The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Huge Celts Comeback with Haralabos Voulgaris, Plus Adam Sandler on 30 Years of Comedies and Making ‘Hustle’

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Haralabos Voulgaris to discuss Game 1 of the NBA Finals after being in Chase Arena for the Celtics' win over the Warriors (1:031). Then, Bill sits down with Adam Sandler to discuss his new movie ‘Hustle,’ their favorite sports movies, ‘SNL’ in the early '90s, Adam’s first few films, playing pickup hoops, and more (39:44). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Adam Sandler Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up in the podcast, the Celtics are in the 2022 NBA Finals. Game one was tonight in San Francisco. Did I go? Of course I went. What are you talking about? That's all next. Plus Adam Sandler. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up

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Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit RG-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We had two new rewatchables podcasts go up this week. One was a special selection show for the new categories that the listeners sent in. And the second one was Copland, which we did on Wednesday night in honor of Ray Liotta,

our IP, me, Sean Fantasy, Chris Ryan. We did that one in person. We added all the new categories and it was a whole lot of fun. Coming up on this podcast, my thoughts after going to game one of the 2022 NBA Finals, plus a long conversation with our guy, Adam Sandler.

He was on two plus years ago with Kevin Garnett and we both ended up just setting picks for KG and letting him go. And it was so much fun, but I wanted to have the deep dive combo. He has a new, new movie coming out. It's called hustle. I really liked it. We talked about that. We talked about his career, all the fun people that passed through it, why he keeps making movies and a whole bunch more. So that is the podcast Finals, which I attended, which ended up being a spectacular Celtics sporting event. Haral Bob Balgaras is here.

He's been on many times. He liked the Celtics heading into the series as did I, I was not feeling good, Bob, when, uh, when Tatum could not throw the ball in the ocean, when Curry hit six threes in the first quarter, um,

the Warriors were pretty comfortably there. It was like 15 points. And then it was a flip. The only thing I can compare it to, and I was not in the house for this game, was 2008 Game 4 Finals. Bigger stakes because that was later in the series. But just this momentum switch that happened and you could feel it as it was happening. It all started with Jalen Brown, who I thought kept the Celtics in the game.

And I thought had one of the better stretches of his career. And then all of a sudden it flipped. When did you feel watching on TV? When did you feel it starting to flip? We were like, oh wait, are they going to come back here? I was shocked it got as out of hand as it did in the third quarter, to be perfectly honest. I wasn't even really paying that much attention to the score.

It was weird. It didn't seem like they were in trouble to me. I don't know. It was weird. But for me, when I saw, okay, things are changing, was the way they started defending a little bit differently in the fourth quarter. The Gudoka talked about

this in the press conference. They switched a lot more in the fourth quarter. I tweeted out some stat. First three quarters, I think they switched somewhere in the neighborhood of the exact numbers. I saw your tweet. It was like 18% and it jumped to somewhere in the neighborhood of one of the exact numbers. But it was a...

I saw your tweet. It was like 18% and it jumped to like over 30%. Yeah, it was something like that. And I think that was a big factor in it. Then the lineup that Kerr had out there in the fourth quarter was not ideal for spacing.

It was like a different kind of spacing. He had Iguodala on the perimeter with Draymond. Both are being ignored while the paint was being packed in and attention was being paid to Steph. That led to some bad passes and some runouts. Well, Steph wasn't even out there to start the fourth quarter.

So that's kind of where I saw it changing. I mean, obviously the Celtics ran hot from three, but we can kind of talk about that a little bit and why I think that's like not that. It's kind of a red herring in some ways. Well, the key guys for the Celtics, the Jalen stretch was unbelievable.

And then white and Horford white had hit the point. He was so good in the first half. Then the second half, they didn't start with them, obviously, because it doesn't start. And by like the seven minute mark, I was saying to people,

I was like, they got to get white back in there because I thought Curry was having his way with Smart, which I was not expecting. And White was stabilizing their defense. And what was crazy was the White-Pritchard combo was one of the things that made it. And the Warriors had a lot of trouble with Pritchard. He was really active.

They couldn't hunt him. He was rebounding. He ended up with six rebounds. He was fearless. And it was White and Pritchard together that was really him. He was rebounding. He ended up with six rebounds. He was fearless. It was White and Pritchard together that was really effective. Did not expect that. If you look at the guys who guard Curry effectively, it's interesting. Pritchard

fits the mold. I don't know if you remember Delva Dova guarded him really well. You don't need a guy like Smart to guard him necessarily. What you need is a very, very quick guy who can chase him around and follow him around and not get lost through all these screens. I think where Smart was really good in the fourth quarter, though,

is when they started having him on Draymond and then he just started roaming off of Draymond in some sessions. And he was playing free safety and he was impacting the passing lane. So, I don't know. I wouldn't overreact if I was Golden State, but I think if they are going to run out multiple non-shooting

lineups with two or more guys who can't shoot, they've got to think about where they're positioning Draymond a little bit versus this Celtics team. They might want to have him in the dunker spot versus on the perimeter as the pitch handoff guy. And then who has the ball in that case? Makes it tricky.

