never really right.

Now, I know, like, I'm not sitting here suggesting that's the only reason you're here, but that's probably what they would do, wouldn't they?

I think you're right.

But I'm also stunned that it was this much of an ass kicking today because usually game four is the, like what we watched, which we're going to talk about later in the podcast, that OKC Denver game, where both teams kind of realize the stakes and the moment and

what needs to happen.

There's a level of intensity, and there's a caring

that usually exists in a game like this.

And from Cleveland, from the get-go, you didn't see it.

They weren't rotating on defense.

They were just getting sliced and diced on that 3-2 zone.

And

I think the thing that really stands out to me beyond just the talent and whether this might not be a great matchup for Cleveland, Indy's feisty.

They play with a real chip on their shoulder.

They've done that all year.

They love playing really good teams or teams with great players, like with the Lakers, the Celtics, like whoever it is.

They really come out with their chest puffed out.

They try to start shit.

They're agitators.

They have a real personality to them.

And

they kind of know who they are.

They have a real identity.

And for whatever reason, Cleveland feels like it's losing its identity as these playoffs go along.

It's like, what is this team?

Allen had a 19 and 12 in game three.

And in game four, he got buried in the first half as that went sideways.

But they have the Garland piece, which I know he's been hurt.

I know his stats are okay today, but he looks

okay, not great.

But you would think they're equipped to

fill in if he's hurt or playing 80% because of how deep their bench is.

And then the bench didn't show up.

And then Mitchell basically was superhuman in game two and three, right?

He did so much, like his body ended up breaking down from it.

It just feels like if these teams played 20 times, I'm not sure how it would go for Cleveland.

So I can't decide if this is a bad matchup.

Could this have happened if they played Milwaukee?

Like, what?

Big picture, what does this mean?

Was this like a mid-2010s Atlanta Hawks type team?

Is there a road back for them?

I'm just, I'm swimming with questions and I have no answers.

Yeah, there's a tweet.

I think it's right.

I don't know.

Then double-check it.

But if you look at

where Cleveland was this season, right?

So 14 teams in NBA history that won at least 64 games and posted a margin of victory of 9 or points, 9 points or better.

13 reached the NBA finals.

The only team that didn't was the 15-16 San Antonio Spurs, right?

Zaza Kawhi.

Was that that year?

Wasn't that the year after?

17?

That was the Rant's first Warriors year, right?

That 16 team, that was that weird NBA season where there weren't a lot of good teams that year.

Remember?

And

they did well, but it was you know we we weren't ever really so it was always the warriors year it always seems like it was gonna be the warriors in the calves it was 17 so yeah yeah um

look i mean this is this is pretty ridiculous that you would be this good and then all of a sudden like is it is it just a bad matchup part of it you know the crazy thing about cleveland like going into the year was how are you going to figure out a way to win in the playoffs with the allen mobley piece of it well mobley got better atkinson staggered them you know i always think about that cleveland comeback against Boston and Boston where they closed with Hunter and Mobley and took Allen off the floor because they didn't like the way Tatum was getting at him in switches.

So I was like, okay, is this something that we'll see in the playoffs?

Like all of these basketball things that you would think that are part of the conversation,

you know, it doesn't really apply tonight.

You're sitting there looking at, hey, are they

ignoring any of these guys in this space?

It's like, no, Indiana is actually getting anything they want.

I think the most impressive thing from this game, which is

also part of what I think is absolutely correct, is that the Pacers have this real edge to them, is whatever they did from game three to game four in preparation of this 3-2 zone that Cleveland runs, they figured it out.

And the coaching staff prepped these guys great.

The execution of it was terrific.

And you could see that Cleveland was scrambling because, you know, really the zone stuff that we're seeing constantly throughout these playoff games.

Everybody knows this.

You just got to figure out a way to get it to collapse.

You got to get a way to attack the middle, and then you can attack off of that because you're trying to keep the ball out of the middle.

You had the riggler going down the middle, and then either he goes to the rim or he kicks it back out.

And they were doing it perfectly today.

Yeah, they had a pick and roll with Toppin at the free throw line.

He rolls, and then guess who he's finishing against?

Because Mobley was at the top.

Like when this thing was working in game three, you're going, My God, Mobley is chasing everybody around and contesting and trapping and screwing up the first thing that you want to do.

You have the luxury of having Evan Mobley at the top of a 2-3 zone, or excuse me, a 3-2 zone, because Allen can play underneath him.

Well, in these minutes where Toppin was destroying him in the first half, Allen was out.

So then they switched it to Mobley underneath.

Then the Pacers got another good look, and then they brought him back, and then they went to Mann, and then Turner hit a three.

And then there was another play where they were like, okay, I think we have this.

Again, they're down so big, you can't say, hey, now we're settled on defense.

We know what we're going to do.

And then Neesmith hits an end of his shot clock.

So like everything that possibly could have worked out, I think started with them having a much better plan and being way more comfortable with a 3-2 that even TJ McConnell admitted, hey, that screwed us up a little bit there in game three.

So Cleveland thinks they have this answer.

They have this defensive thing that they can do, especially when it's those two guys.

And yet they got destroyed in a bunch of different versions of it tonight.

Right.

And the Pacers, I say this as the highest compliment I can give because I really love this team, but they were, they look a little 2014 Spurs-ish at times with the way they play with each other and the ball moves around with the added bonus that I think they're a really good transition team.

And Halliburton, you know, especially in a game like today, when there was one pass he threw, he was at at midcourt and he just threw this lob pass in the corner, almost like watching a quarterback throw a lead pass to a receiver down the sidelines.

He just casually threw it and he had a guy running down and caught it like in stride, stopped and had a look.

And I was like, this team sees angles that I don't normally see when I'm watching basketball.

They really have fun playing with each other.

They have all these guards.

They pressure full court.

I think they're a huge pain in the ass to play.

I think you want to punch them in the face after like game two, which we saw today.

Matherin, you know, goats hunter into a thing and then thinks he's the smart guy.

And then they review it and they're like, no, actually, you're getting tossed.

But they just want to get under your skin.

And I think they're annoying to play.

It's no surprise to Celtics fans because this is a team that has come.

Every time they played the Celtics, they brought it.

They start shit.

They're really hard to play.

They have a deep bench.

They're really good at home.

They get a good crowd.

And I think they're for real.

I thought they were for real all year.

With that said, I'm shocked that Cleveland could look this bad in an important game.

And I don't know whether Mitchell, it took so much for him those first couple of days, with, you know, such a burden.

I'm not sure.

I just think basketball is really hard now in 2025.

You know, it's, it's,

when you have those games like that game that he had when he was literally dead at the end of the game and you're doing everything, all the running and all the contact and the amount of times he was bouncing against people and finishing.

And

I don't know.

I hate to shit on the old generations because you know I love all that basketball, but I just think it's harder.

I think these games are harder.

I think they're more physical.

They're more taxing.

And it's a lot to ask from these dudes to put an offense on your back like that, you know?

Yeah, I mean, that might be, I mean, I'm open for anything, but to come out that flat and to let it get away from you that much.

And, you know, you still felt like the front line depth, Cleveland versus Indiana, like at what point would you have gone?

I think Miles Turner is going to be able to hold up here.

I mean, every backup center minute for the Pacers this year, because they lost so many guys in injuries, you're thinking, how are they going to ride this out with Turner?

Because it still felt like Turner was somebody that you could attack.

Granted, the shooting that he gives you and the spacing opens up a lot of the stuff that you're talking about and how they're able to attack, but it's just crazy to see 48 hours later this look like a completely different series, especially when

the Cavs should be able to win a game on the road, which we saw.

They've got to be kicking their ass still from game two for allowing that to happen.

So there's part of me that still thinks, like, man, if they had just inbounded, okay, then today happens and then it's 2-2.

So where are we going with all this stuff?

But I mean, Cleveland, if they don't win this series, which it doesn't look like is going to happen down 3-1 now,

they are going to be like completely written off.

And if they run the same group back, which is usually the default of what a GM would do, be like, hey, we're really good.

This is what we did in the regular season.

We had our hiccups that we mentioned at the top, which I'm sure they would say internally with each other.

But this was just alarming to start a game that

matters this much.

And just at no, like, hey, it's 20.

Okay, well, now it's 30, and then it's 40.

It just was an ass-kicking.

Um, and I'm still kind of shocked.

Me too.

Well, then, if you're the Celtics,

you win this game on Saturday, you have this Knicks game on Monday that's, I think, one of the biggest Knicks games of this century.

But now you're looking at: hey, if we can just, we've outplayed the Knicks for 93% of this series.

Let's take care of business, win three more.

We're going to have home court for round three potentially with Indiana, right?

So it goes from, let's say, let's even say it goes to seven and they're able to hold on and beat the Knicks in seven.

And game one of the Knicks series is in Boston on a Wednesday, you know, and you get the game seven potentially at home, too.

It's an amazing turn of events when you consider a team won 64 games in the conference.

And, you know, I really believed in Cleveland.

I thought this was going to be a really hard series because I'm also, as we've talked about many times, I just really thought Indiana was good.

But I really was sold on Cleveland as a team.

I thought they had a bench.

I believed in Mitchell as a guy who could be the number one guy in a potential finals team.

I thought they were there defensively.

But the signs that were there, if you're really looking back, we talked about it some with the the net rating for the last 25 games, last 30 games.

And

they just were better the first 30, 35 games than they were the rest of the year.

And the defensive stuff was the stuff that I think there were some subtle red flags.

They just weren't a top five or six defense anymore, really from the all-star break on.

And the question was why?

What was happening?

And then you see, like today,

you know, they're, he's, when did he put a quarrel?

Yeah, Okora was in there a bunch.

But he's, I almost felt like Atkinson was grasping for straws a little bit in this game.

Like he's just trying lineups and players.

I'm saying the first half.

Like,

I hope Okoro has something.

It's like, wow, you guys are at that stage?

You're at the, I hope Okoro could give us an offensive boost stage of the season.

When Okoro got in there, it felt like it was, it was kind of already over.

But yeah, they were down 30.

Ty Jerome comes in, and you're hoping like he can kind of be Ty.

He's been awesome.

And And even in the game where he had a lot of points, I mean, he took 20 shots.

You're like, man, a playoff game with Ty Jerome taking 20 shots.

Like, we like him, but I don't know if I like him that much.

And

you would have thought, like, can he at least, you know, not to be TJ McConnell, but can he be somebody who gets you into some really good stuff as you're trying to figure out the Garland situation with him being out?

And then that turns into a disaster.

Hunter today, five points, five fouls.

So that acquisition hasn't paid the dividends that you'd expect it to have.

The rebounding numbers, granted, Indiana didn't miss, so there weren't a ton of potential rebounds, but 47 combined minutes when I wrote it down, what it was, what, 98, 64, those guys combined had seven rebounds.

Again, it also speaks to how well the Pacers are shooting the ball.

But I'm going to ask you this because

as much as

we're talking about the Pacers, like, hey, they're a feisty team.

They're going to be a tough out.

Defensively, you're right.

Like, you start looking at the defensive rating as teams are closing the season.

After the all-star break, the Pacers were eighth.

You know, it's a team that went 20 20-9.

Some of the Cleveland slip-off, I think at the time we were like, all right, is that real?

Or is this a team that's just been cruising to the one seed the entire season?

Yeah, that the one seed locked.

Yeah, so I mean, there's ways you can look at that saying, hey, the Pacers' number feels more real because they're closing and they're kind of fighting for everything

and the Cavs on the other side of it, like whatever.

But

let's just say the Pacers get through the East.

Okay.

I mean, have you ever thought of Halliburton as a top 10 player in the NBA?

I don't know if I still would, even if they got to the finals.

So it's kind of like whenever I looked at the Pacers, I'm like, man, there's a lot of the stuff to like.

I don't know if they're really going to go with this rotation.

Are they really going to play this many guys?

And the answer is yes.

The defensive part of it has been real in the way they've closed because last year I just thought they were complete.

Like, all right, whatever.

Like, cool that you're in the Easter Conference Finals.

But I mean, I don't really take you seriously defensively.

They got some luck.

Right.

This would be unlike the blueprint that we,

of all the things that you think are real in the NBA.

Yeah.

You go, all right, well, who's your best guy?

And like, who's your second best guy?

The Pacers, even the biggest Halliburton fan, like, don't check that box.

And I think that's the

comparison.

Circle back to.

Yeah, but that's why the 2014 Spurs, that's what made me think of.

That's what this feels like a little bit, if that's how it played out.

Because remember, Duncan's at slightly different stage of his his uh he's at the telltale end of a really great career as like a guy who could be a 35 minute a game guy for somebody kawaii wasn't kawhi yet then parker was probably the most talented guy in the team in terms of where he was in his career diao's there jinobi's older you know but the team made sense when you saw everybody together

and i think indiana has a little of that the team kind of makes sense when you watch them and i do think they have even though they're not a traditional awesome defense they do like nisma's a really good defender like if if you're just throwing him on whoever the best perimeter guy is on another team you can feel pretty good about that you know um they hit threes and they're deep

and they really like to play with each other and they really

i feel like have an identity, which is all I'm looking for when we get to mid-Bay.

Do you have an identity?

And that's what's weird about Cleveland is

what's your identity now?

Because you're not great on defense.

You're very Mitchell-heavy.

I'm not positive who your best five guys are.

Yeah, but we know who their best four guys are.

That was the whole point of this team, is we know who their four were.

It's a kind of a big thing because you have two bigs and two smalls.

And then it's like,

Dandre Hunter.

I don't know that I'm ready to audit the Cavs and that those four guys just aren't that good now.

I mean, who cares who their fifth is when those are your four?

I wasn't saying they weren't good.

I just don't care who their fifth guy is when it's when it's that good of a four, or at least it's supposed to be that good of a four.

I think you're right about the Mitchell part of it.

I don't know.

Do you love the Allen part?

I mean, he sucks now.

How long is the list?

Do you love him, though?

I think every team would like Jared Allen.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I watched them toe-to-toe against Indiana, and I just, it's not like I'm like, whoa, there's so much talent.

It's not like the Celtics Knicks series.

You're like, what's going on?

The Celtics have a better team than the Knicks.

How is this happening?

I don't know if I feel that way when I'm watching Cavs Pacers.

I don't know how you could feel any other way after what we just sat to for two hours.

So, you know, I didn't expect you to start sitting here and be like, you know, who's awesome?

Is Jared Allen?

