Best NBA Playoff Guys, Curry’s Value, and the Perplexing Celtics Meltdown With Wosny Lambre, Joe House, and Bill’s Dad

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Coming up, we're talking basketball and we're talking some Celtics.

Speaker 1 Is it over?

Speaker 1 All next.

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Speaker 1 We put up a two-part Star Wars rewatchables on Monday. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube on Ringer Movies, or you can watch it as a video podcast on Spotify.

Speaker 1 We're sticking with the 70s all month. I think that's what I've decided.
We're doing Deathwish on Monday, which is

Speaker 1 just an unbelievable movie with Charles Bronson. So that's coming Monday night.
You have the whole weekend to watch it. I think it's on Pluto.
It's on a couple of places. So

Speaker 1 Death Wish coming on Monday night. The Celtics might have a Death Wish.
We're going to talk about that later with my dad.

Speaker 1 He was at game one and game two, and he gives us his in-person scattering report. Coming up first, though, bigwaz, Joe House, we're back.

Speaker 1 We haven't had the three of us together on a podcast since our worst contracts draft, which I sent to

Speaker 1 the Pulitzer Committee. It didn't get picked, but we're going to talk about Golden State, Minnesota.
We're going to talk big picture, Denver, OKC, Cleveland, Indiana, game three, Celtics Knicks.

Speaker 1 And that is all. Next, first, our friends from Pearl Jam.

Speaker 1 All right, we're recording this a little after eight o'clock Pacific time. Big Waz is here.
Joe House was supposed to be here. I think he sprained his MCL.

Speaker 1 He got injured. Somehow, anytime House is on any other podcast, his Zoom works.
And then when he's on mine and it's later at night, no Zoom. I'm just going to assume alcohol.
That's where I've landed.

Speaker 2 A lot of martinis for the big guy. I'm not surprised by that.

Speaker 1 Well, he's got a big lottery coming up with the Wizards on Monday. Ah, yes.
Yeah. I want to get your thoughts.

Speaker 1 I'm talking to my dad later about Celtex Nakes, but I obviously want to get your thoughts as well. We stayed up to watch Minnesota Golden State.

Speaker 1 I don't know what made me think that this might be a good game.

Speaker 1 I'll start here.

Speaker 1 Is Steph actually the non-Yokage MVP when you see what somebody's team looks like when they're not on it? Is there a more dramatic, oh, God,

Speaker 1 than Golden State without Steph?

Speaker 2 It's really crazy because their offense isn't elite when Steph is there.

Speaker 2 It's like he's propping up a bunch of mediocrity, and to see him not be there, Jimmy on half an ass cheek, it's just pedestrian. That's just what it is.
Like,

Speaker 2 it's just a pedestrian offense, and Minnesota is one of the best defenses in the league. So I'm not surprised that they kind of grinded the dubs offense into the game.

Speaker 1 Well, they also got the game. They got the game they needed already.

Speaker 1 So, that was this was the gravy.

Speaker 2 That was part of it, too. Yeah, Draymond tried to get himself kicked out.
That also happened, which is a tradition like none other.

Speaker 1 I texted you in-house, and again, R.I.P. House apparently couldn't make the pod.
Um, but I texted you guys literally five minutes.

Speaker 2 It was five minutes.

Speaker 1 I checked the timestamp, yeah, because I was like, I wonder what quarters Draymond might try to get himself kicked out of this game. And then he did the swing the arms thing, and Stan Ben got it.

Speaker 1 Let me me get the exact quote. Hold on.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure there was any intent there. Stan Ban Gundy.

Speaker 1 Stan Ban Gundy watching the Dahmer miniseries, episode eight, as Dahmer's eating somebody's genitals. I'm not sure there was any intent there.

Speaker 1 I, you know, who knows with Draymond, but he is in

Speaker 1 the first team on NBA of swinging his arms into somebody's head. Yeah.
He's one of the best in the league at it.

Speaker 2 Like a lot of people exaggerate contact, but nobody routinely connects with the head of the guy that's guarding them as consistently or the nuts as consistently as Draymond Green.

Speaker 1 Well, Draymond got the game. He needed to win.
I guess the bigger question for him is this technical foul tally

Speaker 1 that you would figure after 2016, he might be more aware of from a big picture standpoint because now I think it's two more and he gets suspended for the next game.

Speaker 1 So he's got, I guess, guess, a tech to go to work with.

Speaker 2 I still haven't figured out what distinction they're making on the tech and the flagrant to like,

Speaker 2 there's no rhyme or reason. It feels like it feels like they're cutting the guy a break as to not get him kicked out of the game for the crazy stuff that he's doing.
But like

Speaker 2 their explanation leaves me wanting like pretty much every single time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I agree with them.

Speaker 1 Kaminga in this game tonight.

Speaker 1 Did you ever own property on Kaminga Island? Did you look? Did you go on Redfin and check out some houses? What was your plan there?

Speaker 2 Very early on, I would say I was definitely like, look, this guy is athletic. He plays with a motor.

Speaker 1 He's huge.

Speaker 2 Like, this is an exciting kind of young guy that, you know, within Steve Kerr's system would be fun if he would develop. But I would say, beginning last year, where it's just like, it's obvious.

Speaker 2 First of all, he went to the press complaining about Steve Kerr.

Speaker 1 Steve Kerr was like, all right, whatever, F it.

Speaker 2 We're going to put this guy in.

Speaker 2 But it's obvious you're not. I like that, by the way.

Speaker 1 I don't think Steve Kerr was a huge guy. I mean, I would imagine not basically going over my head.

Speaker 2 He's not some creator, right? Like, he's just not. And he's just refused to make himself into just a great role player, just to, dare I say it, GP2.
Like, look at what this guy does.

Speaker 2 Great cutter, great rebounder, great defender, just shoots open shots when it's swung to him, like hits the break.

Speaker 2 Like, he uses his tools to the best of his ability to fit into what Golden State's trying to do. Kaminga basically does none of that and thinks that he's Kobe.

Speaker 2 And it's just like, eh, I don't know why I should still be excited about him.

Speaker 1 You know, where he's, here's how you, why you should be excited.

Speaker 1 If somebody on his team who's really important gets injured and he has to play minutes by default, it becomes exciting because he walks out there and he's like, finally, I get to battle with Anthony Edwards, my peer.

Speaker 1 Nobody but me and Anthony wonders or understands what we have as a connection as rivals. And he just goes head to head with them.

Speaker 1 Did you think,

Speaker 1 even without this Curry injury, did you think Golden State had a real chance in this series?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, you mean pre-injury? Did I think? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Just because

Speaker 2 the Wolves are just collectively not the most highly executing team, right?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 the Dubs are the opposite. These guys are veterans with insane playoff know-how collectively.
And, you know, they have a great coach.

Speaker 2 And so I was just like, just based off of that alone, I thought the Dubs would give them a great series and definitely had a chance. I'm not going to say I thought they were going to win.

Speaker 2 I just assume Minnesota's size would eventually end up being too much. And Anthony Edwards playing more like he did in the second half of game one throughout the series.

Speaker 2 I just assume Minnesota would eventually wear these guys down. But now it's hard to see it.
And, you know, I know they said they're going to reevaluate in a week. That's not how hamstrings work.

Speaker 2 This guy's not coming back in a week.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 Hamstrings, calves, groins.

Speaker 1 And they always do the at least a week or at least 10 days. And it's, you know, it's never, it's not good.
It's too bad. But on the other hand, here's the thing.
He's 37 years old.

Speaker 1 They just had this war against the Rockets for seven games, right? And that game seven is worth a game and a half of playoff kind of minutes intensity.

Speaker 1 It's like a, it's like a three, it's like 150% of a game, right? And then he immediately gets hurt in game one of the next areas.

Speaker 1 And that's what happens when you're relying on 40-year-old LeBron and 37-year-old Steph Curry, and you're relying on guys who have played a million playoff games, is the variance becomes a little dicey, right?

Speaker 2 But then, you know, I was talking to some Warriors friends, and they brought up something that I thought was kind of pretty, you know,

Speaker 2 head-on.

Speaker 2 The dubs came into the season thinking these young guys were somehow going to be competent enough to make this thing work.

Speaker 1 You're talking about like Pods and Kaminga.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 and they make this trade for Jimmy Butler. Finally, they get Steph some help, only they have to treat the last like 25 games basically like playoff games.

Speaker 2 So, they've been going all out essentially since February.

Speaker 2 And it's hard for me not to believe that that didn't play a role in why Jimmy, I mean, excuse me, why Steph ends up straining his hand me because he's been going pedal to the metal for months now.

Speaker 2 Shout out to Joe House, man. Welcome to the welcome BS podcast, brother.

Speaker 1 Joe House, he's just staring at, oh, no, he's in choppy internet. This is great, House.

Speaker 1 You're only on nine-ringer podcast, but somehow when you come on mine, it's like you're in a log cabin in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Well,

Speaker 1 I don't know if you're going to hear this or not, but

Speaker 1 only one podcast uses. Well, I don't even know if I should name names because I'm going.
This is my fault. I was asking for it.

Speaker 1 Every podcast that I am on uses the same platform, no issue whatsoever, except for one.

Speaker 1 It's this one.

Speaker 1 You won't use it. You want names.
Using Zoom? Like,

Speaker 1 what are you talking about? Like, you wanted Riverside? Riverside is seamless and perfect. Nobody has an issue with

Speaker 1 Riverside.

Speaker 1 Can you tell us what year your computer is that you're using? Like, honestly, give us a moment.

Speaker 2 What year did you purchase that computer?

Speaker 1 How old is the computer? It's probably 2016. That would be my.

Speaker 1 My God, that's insane. It's Trump presidency year one.
The first one. That's how sincere.

Speaker 1 2016.

Speaker 1 I do have a modern setup. The problem is that my modern setup is in my house above where my teenager sleeps.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so it's 50-50 whether I can go up there and hoot and holler the way I like, or do I use this remote setup, which most of the time works, but

Speaker 1 it could be how close we are to the booze. I mean, the booze is right over my left shoulder.

Speaker 1 That could have something to do with it. So many articles about the explosion of video pods, and then House calls in on his Commodore 64

Speaker 1 to get ready. House, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Waz.

Speaker 1 After you watched the Warriors game like tonight, is Curry the non-Jokic MVP compared to guys who actually mean the most to their specific teams?

Speaker 1 Well, this was the case, you know, kind of all season long. The only way that

Speaker 1 Golden State was relevant to any kind of conversation was that Bad Man Curry.

Speaker 1 And I was very nervous at the beginning of the season, all the way up until the trade deadline, that this was a going-away affair, that this was basically, you know,

Speaker 1 the year before the year for his retirement circuit because Golden State had no prospects whatsoever until Jimmy Butler fell into their laps.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 here we are. He can't play, so they're dead.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think that's it. But you know what's alive? Pat Spencer's facial hair or whatever is going on, gimmick, Wes.

Speaker 1 What's going on here, Wes? Can you walk us through? You've seen a lot of looks over the years.

Speaker 1 I know you've taken some true delight in some different things. Pat, where does Pat Spencer rank?

Speaker 2 First, red flag is that terrible number.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 I'm sure it's some tribute probably to a late family member or something like that I'm sure there's something heartwarming to it but bro get a real jersey number first of all

Speaker 2 and yeah he's clearly you know you know he's out there in the Bay Area with those folks I wouldn't be surprised if he's micro dosed some shrooms you know every now and again that

Speaker 2 that would not shock me that's what the that's what the facial and the hair is giving for me yeah we might have to get him on the ringer um here's my next question.