Well, one thing I noticed just being there in person, I thought the Warriors clearly were wearing down in the fourth quarter because of just how long and big and physical the Celtics were. A lot of things were going Golden State's way the first three quarters, right? The offensive rebounds, that was going great. Tatum just, I actually liked the shots he was taking for the most part. He just was off. You could see it. When he airballed the three in the first quarter, I'm doing this all from memory. I didn't take notes. That was such a bad three and it was so off that it was like, all right, is he nervous? What's going on. But they were basically playing him to be a distributor and he did. And I think,

what did he end up with? 13 assists and the Celts were just getting a lot of open shots. So I always felt they were around in the game, but Curry, they're up 15. There's like three minutes left, I'm going to say in the third quarter and Curry had a three. And I think if it goes in, I think the game's over. Because the crowd was like, the crowd was, first of all, the crowd was great. I was really surprised. Usually finals crowds can go either way. I thought the crowd was loud and really into it. But he hits his three and it was one of those, you know, those roof comes off the building threes. I think if it goes in, I think it's just coming back from 18, but doesn't go in.

The Celtics kind of climb back. And by the end of the third quarter, White hits some free throws and it's 12. And I felt like, all right, I know the guys they should be playing in this series. White's going to have to be out there. It's probably White, Smart, Brown, Horford, Tatum. And that lineup seems like it's pretty good. But what really helped was what you mentioned, when they were playing

Iguodala and Draymond at the same time. Yeah, mucked things up for sure. As good as Curry is, I just felt like the Celtics weren't even guarding Draymond by the fourth quarter. They were like, whatever. Please, shoot. Yeah, and I think also one thing I would be concerned about a little bit, I was watching the presser,

the postgame presser, and to a man, everyone talked about how fortunate Boston was from three. And you're never going to win a game if the other team shoots 21 to 41 from three or makes 21 threes. And I think the thing that worries me, if you look back at their previous series versus Dallas, Dallas had the exact same threes, really good threes, and they just didn't hit them with the exception of a couple quarters.

And I wonder if maybe they really believe that that type of shooting is just unsustainable. And the key thing is, is they went on their run at the start of the fourth quarter. It was a 6-0 run, then it was an 8-2 run without making any threes. So it's not like they, oh, they just ran super hot. A lot of the threes that were in the game was kind of already out of hand. Look, White's threes especially were egregiously lucky.

I'll say that. They were not open. He's not a great three-point shooter to begin with. But the rest of the threes, I mean, Jalen had one that was kind of lucky, but he normally shoots over contests anyways. The rest of the threes, I mean, Jalen had one that was kind of lucky, but he normally shoots over contests anyways. The rest of the threes were all wide open. And I think if that's your plan,

you're just in a lot of trouble. They were, the white threes, they were semi-contested. They weren't, I didn't feel like they were lucky because he's had these streaks during the...

Oh, you got to go back and watch them. Was there one? I felt... There was one that like, I don't even know how he got it off. There was one I remember. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe he made that.

He wasn't even his normal follow through. And it kind of like hit the back of the rim and touched this part of the rim and went in. So it was 101-97, 622 left. Curry was back in the game and White hit a three. Curry made a two. Tatum got blocked, but Celtics got the rebound and White hit a three. Curry made a two. Tatum got blocked, but Seltz got the rebound. White made another three. Curry missed a layup.

Horford made a three. Draymond Steele. Horford makes a three. Seltz had four threes in a row over the span of like 80 seconds. They scored 12 points. Yeah, that was it. All of a sudden it was 109-103. All of a sudden out of nowhere. Yeah, that was it. All of a sudden, it was 109-103. All of a sudden, out of nowhere.

Yeah, that's just the new NBA, though. I mean, people... I mean, Kerr talked about this a little bit in his press conference, and it's just... You better be ready for it because it's just a super high-variance league right now. The three-point rate for both of these teams

was extremely high in terms of the number of shots they took that were from three. Let me get that real quick. It looks like it was 48% of Boston's shots were threes and 51% of Golden State's shots were threes. That's very high.

21 for 41. I heard the Draymond press conference and he made it seem like they were leading the whole game. First of all, the Celtics were leading at halftime. I don't know. That seems like relevant info. Warriors, I thought, played a good two-thirds of a third quarter.

And then the Celtics played. Honestly, that was one of the best quarters they've played this whole season. I've watched a lot of Celtics this season. That fourth quarter, it was a 24-point swing. They were making everything. Their defense was fantastic. But the reason I disagree on the fluke part, the Celtics had 33 assists.

Like the ball was moving. They were finding the right people. And the fact that Tatum, who shot so badly, still was like facilitating and making plays. I thought his defense was really good. It's weird to say somebody who was 3-for-17 and didn't seem to get confidence in his shot had a

good game. I thought he had a good game. Yeah, I think he had a complete game with the exception. I do think he was tentative. I don't know if nervous is the right word, but there was like one three I remember in particular where he was wide open and he waited and waited and looked down at his feet and then shot

it. It was like at the top of the three-point arc. So I do feel like, but that's a good thing though because he's not going to play like that for the entire series. It was like nervous energy. And the ball didn't go in the beginning and so he just kind of rolled with it a little bit, maybe got down on himself a little bit. I mean, obviously he's the focal point of their defense.

The Golden State's defense, he's the guy they're focusing on and that's generally been the case, but it's a more active level of defense that Golden State plays. They're willing to pack in the paint and help off of shooters, even if the guys can shoot. He'll be fine.