I just think that there was like 82 regular season games where this team was historically really good.

Now, maybe that's another part of this conversation.

Home Road

doesn't matter anymore.

20 points.

Do we care about regular season at all?

Don't matter anymore.

Your net rating doesn't matter anymore.

Like all of these things now, are we just going to decide

that the things we've always believed in,

none of it matters?

Because I mean, Cleveland is checking a lot of boxes being down 3-1 here.

It's the part that doesn't make sense to me.

It was why I like them as a possible finals team because I felt like they had all the things I was looking for, except for I wasn't positive who the fifth fifth guy is, but I like Struce.

It's like, all right, if he's your fifth guy, but at least you had a sense of make some big shots in the corner.

I feel like he could maybe do that.

Yeah.

There was three guys, though, you could throw into that conversation of like who would be.

Now, granted, you probably wouldn't play Jerome with Garland and Mitchell, but,

you know, Merrill's played a lot.

Hunter is supposed to be better than this.

You know, even Dean Wade, who gets attacked defensively all the time, because it's like, oh, I got him.

And then he holds up really well.

There's a lot of little pieces there that, even if you're saying, like, hey, I don't know who the fifth guy is,

a lot of teams would take all of those options.

But this is look,

go ahead.

It's Pritchard, and then who are my other four?

What are you talking about?

I'm joking.

I'm just trying to figure out my five.

I start with Pritchard.

Oh, I see what you're doing.

Probably Tatum second.

Yeah.

Are you sure?

Pritchard, are you ready for Pritchard versus TJ McConnell in the ASPN commercial?

It's 30 shots for 30 shots for Pritchard in a playoff game.

Look, man,

that's like one, two every three minutes.

I just can't believe they would come out that bad.

Like, normally, even if you're going to lose this game, like, get it to 12.

Get it to 12 a little later.

You know, that's usually how these games work.

Right.

Well,

all right.

So, like, you mentioned, I think later in the pod, you mentioned the 64-win Suns team that just got waxed.

We had those Hawks teams in the mid-2010s.

Like, we've seen successful teams crater at the wrong time in the playoffs.

And every time it's confusing, the bigger question to me is after it happens, is there a road back?

Because the only time I can think of a road back.

where the road actually came back was that Spurs, the Ray Allen shot.

And then they came back and they even think, like, oh man, that's it.

They're never coming back from that.

And then they came back the next year.

The Celtics in 23,

Miami, losing the first three, where it's like, that's it, blow this thing up.

This is a wrap.

Then they came back and they won the next three.

It's like, all right, what is up?

Tatum got hurt in game seven.

Maybe we just need to trade Marcus Smart and Grant Williams and you know, fix around the edges.

Um, but normally, when it goes bad like this and you really take a shit in a series,

it usually doesn't come back.

Like, that's usually

we look back and be like, ah, when they start making like a big trade two years later, we're like, ah, we should have known because that series in 25, when

that Pacers game, like we should have known.

That was when we knew that that nucleus wasn't going to work.

Do you see how it goes?

A couple things.

One.

That Hawks team that won 60 games in 14 and 15.

Artificially inflated 60.

I just don't think they were that good.

Yeah, well, they were compared to when you look at the net rating, points per possession, all that shit, they were not at the level of what this Cavs team was.

But, you know,

did they win like 64 games one of those years though, or 62?

I think it's just 60 that one year when they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals and they got swept.

I'm doing a seven-part documentary about them.

I got to figure it out.

No, that's going to be exciting.

Let me know when you want to do the Kevin Willis.

We got to lock down Joe Johnson.

Still trying to get an interview with him.

So, you know, when that Hawks team comes up short, you're also going up against LeBron.

Yep.

So.

Did you ever go on the radio and say, I think they could upset LeBron?

Or were you always like, I've never taken this seriously ever at any point?

No, I remember that team annoyed me because they wanted like five guys on the all-star team because they were in first place.

Yeah.

And they're like, yeah, that's probably not a great way of doing the all-star roster.

Five, maybe an exaggeration.

Maybe it was four.

But then if you look at

the Celtics part of it,

I mean, that's why we're sitting here, like, this is going to be ugly for Cleveland.

Like I said, like, it's going to be really ugly going, okay, this, it goes from, okay, there's a new coach.

He figured some things out.

They're even better now, coach of the year type of stuff.

And then no one's going to care.

No one's going to care about any of it because now they're going to say that this group just is incredibly flawed.

Well, and then you have the squandered opportunity of whether the Celtics come out of this round two series or not, either way, it's going to be a six or seven gamer with some attrition.

And then Cleveland would have the home court in that one.

And Boston's the team they've always played well against.

And Mitchell's always done well against the Celtics.

Now you're like, well, we blew.

Like, what if the Knicks end up beating the Celtics?

I'm like, we could have fucking played the Knicks in round three.

But, you know, the thing is, is after this series and the way this has looked, they shouldn't be saying that about anybody.

True.

How healthy do you think Garland is?

Give me a percent.

Healthy enough to be out there.

I mean, he's made some plays.

Falling down twice, not being touched, probably isn't a great time.

He fell down and got a foul call in today's game where I'm like, he just fell down.

And then he had a play in game three.

where he like lost the ball.

He just tried to cut forward and then fell down again.

So, you know, I don't know if that's in the flow of the game or whatever, but I thought at least game three, it's like, okay, you know, he's out there.

You know, I don't think

maybe he's marginalized a little bit, but

I don't, you know, I don't see multiple moments where I'm like, oh my God, this guy's shot.

I can't believe he's out on the floor.

You?

Didn't look this, didn't was, I wouldn't say he was skipping around 100%,

but he wasn't bad.

He wasn't compromised.

Certainly it didn't really affect either way.

I thought it was more the Pacers were just extraordinary and also really seemed to think they can be equivalent.

That's that's that was another lesson of this game.

Like they were like, we're fucking beating these guys today.

This is happening.

We're beating these guys.

And

I don't know.

This might be, you know, the times we've argued about it in the past, but even with

the health luck that they had against the opponents during the playoffs last year, just getting the Easter Conference finals and, you know, probably feeling like you were a lot closer with Boston than the series played out.

I mean, getting swept kind of separates the men from the boys in those closing moments.

You're like, okay, you're not actually at this level despite running around for two hours.

But maybe that's all they needed and the strong clothes and a guy like Halliburton who does not care, which is why I think so many players despise him.

But you need somebody like that.

You need somebody who thinks, especially when you have that many

times with the ball and everything that you're controlling there, you have to think you're better than everybody else.

And he he carries himself that way.

And look, I mean, depending on where he is, I think I voted him all NBA.

I know it kind of came down to like the last few names.

There's like three for one spot or maybe four names for two spots.

And I know some people are probably split.

So I don't know if he's going to make third team all NBA, but I voted for him.

I'm pretty sure I did.

I kind of forget some of this stuff.

You did.

I didn't.

Okay.

I didn't mean to do it to you that way.

That's

all it up.

I stand by that.

It was a regular season vote.

I voted for Big Jim Harden

over him.

Yeah, it's a regular season vote.

Do I feel great about it?

Not especially.

No.

No.

I don't feel awesome.

I find myself in there after all.

Should the NBA like hit us up a week or two into the playoffs and be like, anything you want to tweak?

I know.

They should give you one mulligan.

I swear to God, every time like somebody, it becomes public and then it's like, oh, this guy did this.

And sometimes I think it's because the person just does it.

And then there's just that moment.

You're like, well, somebody left Franz off of all NBA first and second.

And then I'm like immediately going back to check my ballot.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you're just horrified that you're going to make some mistake.

But I don't think the NBA can go over our ballots and go, Are you sure about that, dude?

Although I'd love it.

What's the weirdest possible finals we can have that actually might happen now?

Is it Indiana and Minnesota?

Golden State

and Minnesota.

Or excuse me.

Well, what's the weirdest possible?

Well,

weirdest possible that could actually happen.

That could actually happen.

Yeah.

Indiana and Minnesota is a finals that could actually happen.

Wouldn't Denver Pacers be weirder?

I mean, the ABA part would be weirder, but Jokic being in the finals.

I'm just trying to picture like a finals that people in our life who don't really follow basketball, like my mom.

Like, who's in the finals this year?

And I'm like, it's Indiana against Minnesota.

And she's like, what?

Or my wife.

That's one of those.

Yeah, Minnesota has this guy, Anthony Edwards.

He was in an Adam Sandler movie.

And Indiana just has a bunch of guys you've never heard of, but they're really fun to play

or fun to watch.

And that's going to be our finals.

I would be defending.

We would be defending ourselves against

the ratings argument that would come out then.

That probably wouldn't be a great time for some of the current back and forth.

Pacers, T-Wolves.

Okay, they shouldn't have.

Shout your wad.

Shout you out a little early.

You see some of the players' tweets?

It's all connected.

By the way, you know what would be a really good finals?

Indiana and Minnesota.

I would really enjoy those games.

Good battle.

I guess I don't look at Minnesota as surprising, but they're another team.

Western Conference finals, same as the Pacers, Eastern Conference Finals.

I felt like Minnesota had a much better chance in that series than the Pacers did last year.

Maybe, I don't know, this sounds stupid, but were we just due?

I mean, we're not even there yet.

We're not even through the second round.

Like due for just like a completely wacko.

Yeah, Are we just due for one of these instead of every year going, okay, it's this team versus that team?

All right.

Well, they have

one of the five best players in the world, and they have two of the 10 best players in the world.

And that's the way the sport works.

I have the conference odds from right before round one.

And Indiana, I thought, was a great bet.

And I actually had that in my picks.

Indiana was 28 to 1 to win the East.

Which I thought those are like just great odds.

I don't not saying it's going to happen.

It's just 28 to 1.

Playing Milwaukee in round one.

It's just good odds.

Minnesota was 20 to 1

to win the West,

right?

And if you looked at that one,

kind of the same thing where you go, all right, well, if they get through round one, they're playing the winner of Houston, Golden State, and round two.

They could potentially win that.

And then who knows?

They love playing OKC.

But anyway, 28 to versus 20 to 1 would be a very, very high parlay if you did that one on FanDuel.

Denver They cut a 15-20, by the way.

Did they really?

Yeah.

So maybe some bullets.

Cleveland was plus 185 to win the conference.

And the Celtics were minus 145.

And the Knicks were 12 to 1.

Some tough

feet minutes.

All right.

And I'm way more nervous about the Celtic game now since we did the pod, which hasn't even been on this, the people listening.

We haven't even gotten to that yet.

It's about 40 minutes from now.

But I started thinking about

this Indiana game made me now nervous.

That the saw, the just you always think you know what it's going to happen again.

It's like game four.

I remember, oh, it's going to be Select Fest.

Everyone's going to show up.

And then I watch this.

I'm like, all right.

Now I'm nervous again.

I don't know what to expect anymore.

I mean, it's just, is it the most impressive win of any game in the playoffs so far?

Right.

Mainly because it feels like they kind of broke the calves.

I think that was the more impressive part.

It broke me a little bit.

Whoa.

It's like one of those football games where you like the Cowboys lose 47 to 17 in round one.

You're like, oh my God, you didn't just lose.

Like, I don't even know what you should do this summer now.

All right, before we go to break, did you see the movie Nana's on Netflix?

Not yet.

Vince Vaughan, Joe Manginello.

Yeah, excited.

Susan Sarandon, age 78, looks great.

You've always liked her.

Looks great.

Talia Shire,

Lorraine Bracco, nice.

Brenda Vaccaro.

It's, I had no idea.

My wife and daughter just wanted to watch it on Friday night.

I had no idea.

I was getting Dr.

Melfie.

I was getting Adrian Balboa.

I was getting, I don't know, was she Thelma or Louise?

Susan Saranon.

I haven't seen it yet.

One of those.

I'm just in Thelma and Louise.

I can't remember which one she was.

But yeah, interesting movie.

Made me think the stunt casting

still works.

I really liked it.

Thumbs up.

Nonas.

Thumbs up.

Two thumbs up.

All right.

I'll have to check it out.

Yeah.

I just saw it because it just came out, right?

Yeah.

Staten Island Italian restaurant movie.

I decided I like all food movies too.

Trying to think of one that I even like Burnt with Bradley Cooper.

I love Chef with John Favreau.

The movie.

Big Night.

Hot Dog Movie was not a food movie.

It was a ski movie.

Oh.

Yeah, I like food movies.

Chef, you said you like Chef?

I like Chef.

Did you like the Bear a lot?

You like the Bear a lot, right?

Enjoy the Bear.

Bear's coming back mid-June.

Big sweet.

We dumped them all at once.

A lot of overhead

filmed two seasons at once, apparently.

We're here to take a break.

Did you get any feedback for your Star Wars cameo and the Star Wars rewatchables?

Yeah, I did.

I got a little feedback on that.

And

I had somebody say to me, you definitely rigged that with Brasillo.

Everybody thinks that.

She was too ready for it.

I was like, I promise you, there was no rigging.

We have no idea if he's ever going to pick up the phone.

And I never tell him I'm calling or what the movie is.

You've never told me.

I even missed the Blues Brothers one, and I was upset because I was like, I used to love that movie when I was a kid.

Yeah.

The corner of the cob line to this day, you know, my dad and I will throw that one at each other every now and then.

And I called back and you were like, you missed your window.

So it's a very rigid system.

And after the blue chips one and now this one, people are accusing me of having all this prepared, which,

you know, look,

I'm probably due for a dud.

One where you're just saying, eh.

And then I stay on.

I've seen it once.

You start ad-libbing.

I just start getting, I'm getting stuff wrong, like Kwisingery.

So I'll just be like, yeah, I don't know.

The Endor thing and the E-Walks.

You're like, dude, that's the third one.

Like, but it's in the dance in the background.

It's the sixth one.

All right.

We're going to take a break, come back, and talk the rest of the playoffs.

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Happy Mother's Day out there to all the mothers who are not watching right now.

I think it's the hardcore sports fans.

I have my mother-in-law and my mother in my house right now who don't understand why I had to record a podcast with my guy, Ryan Rossillo.

But listen, OKC Denver game four, there was a lot of things going on.

That game moved to a whole other level of

storylines, things I was just really intrigued by, things I wanted to find out, answers I needed.

and i'll start here with

uh really hard for denver to score against a team as incredible defensively as okc

and i don't know how they're going to win two more of these what okc was doing defensively especially in the fourth quarter um

i thought was pretty bonkers It's pretty, pretty, pretty high level.