Speaker 1 When you watch Minnesota and Minnesota has looked pretty spotty in these two games, right? They're bad in game one and even tonight, they kind of picked their spots.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Edwards sprained his ankle in the second quarter and then returned pretty quickly. But, you know,

Speaker 1 I wouldn't say they look sharp as hell. It made me wonder how good the Lakers were.

Speaker 2 See, I see it a little bit differently. I think Minnesota is the kind of team that really does play up or down to their competition.

Speaker 2 You know, they beat Denver like five times this season. You know, all of their OKC games, for the most part, have been fun.

Speaker 2 And Edwards is just a hyper-competitive guy that way. And so I'm not surprised, you know, Steph goes down and they're kind of just dilly-dallying and aren't giving it their best effort.

Speaker 2 But there were times today where you saw the team that we saw in moments against the Lakers. And so

Speaker 2 I think they will give anybody a run for their money. I'm talking about from the best teams left in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 But they do have moments of just boneheaded basketball. And it's been like this basically for three, four years now.

Speaker 1 So you don't think Pat Spencer and Quentin Post may be bringing the A-game out?

Speaker 2 I don't. I don't even think Draymond's deep-seated and rooted hatred for Rudy Gobert is even going to be enough.

Speaker 2 They just can't do it without 30.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 How, so where do you stand on Minnesota? They hurt our feelings because we had a huge bet before the series. You'd meet Salon Hench.
We had Minnesota game one, Minnesota for the series.

Speaker 1 Curry plays 12 minutes, and we still somehow lose the game one bet. So I know I'm mad at them still.
I don't know where you are. Yeah, I have not forgiven them, and I probably won't forgive them.

Speaker 1 On the Lakers point, I think that the Lakers were an especially good matchup for Minnesota And, you know, vice versa, Minnesota was just a bitch of a team for the Lakers.

Speaker 1 And the way that Minnesota was able to hunt Luca

Speaker 1 and really expose Luca where he is in terms of his basketball, his playoff basketball readiness, he just wasn't physically there, Luca. And so they were able to exploit that.

Speaker 1 And what the Lakers had in terms of personnel, it was an incomplete team. And so they just ran those dudes.
They were exhausted. Luca and LeBron were exhausted every fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 And Minnesota was able to exploit that. And, you know, 4-1, that's very impressive.
But the way they showed up against Golden State, that's unforgivable.

Speaker 1 And I'm glad that Chris Finch called out Anthony Edwards. I think that was entirely appropriate.
It's time for him to be,

Speaker 1 you know, the leader that everybody wants him to be.

Speaker 1 He does set the tone, and he can't let his missed jump shot, you know, his lack of

Speaker 1 confidence in his jumper impact the rest of his game. Luca was either exhausted or hungry.
I don't know if we've decided both which one it was. Hangry.

Speaker 1 Hangry. Luca hangry.
Hangry would have helped him.

Speaker 1 Indy Cleveland. That's tomorrow night.
I have no idea why it wasn't tonight. I have no idea why Lou only had one game.

Speaker 1 They should have moved this up once we realized Curry was out. But

Speaker 1 as I've said many times in the pod,

Speaker 1 I loved Indy's chances in this series. I wasn't positive they're going to win, but I really thought it was going to be a 50-50 series.
They won game one.

Speaker 1 Game two, nobody plays. Mitchell has a heroic 46 minutes and cannot finish.
And Indy steals it. And Halliburton has this great moment.
And it's 2-0

Speaker 1 Indy heading back to Indianapolis. Waz,

Speaker 1 do you have more concern for the Cavaliers or the Boston Celtics, the team I happen to root for?

Speaker 2 I mean, I would say the Cavs by far. The Boston Celtics aren't missing two all-NPA caliber players, right?

Speaker 2 And another guy who they've seen as their key deadline deal in DeAndre Hunter. So, like, I think

Speaker 2 Mobley's going to come back from his injury. He'll probably be a little limited.
It's an ankle people come back from those and, you know, just gut it out.

Speaker 2 Garland isn't coming back.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 2 all indications are that that toe injury is horrible. And coming into the series, I kind of felt like they could win the series even without Garland.

Speaker 2 I did think they were that much better than Indy, but now you're down 0-2 and

Speaker 2 the guy who at many points of the season has been your best player is severely limited and hampered. They got a whale

Speaker 2 of, you know,

Speaker 2 basically of a job to do to win four out of five games against this Pacers team that is just, they're clicking, man.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, who agrees with you?

Speaker 1 Fanduel, because the Pacers are minus 194 favorites and the Celtics are minus 112 favorites. So

Speaker 1 I think it is way more oblique. One thing with that that I thought was a sneaky piece of the Garland thing, I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this.

Speaker 1 He handles the ball for them a ton. And Indy's kind of a bitch to play with how they go 94 feet and they just hound you and they just, they really make you work the ball up.

Speaker 1 So and that was one of the things with Mitchell. He had to bring the ball up a lot.
And then near the fourth quarter, it's like, all right, I'm done with this. And other people were doing it.

Speaker 1 But I think Indy. It's weird because sometimes you'll watch them, they'll choke games away at the end and you're like, how did they lose that?

Speaker 1 Then other times they come late, almost like a boxer, where it's like, wow, they're down on the cards, but they're throwing bombs right now. House, do you like this Indy team?

Speaker 1 Where do you stand on Indy? I really do. And we were on them after

Speaker 1 the calendar flipped into the new year.

Speaker 1 We liked

Speaker 1 where their win total sat, the forecast for how they might end up the season. And they've been as good as

Speaker 1 just about anybody over the last 50 games of the season. Their record now is what, like 36 and 11,

Speaker 1 something very good. Well, I think, weren't they like 35 and 15? And then what'd they do in the playoffs? 4-1.
Now they're 6-1 in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 So it's something like 41 and 16 in their last 57, something like that. Yeah, that's it.
And so

Speaker 1 it's also the case that they're a different kind of beast in the playoffs. And the chops that they acquired by way of making it to the Eastern Conference finals can't be overlooked.

Speaker 1 I mean, when you get to, when you just get those playoff reps the way that they did and face, you know, Boston, Halliburton went out, but all those other guys, there's a level of confidence, there's a swagger.

Speaker 1 They are not intimidated by the moment. They're not afraid of the moment.
It's a bitch for Cleveland. I'm so bummed out that they don't have Garland because

Speaker 1 they've been so good all season long that

Speaker 1 they deserve like the full compliment to go ahead and take a legit run at this season. And they're not going to get it because Garland's absence is

Speaker 1 it isn't just like a scoring issue it's it's part of what you said bill it is the fact that that he's not there to bring the ball up it impacts so many different the perimeter defense like you know on so many different aspects of what cleveland wants to do plus it's ty jerome

Speaker 1 who's great who's great when he's the dan waiters guy in the movie Yeah, but you don't want him on the poster necessarily, but you love when he comes in for some like crazy scenes, like Tom Sizemore style.

Speaker 1 But I don't know if I'm building the movie around him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, look, I still think Indy could have beaten them if Cleveland was healthy. I really thought these teams, I thought these teams were pretty even.

Speaker 1 I thought the Halliburton story in the athletic this week was fascinating about,

Speaker 1 you know, you don't hear a lot of players talk about when they get in a funks.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it just like he did all the stuff like we talk to Ringer colleagues about sometimes. Like, don't fucking read that stuff don't go on these boards don't go in your Twitter replies like

Speaker 1 ignore all that stuff nothing good happens in those corners don't read it don't read it and Halliburton was like I was reading everything and I was driving myself crazy from the moment the Olympics happened all the way through I read everything I saw every criticism And it got in my head and I started to lose my joy for stuff.

Speaker 1 And now I cut it out and now I have my mojo back. But Wes, how many times can you remember an athlete like that openly talking about that? I was kind of stunned.

Speaker 1 Especially not a current athlete or a current player.

Speaker 2 I know Kevin Durant is like famously known for being in his mentions, like reading everything that's written about him in the media and what people are saying on social.

Speaker 2 But most people try to present a face of like, I'm above the fray.

Speaker 2 And Halliburton coming out and just being like, nah, man, like I'm reading all these horrible things that are being said about me and it's bumming me the hell out.

Speaker 2 And then it's actually having an impact on my game. That is unique.

Speaker 2 Most times, like, again, like, active players don't like to show, you know, present themselves as having flaws or weaknesses or whatever the case may be.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, I mean, I think it's dope that he talked about it. And I think it's even better that he's sending a message that, like, you need to block that out.

Speaker 2 The internet has, you know, many great things about it. You know, in many ways, we owe our careers to the internet, but god damn, is it negative and just nasty as hell?

Speaker 2 And so, man, it's just a smart thing for him to do to just lock in with your people and be a great pacer. And look at these guys.
They're up 2-0

Speaker 2 against the number one team in the East this season.

Speaker 1 Well, I think one of the things with him.

Speaker 1 You could see at the first part of the season, I didn't vote for Peral NBA mostly because of the first two months. I just didn't think he was good enough.

Speaker 1 And there was a couple games where you'd watch them some nights and he didn't have the big impact of what you would expect from a typical NBA guy, but he was on the bubble for me.

Speaker 1 But you watch the playoffs house. If I do my pyramid of guys who are left, it'd be good social graphic.

Speaker 1 And Jokic is at the top of the pyramid?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 The next level down, would you have SGA and Curry?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Who would you have? Brunson, buddy.

Speaker 1 Brunson. Okay,

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 1 over Curry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's never been in the Eastern Finals. So we're doing that.
We're taking Curry's four rings. We're tossing him in the ocean.
What pyramid is this? I thought we were doing the 2025 NBA playoff pyramid.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the guys right now, the guys who are left. So Curry being hurt, you're knocking him down.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.
Brunson's not hurt. Brunson's going into Boston and ripping the heart out of that city.

Speaker 1 Settle down, house.

Speaker 1 All right. So

Speaker 1 all right. So you agree with that wise? You got SGA Brunson on that second level? For sure.

Speaker 2 I think Ant sometimes gets to that level,

Speaker 2 especially against the Lakers. Like he was just controlling and dominating play in that series.
But yeah, I would say Steph, SGA.

Speaker 1 Okay, so third level. Can I put Curry in the third level or are we dinging him?

Speaker 1 Because he's third level. Third level.
Third level.

Speaker 1 Can I do Curry, Mitchell, and Ant in the third level?

Speaker 1 Where are you going to put Halliburton?

Speaker 2 That's what I was about to say. Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, and he's there. I hesitate to say this name right now, given the week that's happened, but Jason Tatum

Speaker 1 fourth in MVP. Is he out of the top three levels now? This is the NBA, the 2025 NBA playoffs.
Show me his signature game in the 2025 NBA playoffs.

Speaker 1 So you put Halliburton with Curry and Mitchell in the third level.

Speaker 2 Question, Bill.

Speaker 1 Of all of those guys,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 there's 12 seconds left on the clock. The Celtics are down one,

Speaker 2 or whoever is down one, would you trust Tatum over any of the guys that you just previously mentioned?

Speaker 1 Waz, it's not a great week for the question.

Speaker 1 Get him, Woz. Get him.

Speaker 1 I thought

Speaker 1 I talk about it with my dad a lot in the next segment.