I'm not worried about him at all. I'm more worried about how Golden State is going to just defend everybody. Let me ask you this. Of the best five players in the series how many are I mean Steph's I think in my opinion the best obviously the best player in the series but aside from that

how many are on Golden State like the next of the next four guys do they have any in the top five aside from Steph's you could feel the drop off every time he came out and I was asking the people I was with because I couldn't believe Kerr kept him out as long as he did in the second quarter. Because first quarter, and it was on the basket we were sitting on, he made six threes and it just seemed like he was going to have 80 points

in the game. And then he had that two thirds of a shot at the end of the quarter. He missed it. That was, I think might've been his only miss of the quarter. And then he was just gone for six minutes. And the Warriors fans that I was sitting around were saying, no, this is what Kerr does. It's like the John Stockton, Jerry Sloan thing. This is, he takes him out here. But when he came back, it felt like it was almost like he just didn't feel like he was hot anymore. Right. And, and it just was almost like too long. I, I don't know what the theory is on that, but when somebody's that hot, I just don't agree with having them sit for 20 minutes.

Yeah, I think that's a... I mean, it's also the finals. And so, I mean, you have a chance to really put the hammer down. Most of these coaches mostly go with their... Especially through the first quarter and a half of the game, they go with their base substitution patterns. But the other thing I'll say, though, is the three... I mean, he was great in the first quarter and a half of the game. They go with their base substitution patterns. But the other thing I'll say, though, is the 3Z, I mean, he was great in the first

quarter, but how much of that... He was killing smart. What's that? He was killing smart. Well, it was also the bigs were in drop. I mean, they weren't aware of the fact that it was Steph Curry. And so they just weren't... The bigs were in drop. They weren't playing up to the level.

Even you weren't able to see this because you were live at the game, but they even had Marcus Smart audio mic'd up during a huddle. Oh, talking about to his guys like, you can't be there. You've got to be up. You've got to be up. And once they made that adjustment, it became really tough. And they even... A lot of people talked about,

oh, they can't play Williams, Robert Williams versus him in a switch. But they did in the fourth quarter and he held up pretty well. And even if you take away the three-point line and he gets by you for a layup or a late contest from someone else, I think that's fine because who's he going to pass to that's going to hit a three? One other guy. And that's playing.

And aside from that, it's nobody for the guys that are playing. So it's one game, but I'm pretty bullish on the Celtics still. Well, there was one time Curry stayed screwed up in the first quarter and he made a call timeout. I don't know if they caught it on TV, but he does this great thing and he's done it all year when he's mad and he just can't hide it. And he's just muttering to himself. And it's always like, what the fuck are we doing? It's like watching a police sergeant in like a buddy cop comedy. What are you, get in here

guy. And he was so mad at Smart and whoever the big was who screwed up the last Curry thing. And it was so clear. I was like, guys, we've talked about this for four days. He just walked down and they set a screen and nobody or I didn't think anyone, but nobody picked him up, right?

Yeah, they just, they fell asleep. It was like you, he was just like, guys, it's Steph Curry. But it felt, I'll say like, just being there for it. Steph, you know, he's always in varying degrees of how great he feels or how you could see it. He was like dancing on the floor in that first quarter. Like when he's, it just seemed like he was a hundred percent. By the fourth quarter, it seemed like he was a little more wore down. But I also think the Warriors were kind of shocked that the Celtics were hanging

around. I think they thought, the crowd certainly thought the game was over. There's that moment when Draymond missed the free throws in the fourth quarter. And as he was lining up to take them, and you could feel it in the building. I've been on the opposite side of that where it's like a Celtics shooting those and people like the old Antoine Walker days, you're like, oh my God, these aren't going in. And one went left and the other went right,

his two free throws. But I do feel like it was a little haymaker-y. It was so fast. They couldn't adjust. Like Kerr had Iguodala out there was so fast. They couldn't adjust. Kerr had Iguodala out there with eight minutes. I couldn't even believe he played in the game. Yeah, that was odd. I think especially... I mean, I think there was a little bit of arrogance

in some way. They were up. They had their standard third quarter push. They're a great third quarter team. They're a great second half team. Iguodala hasn't played in forever. They want to probably get him some minutes, some run. But yeah, that wasn't an ideal lineup by any stretch of the imagination.

I mean, to have two guys who can't shoot, and the Celtics are clearly, Draymond's going to have to prove it to them now in this series, because they were completely delighted any time he shot. The other thing, the Warriors were falling asleep. They kept forgetting

about Horford in the corner, and he's made those all year. I think the Celtics found some stuff out, at least like that, and both of us are pretty high on Grant Williams, but this might not be the series for him. Might not be. Yeah. He only played

18 minutes. I didn't feel like he was effective when he was out there. The Looney was kind of kicking his ass on offensive rebound stuff. And Rodoko was really mad at Grant at one point. And it just might be a series where Pritchard gets some of the Grant Williams minutes. They're going to keep doing

the Pritchard-White and White-Smart together and Pritchard and I think they're going to go smaller because I think, I feel like they can get away with Pritchard in this series I think they're going to go smaller because I feel like they can get away with Pritchard in this series. Then there's the Clay piece, which he was fine, right? Just from a shooting standpoint,

6 for 14, whatever. He can't go by anybody anymore. I really noticed it when I was in person. Whatever Celtic was on him, he just can't go by the person. He can come off screens. He still has three-point, all that stuff. But he's not the same foot speed-wise, I don't think.

No, I definitely agree with that. It's tough to come back from that injury in the time frame that he did. One thing I would say about going small is if the Celtics' plan is to go small and Golden State doesn't counter with Looney, then I think that's a wrap. That's a win for the Celtics. If they decide to counter with Looney

when the Celtics are small, then I do think they have some trouble on the offensive glass. The one thing I found that was odd was Golden State had success crashing the glass for most of the game. Then they're trailing in the fourth quarter and they're shooting and missing

and nobody's going to the glass. It's just like if there's any time you want to be going to the glass, it's when you're trailing in the fourth quarter and the other team isn't incentivized to push the ball. So that I thought was interesting. But it was a function of the guys who were out there. Looney wasn't out there.