And it made up for all their weird offensive stuff.

It's just when they want to get stops, it just feels like it's like a miracle when you're scoring against them.

So that was my biggest takeaway.

What was yours?

That I cannot believe I didn't have every dollar in my account assigned to the under in this.

What was it?

179?

It was 27 was the number.

And by the way, that Aaron Gordon three, it was OKC minus six at 90, what, yeah,

so I'm sitting there and you and I had talked after game three.

I've had anxiety.

I don't even care who wins, right?

I've had anxiety watching both of these games.

Like I've never really quite felt like this because they're such grinds.

And game three was just a grind.

And of course, because of what we do, you're watching the game constantly thinking about all the different things.

Like at one point when OKC was down, I'm wondering if you're going to start sitting here saying, Is there an Usman Jang Jalen Brown match at some point or something?

Like, you know, who knows where this is going to go?

Because if OKC is down 3-1, like we start talking about all the different storylines, which I still want to get to, but knowing that they had to play that game and then play this one less than 48 hours later and in Denver, I just kept thinking about legs and who would have energy.

And it's the worst scoring first quarter we'd had in the playoffs, like a tide for the worst ever combined.

I mean, it just, it's an absolute grind.

And Denver gets to the point where

it was worse to watch than the score, which was an awful score.

The actual shots and the way people were missing and how far off everything was.

It was like eight points felt like a miracle.

I was like surprised Denver had eight points.

It was so bad, but it made sense.

It made sense.

And then when they talked to Chet,

you know, even him, this young guy, great athlete.

And I thought, you know, I know the sideline stuff gets a lot of grief, and maybe we're guilty of it at times too.

But I thought there was a lot of really good sideline stuff.

And Chet was incredibly honest, being like, you know, 48 hours, maybe even said 36 hours later.

And so the start of his game was.

Yeah, he said it was.

What was he said?

He said, this is basically a back-to-back.

And this is what when we were talking on Friday, we were like, I mean, that game Friday was just immense.

And we were like, God damn, they have to play Sunday afternoon after that.

Because it felt like two playoff games on Friday.

And that's what I do love about this because we closed the season with Denver, you know, being the worst defensive team going into the playoffs.

They change over their coach.

You're curious about what the rotation would be.

Remember when Pickett closed against Sacramento in the regular season?

You were like, okay, this is what Adelman's going to do.

And you're like, oh, he's not going to do any of that stuff.

But so you're left with,

because there's so much that I want to get to here, but you're left with just a, I don't know if it's a sinking feeling, overwhelming feeling that Denver can't get two more against the Thunder.

Well, here's what we found out.

I mean, we could cover each team.

What we found out with Denver is they're down to six guys, and one of them was Westbrook, who could not make a shot today, right?

And was basically, they weren't even guarding him.

Pick

Strother and Watson were the two that played.

The Watson minutes will not be released as a 4K HD DVD, I don't think, anytime soon.

Jokic looked just like they were just beating him with a two by four, and they were doing exactly what they should be doing against him.

They're trying to wear him down.

It was so hard for them to get good shots that when they got a good shot, like there was that shot Murray made in the fourth quarter when he went to his left, did a hop step, and got like an open 15-footer.

And it was like, wow, they got space on a jump shot.

Like, it was like a celebration.

The thing that was crazy to me about OKC in the fourth quarter is Dort wasn't out there for like the last five or six minutes, who I voted for Defensive Player of the Year.

And they're playing defense like that.

And they don't even have him out there.

You know, but when you think like they just come in waves with, I thought Wallace was great today.

Dort, Caruso,

the Hartenstein and homegrown combo, just ridiculous on Jokic.

You think he goes from...

He goes from last year, the Gobert Towns, Nas, just like some Tucson of that, the entire series to whatever's happening in this one.

It's just, it's a lot, man.

My big takeaway was like, I think

OKC is better defensively than anyone else is at anything,

would be how I would say it.

It's like when we talk about football and we're like, so-and-so's defense is the best thing anyone's got going right now.

And it feels like that way with OKC.

There's some parallels here with, and we'll see what happens in game four with New York and Boston.

But when you think about Boston the regular season against the Knicks, you see those first two games go the way they go.

And then when it looks right for Boston, you just go, okay, this feels like the significant gap that would lead you to pick Boston against New York in the playoff series.

And before we had the final, so these are before the final numbers from today's game.

But when they ran through the regular season and playoff results between Denver and OKC, OKC in the wins is like plus 27 and a half better and Denver in their wins are plus six and a half better.

But I'm glad you brought up Caruso because

the overtime thing and the clutch scoring in this series for OKC has been a mess up until today where Denver, I think had, when they put up the clutch number, it was like 453 left to go.

And they had five points up until the Gordon free throw because he went one or two, and then he hit the three

off of the violation.

So, you know, those points, like, yeah, technically they count as clutch points as they all do, but it was pretty clear like Denver just wasn't going to get anything offensively.

But Caruso, like, I kept wondering, and I think Dagnolt was looking for this, was who's going to give me energy?

Who is going to fight?

And Caruso had an incredible offensive rebound, kept the play alive.

They get to the bonus.

He had the strip on Murray.

They were just constantly getting in there, tipping and active.

And I think that's part of the decision of everybody's dead in game three.

So he starts overtime with Chet on the bench.

And I'm with you.

I love the Hartenstein Chet combo for Jokic because it's just one is always going to be on you and the other one is always going to be lurking, even if Aaron Gordon is going to be hitting threes.

So I understand what Dagniel's kind of like, trying to figure out, you know, because he does have all of these options, which made me like the Thunder so much, but sometimes that can almost get in your own way.

And so it's funny, the thing that he probably felt like with Caruso's energy and defense, he was going to try to get away with it.

And then OKC falls apart.

And over time, Denver's just running away.

They could, they end up going up in the series.

Like, how is this happening?

And yet, I think the same thing that he was hoping would happen in overtime actually happened.

I thought Caruso, the star of the fourth quarter.

It's hard to say he's the story of the game because there's all these different things we can point to, but his effort level, when you could tell, like, this is the youngest team going on this kind of title title run, if OKC were to pull this kind of thing off, you're thinking, don't their legs, despite Denver, you know, having this Bane approach, like we grew up in the darkness, like this is what we're all about.

Like you're going to be running around mile high.

Bane approach.

Yeah, but you know, you think we're going to be uncomfortable at home with our resume and what this group has done, even though I still think them blowing the lead in Minnesota is one of the most surprising results in playoff history.

I think Caruso was that guy for the Thunder because even a really young team, like I still think these teams were just dead today considering what they went through on Friday night.

Yeah.

I thought

it's weird.

You almost have to work backwards because they have six guys who could belong out in crunch time, right?

And Caruso is kind of the odd man out in the fourth quarter of game three.

Then they're trying to, you would almost think after, especially after watching the game today, you could talk me into Dort replacing Jalen Williams.

And Jalen Williams, if he's going to be what he was offensively in this game, I voted for him 13 mall NBA, by the way.

But there's a version of them where they just go the two bigs, SGA, Dort, and Caruso,

and that's it.

And they just try to lay the defense down as much as they can.

Those are good problems to have, but the big thing that happened today was,

you know,

SGA was okay.

I think he had three shots.

It was the fact that Denver just couldn't score.

I think that was the most shocking piece to me.

They always figure out how to get shots.

I didn't like the shots they were getting.

We always talk about that with Denver.

Like, I just like the shots.

I like the decisions.

I trust the process.

when the two, when the two-man game with Murray and Jokic, which everybody knows is coming,

but all the variations of it, like in game three, it's just funny because you'll watch and go, How come you're not doing this the entire time?

Well, you can't do it against any NBA team, let alone the Thunder, every single time.

But when they, when those two guys get into a rhythm and they're figuring out the switches and they're figuring out the help, and then Murray uses one screen and then he uses the second screen on Jokic, he had a three at the top of the key.

I mean, this is the same thing that we've seen here for years, but when it's working, even at times, again, against a team with a defensive profile like Oklahoma City, you almost feel helpless.

Well, you think like

game six, game seven against the Clipper series, right?

Those were, I think, one day off between those.

Then went right into this series.

They had a really tough game one, get killed in game two, game three, Friday night, and this one.

I don't know if some of it is fatigue with Jokic from the burden that he has, but I think what was interesting about what, and I don't even know how to define this, they sped him up by like

a fifth of a second with like his touch,

maybe a fourth of a second, maybe a sixth of a second.

Okay.

His touch around the rim, which is usually one of the things that's so crazy when you watch him, you're like, fuck, how does he make these all the time?

Totally.

How does he make these spinning eight-footers?

How does he make these ones where he's going toward the basket?

And how does the ball just always bounce around the rim and go in for him?

What is, what does he do?

And they fought, they somehow fucked that up.

And now when he's saying it's like hard back of the rim or it's short or it's like you know or sometimes it's just off the backboard but they they did something to him and i'm really interested to see if he can solve it because i think he's the best offensive player i've seen since uh early 2010s lebron at least and they've done something to him that they've sped him up and fucked him up and now when he takes open threes they don't seem like they're going to go in which is where he was in the minnesota series when when that went sideways too.

The difference here is that

when you have a six-man team and a couple of those guys are not guys who can create their own shot really under any circumstance,

if he's not going to shoot a little bit better, I just don't see how they get to 100 points for Sillo.

Like that under big 227 was nuts.

We should have bet the house on that one.

I can't believe we talked about it Friday night.

I know.

It's like a lingering anger I'm having with myself.

It's fine.

One quick thing, though, on Jalen Williams.

I would push back a little bit on how flexible you would be about subbing out somebody like that because he still needs he still needs to be in your number two and in game three it gets he was incredible and he was incredible offensively closing it was there was a silver lining to it of you know if this team's going to win a title i mean he needs to be a lot more than he was last year and even with all the you know the crazy thing too is about okay see when they get

stuff kind of going side to side and Denver's in that zone and they're loaded up to one side and there's all these kickouts to the other side, these guys are not making these shots nearly enough.

And they're all really good looks.

So if you're on that OKC staff, you know,

look, I've thought about all sorts of things.

And I don't know how ridiculous you were getting thinking about like, okay, what's the SGA conference?

I just said maybe they benched Jalen Williams down the stretch.

It was pretty ridiculous.

I voted for him 13 ball NBA.

I think that it is ridiculous.

But here's why I said that, though, because I thought this was an absolute.

absolute must win.

Must win gets

too much.

He's a good player.

He has to be out there.

But I'm saying, if I'm in the fourth quarter of this game four and I know I have to win at some point with six minutes left, I'm like, I don't care whose feelings I hurt.

I need to try to win this game now.

And I have six options and I'm just going to go.

So anyway, I wouldn't have been surprised if they did it.

But

that's how important I thought this game was to them, because especially as a younger team.

You know, you go down 3-1 in the series.

You can't finish these 50-50 games where you've already lost two in the series, right denver's four and oh in these

and i just felt i felt like okc had to have this i didn't feel like denver had to have this i felt like okc did

i'm not with you on benching jalen williams because he's your second best player he had the huge game three i mean you could even talk about like what you're doing to him if you want to play that game it's too risky i'm with you i'm just i went through the thought process it's too risky long term with it but and you're also

nothing was working for them though your second best on ball guy you know as good as door is,

you're really just giving him spot-ups.

Caruso's got more drive in him, but again, a lot of his looks are just open looks.

You know, Wiggins was out there.

Joe had a brick in the first half.

You're like, that is your shot.

It is wide open.

You know, Chet looked a little hesitant to shoot on a couple of those catches.

So I think they ran a really good thing once they get SGA to collapse, get the defense to collapse around SGA.

Like one time he got caught, got tied up, and I'm like, what the hell is going on?

And then another time he kind of like was ready for it, and they swing it, and they had a Caruso three off that.

They had Jalen Williams drive on it.

But granted, he only ended up with 10 points.

I think we should stay on the Jokic thing though, because you're right.

And it's funny because we're having this MVP off series and all the arguments about these two guys.

And I think sometimes we build them both in a Superman.

We can't believe they're missing any of these shots.

But since game one, Jokic is missing too many shots for him.

But every time you look at some of these possessions, like game three, there was a possession about six minutes to go in that game, and it was the eighth turnover for Jokic.

And he had Chet and SGA right on him underneath the rim.

And the other three players all had one foot in the paint.

They don't care.

I mean, this reminds me again of that Lakers' regular season game where they won at Denver and they were like, look how prepped up they are.

Look how much help is coming to Jokic.

And look how little they care about all this outside shooting.

Like Westbrook's had some really nice energy moments.

And to your point, he's not afraid, which is really important this time of year, but he's not making enough of these shots and he's taking a lot of them on top of everything else.

So you'll see times times where his defender doesn't even care where Westbrook is.

And there may be somebody.

Yeah, there's somebody else on the other side.

Like they had one play where Watson and Russ were in the same corner and no one cared.

Like their spacing next to each other was so terrible.

So when you look at these Jokic possessions, I think they're speeding him up because he knows he's like, all right, these guys are swarming on me.

I have no time and I'm dealing with double bigs and I have all this length.

Yeah, it'd be nice if he made some more shots.

It'd be nice if he stopped missing some of these huge free throws that we even saw in in the Clippers series.

But just there's stills where I'll laugh, going, look at what is happening as soon as Jokic stops his dribble and he's in the paint.

And there's just, you know, whether it's Porter Jr.

who was the difference in game three, there's still like just a lack of respect for any of those guys.

Porter was,

yeah, 0 for 5 from three today.

Watson was 0 for 2.

Westbrook's airball was the biggest one in the game.

And then from on the OKC side, Dort was 2 for 10.

Holmgrid 0 for 3.

Williams was 0 for 5.

Jalen Williams.

Jalen Williams was 2 for 13 in that game.

Yeah, it's a good one.

Pretty rough.

And then Isaiah Joe came in to give them some heat check threes and went 0 for 3.

But the Jokic thing, he spins.

He spins around.

There's another guy waiting for him.

When he does the thing where he tries to back down,

and he backs down and he can either throw it out or spin in.

They're sending these guys to his blind side, like little rocket ships.

So now he's worried about those guys, too.

So he can't do it the same way.

And it all goes to what you said.

It's like watching a football team.

It's like when

the Ravens had the Derrick Henry year, when teams would load, they would just do eight-man fronts and he would still run through them.