Speaker 1 I got ropodoped a little bit. Hopefully, maybe it's not a rope-dope.
Maybe it was just two bad games, but we watched them for four months. Damn.

Speaker 1 And I really believed.

Speaker 1 And then you saw what happened in the first two games. And now I don't know what to believe.
What do you believe?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's crazy for me because I feel like I was one of the most vocal Tatums skeptics in the media. And I thought I kind of had a turnaround on the guy.
Like, I thought he got kind of a bad rap.

Speaker 2 Yes, he didn't make shots in the playoffs last year, but he was incredible on defense.

Speaker 2 He was their best, basically, initiator, setting up other guys because they don't have a real point guard on the team.

Speaker 1 Like, he was

Speaker 2 best rebounded. Like, he was the engine of what won that championship last year, especially against Dallas, too.

Speaker 2 Obviously, he couldn't make a shot in the Olympics, but then this year, I'm like, look, man, all the stuff we used to complain about, his tunnel vision, his refusal to get off the ball sometimes, the bad, long, contested twos, or his refusal to get to the free throw line when he has smaller guys on him.

Speaker 2 He was executing all of that stuff perfectly, clearly playing the best ball of his life. And then game two was literally the encapsulation of everything.

Speaker 2 negative people have ever had to say about Tatum. He embodied it in that game.
And I just, I can't believe that Jason Tatum is actually the player that we saw in game two.

Speaker 2 I can't believe that.

Speaker 1 We're going to take a break, not because we need to throw to a sponsor, but because I personally need a break from talking about Jason Tatum. We'll be back in a second.

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All right, we're trying to figure out the pyramid of guys who are left, and we got a little stuck on

Speaker 1 Jason Tatum of the Boston Celtics, given the week that he's having, and Joe House did not have a chance to chime in. So I'm going to give you the floor, Joe House.

Speaker 1 All I want to say out loud is it is possible that whatever happened to his wrist in that Orlando series that had him miss a game, and, you know, to his credit, he did come back

Speaker 1 earlier than forecasted. It seemed like a wrist injury that was going to have him missing multiple games.

Speaker 1 For a team that relies on three-point shooting, if there is, this would be the best story to come out, that the wrist isn't all the way there, that he's not 100% comfortable, and that discomfort is also impacting his judgment.

Speaker 1 I mean, if we really had to extend it, so his brain would have to be in his wrist

Speaker 1 in the same way that Anthony Edwards, you know,

Speaker 1 in these first two games,

Speaker 1 you know, his,

Speaker 1 at least the first game, the lack of energy

Speaker 1 against Golden State. And he wasn't great at the beginning of the Lakers series.

Speaker 3 That's where I was going to go.

Speaker 1 But for Tatum,

Speaker 1 if that lack of confidence tied to the wrist has him just settling rather than going inside, this is the thing that Woz just said. There's no reason he can't go be a bully.

Speaker 1 There's no reason that he can't go down low and take on OG and Anobi and try and get to the free throw line. There's nothing standing in his way in that respect.

Speaker 1 But I'm trying to be generous and gracious with Tatum, BS.

Speaker 1 He's been really good, and I don't have an explanation for what happened the last two games, but talk about it later. Well, at least I give my thoughts later.
So, if we went pyramid of guys right now,

Speaker 1 and the list can move, and the list can go up and down, but if we're just saying right now, guys who are playing the best, Jokic, SGA, Brunson,

Speaker 1 Caliburton,

Speaker 1 Ant Mitchell,

Speaker 1 sure,

Speaker 1 and then Curry with an asterisk because he's hurt

Speaker 1 with Tatum,

Speaker 1 Mobley with an asterisk because he's hurt,

Speaker 1 Towns?

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 1 Jalen Williams, Brown, Holmgren, Aaron Gordon, Murray. Like it kind of drops off.

Speaker 1 You like Aaron Gordon, the best out of all those names. You just said Aaron Gordon's the only one.
I'm like, hey, there's a name guy that I think is.

Speaker 2 I mean, aside from J-Dub,

Speaker 2 those guys are just asked to sort of

Speaker 2 be as

Speaker 2 complimentary as they possibly can. They're not asked to drive any actions.
J-Dub at times is like, all right, you're going to have the ball. You're going to create.

Speaker 2 You're going to be a one-on-one initiating kind of guy.

Speaker 2 Aaron Gordon's just asked to fill in the blanks around Jokic and Murray and all the things that those guys are doing. I think Murray, I've been pretty disappointed by his overall playoff so far.

Speaker 2 He's been so up and down and inconsistent. And when it looks good, it's like, damn, Denver could win the championship this year.

Speaker 2 And then when it looks like how it's looked in, you know, so many, too many of these games,

Speaker 2 it's been a bit disappointing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you're talking biggest winners for the playoffs so far, even though we're barely in the second round, and let's remove the Knicks fan base, the Knicks as a team, the Knicks as they're constructed, and everybody who put it together, Jalen Brunson, just like, this has been unbelievable.

Speaker 1 What's happened with them? Halliburton, I think, is up there. And then Aaron Gordon is the other one.

Speaker 1 Sometimes we'll see this. And House and I are older than you was, but sometimes this will happen in the playoffs with these guys who have been around long enough.

Speaker 1 I remember what happened with Igu Dala in 2015. These guys that were never quite first or second team on NBA, maybe we thought they're going to be slightly better than they ended up being.

Speaker 1 And then they figured out how to be this like incredibly impactful.

Speaker 1 Zach Lowe would call them amplifiers of the awesome player. And Gordon now has turned into like, did you think that shot was going in, House, that that three? I went past him.

Speaker 1 You thought it was going in, right? I did. I did.
Yes, I did. I did think it was going in.
Yeah, he's turned into this clutch, reliable man.

Speaker 1 I was so impressed in the games I went to against the Clippers. Like, he was just

Speaker 2 so physical, guards the hell out of people.

Speaker 2 The jump shot, it was the first thing I noted watching Denver coming into the season was he was just taking threes with so much more confidence, man. Like, there was no hesitation.

Speaker 2 Like, no, this is a shot I should be taking because I'm going to make it, which just hasn't been the case throughout his career at all.

Speaker 2 In fact, that was like one of the major knocks of him in Orlando. It's like, yo, this guy can't shoot.
You know, they kind of had him in the Paolo role.

Speaker 2 They were like trying to, the same things that Paolo is doing, they try to sort of cast Aaron Gordon as the kind of guy that could do that. And he so clearly wasn't.

Speaker 2 You know, he gets traded to Denver and it's almost like he was born to play with Nikola Jokic the way that marriage and that synergy has worked.

Speaker 2 He's, yeah, definitely one of my favorite guys to watch.

Speaker 1 All right, so go little mini pyramid, Jokic, S.J. and Brunson, Halliburton, Anton Mitchell, and then Curry, Tatum, Moble, and Gordon for the right now.

Speaker 1 I'll put him next level.

Speaker 1 But if you had shown me that a week ago, and you're like, look at this pyramid you made on Thursday's podcast on May, whatever, I'd be like, why is Tatum so low? What happened to Curry?

Speaker 1 House, what are you seeing in this Knicks-Celtics game? Is there, it's a 12:30 game on Saturday. Game four is Monday.
The Celtics have been better on the road for whatever reason all year.

Speaker 1 Must-win game for them. It's going to be the hottest Knicks ticket, I think, since the 1999 finals.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 what do you expect?

Speaker 1 If I said to you, Celtics win in six or seven or the Knicks sweep, which one would you pick?

Speaker 1 I still would pick the Celtics, but man, it wouldn't be comfortable. I wouldn't bet $1 on it.

Speaker 1 And the hard thing with trying to anticipate what's going to happen in this series is you need to tell me how many minutes Porzingis is going to play.

Speaker 1 And you need to tell me what version of Jalen Brown I'm going to get because

Speaker 1 We just haven't seen that physical version of him be able to play

Speaker 1 the full 35 to 40 minutes that the Celtics absolutely positively require to be successful in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 That, to me, more than anything, has been a missing ingredient in these first two games against the Knicks.

Speaker 1 It's the guy that can go get that tough bucket when we're in crunch time, when we're inside of six minutes, when it's five minutes towards the end of the game, and you need somebody to go get a physical bucket.

Speaker 1 That was Jalen Brown. That's why he was the MVP of the finals last year.
And there's some reason that he's physical, that he's not capable of it thus far in these playoffs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's somewhere 85 to 90 percent, I would say, Wes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, he's shooting 30 percent from three when you know the jumper has been incredible all season long.

Speaker 2 And for him to be shooting 30 in the playoffs, you know, that's that's Tony Allen territory, if we're being honest there.

Speaker 2 Um, I just, to me, what I want to see from Tatum and Brown, um, who we know is dealing with a, with a bum knee right now, is when Josh Hart

Speaker 2 or Josh Hart's a great defender, you know, he's a gamer, or Jalen Brunson, a guardian, you guys. You have five inches on these dudes, man.

Speaker 2 In a big situation, in a situation where it feels like New York is chipping into your lead and things are snowballing, like you should be able to take these guys to the basket

Speaker 2 and generate a shot at the basket or get fouled.

Speaker 1 Or if you're

Speaker 2 force some extreme level of help and get New York in rotation and doing your Boston Celtics thing. Like the entire offense is

Speaker 2 designed in order to create these driving lanes for these guys.

Speaker 2 And the idea that you have all these shooters around you and some dude that's 6'2 starts guarding you, you settle for a fade away from 13 feet out, that is just unacceptable to me.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I just have no reason to believe that that won't change. But I think the problem for Boston is like, yes, to me, they've clearly been the better team,

Speaker 2 but I think New York has an opportunity to play better.

Speaker 2 I don't think they've played their best.

Speaker 1 Well, that's the alarming thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's alarming. I think they, what was that? They had their worst offensive rating of the year in game two out of all the games they've played.

Speaker 1 It's either the worst offensive running in the half court. That is

Speaker 2 putrid.

Speaker 2 It, it, uh,

Speaker 1 I don't know, House. Uh,

Speaker 1 I don't like to see you this way, my friend, but

Speaker 1 it uh

Speaker 1 it wasn't great. Um, it's tough to defend a title.
Let's be let's be real about it. It's tough to defend a title.

Speaker 1 The thing you said, House, that the most alarming piece of this to me is you're like, I don't know what to expect from poor Zingas. What's he going to be like the rest of the series?

Speaker 1 And I think the answer is he's going to be the guy you saw in game two. I don't think he's healthy.
I think there's something wrong with him.

Speaker 1 And I think if it was any other situation, he wouldn't be playing. And that's a guy who's 20 a game for them when he's healthy with rim protection

Speaker 1 and insurance for the top two guys if either of them are off. And now, now that's gone.

Speaker 1 You saw what happened to Horford the more minutes he had to play. And,

Speaker 1 you know, teams start getting tight.

Speaker 1 The, the, was the, the, the piece I don't understand

Speaker 1 is just the settling and the one-on-one stuff and the lack of movement, which I thought they had corrected for the most part over the course of the year.

Speaker 1 Where it's like, if something wasn't working, somebody starts moving, one of the guards comes over, they reset whatever they're doing, and now they're just jacking shit up.

Speaker 1 The assist totals were way down in those two games, and that's it, it matched what you're watching when you're watching it, where it's like just whoever has the ball is going to shoot.

Speaker 2 My guy Mo Doc Hill called it hubris, and I agree with him. It's like OKC came out as if their season was on the line.
Like, if we lose this game, our season is over.