And it was a bunch of smaller guys. And Golden State's going to win this series by virtue of winning in ways that you wouldn't really normally. It's not going to be because they're going to outplay. They're not the better offensive team, in my opinion. They're not the better defensive team, in my opinion. What they could do is they do have a size advantage

on the boards. You have one player. And the reason why the offensive rebounds are so key for Golden State isn't even so much that they emphasize offensive rebounds. But if you look at those clips we were talking about, where two guys are just completely uncovered, and Draymond, Looney, or Iguodala, everyone else is focused on Steph and Klay. When the ball goes up and the shot is missed, those guys are not only not guarded on offense, but they're not guarded when the rebound goes up. Now you have to retreat back to them to get a body on them. That's why they have so much success on the offensive glass. It's a lot to do with Looney, but it's more to do with the gravity

that Steph has. It causes everyone to focus on him and now they have to get back and guard someone else. That was something I think that a lot of people don't really get with the offensive rebounding scheme that Golden State has. A lot of it's predicated on Curry being out there.

Well, and also for the Celtics, just paying more attention to it. Their wings started crashing back on some of that stuff and helping them out. For sure. Poole was bad. That really helped the Celtics. He was two for seven. And defensively, we've talked about it all playoffs. He's a boy.

Yeah, it's tough. I think the thing that's really jumped out to me, Kerr is so loyal to Klay and Draymond, right? But in this game, for whatever reason, Wiggins and Porter together, maybe Looney, Curry, and I don't know who the fifth guy is, but I thought Porter was really effective in this game. It was almost like

he stayed away from him too long. When Draymond is that much of a liability offensively, I wonder if he'll have the courage to just sit him the next time. Would he do that? Yeah, I think they'll come up with some wrinkles. Look, they're a very clever offensive team.

Just as Golden State and Curry is a unique challenge defensively, the way Boston plays defense is a unique challenge on offense. So you can't necessarily go with your normal game plan versus them and expect to have success on offense because their defense is just that good. I'm sure they'll figure out ways to utilize Draymond

in a positive fashion. Yeah, but what happens if he can't shoot at all and the Celtics aren't guarding him? And your offense is falling apart. Well, they had him on the low post a little bit and I felt like that was pretty clumsy. All he was doing was clogging the lane for their drivers. Yeah, he's not a real dunker spot player

because he doesn't have the verticality, but you could certainly use him as a screener in the pick and roll. You have to run more pick and roll. It has to be less of the off-ball, goofy stuff that they do that works really, really well where he's zipping passes everywhere because nobody's guarding him.

It has to be more of he's setting the screen. And now if you're ignoring him, now it's a four on three situation. But then you need guys in the corner who can shoot. And that means Looney probably can't be out there because that's going to clog things up. But Porter could. Porter could be out there.

Obviously, Clay can be there. I also don't think they can play what's called the death pool lineup. I don't think they can play Curry, Poole, and Clay together at the same time versus the length that the Celtics have. It's just not going to work on the other end. I talked to you today because we were talking about this series, not on a podcast, and I was getting more and more confident.

Now, I'm not saying I was right. I'm just by four days thinking about this series, and it's one game. But I was getting more and more confident because I kept thinking about that Memphis series. And I kept thinking about these stretches that Memphis would have where the length that they had in their wings, they just really bothered the Warriors, right?

And Ja really lit up the Warriors before he got hurt. And I was just thinking like, could we be basically a better version of that Memphis team? That series went six. I think it easily could have gone seven. And I think if Ja's healthy, they might've even won it.

And I think from what I saw- I don't think Memphis could have beat them. I think the Memphis-Golden State series was a function of Golden State just didn't take them seriously. I mean, they had one game where they just threw the ball away 30 times. Right, right.

I mean, it was not so much what Memphis was doing. I mean, that was a game where John was out. There was some blueprint stuff with the size of their wings that I thought the Celtics could potentially replicate. I was not expecting the white Pritchard small guard combo to be the ones, but I thought white

was so important defensively. Smart one defensive player of the year, and white was more important than him defensively in this game, by far. Yeah, I thought Smart, I mean, I think White had a good game defensively. I thought Smart had a good game defensively too. He had a couple strips early. He was in, you know, once he was guarding Draymond

or Iguodala, he was in the lanes, and that kind of had an impact where you didn't even really see it until you go back and watch the video. That is a rumor, yeah. Yeah, but I'm with you. I mean, White played good. I do think all that changes if now White hits his career average from three and they're playing off of him.

Because that's the thing that kind of happens now. It's one thing to be banging in threes when you're making threes. What if you're missing four or five in a row? You saw that happen with some of the Dallas players where they missed a bunch in a row and they started hesitating. So that's one thing that... It looks great when the shots are falling and then the offense can go. But I think Boston will trust their process. I think Golden State's process, I think they'll trust their process too.