And then at some point in the playoffs, teams were like, How about an 11-man front?

Are you going to run through that?

How about we put everybody up on the line?

Can you run through this?

That's kind of what they were doing, I thought, to Jokic.

But I still, listen we both watched a ton of jokic like his touch has not been great around the the stuff that he's made all year he's not making you know there's been wide open threes and it's just this is not the best version of him and i don't want to make excuses for him um because i think he could play better and i think he looked really frustrated down the stretch where he was doing the sinking shoulders i can't believe i missed that He just is a little discombobulated.

So kudos to them because they figured out how to disrupt one of the best offensive players we've ever seen.

And it's almost like, you know, handing the ball off a few times, even if you don't think the reward is there, is you have to get him into those switches.

You have to be attacking him in that first half.

I mean, look, he always looks tired.

He's probably far more conditioned than most people because he's in Colorado year-round.

So, you know, even though he looks exhausted 30 seconds into every single game,

the end of the game, it just doesn't seem that it wears on him as much.

So I think it's both things.

I mean, you'd be denying

the

level of detail here on trying to make sure there's like a third guy there all the time.

I mean, Jay Billis called it like a line defense.

It felt like to your Derrick Henry point, like a goal-line defense on that one play that I was looking at.

Yeah, I thought they did a great job on the broadcast, and I really loved a lot of like useful graphics.

And hey, here's what's the clutch trends.

There was a lot of good stuff, um, which I think doesn't ever get where we just complain too much and then we never compliment enough.

So here we are, a couple positive guys.

Uh, three-pointers, by the way, 10-pointers for OKC, 11 for 45 for Denver.

But to Yoko, I don't think Denver could make some more of those.

No, he could.

No, I don't think Denver's done in the series by any means.

I think this would have been way more dangerous for OKC

as a young team where young guys aren't playing well.

And now you're down 3-1.

And now it turns into 48 hours of everybody just dissecting them, which can go either way.

Sometimes it can raise the team's level.

Sometimes it can tighten the sphincters.

But a lot of guys.

Like if OKC's down 3-1 and you're doing a pod, like, what do you allow yourself to do i think i lead with the denver piece of it i just think it's so incredible that they won two of those first three games like they stole game one just an outright uh theft

and then game three which i think you and i both loved um

denver's just you know that was just the we used to be the champs and we've been in a few of these rodeos and we kind of know what we're doing was one of those games.

The physicality of it was ridiculous.

It was an awesome game.

Like that was a hard, Friday was a get was a hardwood classics NBA TV showing it in August, and I'll probably end up watching it in the fourth quarter in the OT.

This game will never be seen again.

Nobody will ever watch this game.

And SGA, I think that they've, they've disrupted him in all these different ways, much like OKC has disrupted Jokic.

Like that, this is the best I've ever seen.

a team defend his drives.

They're ready for his herky-jerky stuff.

They never give up on him because he loves doing that hockey move where he kind of drives through and he brings it back out, but then he cuts back in.

They're always ready for that.

So when you think like they've only had six guys

and one of them has this giant bandage on his shoulder and it's unclear how hurt he is, like it's pretty impressive.

But,

you know.

Ultimately, your season comes down to stuff like Russell Westbrook is going to be wide open in the corner and he's going to airball a three that you needed because

you had to have Russell Westbrook out there, as good as he's been as a bench guy.

But that's kind of the difference when you get to this level.

It's a couple of plays.

Look, I do think there are some real positives with Westbrook's minutes just for his comfort level.

You know, there can be moments.

Look, when they got down huge in game two, it may not have mattered, but it felt like he was like, all right, I can fix this.

Maybe it's a compliment that he thinks that he can.

But I mean, if you just run through the totals here now, I mean, we're talking about somebody who's at 23% and he's taking a lot of threes because they're there for him.

By the way, the three-point shooting combined in the first half, 13.6%,

worst

percentage in a half in a playoff game since 1998.

The SGA stuff, had they lost, right?

If they're down 3-1, because I think it's worth maybe doing some of this stuff.

Now, then it becomes a little bit of like, hey, this is what those other players, remember Windhorse was sharing this, and then we both talked about it.

It was like, players do not fear this OKC team.

Yeah.

And then, what were some of the like the default defensive things that other teams are doing?

We saw Minnesota do it in one of those awesome regular season games against them.

It's like, look, we're just going to force the ball out of his hands.

We're going to trap him.

And we don't trust enough of these other guys because it's this SGA thing at the top.

And if we can clog that up, then guys that aren't as comfortable taking some of these shots to the playoffs, it's going to lead to success.

You know, there was a real

moment there where you're like, would you allow yourself to have some of these conversations about is SGA's regular season approach too much like some of these other guys that have the ball in their hands the entire time, and then it doesn't translate necessarily to the playoffs.

I think in the past, sometimes with some of the guys we've talked about, it's totally fair.

With SGA, it felt a little unfair if they had been down 3-1, but I think those things would have happened.

You know, I looked at the regular season drives per game.

It's 20.6 going into the night, 19 drives per game.

I think the Memphis numbers are sort of weird, but he's still taking because it feels like, is he taking as many shots?

Is he getting to the free throw line as much?

There's one difference, though.

Playoff officiating versus regular season officiating.

These games are just more physical.

And there's been times when watching them during the season, he would get calls that I don't think he's getting the same calls.

And by the way, I don't think Jokic is either.

I just think it's the playoffs and everything's physical.

Everything's physical from the first quarter on.

And it's, you're just not going to get away with as much.

So the stuff that he used to get away with in the paint and would get to the line, it doesn't feel like it's happening the same way anymore.

Well, it definitely shows up on a few plays, but the overall numbers are right in line with where he is in the regular season.

I was surprised.

Is he not driving as much?

Cause he's getting cut off more.

Nope, that's the same.

Are the touches per game the same?

Yes, they are.

Now, granted, the Memphis series maybe takes away from some of that stuff.

Free throw attempts per game.

I mean, he's in this series now taking nine free throw attempts per game.

After today, he took 12.

The regular season, he took nine free throw attempts per game.

So I'm with you that there's probably a few moments where he's like, man, I get that call in February.

I mean, it is 18 in an OT game on Friday.

He had 25 today, but some of those were

coming at the end.

It just doesn't seem like it's as easy.

But he's also going against a team that certainly we did not see this kind of defense from Denver during the season.

That's been the other story here.

This team fired their coach a week to go in the season, basically.

Their effort was spotty back and forth.

And to watch them just turn into the team, like, oh, hypothetically, they could be this, but it'll never happen.

And then to watch how hard they're playing.

It all starts with Gordon, who's been, I think, the biggest winner of the playoffs from a career standpoint.

I just think he's being discussed differently now, don't you?

I mean, he's just,

I also love it.

Is he our approval rating guy this year?

No, I'm saying, yeah, there's a bunch of guys, but is he the 100% approval rating guy of the 25 playoffs?

Like, who's who's zagging on Aaron Gordon at this point?

Everybody's like, all in, Mr.

Nugget, Mr.

Clutch, one of the great, one of the Orlando stock kickers.

It's like, sure, now.

Oh, yeah.

So he's not a fall forward.

Yeah, no, he's been awesome.

I think the other SGA part of it, just to complete that part of the conversation, is

maybe,

you know, this is actually really funny.

I'll never forget how interesting I thought this was when A-Rod signed with the Rangers, right?

So we're going back 25 years ago now.

And

he said, you know, when you fail in big spots, everybody's surprised, like, your home fan base, like, he signs with the Rangers, and all you've ever seen is highlights of me doing amazing things on Sports Center, especially back then when that's all you've had.

And so when you see me fail, because you've never seen those things before, you almost think, like, wait, you're not supposed to do any of these things.

And so the way, I mean, the fitting thing is is that we're seeing both Jokic and SGA struggle in a very intense, very physical, and Denver's defensive level.

Again, I wouldn't match it to the Thunder, but it's not what it was at the end of the regular season or going into this whole thing.

You're seeing two guys have a really hard time with as much attention on them.

And maybe it makes sense the series is 2-2.

I have a question for you.

I just wanted to shout out Holmgren really quick.

Just really enjoy him.

Like, it was just funny to think back at that draft and how much time we spent on those three guys, wondering what the possible ceilings were of each guy.

And then it feels like Paolo and Chet are going to probably hit the ceiling of whatever we expected.

I love how competitive he is.

We knew Hartenstein was in there because of the playoffs last year.

We got a glimpse of it.

But you never know with some of these guys until they're thrown into the fire like this.

I just think going against Jokic.

Just knowing that dude's lurking for two solid weeks, right?

And to not get in foul trouble and to just battle him.

And you just have to battle him.

That's the only way to do it.

You're not going to beat him.

You're not going to shut him down.

You just have to fight him.

And I just think he's, he's shown more fight than maybe even I thought he had.

And I was a big fan of his.

Really, like, just both of those guys are just traded haymakers with this guy who's this fucking monolith.

You know, it's impressive.

Anyway, what was your question?

Do you think Malone is rooting for the nuggets?

Great question.

Came to the right place.

As you know, I'm a spiteful guy.

I'm guessing he has a lot of relationships.

And the answer would depend, well, you know, relationships with these guys.

The answer would depend on whether he thinks Jokic

nudged him out or not.

Whether they just told Jokic they were doing it or they cleared it with yo, like if Jokic had a chance to defend him or not, and if he feels like Jokic had his back or not would be the answer.

And my guess is Jokic probably was like, whatever.

whatever.

Hey, we got a new coach.

It's going to be that guy.

It's cool.

I don't care.

It might have been one of those.

But it also might have been, hey, we're thinking of doing this.

If you don't want to do us to do it, tell us now.

Count to 10.

You don't have to say yes or no.

Just count to 10.

It's like the Watergate.

When they call,

yeah, the end when they call Watergate about, is that the final guy on the list?

And maybe he just didn't stick up for him.

So I don't know.

What do you think?

No.

He's

against them.

Because he's probably mad at the Crockies.

Sure.

Mad at the well, the front office, the main guy isn't there anymore.

You know, maybe, hey, 10 years with Joker, and this is my guy, and these guys all want a title together.

But I would never trust anyone's answer, especially when your whole life has been just competing.

So if they were to win a title, right, especially considering the odds going into this year versus the year that they did it with him,

I wouldn't blame them.

I just don't know too many people that have

been rooting against them.

I think he is.

My answer is yes.

The more I'm thinking about it.

You know,

there's a youth parent phenomenon when your kid plays on a team and then somebody comes in and plays their position and you're supposed to be rooting for the team and you're rooting for everyone to do well.

But at the same time, you're like, all right, don't do too well in the spot.

Like, you just, it's human nature.

People do what's best for them.

I don't know if I would want to hire a head coach that would be rooting for the team after he was fired by them.

He can't answer it honestly, by the way.

And even if, I mean, I have an OKC question for you.

Yeah, okay.

Do you feel any differently about them than you did 10 days ago?

Maybe just a little,

because I thought they were really special.

And, you know, you look at the net rating, you look at the point differential on what they did this season.

This wasn't just a really good game.

I mean, this team could have won 70 games if they wanted to.

You know, I was looking back at it.

You know, you go back to like some of these other regular seasons, right?

Utah and 21.

I mean, that was a team that projected as like a 59-win team.

So, all right, it's not 68, but they were number one in the league in net rating, plus nine points.

That Phoenix team, after they had lost, remember how good they were in the regular season?

But 64-win team, net rating was less for them.

And so I'll admit, like, is OKC struggling?

Because with the way this game started, you go, how is OKC not up 20 already?

And part of it was free throws.

And obviously, OKC couldn't hit any threes either.

And so, yeah, I'm allowing the down 3-1 thoughts to creep into my head back to what I kind of hinted at there is Windhorse saying players are not afraid of this OKC team and i thought that that was dismissive i started thinking about the way players gm and how wrong they are about guys they actually want to play with i started thinking about some of the results from the player polls and i don't even know if all-star voting is even fair to do but i'm like there's so many times we have access to the way players think i'm like what how do you guys do this every night and the x-player podcast don't leave them out some of that dialogue that's the best example because you know as i've admitted numerous times like i spend my life talking about this sport and

you're in rooms with guys that have done it.

You're like, well, how can I disagree with him?

And then after you're right, you see a few clips from the pods.

I go, I'm going to keep disagreeing.

I'm going to feel it even more emboldened because this is fucking insanity what you're selling me.

And so when I heard that coming out months ago, I'm like, oh, here we go again.

Like they're new, they're young.

It's a smaller market.

Like everybody's just being super dismissive.

You're just going to stop.

Like SGA's had one of the most productive guard seasons we've ever seen.

You're just going to shut all the faucet off.

And so I was allowing some of that stuff to creep in my head where I'm going, if they're down 3-1,

you know, is it the randomness of playoff basketball or is there some real truth to like this team isn't as good as I thought they were?

The numbers that are historic.

They're not just good.

These are historic numbers and they have all these different options.

We're like, that guy's coming in.

And it's like,

is there something to be said that this was going to be another year of seasoning for this group?

Because this would have been a massive disappointment.

And who knows?

They still might lose this series because i'm probably no i would say it this i'm way more impressed with where denver is at being 2-2 in this series which then i think the other side of that is that yeah maybe i thought okc was going to run through this team and they're not

my answer is both i'm actually more impressed with okc's defense than i expected to be because i think it's one thing to be a great regular season team but to watch their playoff defense be even and even maybe a little bit more impressive.

So yes on that.

But that's not surprising to me.

I thought there was no way you could watch them all year and be like, they're not going to be as good in the playoffs.

But there was this last level of like, all right, now what's going to happen when you're going against this Jokic Murray gauntlet when you're down 2-1 in a series?

What level can you go to?

And they just answered my questions there.

Yeah, I just, I didn't think, I think if there was one thing you could have done.

I have questions about Chet.

I'll be honest.

Like Chet against Jokic, as we have to shut down Jokic with these two guys and one of them's Chet.

I didn't think Chet was going to be big enough to handle him.

And I think he's shown over the last couple of games with Hartenstein that maybe he can.

The Jalen Williams piece is the piece I'm more lukewarm on than I was.

And he was awesome on Friday.

I thought he had a really good game and actually kind of, if they won the game, he would have probably been the biggest reason.

But it, you know, when you're the second guy, and we saw, we saw this happen with

Jalen Brown last year.

When you're the second guy, and sometimes you also have to resemble resemble the first guy every once in a while for a team to really achieve its, what do you like, taking numbers?