Speaker 2 They treated it like a damn near game seven. I can't say that about Boston.
It's not that they didn't play hard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're up to play.

Speaker 2 But like, you're shooting jump shots in the fourth quarter,

Speaker 2 and you got guys like

Speaker 2 Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson on the court.

Speaker 2 You're not attacking these matchups as if your life, it just feels like they didn't feel like their life depended on it.

Speaker 1 Which I think is just crazy. Whereas SGA was the opposite.
He comes out and he's like, we're not losing tonight. I've got this, guys.

Speaker 1 Well, here's the thing. My dad and I didn't really talk about this, so I feel like this is a relatively flush topic.
This is a real fork in the road weekend for Jason Tatum.

Speaker 1 who won the title last year, but then somehow,

Speaker 1 you know, still didn't didn't get all the spoils and left the summer with as many questions as answers in a lot of ways, which I think was immensely frustrating to him and the team and his coach.

Speaker 1 And a lot of what was happening this season was them correcting the narrative that he wasn't one of the best players in the league. And he was awesome the last four months.

Speaker 1 And now we're in this situation where

Speaker 1 they need him the same way the Nuggets needed Jokic in game four,

Speaker 1 right? The same way the OKC needed

Speaker 1 SJ last night, the same way the Warriors needed Curry to play a perfect, really smart basketball game in game seven and just make all the right plays for four quarters.

Speaker 1 That's what's alarming to me, House, is he wasn't making the right plays. He wasn't dissecting the Knicks in the way that he was doing all season and even in the Orlando series.

Speaker 1 See, I agree with all of that.

Speaker 1 And I hate to take the conversation in this direction, but the fork in the road moment is for the Celtics.

Speaker 1 It's not just Tatum. I mean, if they lose.
You go insect third apron out of me?

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I didn't put you on that apron.

Speaker 1 The ownership did it. And it was the right thing to do.
Let's go see if we can defend the title. Where, well,

Speaker 1 as we sit here today, it doesn't feel great. The idea of defending the title doesn't seem likely.

Speaker 1 And it looks like the team can't afford to keep both Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. And so it's or

Speaker 1 holiday or poor Zingas.

Speaker 1 It's clear that

Speaker 1 the short window of this is basically a two-year run with the group they had last year and this year. And then one of those guys just financially, I don't feel confident.

Speaker 1 I don't know which one it'll be. Long term, they still have a longer window built around Tatum and Brown that they're in the middle of, and they've been in the middle of all decade.

Speaker 1 But I think this was their best chance other than last year with the contracts with the players on the team and the quality of the players with the state of the league right they're never going to be in a better spot than this right house that that's certainly my view i had them um in ink in the nba finals against okla city

Speaker 1 my first warning jesus i wish i had known

Speaker 1 you have that you had the same thing you had them against oklahoma city that's that's the bet we made when the season started it is that was our finals matchup somebody's got to dig up the footage of Tatum's last game at Madison Square Garden.

Speaker 2 It was the last Knicks and Celtics matchup of the season.

Speaker 2 I get it, it's regular season, but I know for a fact that Knicks desperately wanted to win that game because they had gotten their butts kicked all season long.

Speaker 2 The crowd in the garden was losing their minds, desperately wanted to win that. Tatum was sublime, dude.
That move that he put on OG Ananobi to get the game-winning shot was incredible.

Speaker 2 I was like, this guy is at the peak of his powers. I've never seen Tatum be this incredible.
And OG Ananobi has traditionally been a bugger boo for him.

Speaker 2 He's obviously one of the best isolation defenders in the league. I don't expect you to go out and just make OG Ananobi look like a scrub.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying that, but like, he just has to be more methodical. He has to be smarter about, you know, how he attacks this Knick defense because I do think there are other places to attack.

Speaker 1 Well, and

Speaker 1 you always want to do the stuff that the defense is overreacting to.

Speaker 1 They attacked Brunson at the beginning of the game with Drew Holiday, and then the Knicks switched on that.

Speaker 1 I've always noticed when they put Tatum at the foul line in that Nowitzki spot, teams hate that when they have the right spacing around him, and he's really good at turning around and shooting over somebody.

Speaker 1 going to the basket, doing a little fall away or finding like a shooter if people are drifting off. That's like, that's become something that's been a really good piece of his game.

Speaker 1 And actually, Jalen Brown's pretty good at it too. They weren't really doing that at all in the second half.
And even I look at that last play where they do the full court all the way down score.

Speaker 1 Brunson comes back, Jukes drew and gets fouled. Then the Celtics run the exact same play again, and it's the worst play in the history of the franchise.
Fucking abomination.

Speaker 1 Like, I've never seen worse spacing. There's never been worse spacing on a play ever.
Five guys all next to each other.

Speaker 1 But I would have called timeout and done that lob to Tatum at the top of the key foul line area and just created that space. That's the stuff.

Speaker 1 I want to see them start playing chess again, House, because it was checkers in those first two games. I totally agree.
And that's the place where Porzingis is so crucial because if you put Tatum.

Speaker 1 Stop fucking mentioning him. Jesus Christ.
If Porzingas plays 15 minutes, it's a miracle. But he can crash.

Speaker 1 He's the guy that gets the ball, you know, as Tatum starts his move and the defense collapses in. Porzegas is standing right there to knock down that three, and he's so reliable at that.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll stop. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 No, I know.

Speaker 1 It's just, I feel like 15 minutes of him playing decently is what I'm looking at.

Speaker 2 And I think the Joe Maz piece has to matter here, too. Like, I get it.

Speaker 1 We do what we do.

Speaker 2 The math is the math. We're going to shoot 63s no matter what the situation is.

Speaker 2 Like, just context doesn't matter. If we get a three, we're going to shoot it.
I get that, but there needs to be some level of adjustment to the realities on the bottom.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 attack Carl Anthony Towns. He's right there.
Just go at him. He wants to foul.
Everybody wants to foul. He's

Speaker 1 going to style somebody. Let him foul.
Let Kat foul. And guess who else likes styling people? Mitchell Robinson.

Speaker 2 Yes. That was crazy.
That's another thing. And I mentioned this on group chat.
The whole, we got to get Mitchell Robinson off the floor. I know.
As if he's Hakeem Elijah on a Shaq. That is crazy.

Speaker 2 Like, that was just crazy to me. And Joe Maz in the press conference was like, yeah, the guy was plus 22.
He was killing us.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I wanted him off the floor. It's like, bro.
Nobody thought Mitchell Robinson was killing us. Not one person who watched that game was like, oh my God, we can't stop Mitchell Robinson.

Speaker 1 House, is this the biggest Knicks game since the that you could remember since

Speaker 1 you were in law 1999? you're out of law school at that point. Easily.

Speaker 2 That win,

Speaker 1 like the Vince Carter Toronto series, because they had that Knicks Pacers series in 2013, but that was

Speaker 1 kind of

Speaker 1 better.

Speaker 1 This team is better. And this team is,

Speaker 1 you know, it's the culmination of all of these moves that, you know, the front office, the reinvigorated front office that in turn reinvigorated the fan base and created, you know, this excitement that's been unmatched since when was Linsanity?

Speaker 1 I don't know. What's the last time?

Speaker 2 Definitely, that's the last time, like

Speaker 2 true, crazy Nick

Speaker 2 excitement. But in terms of like after a Knick playoff victory, like I'm telling you, the last time this felt like this was the LJ four-point play.

Speaker 2 That was the last

Speaker 2 time,

Speaker 2 like coming off of a Knicks victory, was like, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. And for that sent them into the finals,

Speaker 2 whereas this is just like, you know, giving them a two-game advantage over the world champs. But it's, you know, it's hard to underestimate.

Speaker 2 Bill said it's going to be the craziest ticket at MSG in years, and that's true. Like, it's, they're going to be ready to blow the roof off.
Like, not even a 3:30 local time is going to stop it.

Speaker 2 Like, it doesn't matter. These people are going to be rabid.

Speaker 1 I think that Monday game is going to be even crazier. Yeah.
Monday nighter.

Speaker 1 So, my dad, who's not, hasn't even been on the podcast yet, he's really hoping for Scott Foster game three. We'll see.
The cool finger, yeah, we fingers crossed for the extender.

Speaker 1 The extender, the extender, that's right.

Speaker 2 He was an OKC last night.

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Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch. Real talk for a second.
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Speaker 1 House, does watching what happened with the Knicks give you confidence with

Speaker 1 your team? The about the rejuvenated wizards?

Speaker 1 Well, you got the lottery on Monday night?

Speaker 1 Yeah, look, I went on

Speaker 1 the Ringer NBA draft show with J. Kyle Mann, and I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of my mouth.
There was a lot of enthusiasm for the direction of this young Washington team. Wow.

Speaker 1 And if we just get a little bit of luck, luck, honestly, I said this to JKM: if Washington gets any of the first four picks, I think there are great players at each of those picks.

Speaker 1 And Washington's developmental mode that they're in right now, and the head coach, Brian Keefe, like, you know, any one of those four guys can flourish. Now, of course, I want Cooper.

Speaker 1 I mean, we did poop for Coop all season long. So, you know, it'd be nice to be rewarded for that.
But

Speaker 1 I'm very excited for this, this, the direction of the Washington franchise.

Speaker 1 It's just amazing that both the football team and the basketball team, for the first time in what feels like 30 years, I shouldn't say feels like

Speaker 1 for the first time in 30 years has a direction and a plan. It's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Well, hopefully you'll get one of the Rutgers guys because I think that team went 12 and 20 last year putting those guys in.

Speaker 1 Winning legacy of that one NIT game they won.

Speaker 1 I'm very excited for the the latter. Before we go, OKC Denver, really quick.
Do you see anything in those first two games, Was, that makes you think OKC is not winning this series?

Speaker 1 Not really.

Speaker 2 But I think what people should be looking for is the tightness of the whistle.

Speaker 2 If the refs allow OKC to be physical, meaning allow them to foul Denver,

Speaker 2 they're going to be able to guard them quite competently like we saw last night. If any of these crews are just like actually calling fouls, that's when they're going to run into some issues.

Speaker 2 And so that's what I'm really going to be watching for because they can't physically, none of their big men can physically match up with Jokic. Not Chet, not Jalen Williams,

Speaker 2 not even Hartenstein.

Speaker 2 But, you know, if they're allowed to sort of gumming up and hold and, you know, keep their hands on guys coming off the screens, like if they're allowed to play as physical as they typically do, then they got a great shot of defending Denver and they're well on their way to the conference finals.

Speaker 1 How's Jokic all-time for you?

Speaker 1 Best person, too.

Speaker 3 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's in the conference. He's in the top 10.
So

Speaker 1 Tim Duncan, you know, who?

Speaker 1 What he's doing in this playoffs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, you tell me. Would you have it above anything you ever saw from Kobe?

Speaker 1 He's in the top 10.

Speaker 2 He's probably Bill's trying to start trouble.

Speaker 1 You see that? Ignore it.

Speaker 1 No, because

Speaker 1 I said it on the pod. I left that Clipper game, and that was the best game I've seen anyone play in person since Michael Jordan.

Speaker 1 Maybe LeBron and the 2012, that crazy game he had in game six in Boston. But it was like at that level where it was like, holy shit, this is insane that somebody is this good at basketball.

Speaker 1 So it's, for me, it was in that area, which is, you know, House has known me a long time. I don't throw that around.