I just don't know that Golden State's process of giving up that many open threes is sustainable versus the Celtics team. Yeah, it's almost you're better off taking your chances with Tatum versus just having him find open dudes all over the court. The thing with White, because you could feel it immediately with him, when he's aggressive like that and he's bouncing off dudes, he's really good. It's when he's not aggressive and afraid to bounce off dudes, then it's like, all right, why are you out here? But it's a really hard thing to predict with him, but you kind of, as we've discussed, you know pretty early. Now, another one who's like this,

and this was classic, and I've been watching Jalen now for six years, and he has these streaks, and for whatever reason, they seem like they happen more in the second half, and they usually happen in the last three minutes of the third quarter, heading into the fourth quarter. It's always like there's a zone where he'll just score like 10 points in three minutes.

Or he'll score, you know, 12 points in four minutes. But he just, he's weirdly streaky for somebody who so reliably is like between 22, 24 points a game. But he was so hot that at one point Tatum had the ball and didn't give it to him. And Jalen was kind of calling for it subtly. And Tatum dribbled the other way and went in and it got tipped out of bounds. And those guys looked at each other and Jalen was like this and they had this eye contact thing. And it was just like, I can't not describe me improperly, but it was one of those things that two years ago, Jalen just would have gotten mad. And that would have been it, right? Then Tatum and he just said, fuck that. Why don't I get the ball? But they have so much trust with each other now. Jalen was like,

hey man, I'm hot. But do you remember the talk a few years ago was you couldn't win with both those guys. They had to get rid of one of those guys. Remember that? Right. I think that's a testament. I never felt that way. Yeah, that's a testament to Ainge and the rest of their front office for not overreacting and realizing what they have and how difficult it is.

Look, I was definitely trying to... You were eyeballing Jalen. I remember you were texting me. Yeah, I was definitely trying to... You were eyeballing Jalen. I remember you were texting me. Yeah, I was definitely thinking, hey, I can think of a guy we might want to trade for Jalen Brown if they're looking for a center. But yeah, that was...

I mean, they didn't get rid of him and they built a nice team around those two. Yeah, there's no dueling banjo stuff with those guys. Jalen had the hot hand. Tatum didn't recognize it for that one play, but then recognized it again and then was doing his stuff. And then the other thing,

we talked about this when I called you today. The Horford, I mean Horford, 26 points. Horford's really good. My God, he was... Who's better, Horford or Draymond? Let me ask you this. I honestly think Horford when he has rest like that

is probably more impactful as a playoff player because he can stretch the floor he's a better offensive player by far and if you were to swap positions

that's the thing I would look at like Draymond is good I'm not trying to disparage Draymond he's a very bright player he's a very good player he's an incredible

defensive player but what is his offensive impact on a team without Steph Curry? Let's think about that for a second. Because so much of his negatives on offense and his positives on offense work really well with Curry. Because he can make those passes. He can do

the handoffs. He's very good. No other team's going to build their offense as him being the linchpin with the ball handler. With guys running off the ball. No other team has that type of roster. Players that could do that. I think Horford's a more valuable player than he is. I think it's

very apparent. Well, one thing I liked about him in this series, I mentioned this to you today, with the three days rest, you know, the Celtics played 12 games in 23 days. Yeah, that was amazing when you said that. I hadn't even thought of that.

They played two freak teams, right? They played this Giannis Drew, Wesley Matthews, just like this physical team with this absolute... P.J. Tucker. P.J.

Well, that was the next series. Yeah, the next series, yeah. Round two, they're going against this generational freak athlete who's just looming over the entire series like the shark from Jaws.

Then you go to the next series and you have the PJ Tucker. You got Jimmy Butler. You have Bam, who's weirdly like a streaky defensive player. And then you have Lowry, who is just, he's grabbing you. He's pulling you. He's clutching you. He's taking these moving charges. And both of those series-

Miami was playing a different sport that series. Not to interrupt you, but that was... I mean, they were very physical. And playing every other day against a team that physical is tough. Against two teams that were that physical. So I was feeling with Horford,

now we're going game two Sunday. It's a three days rest or two and a half days rest. Then it's three and four Wednesday, Friday. But then after that, it's two days rest between each game. And I think that helps Horford more than any other player in this series because he's old. He turns 36 on Friday.

But man, you saw the guy today had four days rest. He looked like he was 25. And I'll tell you this. I'm not saying people on the Warriors don't want it. And I'm not saying people on the Celtics don four days rest. He looked like he was 25. And I'll tell you this. I'm not saying people on the Warriors don't want it. And I'm not saying people on the Celtics don't want it. Horford, this would be the most meaningful thing to him of any

player in this series. This is a guy who could not get over the hump, who's been in the league for a long time, who hit rock bottom in Philly, who goes to OKC and just gets put on ice and becomes this kind of, hey, you have to, you know, we have to take your bad contract back with a pick.

And I just think he's so invigorated by the chance that, that possibility of just winning a title. You just see it. Like he's, he had that big play when he had kind of the clincher and he does that fist pump

to the Warriors crowd there's like no Celtics fans there barely but he's like I don't know man he's doing stuff in these playoffs

that remember the rap on him was he was too soft for years yeah that was definitely the rap I mean I think

I think people slept on him because of that odd fit in Philadelphia. It was Embiid, him, and Simmons. You got three non-world. Embiid at the time wasn't much of a three-point shooter.

He was an unwilling three-point shooter, whether he could shoot or not. And so he got a bad rap there. Everyone talked about how awful that contract was. But I mean, he's certainly proving people wrong now. That's for sure. It's his birthday today, I I think too, isn't it? Is it his birthday?

Yeah, it says, I think he turns 36 this week. So we got the series flipped. We have Celtics are minus 170 to win. The game two line is Celtics plus four and a half. Is that, should we just pencil in the extender for game two? Just get his hotel room ready? What's going to happen? He's certainly going to be calling some of these games.