Yeah, I just going through Jokic's numbers here again, but go ahead.

Keep on listening.

Well, that second guy, I think, has to be more than a second guy sometimes if you're going to win four rounds.

And Jalen got to that point last year.

I think the best example is Pippin

from 90 to 91.

Now, 90 ends the worst way possible with the migraine and the game seven, but he just in general wasn't quite ready yet.

And then in 91, that whole season, especially down the stretch, was awesome.

And then went to that Laker game and was like just such an additive asset, game after game, and went after Magic.

And

like what he did to the Pistons.

He was just awesome.

And it was consistently awesome.

And I'm sure people go on the basketball offense and be like, no, it was three for 10 in game three.

It's like, I'm telling you, Pippin went up a level and you could see it.

And Jalen Williams, I can't tell if he's a year away from that or not, because I think it's in there.

But

Friday night versus today, like that swing

for four rounds against the wrong team that might, because I don't, if it's not him, I don't know who the third guy is who can create offense for them.

They're just swinging the ball around.

You know, they,

I just don't see it.

And I think they're going to end up in a lot of these under 100 games where the defense is going to carry them.

And maybe it'll be more like a 99 Spurs type of situation where your defense is so awesome.

That's how you win.

But

so I'm a little

more scared on that side, but the defense has been so good, I think it evens out.

The coach, too, by the way, I thought his game one was bad.

You know, hasn't been in a lot of these, but I think he, I thought he blew game one.

I just thought he did a couple dumb things.

Um, I think this is going seven, Rosillo.

Yeah, it feels right.

Also, I thought it was notable that OKC was favored between six or seven for this game today

in Denver.

Yeah.

Coming up for Friday night.

Because Vegas, like with the Celtics, Celtics are down 0-2.

And Vegas is like Celtics by six, still have them favored for the series, right?

Yeah.

Whoever, FanDuel, name whoever sat in the line.

This Denver OKC one, people are like, eh, I still think OKC's got it, which I thought was notable.

We're going to take a break for the podcast.

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Our guy, Anthony Edwards.

That was,

here's what I think was the tough one for Golden State.

I actually really liked how they played.

I thought they played hard.

That's about as good of a game three, at least for three plus quarters, as you're going to get from a team without Curry.

And there were multiple times where it felt like they were going going to bump the lead up to 10 or 11.

You know, it just, it was always five or six.

And it felt like every time they had a chance to put a cushion, Ant would hit a three.

Somebody would miss a layup.

Somebody would come back.

And it just that Minnesota hung around, hung around, hung around, and then

killed them in the end.

But Ant, I thought, had some really big shots and some control of the game stuff.

And then Randall, this has now hit the point with Randall that I think he might opt out.

We went from thinking like, yeah,

I'm in for 30 million again.

Next year, I've exercised my player option.

I'm in.

I think he opts out now.

He's been that good, right?

Why would he opt into one year 30?

He's going to be able to get more than that.

Especially when you look at the free agents this year.

Yeah.

But, you know, this thing that we touched on last week where you can just go through the cycle of, well, who has cap space?

Does Minnesota go find?

Do you want to sign with Brooklyn?

Does one of these other teams with like 19 million figure out a way to get creative?

Does that make more sense to you?

I mean, it probably feels like, hey, your role has worked here.

It seems like it took a while, but

he's figured it out.

I mean, I guess you could also argue

in a way, like Golden State, as hard as they fought last night, at no point did I think they were winning that basketball game.

And there's probably no version of this Golden State team without Steph.

I mean, who knows?

Maybe he comes back in game five.

I mean, this is asking a lot of the hamstring stuff, but it just never feels like Golden State.

You're never like worried they're going to run away from you the way they normally.

With the team they have.

It's funny.

I actually thought they were going to win in the fourth quarter.

Did you?

Because it just, because

the...

Getting a random Kaminga just going nuts game combined with what Butler did for the first two and a half quarters, it was like, man, if they're ever going to win a game,

this is the blueprint for how they would win a game.

But

they can't figure out the Randall piece.

It's really interesting

what a mismatch he's been these first two rounds where you've seen teams go, fuck, you know, and he knows it.

And I think it's the smartest, most deliberate, but not too slow, not ball stoppy, like the right level of picking his spots.

taking advantage of certain mismatches.

I really like watching him.

And he used to be, if he wasn't my least favorite player to to watch, he was in the top three.

But I've really enjoyed watching him in the playoffs.

And I think, I think this team kind of knows what it is.

The part that I don't really understand is what they're getting from Conley.

The fact that he's been better than I thought he was going to be.

I thought he had some really good defensive stuff.

Like that key play of the game, he played excellent defense.

I forget who it was.

It was maybe Kaminga.

Excellent defense where it led to that fast break where they had Gobert as the trailer, as the dunk, which was basically the play of the game.

Yeah, and Ant Strip Kaminga.

But it all started because Conley was able to actually play defense.

And Conley was somebody that in December, January, we were wondering, like,

what were they going to do with this?

Like, were they going to just bail on him?

Like, that's how bad he was looking.

And now he's looking pretty good.

But,

you know, it's a bummer.

Do you think if Curry plays, do you think they're better or no?

Wait, phrase it.

Golden State.

You think they can win this with Healthy Curry the whole time?

Oh, the whole time.

Who would you, who, who, After watching these games without him, would you still take Minnesota?

Yeah, I think I would.

I like that they have

the good Rudy moments and the non-Rudy good moments.

It seems like Butler, clearly, if Rudy's out, he's trying to get momentum.

He's trying to get downhill, and he was able to go off at times.

And so it probably feels good for Rudy to come in and be like, okay, now you're going to sell.

Even if you don't like Rudy

during their struggles in the regular season, you could see other teams get so excited when he was taken out of the game.

But instead of feeling like you're playing into the opponent's hands

by going small, their small is still so big.

Yeah.

And you're going up against Golden State where, you know, good luck on the

non-Butler minutes.

I thought everybody kind of leading into that game was right.

Like, hey, if Curry is out, you're going to have to start taking some shots you may not like taking because it's probably better than a wide open Gary Payton second three.

But But he's been pretty good for the most part.

I mean, Kaminga was incredible in game three.

Odds was awful yesterday.

Odds just can't hit a shot.

Look, they've been.

Once again, I mean, Kerr, these guys must be thinking they're like starting a startup company with the way they go into these lineups.

It's like Trace Jackson Davis, people probably forgot he was on the team.

And it's like he's starting at center.

Yeah.

So he's bailed on Quentin Post.

I don't think, look, I didn't pick them with them playing it out.

I still like Minnesota better,

but that was, that was a grind for a Minnesota team.

Look, they were turning the basketball over a ton.

The three-point shooting for Ant had been a disaster other than that third quarter.

But once you wake that dude up, I mean, it's just a different level.

I had Minnesota in six, and I think even after watching this without Curry, I'd probably, I don't think that would have changed.

Golden State feels like one and a half guys short,

right?

And that the reason I say one and a half instead of two is because that weird roster they have, you can get the random out of nowhere half from somebody.

But for the most part, it still feels like they're short.

And they can't survive terrible Draymond games with or without Curry.

He was awful last night.

He was really sloppy with the basketball.

I thought Randall went right at him a couple of times.

It was kind of shocking.

And for all the shit he talked about Gobert, like I'm just, I was surprised that he wasn't great.

I didn't love the fourth foul that was called on him.

I thought that was a really big call.

No, there's probably one he got away with.

It was funny because

Legs was like, you know, he's used to playing with fouls.

I think it was 525 when he had had the fifth one or somewhere around that.

Yeah, right.

And Legs goes, like I said, I would have taken him out.

But the funny thing is with Draymond, he actually can't be trusted.

I don't mind Kerr going, well, look, this whole thing

is completely new.

And without steph, now everybody's asked to like step, step up, like not just one role, like two roles, it feels like, hey, you're going to have the ball in your hands a lot more and you're going to end with a decision and you're going to have to shoot in spots that normally you'd be waiting for him to cut.

And by the way, all those cuts where you guys are wide open all the time, none of those are going to be there.

So Draymond had the bad foul against Kawhi.

He had the terrible foul against Memphis where he fouled out.

He had a moment in the Houston series where he was in foul trouble.

It's like, okay, do not give away a cheap one.

He did it.

And so the Jaden McDaniels drive, it's hard to tell Draymond, like instinctively, somebody who's in the conversation as Defensive Player of the Year to not try to find a way to come over and contest.

But he had no shot on that baseline drive, none whatsoever.

Yeah.

But I don't, look, I don't feel bad.

Put your hands up, but don't touch him.

Yeah.

So he actually can't be trusted in foul trouble.

And that's, that all pales in comparison to his whole story and performance in game three.

Because I thought game three

was so incredibly,

oh, excuse me, game two, game two, when it looked like he wanted to get thrown out of the game.

I still think Golden State's not dead.

But even if Curry was able to come back in game six, I don't know what version we're getting from him.

You know, we're getting six.

He said earlier five.

And

I would lean closer to six.

It was fun, though.

The Kaminga thing,

I was on Kaminga Island.

I went down there last night just to watch with my fingers crossed, brought a bottle of wine.

Oh, yeah.

Brought some chips, some cheese, some crackers.

Nobody was there.

It was just

not public services or anything.

Nothing.

There's no electricity.

It is a weird one.

And I, you know, as Kerr is one of my favorite coaches, as you know, and I still, I think it's just so weird that He punted on Kamingo when you watch some of the other guys in this team.

And I get it from his mindset.

Like he makes mistakes on defense.

He doesn't fit into our flow of the up, but the guy is so athletically talented and unique with the roster they have.

I still can't believe he doesn't play that.

Here's where I've landed, though, Rosillo.

I think some guys just aren't good playing 18 to 20 minutes a game.

We've seen it a lot.

Some guys, they just need to play big minutes.

I actually think Pritchard's a little bit like this for the Celtics.

I don't think Pritchard is a, let me come in for seven minutes each half guy.

I think he needs bigger minutes.

And he was a huge part of why they they won yesterday.

But I just think some guys are like that and maybe Kaminga is one of those.

But if I was a GM, I would really think about him.

Like if I was the Pistons,

I'd be like, you know what?

Let's look at all the tapes of when Kaminga played 30 plus minutes and try to figure out what that looks like on our team.

I think he's competitive.

I really think there's something there.

I defer to Kerr on this one.

He's needed him.

Fair.

They've invested in him.

And I would admit, yeah, you're right in in game two, the shot making, starting in the game eight for eight, the pull-up mid-range, the finishes when he has momentum.

It's bouncing off

price.

But you know what's funny about that game is he actually was screwing up when he first came in.

He had a switch where he switched off of a worst defender into Ant.

And I was like, okay.

Again, sometimes teams will just switch for the sake of just trying to get bodies moving around.

But he wasn't thinking that way.

Like he is only good when he has the ball in his hands and he's thinking, I don't have to give this to anyone else.

And then after that, he decided, like, oh, I'm going to go.

Oh, I'm like, I've seen these Luca cuts.

He kills Rudy.

So he's like, I'm going to go at Rudy.

And then that didn't work.

And it was, he got stuck underneath the basket by the baseline.

And that was kind of a mess.

So there were a few things that jumped out.

And you'll see it over the course of him because the scoring by itself is very impressive.

At his age, his athleticism, and at that size, the biggest win, if they were to lose this series, may be getting people to think he's

fire on.

They, no question, rejuvenated his trade value as a sign-in trade guy.

He had a play in the third quarter when, and the words had momentum, and he was had Ant 40 feet from the basket and took this crazy angle.

And Ant just went by him and had this crazy duck on him.

Last night, right?

Yeah, last night.

I mean, he tried to pick up, he tried to like, it was just awful.

So, and I watched that, and I'm like, no wonder Curry's not playing him because this is like, I don't understand how that would be your defensive tactic.

It's too bad.

You know, Curry's 37.

They put a lot of miles on him and he ended up breaking down and having an injury.

And it's not shocking, but it's too bad because this would have been a really fun series.

Celtics Knicks.

How are you?

I did something unusual.

I invited

my wife's friend, Krista, who's very fun, came over yesterday and we had margaritas and I drank margaritas during the entire game.

That was how I dealt with game three.

Is that all?

They drank it.

They drank it up.

I was really nervous and just decided to enjoy my Saturday and have some cocktails and watch the Celtics.

And

it was a fun.

A lot of people are nervous.

So, where are you, though, confidence-wise?

They're a better basketball team.

They're down 1-2 in the series.

They've led every game by 20-plus points.

I mean, how am I supposed to feel?

This is a ridiculous series.

I've never seen a series like that.

They're up 20 points in the second half of all three games, and they're down two to one.

I will say, I thought Joe called a couple amazing timeouts.

There was a couple where it's like, just call it now, Joe.

Just don't, don't be a hero.

Call the timeout now.

The Knicks are rumbling.

They're ready to go on a run here.

And he called it three times.

And

I thought the most important thing he did, which of course they did not mention at the halftime show,

was just played Pritchard.

He played him 18 minutes in the first half, kept him out there.

Holiday played 10 minutes.

Pritchard's a real problem for the Knicks.

I don't fully understand it, but they don't seem to have anybody on their team who can guard him.

He's not afraid to guard Brunson.

He spaces the floor.

The more he plays, the better he is.

And I thought he was absolutely massive And the biggest reason they won the game.

And then also Horford on two days' rest, which, by the way, will not be happening again for three more games.

But Horford, two days' rest versus one day rest, was big.

And I thought Porzingis, as much luggage as he looks like,

he was still pretty important defensively

in a couple patches of that game just by being long and kind of standing around with his hands up.

So great win.

They needed it.

I thought the Knicks,

they played three games now and haven't looked good in any of them,

which means they're due for a good game, which is the part that worries me the most.

They haven't played a good game yet.

Defensively, I think Bost has been terrific in this series.

What they're doing to Brunson, how they've contained him.

And granted, like Brunson started getting it going.

You know, he closed game two, obviously, really well.

And maybe it doesn't matter because they're down so much in game three.

But there was a couple moments like MSG was hoping, like, can this thing get to 15?

Right.

Well, that was the great Joe timeout when it got to 17.

Joe's like, time out.

Yeah.

But if you look at the Knicks, the regular season, 117 points per 100 possessions, granted, it's the playoffs.

It's going to be different.

It's only three games, but it's 101 for the Knicks offensively against the Celtics defense.