Speaker 2 For me, Jokic offensively, I know he has his defensive limitations and that matters, is as good

Speaker 2 as prime Steph, prime LeBron in terms of his impact on the court.

Speaker 2 Like, again, like, I love Jamal Murray. The guy is very inconsistent.

Speaker 2 It's Steph and LeBron level elevating every single thing that's next to them, you know, in those two guys' primes. And so, yeah, Jokic, man, I got too much love and respect for what he does out there.

Speaker 1 I was on Terminator and Eddie's show yesterday, and this was when they hadn't lost to OKC yet, so they're up 1-0.

Speaker 1 I said,

Speaker 1 if he somehow put this together and won four straight rounds and went through that Clippers team in round one, the 68-win OKC team in round two,

Speaker 1 gets his revenge against Minnesota, who's been his bully for two years, and then takes out Pick and East team.

Speaker 1 And that's the gauntlet. That's like the best runs we've had the last 30 years are probably the Dirk 2011 run when it was like Durant and

Speaker 1 Kobe and then LeBron and Wade in the finals. And there was somebody else good too.

Speaker 1 And then that Hakeem run, the famous Hakeem run, when he beat every great center in the league, including Robinson, who won the MVP.

Speaker 1 I don't think it's going to happen because I think OKC is so good. But if it did happen, I think it would immediately go in that short list, right, House?

Speaker 1 That would be the territory. And

Speaker 1 it puts him like, you know, it cements him inside the top eight of all-time players. Yeah, it moves him.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It elevates him another level. I thought just even getting through that Clipper series was shocking to me.
Waz, any farewell words for James Harden that you didn't use on the group chat pod?

Speaker 1 Look, man,

Speaker 2 James Harden, the only thing I'll say, James Harden's 35 now.

Speaker 2 He, like, the times that he played well in that series were way beyond anything that I could have reasonably expected. I thought it was going to be a face plant for the entire time.

Speaker 2 He had moments where he legit looked really freaking good.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But my God, dude, like, that's really going on your resume.

Speaker 2 The amount of times in the closing games of playoff series when your team absolutely needed you for you to just come up, you know, look, just becoming a pumpkin, it's tough.

Speaker 2 It's tough for James Harden.

Speaker 1 House, you didn't get to give your James Harden thoughts on my podcast. I know you have them.
I actually don't really blame James Harden as much. Like he is who he is.

Speaker 1 We keep seeing this version of him. at this stage of his career.
I don't think it's really fair to like, you know,

Speaker 1 it's a combination of, you know, the alchemy that the Clippers tried to pull off with Kawhi Leonard at this stage of his career, like not really physically capable of a seven-game series, not capable of, he showed us his tremendous highs, his capacity for tremendous highs.

Speaker 1 And the same is true of Harden. And then we got to game seven, and neither one of them had the, I don't know, the athletic verve.
I don't know what to describe it.

Speaker 1 The gasoline, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 But, you know,

Speaker 1 how about your guy Westbrook?

Speaker 1 Love that band. Never gave up.
Never did. Look, go back and find that clip from October.
He had it. He said it every year.

Speaker 1 You love Westbrook. Well, I said, you know, it could be

Speaker 1 the Joker's greatest accomplishment, the greatest feat of his career, which is resuscitating the career of Russell Westbrook.

Speaker 1 Lo and behold, Russell Westbrook is extremely important to this Denver team and their future success. It's been a joy to watch these playoffs.

Speaker 1 I'm a full Westbrook stan.

Speaker 1 Well, I hope we're talking about Jason Tatum favorably in eight to nine years.

Speaker 1 We'll see what happens this week.

Speaker 1 Can I make a plea on behalf of

Speaker 1 NBA America?

Speaker 1 Can we please now? Look, I like Wingstop. I'm a fan.

Speaker 1 I'm here for it.

Speaker 1 Can we please no more

Speaker 1 Jalen Green, Jalen Green, Wingstock commercials?

Speaker 2 They've got another spot. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They have, go find a different guy. Yeah.
Nobody knows who he is, and he's out of the, you don't want to tell your customers.

Speaker 1 The subliminal message that Wingstop is sending people is that you're going to have a good meal here once out of every six occasions.

Speaker 1 When you put Jalen Green at the face of your brand, you're saying one out of every six times. One out of every six of these tenders is going to be perfect for you.

Speaker 1 You're not going to be on the bench waiting to get your wings and they're never going to come

Speaker 1 than every six times they will. So, do you think they should cut as the moment the guy gets bounced from the commercial from the playoffs? We never see him in another commercial.

Speaker 1 Absolutely, you hear that, Was?

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I get it.
And you know what? Restart your campaign when the playoffs are over. I don't know.
Like, I just can't.

Speaker 2 They just show the same commercial. And I'm over the OKC commercial, too.
I know Jacoby did a big rant of that.

Speaker 1 Jacoby did that.

Speaker 1 That's pretty good. It's very cringe.

Speaker 1 The thing with House is the food commercials really hit home for House because he gets hungry every time.

Speaker 1 Well, every time it's a wing stop, House immediately gets excited for wings, but then there's Jalen Green and now he's not excited.

Speaker 1 Every time it starts, I feel like it's possible there's a 2% chance it has a different outcome. Nope, it's Jalen Green sitting in that car on his way to Cancun.
or Galveston,

Speaker 1 where Houston really belongs after that future performance. He's going to be on his way to Milwaukee.
He really,

Speaker 1 that's where that car is headed. Or Phoenix.

Speaker 3 Good luck.

Speaker 1 House, do you feel vindicated that all the Suns fans revile Bradley Beal?

Speaker 1 No. And Bradley Beal didn't do anything wrong.
All that man did was sign that giant contract that dopey Tommy Shepard put in front of him, that dopey Ted Leonza signed off on.

Speaker 1 And he's just trying to live his best Bradley Beal life. He doesn't really want to play basketball.

Speaker 1 He likes playing basketball, but he does. He's like, he likes the money.
He likes the life.

Speaker 1 It's two more years of the contract when we're doing worst contracts in March.

Speaker 1 I'm already excited for whatever Brooklyn has in store for us this summer. There might be a very fun Ty Jerome overpay that

Speaker 1 might be able to make the list.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 1 Embiid, I would guess, would be the number one guy in the list when we do this. I mean, it's still 10 months away, but worst contracts, one of the most fun days of the year.

Speaker 1 Uh, all right, we're gonna take a break and come back with my dad talking sell snakes. Waz, great to see you as always.
House, thanks for uh logging in on your 2016 laptop. It was great to see you.

Speaker 1 We gotta get you, we gotta get you a new laptop. I got a new one, I'm working on it.
You know what the real issue is? I do have a new computer,

Speaker 1 it takes the amount of time it takes to get the new passwords, put your passwords into every single

Speaker 1 passwords or the work passwords.

Speaker 1 No, no, so for every like app, every single site that you go to requires double authentication, it's a double-edged dildo trying to sit there and you know, figure out how to get it.

Speaker 1 So, I'm doing it like

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 in 10% chunks because it's going to take me three weeks to get this new machine up. Double authentication.
Come on, man. That's a that's a damn Jalen Green wing stop commercial.

Speaker 1 Double-edged dildo in 10% chunks. Good, good one to end it on as we head to our talking about Celtex Nicks for 40 more minutes.

Speaker 1 Watson House, thanks again. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

Speaker 1 Without internet, you wouldn't be able to hear my beautiful voice right now, and businesses wouldn't be able to stay connected the way they need.

Speaker 1 So, what if I told you you can get free business internet forever with Spectrum Business? Just add four mobile lines, get business internet, advanced Wi-Fi, and security shield

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Speaker 1 Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas.
This episode is brought to you by Rain X.

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Speaker 1 All right, taping this part of the podcast, it is 4 o'clock East Coast time. My dad is here.

Speaker 1 We did not talk after yesterday's game. It's very rare

Speaker 1 when we don't even talk or text after a game. And I finally texted you about it 90 minutes after, and we just swore at each other a couple times about how bad the Celtics were.

Speaker 1 You went to both games, you were there, you were in your seat, you've been going for 52 years.

Speaker 1 We were, I think, minus eight or 900 favorites to win the series, and they took huge leads in both games and blew the games. And yet, game two felt way worse than way one.
What game one?

Speaker 1 What was it like sitting there and watching the season unravel?

Speaker 3 I agree, game two was much worse than game one. You know,

Speaker 3 ironically,

Speaker 3 like you said, we had 20-point leads in the third quarter of both games. And in game one, I think the crowd was so confident.
And you just could feel the confidence in the crowd.

Speaker 3 We're not going to lose the 20-point lead. And of course, we lost that lead.
Game two, it was a very nervous crowd.

Speaker 3 And you've been at games like that where you walk in the garden, people are late getting to their seats, nobody's talking very much.

Speaker 3 You're looking up to see if Kozingis is playing. He's not in the starting lineup.
Somebody says, no, he's not playing.

Speaker 3 He finally comes out. He looks like he's death

Speaker 3 run over. He just looked terrible.
He had no color in his skin.

Speaker 1 Super skinny?

Speaker 3 Well, he's always skinny, but his coloring was off. And

Speaker 3 he just looked like he's dealing with an illness and he had no strength he just had no strength okay putting that aside somehow we're up by 20 in the third quarter right now the knicks i thought played a terrible first half uh

Speaker 3 or they had really bad luck they had a lot of shots that rimmed out in and out and uh

Speaker 3 meanwhile halftime comes i look up at the scoreboard jason tatum First team all NBA, has two points. What the hell? He has two points.
I didn't even notice him in the game.

Speaker 3 It's like he was the one who was out, not poor Zingas.

Speaker 3 All right, we come back. We get the big lead.

Speaker 3 I think it was third quarter. We made a run.
Nix is still not shooting well. I think the coach took Brunson out because

Speaker 3 he didn't have it for a while.

Speaker 3 But go to the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3 Suddenly, we're up by 16.

Speaker 3 And I look up at the clock. There's eight minutes to go.

Speaker 3 And I remember this vividly. Tatum steals the ball.
He comes running down the court with Brown, two and one.

Speaker 3 We're going to go up by 18, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Throws it to Brown. Brown, of course, fumbles the ball and it goes out of bounds.

Speaker 3 And that was the game to me. I'm watching Jason Tatum with two points to the halftime

Speaker 3 shooting three after three once again in the fourth quarter. And I'm watching Jalen Brown turnover after turnover.

Speaker 3 We've missed 13 straight shots in that fourth quarter. And our defense sunk.

Speaker 3 It's like the air went out of the balloon. We kept missing shots.
The Knicks would come down and they took very good shots.

Speaker 3 You know, we were taking terrible shots.

Speaker 3 And you've been to this kind of game where Brown and Tatum,

Speaker 3 eight minutes to go, they start dribbling the ball at the perimeter.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's the plan with your food offense.

Speaker 3 Yes, it's the isolation. Yes, you look up at the clock because I kept looking up at the clock.
Five or six seconds left. One of them makes a move, too late.
Another missed shot.

Speaker 3 13 straight missed shots. The Knicks come down, they're moving the ball really fast.
Their pace was excellent. The ball's going around.
They get the open guy.

Speaker 3 They make not a three because their three-point shooting was iffy, but they get good shots

Speaker 3 near the rim.

Speaker 3 It was just the second game was much more frustrating than the first game because it was such a must-need game. We couldn't afford to lose last night.