If I were a betting guy, I would be looking to bet the Celtics in games three, four, and five for sure. I might take the day off on Sunday and not bet them depending on the situation. But I feel like if there's a game that Golden State's going to win this series, it'll probably be the one on Sunday. Give me a warrior who's going to go off on Sunday, in your opinion,

from what you saw today with the adjustments that are coming. That's actually a good question. in your opinion from what you saw today with the adjustments that are coming? That's actually a good question. I mean, I guess Clay could go off. I don't know. I mean,

Steph's going to have a good game. Steph's just too good not to have a good game. They're not going to shut down Steph. But aside from him, who are you banking on? I mean, maybe Otto Porter Jr. can get hot

and make like four threes. Is that like, that's probably like the cap for him? Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, him maybe. I don't know. I mean, maybe Gary Payton Jr. plays and changes up the way they defend as well. I mean, that maybe picks up a little bit and causes some havoc and causes some

turnovers and they get out in full court. The half court versus transition numbers in this game, I thought were pretty interesting too. That's a big factor. You know the one thing that's interesting that nobody really thinks about is one of the reasons why Boston has such a good road record.

They're one of the teams who plays offense in front of their bench in the second half. I think that was a big factor in this game. Golden State was not able to defend in the fourth quarter. I think that was a big factor in this game. Golden State was not able to defend in the fourth quarter. They had no idea what they were doing and they didn't have their bench right in front of them to tell them what to do.

I think that was a big factor. If the Warriors win on FanDuel, Golden State is almost 2-1 money line and Klay Thompson, 20 plus points is minus 108, plus 170 is the same game parlay? I was like, why is he asking me this question?

I didn't realize you were... One fun same game parlay. Okay. Yeah, that sounds great. I mean, Poole could have a good game too, by the way. I mean, he had an awful game. It'd be hard for him to play as bad as he did offensively. I just think they're not going to be able to play him and those other two guys together at the same time

like we talked about. So I'm not sure how many minutes that gives him. I have to tell you before we go, I don't think I've ever been in a position where I've rooted against Steph Curry. Because I've always had, I've always bet the Warriors, right? Even 2015, I had a whole,

with Sal and I had them to win the title at 30 to one and just 2016, we had them. 2017, 18, there's no way you're betting against them. They haven't really been relevant the last couple of years. And then last year in the play-in, I think I bet them. This year did not, but it's that first quarter, it was the first time I'm like, God, I hope, oh no. I've never had an experience like that. Because usually I'm rooting for the threes to go in. And this time, you know they're going in.

He hasn't even shot it yet. You're like, that's going in. God damn it. It was terrifying. Between that, the shimmying after the three, and then I talked about this before, but Clay bouncing around like a show pony to me. When Clay's on fire and he's just bouncing around like a

showpony, that has to be the most tilting thing ever. If you're working for a team or if you're betting against Golden State and Clay's hot and he's dancing around like a showpony, that stings like nothing else you can imagine. But yeah, the Steph three-point shooting is

definitely stressful for sure. He had six threes in a quarter. Like, I remember MJ did that against the 92 Trailblazers and he did it in a half and it seemed like

the most amazing thing anyone ever done in a basketball game. It's like, my God, the guy had six threes and Steph just did it in like 10 minutes.

And ended with seven, by the way. Yeah. Well, he had, again, if he had, again, if he had hit that one when they were up 15, I think it's game time. The Tatum over-under for assists, by

the way, is 5.5. I do think if they're going to keep playing him that way, you could honestly see him average 10 plus assists in this series. And that's a good one. That's actually a really bright one. I like that one. They'll probably, now that you've talked about it, the line will probably move, so listeners better get on that one quick when they hear it. Because I think that's a good one. That's actually a really bright one. I like that one. They'll probably, now that you've talked about it, the line will probably move. So listeners better get on that one quick when they hear it.

Because I think that's actually a real bright one. I think that's actually a really good one. So if you like the Celts, you do the plus 4.5. The sweep heading into the series, by the way, is 14-1. I always look because I think of what was the time you bet the... Didn't you bet a sweep once? Was that you? Somebody I know

hit a crazy sweep. I don't normally bet exact series prices. So I don't. It had to be somebody else. Yeah, I don't think that was me. I'll take credit for it though.

Why not? Yeah, the sweep's always a fun one. The other one I liked in this series was the biggest lead. You know, they have that bet sometimes.

I didn't even look to see what it was today. But this seemed like one of those series where there'd be big leads and then somebody's going to come back. And you know, they have that bet sometimes. I didn't even look to see what it was today, but this seemed like one of those series where there'd be big leads and then somebody's going to come back. And, you know, so usually the biggest lead's like 15 and a half,

but just felt like maybe that didn't hit today. I bet there's props that you can exploit that smart guys are exploiting that where the lines makers haven't figured out the new world of three-point shooting and how... I know the in-game lines are bananas. Like I look at the in-game lines sometimes during the playoffs

and they're just not... I mean, they're discounting the comeback, I think, way too much. They were for a while and now I think they've over-adjusted to now where you can actually get pretty good value, I think, betting the team that's up. So it's pretty interesting. All these things are so interesting to follow because the samples are so minute in some cases

that you really have to, when you're making these lines, you have to really be sure of what you're doing. Or the other option is just kicking out anyone with a brain, which is what some sports books do. Anyone with a brain just gets kicked out. So they have that going for them too. But it's tough to make all those lines. I think over

whatever that assist number was, it's probably a decent one. decent one well this has happened in foot I know you don't mess around with football but um it's a thing that's happened in football where people have just made because it's so passing oriented now people can come back from 20 to nothing they come back from 28 to 7 and you just throw the ball and all of a sudden it's a tie game. So the in-game stuff, it's really volatile. And especially in football, we have like three minutes to think about it. Basketball is a little tougher. But how many times have we seen comebacks in basketball?