And it was 110, I think, against Detroit.

Brunson's 38, 39% splits.

The free throw thing has not been a big part of it.

They tried maybe a little bit.

It's a sh conversation.

Yeah, it's a little harder to get to the line these days.

Yeah, but the overall free throw numbers, I would say, for Brunson, even though it turns into a conversation about his baiting, the numbers don't show up the way it does for maybe a couple other players.

He took nine against Detroit, and Cat has made one three in this entire series.

I mean, his splits are atrocious.

He's shooting 14% from three, 43 overall.

I also think he's getting incredibly frustrated because it's the default go-to.

If Boston's looking for something, hey, just get Kat in the action and he's probably not going to be here quick enough.

I mean, it's just asking a lot with his body type and the way he moves to be able to contest all of these threes.

But I think my favorite part of that game was that even if you're going to make more threes, which they clearly did, they're wide open numbers.

I think Schulman had it at NBA.com on wide open numbers.

Oh, I like him.

Right.

25%.

12 of 48, whatever tracking they were using.

I went through

first two games combined.

In game three, 12 and 19.

So, I mean, you could simplify it and say, hey, that's the game.

No, but that wasn't it, though.

The offense was so much more sophisticated than it was those first two games.

I liked how they played in the first half.

There's like two things that I'll look for.

They would get Jalen Brown into Brunson post-ups.

And it's not necessarily the shot that I want.

but you have to send help.

And even if they have different rules of like, maybe this far out, we have Jalen getting to one of those weird shot attempts.

You know, I know it was Zach Lowe was talking about at the end of the game, too, where he was fallibating Brunson a bit.

And Zach was like, oh my God, you know, and the crazy thing is, to me, Jalen has had so many shot attempts that are like that that I can't believe he's taking them.

And it feels like they've gone in more than they haven't that I almost just give him the benefit of the doubt on some of these tougher looks.

But it was much more like there's two things with him.

On those post-ups, as soon as he gets help, he was really good.

And they're swinging the button.

It's like, okay, this is something you're starting with, as opposed to just the hunt, switch, ISO three that I think drives even the hardest core Celtic fan absolutely crazy.

The other part with Jalen is you have to get him with momentum with the ball because if he stops,

then it's, it's totally different.

And I think his aggressiveness at the start of that game.

Even going back to the Orlando series when no one could make a shot, it just, it feels like he is is more aware at times of what they need on offense.

And I really thought it showed itself when they put together that huge first half.

We saw it the same way.

One thing I liked, and I don't know what happened in game one, game two, I have no explanation for it, but in game three, they put a real concerted effort into putting guys in spots that they like,

that the Knicks didn't like.

Tatum was another one, like one of the first plays they ran for him.

Tatum's always good when he has the ball on the left, like 35 feet from the basket.

You set him a pick and he dribbles right toward the key and he can pull up from three.

And I always feel like it's going in when he takes that.

Those first two games, they just had him dribbling the ball up as the point forward

and, you know, playing with his food, doing the one-on-one stuff.

I thought they got everybody involved.

And I thought they really did a good job with Pritchard.

They ran a couple of Drew Holiday plays.

They got white.

White got a couple plays where they set some picks for him.

He was trying to go to the basket.

They kept going downhill and really smart.

And then when they took the big lead in the second half, you could feel it veering back toward that game one, game two offense again because they were trying to basically kill time.

When this team tries to go in the pre-vent offense,

I'm not going to like it every time.

Just so you know, there's never going to be a situation where I'm happy when they go pre-vent offense.

I don't like it.

I think when they're moving, when they try to run, that was another thing.

They were trying to run off rebounds and turnovers, push the ball, push the ball, push the ball.

And, you know, the Knicks aren't, that's what you want.

You want towns like running back, trying to, you know, try to get back there.

The Mitchell Robinson Haka Robinson stuff, I thought was really good.

I don't like that HACA stuff.

I've never liked it, but I thought it hurt the Knicks.

It changed, you know, it changed the energy of the game in a couple spots when the Knicks felt like they were about to make some sort of comeback.

And then Ananobi was awful.

And that's, I know, Ananobi was

incredible in game one, right?

He was the best guy in the floor in game one.

And in game three, you didn't know he had the Tobias Harris.

I didn't realize you were out there.

So I

still avoid him at all costs with the ball.

If you have the ball.

Yeah, yeah.

If you're the Knicks, what's your move?

Huck Porty, three-man, three-big

up front, winning on the bus.

Three bigs.

Triple bigs.

It's also the first game Mitchell wasn't like a huge plus on the net side of it.

And I'm with you.

Like, you can talk about his defense.

I think Pritchard got got him a couple of times in isolation.

It's like, man, you can hit step backs on Mitchell Robinson from three.

And Pritchard's just feeling it.

He was great.

But I don't know how, you know, Reggie Miller in game two, there was an air ball where it didn't hit anything.

It wasn't just an air ball.

It went under the net.

It's an impossible free throw attempt miss.

Like even the worst free throw guy in the league, like it, it was almost like, hey, aim it right and below the net to win some sort of prize.

Right.

Like at a carnival.

Yeah.

And Reggie Miller goes, oh, it happens.

He's like, that doesn't happen.

You don't see that.

Yeah.

And then he had another one.

He injured the cameraman.

We don't see that too often.

And you wonder, how does that not, because I mean, every emotion Mitchell Robinson has, he wears on his sleeve, there's, there's no poker face about how incredibly frustrated he is with this.

And he had tried to say something like, hey, it's a compliment that they want you out of the game this bad.

I was like, that's one way to process this.

Or they're trying to get 0.5 per possession, points per possession.

0.3 for me.

Yeah.

Considering his free throw percentage.

But you wonder how much that bleeds in.

And look, or it's the simplicity of the team we all think is better is down 0.2.

They've been through some wars before.

It is a team that does seem to like to make things really hard on themselves.

And it was going to be really surprising if they were down 3-0.

So all the time.

You know, a team that's good at that's good on the road in a way that I almost feel more comfortable with them on the road than at home.

Their record, I think, on the road was better than at home this year um it was i don't know why the home court advantage doesn't matter for them anymore and i don't know really what's happened to home court advantage in general um they were 33 and eight

on the road yeah that's better than okc was 32 and eight yeah i don't get it um

come on you got to have something else some other celtics thought like is this

Did you ever allow yourself to think they were losing the series?

I still don't feel comfortable.

I don't know if comfortable is what I'm looking for here.

Did you, did you have a moment after game two where you were like, they're going to lose to the Knicks in the second round?

I mean, I told you I invited my wife's best friend over to have margaritas with me for the entire day because I was so nervous about game three.

So that was my state of mind.

It's not something I typically do on a Saturday.

Um,

the Porzingis thing really makes me nervous.

I think it puts an incredible amount of pressure on Horford and Cornette to a lesser degree.

Um, I really worry about them with rebounding.

My fear for game four with the one day rest

is the Knicks pounding them on the boards and the crowd being really into it and them hanging around, hanging around and getting second chances and Horford just being luggage like he was in game two and poor Zingis

just seeming.

I don't know what the right word is.

Weak.

He's weak.

I mean, the illness, if this is what we're talking about here, he seems off, like almost fumbly hands like his reflexes aren't even there 100 in the same way so what do you

more like uh who is that guy in okay that poco a little poco-ish um he at least learned in the next game in game three to just keep his hands up and be like i'm tall i'm gonna do that but you know it's It's a massive loss to have this guy who is a guaranteed 20, who is like their swagger guy in a lot of ways.

When he was getting going, the whole team, it was like an electroshock.

Um,

and also, like, it's just a huge pain in the ass.

And I think specifically kills Towns.

And you're just removing that, and you're getting this kind of luggage version of him.

Um, I thought Cornette was good.

And Pritchard, I think, has weirdly become the key swing guy of the series because I don't, I don't see why game three can't keep happening for him.

He's put, he's getting guys in switches, and he's just destroying them.

And he's hitting all of his corner threes and the spacing that he gives them.

We also have not had a good Tatum game yet, which I

think is a positive for the Celts.

And I thought Brown looked pretty athletic.

So yeah, there's some positives, but yeah, they're down 2-1.

I'm never going to feel good about this.

It feels like it's going to go seven.

I think the Knicks will have one awesome game when they shoot like 20 for 42 from three.

You know, it's just a lot of averages.

They're not going to just suck for the entire series offensively.

They've been great with Brunson.

I've been really impressed with that part of it.

Not to say you're going to completely shut this guy down, and I know he had a ton of points in game three, but it doesn't feel like he's had those long stretches of, oh, no.

Like, now he's the best player on the floor, and there's nothing you can do with him.

And Kat not providing the spacing is probably a big part of it not being a little bit easier for Brunson.

That I can't explain.

His rebounding has been great.

I don't understand why he's not jacking up seven, eight, threes a game.

I always feel like they're going in when he takes them.

It's one of those,

I don't like when he's open.

No, I wouldn't say that.

I also don't like when they put him on the low block with Horford on him or a smaller guy, and he actually gets aggressive and tries to wheel into them like he did in game two.

I think that's sitting there for them.

And I thought Bridges had some really nice offensive moments in game three where he's got that little funky near the baseline, little eight, 10 footer that they know they can go to.

So they have options, but you know, they suck.

Sometimes this will happen though with the game where it's the hottest ticket, the crowd's crazy.

Oh my God, that crowd's going to be off the hook.

And then the other team comes out and throws a haymaker and they're up 15 and the crowd,

you know, everyone's just paralyzed.

Like, what happened?

I thought, you know, people are there.

They went on stub hub.

Their kid wanted to go.

You have all these celebrities.

Every Nick is there.

There's this crazy energy that's happening.

And then you can diffuse that in like 10 minutes.

You know, we've seen that over and over again with the Monday night, it'll be, I think, be that'll be not a crowd with the kids.

That'll be like the real Nick fans.

There'll be a real energy in that game.

And I really worry about the rebounding for the Celtics.

That they need like Tate.

It needs to be like a 14-rebound game for Tatum.

Where would you put Tatum

in superhero mode?

Get us a basket.

Oh, I thought you were going doing the superman ads like talk about timing jesus nothing worse than playoff p when in the gatorade ad he he's making the shot and then they came back from commercial he missed it in the game he i i think this is a good psa for all the guys out there maybe don't do those commercials if you might be in a tough series

i would i would bat that one around with the maybe your manager and your agent and a couple of other people in your life like what are the worst case scenarios for this ad So I'm going to be in a Superman thing on a Saturday and we're down 0-2,

and there's just been a national dialogue about whether I'm a superstar or not for three days.

And now I'm in a Superman commercial.

Maybe hold off till July on those.

I don't know.

Okay, let's do this, though.

Tie game.

Shot clock is off.

How many guys will you name that you'll feel better about than Tatum?

Here's the thing, because I heard you do this on Thursday.

You feel the same way I did about Tatum this year.

I think Tatum's been awesome in the

year.

I voted for him third in the clutch rankings, which I still don't really fully understand the clutch rankings because it's like, why isn't Jokic the winner of the clutch player?

Like, he does everything.

But I thought Tatum was really good and reliable and smart in these crunch times.

And, you know, that went sideways in the first two Knicks games.

But

the only thing I don't like with him is the step back three with the hand in the face.

And you know, there's a reason heading into yesterday, what was it, the last 32 playoff games, you're shooting 28% from three.

That's bad.

There's your answer.

That means you're taking too many bad threes if you're at 28%.

I thought he took some good ones yesterday, and then near the end, when they had a big lead, it got a little dicey.

I thought about it more since we had these back-to-back Mitchell performances.

I can't wait.

Can't wait for him today.

So it's Jokic, right?

It's Luca.

So you're saying, give me this scenario.

It's like 40 seconds left, tie game.

It's a 2-1 in the series.

Like, what

scenario

is terrible two-for-one?

So let's just say shot clock is off and it's tied.

Yeah.

What just you're just going to explain?

No, because you made me think of something that I think the two-for-one is this has now become an epidemic.

That's the point where we've gone, we've done a 180 now where the two-for-one team should do this you get two shots for one and now the first shot that they're getting on the two for one is the worst shot of the game and i i just it's like cool you're you're gonna get a second shot now with three seconds left you just took a 29 footer with a hand in your face with 30 i swear to god the league the league averaged

50 points per 100 possessions on the first attempt on the two for the worst shots always by everybody everybody in the league but people would yell at us on the math side of it being like yes but you guys are forgetting the payoff of the extra possession.

All right, maybe,

but okay, but it doesn't.

I've had two horrible possessions.

Does that add up to one possession?

It turns into Seymour Hoffman, like rain man, you know, it's just like, what is that?

You didn't even give yourself, you know, it's actually, I don't know if it's worse, but it's bothering me more.

Yeah, there will be a time where the shot clock is still on,

so you know, the other team is getting the ball back.

So, say,

say it's like 34 seconds left left in the quarter, full shot clock, 24.

So they're getting it back probably with 10.

And they're, you know, maybe 10 seconds.

I would say, what, 14 seconds is the best chance at like a full look.

So when I see these possessions, and I promise I'll explain this, there is a moment where you just have to accept they're going to probably be able to run something and it's going to be a halfway decent look.

But the team that has the ball will still run the shot clock down to one

as if they're preventing the other team from having time that's already in there.

And yes, you could talk about offensive rebounds or a ball that goes on the bottom.

I don't know.

We got the ball back with 11 seconds left.

There are a ton of shit attempts in this scenario because guys are acting as if they're running down a clock to a point that doesn't exist.

The other team is most likely in all the scenarios you run going to have enough time.

And so, hey, if you had a good look with five seconds left on the shot clock and that meant there's 15 game or 19 game clock and their game, their shot clock is off.

Like it take the shot with five seconds left on the shot clock.

You don't have to run that down to one because they're still getting the ball back with plenty of time for a decent look anyway.

And guys have really emphasized running that down to the last possible second when there's still going to be time that you can't work off of the clock other than offensive rebound and some of the other stuff.

We need a whole slung conference study on how stupid the two for one is.

I will not be invited.

Can I say one thing on the Tatum end of the game shot clock off?

Because you're not going to answer it?

No, because normally I like it.

Guess when I don't like it as much when Ananobi is guarding him.

Well, that.

I think Ananobi is a nightmare.

I've been so impressed.

I mean, he's had a really good season.

I think he's had a really good stretch.

He was there.

He's a fucking nightmare.