Speaker 1 I think the craziest part of it is the Knicks had, I think, their worst offensive game just by offensive rating of the entire season.

Speaker 1 They played pretty well, especially Brunson was really good down the stretch of game one and I thought they really took the game.

Speaker 1 The one last night was just all self-inflicted wounds, some very strange coaching, which I'm excited to talk about.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 I want to talk about the coaching.

Speaker 1 Did you demote is Joe second row Joe again?

Speaker 3 You know, I don't get it.

Speaker 3 He got greatly outcoached.

Speaker 3 And I'm not a Tibbs fan either. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, I think he runs his, although he used his bench pretty well in games one and two.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I don't know. Are we going to coaching?

Speaker 1 No, let's

Speaker 1 go backwards because,

Speaker 1 I mean, there's a couple of things, a couple big pictures thing here. First of all, I can't remember a Celtics playoff thing like this.

Speaker 1 I was trying to think of a series where I just think they have clearly a better team.

Speaker 1 And history would show because no team has ever blown 20-point leads, I don't think, in the same playoffs, much less back-to-back in the same playoff games.

Speaker 1 It felt like they were getting all the shots they wanted, and they just missed open shots.

Speaker 1 There was that screenshot somebody had that was going around social media of Tatum in the corner with like 340 left. Brown's under the basket and Brunson's fell down.
He's on the ground.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 1 And Tatum just has a wide open 25 footer. He caught, could also just pass it to Brown and it was a brick, but it was turning in.
I don't know what it felt like being in the in the building.

Speaker 1 It felt like every time we took a three, I didn't think it was going in.

Speaker 3 I did not think it was going in, but also

Speaker 3 you gave a great example of that total fourth quarter. We never made the extra pass.
Right.

Speaker 1 Which is when this team gets into trouble.

Speaker 3 Each guy wanted to make the hero shot and make the lead larger. You know, because we, I think we had 12-point leads starting in that

Speaker 1 73-53 at one point. Then it was 16 points in the fourth quarter and the Knicks weren't playing well.
Right. You know, and just there's some strategy stuff I want to talk about later.

Speaker 1 But fundamentally.

Speaker 1 These two Tatum games were just atrocious.

Speaker 1 And it's weird because, you know, then all the stuff starts up again today about he's not actually a superstar and the national media can come in that isn't watching the isn't watching the whole season.

Speaker 1 They're not there week after week watching what we saw. I really bought in.
I thought he went up a level. We talked about it a bunch.
Like there was a level of dissection

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 kind of artistry to what he was doing the last four months of the season in the Orlando game where I really felt like he was solving equations on the fly. He was making the right plays.

Speaker 1 He could be point forward. He could score.
He had just figured out the balance. And I really believed he had figured it out.

Speaker 1 And then the guy that we watched, especially in game two, was the guy from the 2020 playoffs and the 2022 later in the playoffs. Like it was like he reverted.

Speaker 1 And you said you thought it was the worst game you'd seen him play in person in a couple years, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 a little bit worse probably than game one. Both games were.
Both games were horrendous, Tatum games.

Speaker 3 You know, you remember the,

Speaker 3 it was the last basket we made. We went by one point and Tatum went straight down the middle, went to the basket.
Okay.

Speaker 3 That middle, that middle was open all game long.

Speaker 1 And in game one.

Speaker 3 He just wouldn't do it. You know,

Speaker 3 he's stubborn. I understand that.

Speaker 3 The coach is more stubborn, which is a real problem. But,

Speaker 3 you know, even that three-point shot, which he was wide open in the corner, I saw Brown underneath, wide open. Yeah.
Take Take the two. We needed points.
We didn't need a three. We needed points.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but what's been weird about it is the whole year he was getting so good.

Speaker 1 And I felt like it was getting better in real time over the course of the season of him being like, oh, if I can switch and get this guy on me, I'm going to go right by him and get to the basket.

Speaker 1 I'm going to get to the paint. Or I'm going to find.
He started to develop that little shot around the foul line.

Speaker 1 right that little 14 footer and he he was just really putting it together and then this turned into the old all the old Tatum habits came back. And I don't know whether you think it was pressure?

Speaker 1 Like, what was going on? Did the guys look nervous? What was happening?

Speaker 3 I wish I knew the answer.

Speaker 3 That first half,

Speaker 3 again,

Speaker 1 I never noticed Tatum, which was getting rebounds at least.

Speaker 1 He was playing defense.

Speaker 3 He was getting rebounds.

Speaker 3 I should give him that credit.

Speaker 1 You're talking about offensively, you never noticed him in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 No, I mean, he was getting defensive rebounds. Okay.

Speaker 3 Offensively, he wasn't in the picture yeah um and they go to this stretch in the second quarter which blows my mind they take tatum out and they put jalen brown in charge yeah you call it the jalen brown in charge minutes uh

Speaker 3 every

Speaker 3 dribbling out at the three-point line five seconds left he makes his move yeah and the shot clock or more often than not it it dribbles off his knee and goes out of bounds but uh he had a terrible game uh he i don't know how many turnovers he had in the thing.

Speaker 1 It was weird. It started to seem like he was going to have a good game because he was kind of punishing.
He was trying to take heart down low early.

Speaker 1 And then by the end of the game, I think

Speaker 1 his stats ended up being awful.

Speaker 3 They were. You know,

Speaker 3 that's my main, one of my main complaints. Five.

Speaker 1 Yeah, eight for 23.

Speaker 3 They play a completely different game in the first three quarters

Speaker 3 than in the fourth quarter. And this is very consistent.
First three quarters, the ball is moving somewhat. Brown is going into the,

Speaker 3 at least trying to go to the hoop.

Speaker 3 They're passing the ball a little bit. We had more assists than the Knicks in the first three quarters.
The fourth quarter, it's isolation.

Speaker 3 It's just like what we saw two years ago against Miami or three years ago against Golden State. It's like they forget.

Speaker 3 And I keep coming back to the coach. You know, you have a coach.

Speaker 1 Wait, hold off on the coach. Okay.

Speaker 3 It's hard. It's hard.

Speaker 1 Last year when the opponents were a little easier based on injury luck where the league was, there were still some nut crunch games when you never felt totally comfortable offensively.

Speaker 1 And it was still a lot of this, your turn, my turn.

Speaker 1 Things would get a little stagnant. The difference was Jalen, I thought.

Speaker 1 There were a couple games when he just athletically really seemed like he could get to the spots he wanted. He was really in complete command.

Speaker 1 And they had the Porzingis piece too, where they're, you know, they didn't have him in the entire Dallas series, but

Speaker 1 it was this extra 18 to 20 bonus points you were getting. But when I think back to last year, there was that Indiana game that you went to that Brown hit the three in the corner to send it to OT.

Speaker 1 That felt a little like these Knicks games where it was like, ah, we're getting stagnant again. And then we lucked out, got in overtime.

Speaker 1 And then the other one was the one I went to in Dallas, game three, when Luca fouled out with five minutes left. And all of a sudden it was sitting there for,

Speaker 1 Kyrie is going to really kill us and bring this series back.

Speaker 1 This is like, this is where the last seven years have been leading to Kyrie bringing Dallas back and 2-1, and we're going to fall into all the bad habits.

Speaker 1 But then they actually held this Dallas off and won that game. And Brown had a couple of big plays.
And it was like, ah, finally got over the hump.

Speaker 1 And now it feels like we're back on the other side of the hump again with this team. And that's the part I don't understand.
We should be getting better, not worse.

Speaker 3 Walking out of the stadium last night

Speaker 3 was worse than Monday night

Speaker 3 because at least Monday night, we knew we had a game Wednesday night. Yeah.
And we could tie the series. But there were so many people walking down the stairs.
Well, two things.

Speaker 3 So many people walking down the stairs saying, Tatum didn't show up.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he got rebounds, but he never was in the offense. He never took charge.

Speaker 3 Or when he had the ball, all he wanted to do was dribble on the perimeter, you know, isolation, dribble on the the perimeter um

Speaker 1 yeah he had five five assists five field goals so he created he created 20 points and this is a guy who when he's really humming he's at like 28 points right eight assists 14 rebounds and he's just kind of involved all over the game and he was when you were watching the game on tv was it obvious to you that he only had not the number but that it's possibly only at two points at halftime i actually liked how he was rebounding and kind of fighting.

Speaker 1 And it felt like they were trying to establish Jalen. Then poor Zingas came in.
It's like, we got to try to get him going a little bit. Pritchard took a bunch of shots.

Speaker 1 And I thought maybe he was biding his time.

Speaker 1 And that was the wrong instinct.

Speaker 3 Does first team all NBA guy bide his time in a must-win game?

Speaker 1 It's a tough one for... I think a lot of the Celtic fans were really defensive about him this year because we were watching game to game how good he was.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he had a great season.

Speaker 1 And then the casual fans come in, or the people that aren't watching all the time, and they see this version of it, and they're like, that's why he got benched in the Olympics.

Speaker 1 This is why he's not a superstar. This is why he's not at the same level.
But then you watch like Jokic in game one against OKC put up the 42, 22, and 6.

Speaker 1 You know, you watch Shay respond in a game two. He's got 34 points and three quarters.
And it's like, that's... That's the level.
That's the swimming pool you're supposed to be in, buddy.

Speaker 1 It's a good point.

Speaker 3 When I came home, I watched the first half of the okayc game because i couldn't go to sleep and i'm thinking oh you know shay showed up because he knew this was a must game and he's an all nba kind of guy

Speaker 3 yeah our guy didn't at least offensively um

Speaker 1 well it's tough for when they keep showing the two you didn't see because you were at the game but they're two commercials they just keep showing a tatum

Speaker 1 And then, meanwhile,

Speaker 1 he's sticking in the game. I mean, there's some other issues.

Speaker 1 Robinson, the plus-minus numbers with him have been really good when he's out there. I still don't understand why Tatum's not just getting him in a switch and then torturing him every time.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 1 he's been effective. And then McBride has been, I mean, he only had five points yesterday, but at least when they know they can put him out there and he's not going to be bad.
So they have seven guys.

Speaker 1 And as we know, you need seven guys in a playoff series to be able to win. And they have seven at least.

Speaker 3 Yeah, McBride had a good game one.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's okay.

Speaker 3 He wasn't very noticeable last night.

Speaker 1 But he's at least a body that they know they can throw out. And they're playing all these other guys, you know, pretty big minutes.

Speaker 1 And then Hart is the kind of guy that has always hurt the Celtics, this version of the Celtics.

Speaker 3 Hart really hurt us.

Speaker 3 Hart consistently seemed to be on the weak side, getting the rebound.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's around the ball. This isn't, especially without Porzingis.

Speaker 1 It's kind of a group rebounding Celtics team. And Tatum's the best rebounder in the team by far at this point.

Speaker 1 But the Porzingis thing is a huge piece because

Speaker 1 it has that staggered effect of it's not just bad that they're not getting the points and the extra minutes from him, but then it's pushing more minutes on Horford, who you tell me what he looked like in person.

Speaker 1 It looked like he was luggage last night.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he didn't have a very good game for sure. You know, he had a good series against Orlando,

Speaker 3 but games won and games, game one and game two last night. He looked tired and he looked his age.

Speaker 1 Well, and they're putting a big burden on him twice in three days. They did.