We've seen like at least 10 in the playoffs, right? Well, there hasn't been many this year because most of them have been those big blowouts. That was kind of the new thing is all the blowouts and comebacks. But yeah, early in the first few rounds, there were certainly some comebacks for sure. Yeah. Definitely. All right, Bob. It was great to see you as always.

You have to come on one more time. I know you're a man of the world. Who knows where you're going to be. I'm heading to Europe on the 9th. So the time will be a little bit different, but I'm definitely down to come around. We can do a pod from there, I suppose. All right.

Thanks for popping on. I appreciate it. We're in the middle of the NBA Finals and it's your chance to score big on FanDuel Sportsbook. Throughout the NBA Finals, FanDuel giving new customers $200 in free bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. Bet the money line, point spreads, player props, so much more.

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And in West Virginia, 1800gamber.net. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too.

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Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. I am here with Adam Sandler. We're in his office. Yeah. In an undisclosed location in the LA area.

Just woke up from a nap. Is that what happened? You said you wanted to brush your teeth. I didn't know what was going on. Well, I brushed my teeth. So what happened was I got up at six this morning. I thought I could be strong all day. And then around 10.45, I started going. I think I'm going down for the count. Old guy crash? A little 10-minute hit and run. Lay on this thing. It was a couch that was

too short for me. So I was in a bad mood the whole sleep. Well, you had to do a lot of basketball in this hustle movie, which we should just talk about it now. Because you're playing a scout, and you had to do, you're basically trying to, like I want you, who had a cup of coffee with the Celtics. You're trying to bring his character. Yes.

But you're doing a lot of drill stuff, and I was actually impressed by how much basketball you did. Well, I mean, I, I, all I did was throw passes to Wancho and then he did all the work. Yeah. Right on time. I was right. By the way, I can't throw an alley-oop. Terrible. I get every time somebody goes, throw one up for me, Adam. I go, Oh no. And then I see these guys jump. I'm way late. They just stare at me while they're three feet up in the air like, what happened? We got to throw it like three feet

to the side, right? To the side. And the time is right. You can't float it too much and you kind of be slightly crisp. But I'm not good at that. So, I think you're in the running now for, we might have talked about this

the last time, the sports movie. Yeah. This is, what is this, like your fifth? Longest Yard. Happy Gilmore. Bobby Boucher. Water Boy. And then this one.

There's not another one. I'm misreacting. So you're four. Four is like Costner territory. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, baseball's the only sport that I'm halfway decent at. It never happened.

I have not played baseball on camera yet. And I was pretty good. Not awesome, on camera yet. And I was pretty good. Not awesome, but in Little League, I was real good. You could have done like a, I don't know, Bad News Bear 7? Yeah, I would have definitely taken that part. Billy Bob did that one. You were remaking Longest Yard, which I forgave you for like 10 years ago. You know, it was a mistake.

That really hurt my feelings when you did that. Mine too, mine too. But the only reason, it was going. It was going. They were doing it. And it was a mistake. That really hurt my feelings when you did that. Mine too. But the only reason, it was going. It was going. They were doing it. And it was cool. And I was like, well,

if they're doing it, I better as well be in it. But then, yeah, compared to the first one, not even close. Well, it made a ton of money,

right? Ended up doing all right. Paid for some things in our house. Well, you got Bert into it. I thought it was important to have Bert.

Got to know Bert. Got to know Bert. Got to know Bert. You know, the movie's cool. Got to hang out with some amazing people. Friends with Michael Irvin now, so everything's all right. Chris Rock. He's the Undertaker. That's right.

Wasn't that his name? Caretaker. Caretaker. The Undertaker. The Undertaker's a recipe. Then you had some good football players in there. Incredible. My whole rule with remakes, and this is why I was offended by The Longest Yard,

even though I did enjoy it. Now my son likes it. Yeah, your son likes it. He would never watch the old one. He would watch yours. Thank you. So you win that one. But I just feel like with remakes,

if the old one is still super rewatchable. Yeah, it makes no sense to do it. It made no sense. They were doing it. Everyone was excited. Well, you got to throw some spirals. You look good as the QB. Yeah, I could throw a 40, 45-yard pass now.

I don't think I could do that right now, though. The shoulder wouldn't handle that one. But your son likes mine, so everything's all right. I brought him to work. Well, the old one also starts with Bert punching his girlfriend, which isn't awesome. Oh, yeah. Stop, stop. Not that rewatchable.

But yeah, I always felt like that was the first modern sports movie. Because if you think about it, that's 1974. You have that. Rollerball the next year with Jimmy Conn. The best. Then you got Rocky and Bad News Bears, same year. My God. And then it's off.