I don't think Tatum can go by him because he's so strong and he moves his feet.

So we've seen over and over again with Brown and Tatum when they go against him.

It's like watching somebody try to open a front door that won't open and they're just like, no, no, it's going to open.

And they're banging.

You can't get by him.

I need to find on synergy because we don't have second spectrum anymore i need to find how many shot attempts he's defending and sometimes again this shit you'll see the number and you see the graphic and if you have time to look at it you're like all right well i don't but i would imagine that the staff is going we do not want to switch into him and granted if it's the end of the shot clock and you don't have really any choice and there's nothing else to do but we need to avoid ISO on ball attacks against this dude.

My favorite part of him, Bill, is during that Detroit series, they're trying to get him off a categor as much as as they possibly can.

And he would still find, it also helps if a big is somebody you don't care about as much and popping out, which was supposed to be a big difference in how some of these teams are matching up with each other to your Prusinka's point.

But his fight to get back into the play and challenge, even though he's been kind of run off with a screen.

Yeah, I mean, he's at that size, man, he's really special.

And it's just kind of fun to get to watch it at this level of the season.

He's been a big winner of the playoffs.

If I'm the Celtics near the end of the games or the end of the plays or when I need a basket, I just feel like there's better options.

And especially if Towns is out there and Brunson is out there,

whoever those guys are guarding, that's my first thought.

And even if that means we have Peyton Pritchard with Mitchell Robinson on the right side and he's going to go one-on-one with him with 17 seconds left, I like it.

Because

I just feel like there's ways to attack this team that for whatever reason they weren't doing it.

Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow night.

I think the Celtics

are going to be in for a really hard game tomorrow.

It's not a game I would bet.

And I'm worried about the Knicks.

No.

How many margaritas?

The entire day?

Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like you were pretty on it.

I mean, it wasn't like you were breaking down Minnesota Golden State.

Why aren't they playing Bogot?

We had four during the game, but I was also like powering water because that's the vet move.

People don't realize, you don't realize that when you're in college.

Just drink a lot of water.

It gives you like superhuman.

Yeah.

All right.

One more break for the podcast and then we got to talk lottery.

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Lottery karma rankings.

I used to do this as a column once upon a time.

I did not send you my list.

I was just going to go through it and have it react.

I'll read you the teams with the odds

and their top four odds and basically come down to to

who I think should win from a karma standpoint for the lottery.

All right.

So, what does that entail?

What does that mean, karma for a lot of people?

What does it mean?

Yeah.

Did you behave the right way as an organization and a basketball team?

Did you bastardize your season?

Ethical tanking, what you're saying.

Have you won in the past?

Have you already been given a bunch of lottery carrots over?

This is your Cleveland point.

This is the Cleveland point, which won the lottery three times in four years.

It was fucking ludicrous.

By the way, just a quick aside, when you would lose your mind to a non-receptive audience on TV, I enjoyed it.

Thank you.

Because you weren't really even talking to anybody.

I don't even know if you were talking.

You were just so mad.

This shouldn't happen.

Everybody's just staring at me.

Are you just doing the right thing as an organization?

Are you on a good run?

Right?

Do you, do deserve it basically because you're just doing the right things?

You're making good decisions.

You're picking good players.

Maybe

you don't lie.

Right.

So, anyway, my number one team for the Lottery Karma rankings.

Drum Roll Pries.

The Houston Rockets.

They have 3.8% odds to win the number one pick and 17.3 to win the top,

get in the top four.

They got the pick from that Brooklyn trade they have.

So, this is basically Phoenix's pick.

And uh,

I still to this day didn't really love the James Harden trade that much that they made for Brooklyn, but it turned out fine.

But they've made a lot of good draft picks and they've set themselves up in a really nice way.

I even like the Shangoon green contracts they did.

I'm interested to see what they do this summer.

And I think if everyone in the lottery, they've earned the right to say, you know what, we've just done it the right way here the last couple years.

So, that would be my first pick.

Your reaction.

Wow.

Hard to argue when we go based on your criteria.

Okay.

Number two.

By the way, what if Houston gets the top four?

They become a content machine for the ringer and for our pods.

Content machine.

I'd

do 30 minutes of Giannis to the Thunder today.

Don't think I didn't have it written down for alternate

member wins.

No, it's like shit.

Like, this is now, this is now happening.

Um,

is wiggins for Reeves?

Like, how does that work?

Go ahead.

Can I give you some Giannis intel?

Please do.

Everyone in Milwaukee thinks he's coming back.

Now, granted, the weeks pass and you never know, but

I don't think they're expecting a trade request.

Can I ask you a follow-up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Say the Thunder were to lose

from Presti calls.

It's like, okay,

I'm just going to crank up our ceiling.

Would it behoove the Bucks, which I've said from the beginning, if Giannis goes, hey, I'm fine, then you just keep him.

And if it means you win 50 games, you need to trade.

You proactively trade him without even asking him?

Yeah, go, I don't want to do this again.

Stunning trade?

Yeah.

Who do I get him from, OKC?

Holman has to be in it, right?

He has to be in it.

I'm not hanging up unless he's in it.

Well, you need good players because of the draft stuff that you have.

But Hongren has to be in the trade.

Well, I imagine you have to get somebody good.

Yeah.

So, would you rather have Chet than Jalen Williams?

Oh,

I'd rather have Chet.

I would rather have Chet, too.

I'm very excited about Chet.

I'd like him to be a little more confident in that three if he misses a couple early ones.

But, you know, we could get there at the end of this round.

So who knows?

What is he?

20?

Is he 22, 23?

I'm a big chet fan.

I think the only thing that worries me is the, though, he's had two injuries already.

And now, granted, it's like, well, but I just

injured big guys make me nervous.

My next

6%.

My number two team in the lottery Karma rankings.

The Washington Wizards.

14% odds for number one.

52.1 to be in the top four.

And

first of all, I liked their draft last year.

They've changed the organization around.

I don't think they've been like crazy just funny.

I even kind of like the Jordan Poole trade looking back.

Like, fine.

Especially if you're tanking.

This is more selfish.

We need more good players in the East.

And you and I need more good players in the 4 p.m.

PT games.

I just feel like we're late.

We can't watch the Pistons all 82.

Yeah, what are we going to do?

We get the Pistons, some Celtic games.

Like, we just.

I think I've watched enough Atlanta.

Need to beef up.

We need to beef up those that crew.

And I just feel like I like the way they've handled the last couple years for the most part.

So that was a strong number two, your reaction.

I had one in the past a couple of times.

At least there feels like there's a plan and direction.

And look, Winger is a stud.

Everybody's talked about the stuff he did at OKC, what he's done with the Clippers.

So he is,

he's a guy that I know privately that I would, well, I guess I'm saying it publicly, like if the Wizards end up with it, good for him.

Good for Winger.

Good for this fan base.

Because, you know, no one's, that fan base,

that was a fun team that you never took that seriously, but it's kind of a sneaky, awesome fan base.

And they have had, they have had nothing.

They have had, like, think about the Caps.

Think about the Commanders.

Yeah.

Those are, those are some of the best fan bases in the respective sport.

And this basketball team, like going back to Jeff Malone and, you know, when they had Ruland, Frank

Robinson, that terrible, terrible 1986 trade with the Sixers.

But it was a team that you were always like, oh, you know, they may bring it tonight.

And it was, I don't know, they always felt like a little bit more on the radar.

And this is a very, very long time,

you know, flirtation with the.

the Westbrook Beale run that year

when Beal probably showed us enough of like, oh, is that guy going to be a dude that checks out on the team?

Yeah, I think it's a really, because I think of the fan base too.

I think of the fan base a little bit and what they deserve.

And I think that fan base is long overdue for some good news.

Yeah, they won well.

The last really fun team that seemed like they had a chance to maybe make the finals was that 2017 team that lost to the one and only Kelly Olenick.

They had a fun arenas run there for about a split second in the mid-2000s.

Yeah.

And they had a fun split second with C.

Webb and Juwan and Rod Strickland and whatever that was, even though they got swept in round one.

People remember it fondly now.

But think about this: like, think about what you're reaching for here.

For listen, I've known House since 1988, and

he's never had anyone remotely approaching Cooper Flag.

The best players he's had since I've known him, which is two-thirds of my life now, were Bernard King in the 1990s,

C-Web,

the

not washed up, but getting there, Mitch Richmond, and then Arenas, and then Bradley Bion Wall.

So, anyway, I have them second.

Number three, Portland.

By the way, real quick, I'm putting you on the spot.

What do you think their highest win total was in the 80s?

Oh, I don't definitely not in the 50s, probably like 45 and 37.

That's why you're the that's why you're the best.

Is that what it was?

43 and 39 in 1982.

Yeah, they've been horrible.

Remember,

they won the 78 title,

and that was almost 50 years ago.

All right.

So third one.

They won the title so long ago that the team that they beat has not been in their city for 20 years.

That's how long it's been.

Number three.

They won 48 games that year, too.

That's weird.

42.

Number one odds for Portland, 3.8.

Top four, 16.9.

The reasons here, the Dame trade was the right trade.

I think they get rewarded for that.

The Avdia trade was probably the sneaky move of the summer last year.

We're still in it with our guys Scoot.

I like their weird collection of assets.

The Billips coaching hire turned out to be pretty good.

I think they extended him.

And it's arrow pointing up in a lot of ways.

This would be a good spot for Cooper Fleck.

I like it, except for I just feel like,

does that diminish Scoot's star?

Or

does it lift him?

I'll hear arguments for both.

Yeah.

It gets tough after the top three, Russella, for the lottery Carmering.

So you think it's a clear tier one of those three teams that have done it that deserve it, done it the right way?

Houston, Washington, Portland.

Fourth one, Utah.

Number one odds, 14%.

They have the best,

they're in the one spot.

So, even if a couple teams jump them, they'll still be there.

Uh,

six teams have never had the first pick in the draft.

Can you name them?

Uh, Utah's one of them, so there's a hint:

Utah,

Toronto.

No, they had it with Barniani.

Yep.

El Magico?

It's a really hard question.

It is a tough question.

Has Dallas ever had it?

Yep.

They have?

Mark McGuire.

I'll give you the six.

The Denver Nuggets,

the Indiana Pacers,

the Memphis Grizzlies,

who

famously

came one spot away from LeBron James 2003.

One of the greatest lottery reactions of all time.

Miami Heat have never had the number one pick and the Oklahoma City Thunder have somehow never had the number one pick.

So Utah,

they took care of Will Hardy, which I appreciated.

They gave him a contract till 2031.

Like, sorry, dude.

Sorry we had to make you do that the last two years.

Their owner has been great.

I think he's probably the best kind of new wave owner the league's brought in in the last 10 years.

But they did, they did really tank

pretty aggressively.

But I think it would be fun to have Flag go to this team.

So I'm going to overlook some stuff with them.

I have them fourth.

Your reaction.

I believe they should be in tier one.

I mean, we sit here we want to play the tanking game and say the Wizards did it the right way and then Utah did it the wrong way.

And I'm sure plenty of basketball people would agree with you.

But look, Mitchell was going to want out.

They cleaned up on the Rudy thing, they hit reset on a team that you know, we just pointed out earlier in the pod.

Remember when they won all those games?

It was a 59-win profile team, and then immediately were like, hey, boys, this is the playoffs.

It's going to, it's not going to translate like it does for other teams.

You know, sometimes you have regular season of playoffs.

I think the most important part of this, you've got me on whatever tier of ethical tanking you have these teams rank through.

But as far as what Utah needs, okay, what they need is a guy that may want to actually stay in Utah for 10 years.

Yeah.

I think the only way they're ever going to get somebody who's a franchise-changing player is to get a Cooper flag in the draft.

They're not going to be a destination for free agency, even though I've heard Ryan Smith, the owner, like laid it out.

Like, hey, we're not small market.

Like, look how great.

All these things.

I think if you're a simple guy.

You'd actually like to play in Salt Lake.

I think Salt Lake's oddly confusing to a lot of different people.

Like, it's just, it's kind of more convenient than Denver.

Salt Lake's awesome.

Right.

I'm buying Salt Lake stock.

I am with you.

I'm buying a hockey team.

They don't have six schools in the street like Denver.

So that's a positive.

They got rid of Sundance.

I think that helps the cap.

That's out.

Yeah, Sundance going to Boulder.

Never made it.

Yeah.

Never made it.

Maybe not.

All right.

I'm happy to consider them being in

tier one.

The Will Hardy thing thing made me mad because I think he's a really good coach and you just removed two years of, like, imagine if you, like, when you came to work for us in 2018, if I was like, yo, first two years, I'm going to need you to really just like fuck up the first 15 minutes of your podcast because we need the downloads to be down.

And then you can try and try some stuff.

But I don't really want it to be good yet.

But 2021, I really want the pod to be good.

So just kind of.

so you'd say, Hey, we want to suppress value.

No, don't try.

This is a terrible analogy, it's not going to work.

I'm just trying, but imagine being in the being in the position of like, don't do your best.

Hey, we're not there's going to be ways to win this game, don't use them.

We're going to have to have you do everything still over the phone.

This whole Zoom thing you're seeing on the TV, moving to video, just two more years, audio only.

Um, well, yeah, man, I just think that sucks to be like, This is how I have to coach.

Like, my organization doesn't want me to win.

But we both agree that's what you have to do when you're Utah.

You have to play it that way.

It's just the

thing about the league.

If you're trading for somebody, you know, that's probably a small target of like who gets traded for that's a franchise-changing player.

That's like, I'm here and I want to stay.

You're probably not going to be able to use your cap space on anybody.

So you need somebody to come through, which I think this is a great organization, whether it's ownership, Age, Zanik, Hardy.

I am probably a little too, like, I do wonder if Hardy in a private moment with a, with a beer, with a couple friends, says, well, it looks like I'm not catching Popovich anytime soon, right?

Because all of those numbers are when you pull up his basketball reference, it's like, that's what my winning percentage is, and that's what my record says it is.

You could also argue, too, it's like, we're going to give you this shot at a very young age to be this coach, and maybe there's a different path.

You're stuck in as a second or third assistant somewhere else, and you don't even get this opportunity until until seven or eight years later.

The Spurs coach.

My argument for Utah and why I want them to win the lottery is this Cooper flag in Salt Lake

would be the most important piece for a franchise that needs it, considering all the challenges that they have faced historically in transactions.

I'll move them up to tier four, tier one.

You sold me.