Speaker 3 And, you know,

Speaker 3 I think guarding towns,

Speaker 3 he gives up so much hype to towns. Towns really just shoots over him.
And I think it influences his offense. His three-point shot was off, obviously.

Speaker 1 Oh, for five. And I think all of them were wide open.
Tatum was one for five.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 I would have liked to have seen Pritchard more.

Speaker 1 So that's the coaching stuff. That was one of the things because I noticed this in game one.

Speaker 1 You could talk me into the three guards with Tatum and Brown versus relying on Horford as much and making Tatum almost like the undersized center and trying to attack the Knicks that way, because then it becomes when they're trying to get a switch on Brunson, they're just trying to get Horford on Brunson every time.

Speaker 1 Pritchard out there, they're probably going to settle on Pritchard guarding Brunson, but I just like that matchup more. And then he gives them spacing on the other side.

Speaker 1 That's just better than Horford. And I don't feel like they're losing.
How many rebounds did Horford have yesterday? Four.

Speaker 1 You're not like losing, you're losing a little rim protection. That's it.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, you know, especially in the fourth quarter last night, we missed 13 straight shots.
You know, some of them were Horford shots. There was no Pritchard.

Speaker 3 Now, Pritchard had a couple of shots in the first half. They rimmed out.
They rimmed out.

Speaker 3 But I would have liked to have seen him in there.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 1 and no Hauser either, who sometimes will have the two threes in the second quarter.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Hauser's a two-two.

Speaker 3 We knew he wasn't going to play. But

Speaker 3 this fourth quarter, over and over, when Tatum Brown

Speaker 3 have the psyche to take over and play hero basketball,

Speaker 3 they ignore Pritchard. I mean, Pritchard can be wide open and they're going to do their own thing trying to get their shot off.

Speaker 3 In the first half,

Speaker 3 they'll pass it around, and Pritchard will get more wide open shots.

Speaker 1 Before we blame Rizula, do you take any blame for bringing your brother Don to this game? Because I can't say he's great luck over the years. I thought it was a bold move.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the other choices were, but Don gets super tense during these games.

Speaker 1 And I can't even imagine what he was like yesterday during this.

Speaker 3 At the eight-minute mark, or it was probably

Speaker 3 almost nine minutes. I said to Don, Don, we're up 16.
It looks pretty good, but this is around the point Monday night. Yeah,

Speaker 3 and he said, No, we're in good shape.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, he's confident.

Speaker 1 Well, I was watching with your favorite granddaughter, and when we're up 73 to 53, and she's like, Well, they bounce back. And I'm like, Just wait.
I don't trust anything that's happening right now.

Speaker 1 Let's just wait. I don't feel good until

Speaker 3 even the crowd didn't trust the lead, by the way.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 we've been in so many games where, you know, game one, the crowd was so loud and confident. Last night, we had the 20-point lead, then it was a 16-point lead with almost nine minutes to go.

Speaker 3 Nobody was confident.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and they're acting like they're four.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was trying to think before we talk about Missoula.

Speaker 1 I can't remember another Celtics playoff team since you had the tickets.

Speaker 1 That I felt like was clearly better than the team they're losing to. Yeah.
And I don't mean that as like sour grapes. Look, the Knicks, like we've seen this, this happens in football all the time.

Speaker 1 Like part of playing the games is this is why you play the games and somebody's got to win and you can overachieve or you can just band together.

Speaker 1 Like, and the Knicks made all the plays down the stretch and they deserve the two games. But this is also the worst the Celtics can play.

Speaker 1 And I don't remember the only, you know, I remember in 1973, Havicuk hurt his shoulder and the series got blamed on that.

Speaker 1 1982, Tiny hurt his shoulder and they lost to Philly and series got blamed on that.

Speaker 1 I don't, even if you go back to like 2018, when they lost the game seven to LeBron that we went to, and that nobody could make a shot, right?

Speaker 1 And then you leave the thing and you're like, man, we couldn't make a shot, but they still had LeBron. They still had the best guy in the game.

Speaker 1 It was still amazing that the Celtics were in a game seven in the Eastern Conference finals. That Miami game we went to in 23, the game seven when they came back after the white miracle shot.

Speaker 1 And then Tatum hurt his ankle like a minute in and the game flipped. Miami still kicked their ass and Butler was still really good and

Speaker 1 Tatum was hurt. Like there were reasons for it.
I can't come up with reasons for this.

Speaker 1 I can't come up for this team that was built as this offensive machine that wins 75 to 80% of its games just shitting the bed like this two games in a row. I've never seen anything like it.

Speaker 3 I know some people are saying the Porzingus

Speaker 3 illness is really hurting us. And I agree with that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It hurt us in the fourth quarter because we had no, we couldn't go to him. They had to take him out.
He just, you could see he was struggling. But it left us with Horford and Cornette.

Speaker 1 Cornette Cornette was out there with like four minutes left. He never plays that late.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 And, you know,

Speaker 3 yeah.

Speaker 3 What?

Speaker 3 Our defense in the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter was terrible.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it wasn't great.

Speaker 3 You know, we couldn't stop anybody.

Speaker 1 You know, couldn't stop Mikhail Bridges, who I don't think took three shots in the first three and a half quarters of the game. And then all of a sudden they're running plays for him.

Speaker 3 I think he missed his first seven or eight shots.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then all of a sudden, he's their go-to guy.

Speaker 1 And we had six for 18 to finish the game. And I think he made three in a row down the stretch.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, Brunson is scary. I have to say, he's really scary.

Speaker 3 When he has the ball, I'm assuming he's going to score.

Speaker 1 He abused Holiday on that last play, the go-ahead basket, because he knew it was going to him. And usually, I'm going to trust Drew more than anybody in the league on that play.
And he used him.

Speaker 3 Obviously, I didn't see a replay. Did he?

Speaker 3 Was it a foul? I couldn't see it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a foul.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 He kind of overcommitted to the move and then he grabbed him as he went behind.

Speaker 3 But well, that leads me into something else.

Speaker 3 Okay, it was a foul. But

Speaker 3 a little bit earlier, twice in a row, Coach Joe fouls

Speaker 1 their son. Can't explain that one.
one.

Speaker 1 Can't explain it.

Speaker 3 I mean, I know he's a terrible free flow shooter, but

Speaker 1 they weren't in the bonus yet. They weren't in the bonus.

Speaker 3 We had two fouls.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and then you get to the final two minutes and you get one foul and then the second foul and you're good to go.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But this wasn't the final two minutes.

Speaker 3 I know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, trust me, it made zero sense. I didn't understand it.
I didn't understand what was happening. And we're just putting fouls on random Celtics for no reason.
Especially like if you think ot

Speaker 1 i'm looking at the

Speaker 1 well i guess we had some fouls to give nobody was in major foul trouble but you know though we had two fouls we looked pretty good um

Speaker 3 it wasn't in the two-minute uh period of time

Speaker 3 three minutes left yeah yeah okay so it made a difference uh

Speaker 1 i didn't get it um and then he so they run the play to tatum to go up one good play next score and then he does a call timeout and runs the exact same play.

Speaker 1 Yeah, which the Knicks are like, oh, you're going to run this play again. We're going to do this this time.
And the spacing on that last play, somebody screenshotted it to me.

Speaker 1 It's one of the worst plays in the history of the Celtics franchise.

Speaker 3 You sent it to me.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I sent it to you.
Tatum goes left. He takes three guys with him.
There's four other teammates on the court. Three are on the baseline and one is standing near him in the paint.

Speaker 1 So there's two Knicks that just have to guard four guys and then three guys can jump on him. They have nobody nobody come to the top of the key.

Speaker 1 White is just hanging on the baseline, but he's not cutting. And Tatum could have found him underneath the basket.
And everybody's just kind of standing there. I don't even know what they're watching.

Speaker 1 And maybe that's why you don't take the timeout. And like, I'm sometimes don't call it timeout.
Just go. You got the momentum of the thing.
But coming off a free throw,

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'd much rather call a timeout. Save the three seconds, bringing the ball up.
Like they ended up taking the time out in the locker room.

Speaker 3 You have to take the time out. You get the ball at half court.
You've saved, as you said, at least three seconds. But, you know, you just, you mentioned how White wasn't cutting.
Why would he cut?

Speaker 3 You knew Tatum wasn't going to give the ball up. Right.

Speaker 3 He won't give the ball up at that moment. You know, it's like his Achilles heel over and over and over at the end of the fourth quarter.
He won't give the ball up.

Speaker 3 And their guy's open, obviously.

Speaker 3 I saw the same thing you saw.

Speaker 3 And I would add Pritchett out there.

Speaker 1 I would have too. I would have, especially, I would have called timeout.
I would have done a final play with the three guards, Tatum and Brown, had better spacing and really tried.

Speaker 1 This is your whole season is on the line. You're down one.

Speaker 3 Your whole season's on the line. In all of the great practices they have at the Albeck Arena,

Speaker 3 don't they have that one play where they

Speaker 3 call a timeout? We need two points. We have a play they haven't seen before.

Speaker 3 And let's use it right now.

Speaker 1 Well, they have there's, you know, one of the plays they've run from time to time that I always really like is when they pintate him on the foul line and they almost like lob the ball into him.

Speaker 1 And then basically he has this foul line post-up that he can either spin, try to go to the basket, get fouled. And he's a good free throw shooter.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'd much rather have, and then you have the right spacing around him. It's really tough for a second guy to jump over.
And then if a second guy comes over, now he can kick it out to somebody.

Speaker 3 But, you know, after watching Missoula for three years, did you expect him to call a timeout?

Speaker 1 No, I think the best quality that he has is also the worst quality. Like he, he, he likes the test.

Speaker 1 He likes seeing

Speaker 3 wasn't the game for the test.

Speaker 1 No, but I'm saying, but you know what I mean? Like he likes when his team is challenged. Like I'm sure he was watching the game yesterday.
Like, this is great.

Speaker 1 This is going to make us better down the road that. somebody's throwing haymakers at us like this.
I know, but now they're down 0-2 in the series. And now you're playing.
Also,

Speaker 1 it's a Saturday afternoon game. It's at 3:30 E.T.
That's it's just a weird time.

Speaker 3 That's fine in February, Joe, you know, when you want to have the test. But

Speaker 3 call the timeout, set up that special play that you haven't used, and

Speaker 3 pin tatum at the

Speaker 3 foul line area.

Speaker 1 Well, also, protect the lead. This is something I talked on Sunday as Potter with Brasillo about game seven, Golden State Houston.

Speaker 1 Every time Houston started to crawl back, Kirk called a timeout and he just controlled. He was just like, you guys can crawl back, but I'm not giving you the momentum of like an 8-0 run, a 9-0 run.

Speaker 1 It's never happening. Every time I feel like anything's happening, I'm cutting it off.
And the Celtics, it's way more,

Speaker 1 I hate to use this word because in the wrong context, it's

Speaker 1 you know, it's a little insulting, but there's been an arrogance to the Celtics team that comes out at the worst possible times where it's like this is who we are we shoot threes we don't need a timeout we just we can just get Tatum going to the basket we're just going to play Horford because this is what we do down the stretch and I really think Pritchard should have been out there for at least one of those games over I agree with you there is an arrogance if you listen to Missoula's press conferences after the game after a loss he'll he'll point out the positives.

Speaker 3 He uses the word margins all the time, the margins here. We won three of the four quarters.
You know, Belichick used to do the same thing. Right.
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 Got to keep going. Got to go to beyond a game three.

Speaker 3 You know, in the two games, I know you know this, it's unfallen to me. We shot 100 three-point shots in two games.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 3 60 in game one and 40 in game two. We made 25 of them.

Speaker 3 That's not a recipe for success. And

Speaker 1 I thought the biggest sin of either game was the last two minutes of game one when

Speaker 1 especially Tatum was just jacking up threes over trying to get to the basket. Just trying to get in the paint, including that one he took with like a minute left.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was just awful as he was taking it. And he had Mitchell Robinson on him.
And he can just go by that dude every time. And we've watched him.
What was the regular season for?

Speaker 1 This is what he learned during the regular season is just go buy those big guys. You're going to be able to get by them, finish at the rim.
He's also blowing layups, too.

Speaker 3 We blow up.

Speaker 1 He missed a bunch of layups yesterday and a bunch of layups in game one.

Speaker 3 Derek White missed.

Speaker 1 So that's the question because, like, Fandu has the Celtics still favored in the series, right?

Speaker 1 And the question is:

Speaker 1 are they really going to shoot that badly

Speaker 1 a couple more times? I feel like the Knicks are going to have at least one game out of these next five where they're awesome.

Speaker 1 You know, and Towns goes seven for 10 from three, or Brunson has 45 points. They're gonna, the Knicks have a good game in them that they're gonna win.

Speaker 1 So, at the very least, you're looking at a seven-gamer. They have to win one of the next three,

Speaker 1 the Celtics, or they go home, and then you got to win three in a row, basically.

Speaker 3 The one thing I people are hoping for, I guess,

Speaker 3 we've been a very good road team this year.

Speaker 1 We've been

Speaker 3 better at road than the home team. Oh, much better road team than home team, um, which makes no sense because last year

Speaker 3 in the championship year, we're a great home team. Yeah.

Speaker 3 We fiddled and did,

Speaker 3 you know, to use that term,

Speaker 3 we played around too much this year at home.

Speaker 3 And the lineups have been kind of weird at times.

Speaker 3 I just thought we'd pull it together the first two. I really was confident.
that this was such a must-win game. There was no way we would let the Knicks go up to nothing.

Speaker 1 Well, so there's a couple other things in stake, big picture, that we just have to acknowledge.

Speaker 1 The Knicks, New York,

Speaker 1 the Celtics have won all these titles. The Knicks haven't won one in 52 years.

Speaker 1 The Knicks have the last kind of great playoff moment they had against the Celtics was that 1990 game that you and I went to when Bird missed the dunk and Ewing hit the three in the corner. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They had some good ones in the early 70s. They won a couple series.
The 84, Bernard versus Larry. The Celtics win that one in game seven.

Speaker 1 But then there's this whole, a lot of Knicks fans are also Yankee fans. And there's really since the

Speaker 1 04, the comeback. And now it feels like the Knicks knocked the Celtics out of nowhere, whether they're doing four or five.

Speaker 1 And now all of a sudden, the Knicks fans and the New York fans, and we know a lot of them, all of a sudden get their swagger back.

Speaker 1 I'm dreading that more than anything, even though I love the Nick fans.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say a quick story from last night's game.

Speaker 3 One really annoying,

Speaker 3 you know, I know the Celtics draw really well on the road. Yeah.
It's probably annoying to those teams in Dallas or wherever. Yeah.

Speaker 3 It was really annoying last night to see how many Nick fans were there at the game.

Speaker 3 It's obvious that after game one, a lot of season ticket holders sold their seats for game two. Because you had the

Speaker 3 blue and the orange, the terrible, those colors that you notice all over the arena. And then, walking out in the stairs, there were Nick fans chanting.

Speaker 3 And there was a pretty huge Celtic fan who went up to one of them and said, You say one more word, and you're going down the stairs. And that was the end of it.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 3 So the Nick guy kind of ran quickly down the stairs

Speaker 1 to get out of there.

Speaker 3 I mean, the Celtic fans were really upset. Yeah.
And there were too many Nick fans chanting.

Speaker 3 It was terrible.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 sounds like a fun walk home.

Speaker 3 No, and then the fire alarm went off.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It was bizarre.

Speaker 3 The whole ending of the game was bizarre.

Speaker 1 When you left, did you think you were going to see the Celtics team again?

Speaker 3 Yeah. I thought I'd see them game five, possibly down three to one.

Speaker 3 Yep.

Speaker 3 I knew my son wouldn't be there.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 it would, I cannot believe we won't take one of two games in New York, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 The early start on Saturday, I don't know if that's good or bad.

Speaker 1 The crowd's going to be great, but the good thing for the Celtics is there's going to be a lot of money in that arena, and it might be a lot of

Speaker 1 maybe not, won't be quite as raucous of a crowd as normal.

Speaker 3 There's a specific referee we'd like for Saturday afternoon, not Mark Davis.

Speaker 1 Who's give me your top three referees you don't want to see?

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Your guy Foster's back. Yeah, we have injured for two months.

Speaker 3 Oh, is that why? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'd like to see him because he's good with your road team on the line.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's good when you're down in the series. Yeah, it's got

Speaker 3 to see him.

Speaker 1 So if they blow this series, do you feel like this then gets tied into last year and people start the whole thing of, well, the only reason you won last year was because everyone was hurt and you got lucky.

Speaker 1 And then the league got better this year and you didn't show up. I do feel like it opens, I don't personally believe them, but it opens these storylines.

Speaker 1 Tatum, see, this is why he got benched. And all this bad shit comes out of this.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it does. I mean, you can have some of, well, they won last year despite the coach.

Speaker 3 The coach lets them shoot 103-point shots in two games when they're not making the shots.

Speaker 3 Doesn't make adjustments at all during the game.

Speaker 1 They have no plan B. They don't

Speaker 1 get creative at all.

Speaker 3 Does he call a timeout and say, hey, guys, we're just not shooting well. Could we go to the basket? Is that too much to ask? Or you brought up a critical point before.

Speaker 3 When the other team is making a run, call a timeout. Stop the momentum.
We don't do that.

Speaker 3 And then not taking the timeout last night. I understand his philosophy.
You know, we're in the moment, maybe.

Speaker 3 Except it was a maid.

Speaker 1 Coming off of free throws, though. You call timeout at that point.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you do.

Speaker 1 It wasn't wasn't like the knicks missed a shot and we had the momentum going down you know what you definitely don't do is don't call a timeout and then run the exact same play even tibbs in the press conference after is like yeah we figured they were probably going to try to run that play again it's like yeah i bet you did do you blame the new owner bill chisholm no but you know how did they call they didn't call a timeout so how come we ran the exact same play who who told tatum to do that again i don't know well and if you're going to run the same play you have to have somebody's got to pop up to the top in case he gets trapped or doubled.

Speaker 3 He didn't run the same.

Speaker 3 Maybe he thought he was going to run the same play, but the middle got clogged and he ended up in the left, almost out of bounds area. I couldn't even see him.
He was so far out on the left.

Speaker 1 Do you have the proper animosity for the Knicks after watching them two games, or is it like a likable opponent?

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 3 it's a likable. I mean, I have no animosity.

Speaker 3 They've played clean.

Speaker 1 You remember that Orlando was rubbing your last nerve there.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I thought they played dirty, but I don't think the Knicks played dirty. I will say that I didn't realize how good Hart is.

Speaker 3 He's made such a difference for them.

Speaker 3 He keeps the momentum going. He gets that rebound they have to have.

Speaker 3 He makes a key shot in the corner.

Speaker 3 So he's impressed me. Brunson has always impressed me.

Speaker 3 That guy is, i can't believe dallas gave up on that guy or didn't re-sign him towns pisses me off because he's got body language i hate yeah and uh

Speaker 3 and we without poor zingis we're having trouble when they have the two bigs in yeah their two bigs in and we have cornet and orford in it it doesn't quite match up well um yeah but that's where you need tatum to basically point center it a little bit or well and tatum got you know he's getting defensive rebounds but it's not helping us scoring at all

Speaker 1 well we'll see this is certainly uh this tatum

Speaker 3 you think we're gonna come back to two

Speaker 1 this is the first time i honestly don't know what to think because they took all the shots that normally took and none of them went in

Speaker 1 and they just shit the bed two games in a row in the last four minutes and each of them just might have been these separate flukes that exist next to each other or something's wrong.

Speaker 1 And the only thing that makes me nervous is the Porzingis thing is a real thing because that's that there's just a

Speaker 1 you know, it's a domino effect of not just that, but the extra horror for minutes. Then you don't have Hauser.
So the rotation all of a sudden got thinner.

Speaker 1 And now when the rotation's that thin, if Tatum's going to suck in a game, now it feels like three times worse because not a lot of backup options, you know.

Speaker 1 Drew and Way played like they were playing pretty hard in that game. It's not, I don't expect a ton more from those guys.
And I think Jalen's 85%, you watched him all year.

Speaker 1 He's not as explosive as he was in November.

Speaker 3 He's pretty, no, maybe not, but

Speaker 1 90%? I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't think that's what hurt him last night. It's the consistent issue he has with bad hands.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, when they blew that two-on-one layup,

Speaker 3 you know, and they clapped each other, you know,

Speaker 3 you can't do that in a critical game, too.

Speaker 1 All right, so you're confident, or you think it's over?

Speaker 3 I don't think it's over because I think we're a really good road team.

Speaker 3 It will not shock me if we take both games in New York.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I'd hate to see us lose Saturday, and then we're in the same boat we were two years ago against Miami. Miami thing, yeah.
And to come back and win four straight, it's no one's ever done it, right?

Speaker 3 In

Speaker 3 I just can't believe we got here. I can't believe we're here.

Speaker 3 You know, I

Speaker 1 it's funny, though, I wasn't even that mad last night. I was, because, you know, they won last year, so you got to factor that in.
It's like, all right, keep it in perspective.

Speaker 1 We did win the title last year. But I was, I was more confused.
I was just like, I don't, I just spent six months watching this team. Right.
What is happening? It was one of those.

Speaker 1 It was like if you're just watching TV with your wife and then all of a sudden she starts speaking another language, and you're like, What's going on? That was how I felt for both games.

Speaker 1 Like, what are you guys doing?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that I understand that, and I felt somewhat the same way, but consistently, the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter, we don't play the same way

Speaker 3 as the first 40 minutes or whatever. And I don't understand why.

Speaker 3 And the only person I can point my finger at is the coach.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 coach,

Speaker 3 these are players. They need some direction.
If they're shooting too many threes or not going to the basket, make them go to the basket.

Speaker 1 Sounds like you're going to demote them to second row again.

Speaker 3 I need to be careful here.

Speaker 1 Dad, I'm going to see you for game seven, Monday night, May 19th.

Speaker 3 I'll be here.

Speaker 1 Save my seat. Good to see you.
All right. Talk to you this weekend.

Speaker 3 Bye.

Speaker 1 All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Big Waz and House.
Thanks to my dad. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal as well.
You can watch this as a video podcast on Spotify every single time.

Speaker 1 We'll be live with Rasillo on Sunday on YouTube. Check out my Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 Check out the Star Wars Rewatchables. Don't forget we got Deathwish coming on Monday on the rewatchables.

Speaker 1 Enjoy the weekend.

Speaker 1 I might not be enjoying it. I guess we're going to find out.
I will see you on Sunday.

Speaker 1 I want to see them

Speaker 1 on the way side

Speaker 1 I don't have

Speaker 1 a few years with them

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