I think Washington would have the same kind of impact, though.

I think he's a game changer for them.

They've never had a player come in who is like, and I'm going to make everyone better on this team guy in the last 40 years, right?

That, which is what we think he is.

Do you think you have a Jordan Poole quote and be like, this guy's going to be all right off the bench, like Twan about Pierce?

Remember that?

Jordan Poole is like, I can't wait to teach him everything I know.

All right.

Next one is Brooklyn.

Their number one odds are 9.9%, top four, 37%.

You know, they sabotaged year one of the Jordy era.

They might have been like a 38, they might have been a play-in team, and they were just like, no way.

So I got to ding them for that.

But,

you know, they've been all over the map.

Sean Marks, I guess, can just never get fired.

But the KG trade turned out to be just a grand slam.

So you almost like get rewarded for that, right?

All the stuff they got in that trade that's still going and going and going.

I wouldn't be upset if they won.

I, you know, there's a whole case of

can Brooklyn even survive unless they had a guy like this in New York City?

Like, when you think about what happened with the Knicks this year, I just think Brooklyn's going to be the ugly stepchild of New York basketball forever unless they get a guy like this.

So that's the case for it.

And Phoenix Pizza outside Barclays, I got, I'm going to throw that in there too for karma.

Great pizza.

I think for all the same reasons that we've,

I don't know, Utah still has more challenges than Brooklyn would.

Right, because we've seen Brooklyn lure guys already.

Right.

There's nothing on this Brooklyn roster that even gets you excited to the point of like even Lowry marketing.

Yeah.

Charlotte's next.

14% number one odds.

Played the game like everybody else did.

New ownership.

I like Charles Lee.

I wonder if you get flag, how many guys are still on this team two years from now.

If you get flag,

over under two and a half, would you go over under

two years from now?

Uh,

you'd say two and a half over under two and a half, who's on the 2028-29 season roster.

Well, it's already two with Lamello and Miller,

so Lamello, we sure

kind of

are we

well,

Miller.

Who

i don't know

miller i don't know

it looks like he's going to be really good

yeah sure

i don't know i don't trust i didn't

say he has already been traded miles bridges is a different conversation grant williams leadership council oh um

your guy uh saloon i don't know diabate saloon salon

whatever his name is i don't know for us that's how bad this year went yeah not a strong rookie year yeah it's salon some tough basketball reference

I told you I liked watching them.

I didn't know if it was going to be any good or not.

I didn't sell the stock yet, but I, you know, I do have a red flag next to it.

Chicago, number one odds, 1.8%.

But I like some of the trades that they recently made.

We're just, we're in a weird territory here because we've got Toronto, number one odds, 7.5%.

You and I have to.

Wait, wait.

Make the case for Chicago.

Isn't there something to be said of like.

No, they've they're it's pathetic that they don't spend money,

right?

I don't think I think they've spent the tax once in 15 years, but I just like some of the guys in the team.

So I was thinking from a Carmo standpoint, I enjoy Kobe White, I like Giddy.

Vuch, I've enjoyed putting a flag on that team, I think, would be fun.

That's really the only zealous

poster, possibly

Toronto 7.5 percent.

You and I have not liked their moves.

The only reason they're this high is because there's four of their teams that have to be lower than them.

And I don't really make, I can't come up with a case for Toronto.

I have nothing to add.

Okay.

Now we're in the bottom four.

New Orleans.

Their number one odds are 12.5%.

They've drafted really well, which we've talked about many, many times.

They've made some really bad trades.

They seem like they're jinxed as a franchise and as a basketball city.

This would be the one city I'd be actually worried for Cooper Flag if he went there because it just seems like nothing good happens there.

But the fun piece is from a Karma basketball, if they did get flag, it opens up content left and right for us.

There's so many possible trades.

They might be good right away.

It could be like he could swing them by 20 wins potentially just because they already had a lot of talent in place.

So that part's fun.

But man, it just feels like they've had a lot of luck already with, like, they won the Zion lottery.

You know, like, it's hard to say, oh, man, they're due.

Like, they literally won one of the three hardest lotteries that we've had for what people wanted in the last 15 years.

So

that's the case for New Orleans for and against.

Yeah, I probably would like them to get it a little bit more.

I don't know if it hits a reset on the franchise.

My guess is most owners wouldn't win the lottery and then be like, okay, cool.

Now let's be bad around just winning the lottery.

And maybe I don't know what to believe on whether or not there's a everybody's all on the same page about keeping Zion.

I just don't know how many more years you can keep going into a season like hoping this thing is going to work out.

And even if you traded him, ended up being a star somewhere else, because I think there's a history there where it's like, well, look what Baron Davis did when he left.

Look what happened with Chris Ball when he left.

Look what happened with Anthony Davis when he left.

If that's bleeding into your decision-making, then I don't think you are making the right decision with this.

But we all realize how special Zion can be when it's out.

I don't even care if I traded him and he was awesome somewhere else.

I could not go back into another season having every one of our hopes tied to somebody where it feels like it just ends bad all the time.

And if you win the lottery with Cooper and Trey Murphy, I would start, you know, again, nobody, nobody likes when the media is just sitting there telling everyone to blow it up all over again, but they might be the perfect candidate for it because they have drafted well.

There's other players like we didn't even mention Herb Jones anymore because he's been hurt.

I would just try to figure out what I could do.

Murray's out for most of the year.

Yeah.

And, you know, CJ is a nice player.

There's probably still some value there.

It doesn't mean you're going to have like seven guys

aspiring this offseason.

Yeah.

This next year's is.

Yeah.

He's an expiring heading into the next season.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

I looked up the Zion contract stuff to familiarize myself with it, and I thought there was like partial guarantees.

They could let him go before July 15th and just get completely out of it, which I...

I wouldn't do that.

I had forgotten that that was an option.

No, because Shams brought it up.

Remember, but when he wasn't playing, by the way, they could just go ahead.

To me, that's insane.

There's still, there's always another team that's thinking if we get him with us.

the ceiling version of Zion with us.

That guy is not for free.

I know what you're saying, but I've heard the argument before.

There's no way you would just go out.

Let's just.

I'm not saying I would do it.

I'm just saying it's in play.

It's a thing that they could do.

Okay, you're saying it's in play, but it's true.

You know what else is in play?

What's that?

They could trade for somebody who takes the Zion contract and immediately intends to waive the contract

because this will be their way to get out of a shitload of money.

I just don't think that he is at that point where you would want nothing or acquire him to get off of money to then waive him.

You know why you're right?

Because you could do this all again next year.

Yeah, you could take, even if you're trading for him, you could take a flyer and I'm knowing that, all right, if this goes badly again, next year I could just get out of it and waive him again.

But I just, everyone is so desperate to shed money.

I just think it's notable that somebody makes $39 million a year who could match with anyone in a trade, you could then waive and get out of all the money, all the apron shit that comes with it.

I don't think that's nothing.

It's my worst fear for the Celtics.

What, that they would trade for Zion and then waive him?

Like the new owner is like, now that I have the team, guess what?

We're cutting costs.

We've traded for Zion and we're waiving him.

Sounds like somebody was having some down O2 thoughts.

I think this is my fourth margarita.

When the Knicks started to come back, I was like, oh, my God.

All right.

Bottom three.

San Antonio, third from last.

Number one odd, 6.8.

They won with Wemby.

That's really the only reason.

You can't win

with the Admiral, Duncan, Wembanyama.

And then you get Cooper Flag.

It's fucking ridiculous.

Because I know everybody who's listening, like, hey, the Spurs, they do it the right way.

Yeah, they've had too much luck.

No, we're good.

If you get Duncan, Wemby Duncan, stop.

No one's going to agree with us.

We're right.

We're right.

Which leads us to the second and the last Karma team.

The Philadelphia 76ers.

Their number one odds are 10.5%.

Top four, 42%.

If it falls seven or lower, they're in the five spot now.

If two teams jump them, OKC gets their pick.

I just don't think you should be able to stumble into Cooper Flag after the summer they had last year.

It's ridiculous.

It's outright ridiculous.

I'd be happy for Maxi.

I'd be happy for McCain.

But

the Embiid extension combined with the Paul George four years and

trotting out the big three media dialogue and the title stuff and all of it, if it leads to Cooper Flag, that's outrageous.

No offense to our Philly fan friends.

it would be outrageous

it really would be

i almost want it to happen people are going to be so pissed off like people are so mad because it was this is how it played out really what it wasn't just that this was on the table it's when everything was falling apart and then you were looking at their record And then the Sixers are going to those games being like, you think you're fucking tanking?

We're fucking tanking.

You introduced it to Bona.

Oh, hey, Nets, you want to play hard in the fourth quarter?

We're running ISOs for Edwards.

Like, fuck you, guys.

They're ready to like Tanya Harding, Quentin Grimes.

They were just going to hire some fat guy to hit him on the side of the leg on the bench.

Well, Toronto kept winning these games because their defense was somehow incredible this late into the season.

And

or they had that stretch, I would say, that you're like, how the hell is Toronto keep winning some of these games?

But Philly, and I see, I think Philly, like in a way, I

like what they did where

they're like, we're not screwing around.

Yeah.

Even though Quentin Grimes, for that stretch, it's like, are they going to cost them this top six protection on this thing?

So we were chasing the top six protection.

We're following all that stuff.

Like, are they going to actually lose this pick?

Like, the worst case scenario of what could happen here, considering how bad the season is, like, on top of everything else, and guess who else has the pick?

Oh, great.

It's OKC.

What a shocker.

To them getting Cooper flag.

I think that'd be a lot for people to handle.

I think people would rather the Spurs with it than the 76ers.

Embed,

think of the headline.

Embed, excited to take Cooper Flag under his wing.

A new long ESPN feature.

Last but not least.

Now, it's weird because they should be last in the lottery karma rankings.

But you could also make a case they should be first.

Because of the fans.

The Dallas Mavericks, number one odds, 1.8%.

Top four, 8.5%.

To do that Luca trade and then end up with Cooper Flag

would be a moral outrage.

Not even an outrage.

I'd be morally outraged.

My morals would be discombobulated by it.

I just can't believe that's how it would work out.

It would make me so mad.

Like, really?

You motherfuckers just got Cooper Flag after making the dumbest trade anyone

has ever seen?

And it worked out and you got Cooper Flag out of it.

But on the other hand,

for the Mavericks fans

who are as traumatized and upset about a trade as any fan base I've ever seen since I've started to like sports, I'd be happy for them.

But I think they have to be last.

I feel like the fan part should prevent them from being last.

Like, why are the Sixers?

What about San Antonio?

Because at least they'd be rewarded for.

They've done some good stuff, San Antonio.

The Fox trade was good.

Castle pick was good.

They tanked while also seeming like they cared about the season, which I think is a hard line to straddle.

Yeah, but see,

that's almost why I appreciate Daryl and the Sixers were going, you guys want to act like there's these rules of engagement shit?

You guys want to have one of those operations where it's like, yeah, we're sort of invading this area, but we're kind of not because we gave it a title.

Like, you ever want to go through and just laugh your ass off?

Look at some of the military operations titles, just the branding of them to try to make everybody feel a little bit better.

Like nothing's even called a war anymore.

And when I think about what the Sixers did, they're like, you can call this whatever you want.

Label it whatever you want.

There are no rules.

Like, we're doing this.

And it was the one

a thing that nobody will remember in a year.

Yeah.

And, you know, look, whether it's that Dallas argument years ago where it felt like it was terrible or the Doug Peterson Philadelphia Eagles thing where it made sense for the Eagles to lose that game, but because it's the national broadcast and we're seeing it happen in real time and everybody's got their phones out and there's no other games on to distract us from it, then it becomes this like act against humanity.

And I don't like like, I know what you're saying, where the Spurs did it in the decent way, right?

Utah wasn't perhaps as decent.

Yeah.

You know, again, we're keep using that word that everybody loves about ethical tanking or ethical hoops.

I don't know.

That just feels, that feels nasty to have Dallas last, but I know you're thinking about Nico.

And maybe there was some after Luca and the Lakers lost in five games.

The people in the media that suggested somehow we needed to revisit the Nico Harrison conversation.

Like, this is like watching a 4x100 relay and seeing the first handoff and going, well, that's over.

This is not when you're evaluating this.

And by the way, again, it has nothing to do with what the Lakers or Luca didn't do in the playoffs this year.

It has everything to do with the execution of this historically bad trade.

So even if it turns out in five years, like Lucas heard and like, hey, was Nico right?

The process will forever be wrong.

And when that team is eliminated.

When Reeves gets traded this summer, and he will get traded.

And the stuff that they get back for him is going to make it seem even worse that they didn't get him in the trade.

I know, I know it's a TV show.

And this is somebody who's done this for a long time.

You know what's happening in those pre-show meetings.

Be like, hey, do we need to revisit the Nico conversation?

It's like, I don't know.

What's the rest of the rundown look like?

Like, ah, we're kind of light.

You know, there's no football stuff.

It's like, all right, you know, maybe we'll throw it in the Ds.

I can do two more minutes on Nico.

Yeah, just set me up.

Yeah.

And then sometimes that itself is the segment.

Ask the question and then you just shoot down the entire idea.

But anyone that really is paying attention, again, I shouldn't even phrase it that way, sane people would go, this is not a conversation that we can have right now because of an elimination in one year of the playoffs.

So go ahead.

We have to go.

Yes.

So I always grab a Dream Team cup when I do the pod.

I love that you do that.

I didn't notice that I grabbed John Stockton.

I just grabbed one.

Does it mean anything that I grabbed John Stockton for the lottery?

12.

I had 12 choices of Dream Team cups.

I guess Malone or Stockton.

So it was a one in six chance I was grabbing a Utah thing, which is basically the exact same odds that they have in the lottery.

So I grab a John Stockton.

Don't think about it.

We'll see tomorrow night if it's a coincidence.

All right.

Rosillo, we're going to watch this game.

We're going to,

for the podcast,

we're going to put at the very top of the podcast our thoughts on the Cleveland game that we're about to watch.

And we'll tape a little stuff at the top.

But I enjoyed myself as usual.

Good to see you, Rosillo.

See you in a bit.

All right, that's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Rossillo and Eduardo and Gahal.

Don't forget, I am coming back tomorrow night with another podcast.

Rewatchables pushed till Tuesday.

You still have an extra day to watch Deathwish, which is quite a movie, quite a 70s movie.

And I will see you in 24 hours.

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