Everybody's just like, all right, we'll do this with sports. Can't beat those. Can't beat Bad News Bears with can't beat those can't be bad news bears can't be beat rocky everything you do in this movie and hustle and we were like well rocky that was rocky rocky did this rocky did that we're set in philly so it's so very rocky so that's why i made some comment when he ran up the stairs wancho runs up these stairs and i had to give him a Rocky, some Rocky love or I'd be an insane person not to. Well, your hustle is like this 2020s version of a sports movie. It's like where we've landed because every idea has been done, right? And we hit that point. Like when

you had your Renaissance with this, you were in the sports movie Renaissance in the nineties when you had Waterboy and Happy Gilmore. It was like kind of our generation that grew up with sports movies. That's cool, yes. And it's like, all right, now these are ours. We're going to do these. We're going to either make them funnier

or make them like blue chips or whatever. Well, blue chips, that's another great one. But when I did Happy Gilmore, I was so terrified of not being, you know, like you did. Caddyshack was too much. That was the best of the best. So when we were doing a golf movie, we were like, we felt so lame releasing it.

We're like, oh, man, Caddyshack, people are going to want to kill us. But it ended up all right. And the best thing about a sports movie that for us is the third act you kind of build towards some big game. It just makes life easy. You go, all right, we know we got a big game. We don't have to know necessarily how it's going to turn out,

but we know we're going to get to a big game. I texted you. I was watching with my family on Saturday. I texted you halfway through. I was like, you motherfucker, you figured this one out. Another sports movie underdog. Never fails. You're right. It is an underdog movie.

Everybody's an underdog. My guy's a beaten soul. Wancho's character didn't get a shot because his life was holding him back. And it's real, man, it's cool. It's Anthony Edwards and Wancho going at it.

It's amazing. There's so many. Yeahancho going at it. It's amazing. There's so many. Yeah, I have some Anthony Edwards questions. Yeah. I think like from an era standpoint, so we had like that era when you made Happy Gilmore and Waterboy, and so you have that whole era. Yes.

The documentaries come in late 2000s, and it's like sports movies go to like another level, right? The Moneyball, things like that, where it's like we movies go to like another level right the money ball things like that where it's like we're not it's not just we're not just doing the underdog anymore if we're gonna do a sports movie you have to have these wrinkles there has to be authenticity that's good that's true you bring athletes into it that actually played and so this movie has a lot of pieces right it's like it's a movie about a scout like i don't think they're making that in 1990 right well they did they did the baseball scout right albert albert bro movie about a scout. I don't think they're making that in 1990, right? Well, they did the baseball scout.

Albert Brooks played a scout. He found Brendan Frazier. And that didn't do well. I don't know if it did well or not. I don't know. But I know it was definitely something that people would, when I would say I'm playing a scout, people would bring it up to me.

Oh, like the scout? And I'd say, oh, you better make sure we don't steal anything from the scout. I don't that was an issue it wasn't an issue it was baseball it was baseball and albert brooks and i are different god i barely remember that one yeah i think what's what's cool about some of the sports movies now is you can pull these real life people in like you have anthony edwardson yeah i don't even think he's 21 yet. I'm fascinated by him. And he's like a really good actor. He was kind of a dick in the movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, him and Wancho were very tight. And so Wancho knew we needed a bad guy in the movie that was messing with Wancho's character. And then Wancho just texted us one day. Jeremiah Zagard, the director, texted us and said, I'm friends with Anthony. We're teammates, and we always go at it when we're practicing and stuff. We said, does he want to do it?

Yeah, he seems like he wants to do it. So then he just came in, worked on his acting. We had this woman that kind of dealt with all the basketball players and helped them with their lines and what they're thinking and what they're doing and what everything means. And Anthony Edwards got incredible in there. Him and Wancho, pretty damn real. I think he has it just in general. I mean,

come on. Yeah. He is one pure funny guy. Well, he just, he's got like a charisma and a personality. He's got the athletic ability. I'm even talking to outside the movie.

If you're just targeting like guys under 27, who might be the biggest star in the league. I don't know if it's going to happen for him, but he has a lot of the tools. He has some, all the guys loved them too. When we played one day, we had like a week when it was,

um, with, with a lot of the guys from the league were hanging out and those guys were shooting around and you can't help it. Anytime Anthony did something, everybody would smile, laugh. He's just ferocious and funny as hell.

And you know about his, his dog, right? Yeah. Yeah. His dog has a Twitter account that Anthony Edwards runs, and his dog's name is Anthony Edwards Jr. That's right, that's right.

Yeah, man, he's cool. He tweets about his dad. Yeah, he's got it, man. I think that guy, all these young dudes in the league now, there's so many good ones. This was definitely the year of the youngsters. Yeah. This is where you just go, man,

there's so many guys who are great right now. You're still watching a ton, right? Even when you're doing movies, you're still following everything. I watch a lot. I watch a lot. I haven't seen every game in the last... I saw the ending the other night with the Celtics and the Heat. I saw the last quarter. I've been that kind of guy where I get to pick and choose. The family sometimes stares at me like, are you kidding me? How long are you going to sit here? It's not like your life where this is your living. This isn't my living watching NBA and baseball games and stuff. My family's a little bit disgusted with me. My family is constantly disgusted with me. Yeah. And the it's a living excuse does not really work. It doesn't work. Because we hit these points in the sports schedule,

you know, like late April where there's the eight matchups going on in the first round, and it's just there's games every night. My wife's like, I hate this time of year. Did she watch with you? I saw her watching the hustle with you. She watched hustle. My family's very pro-Sandler.

I mean, I know you haven't done bad for yourself in life. Thank you. I think there's a re-watchandler. I mean, I know you haven't done bad for yourself in life. Thank you. I think there's a rewatchability, especially. Yeah. There's some of them that just feels like they're going to live on and on. I mean, Happy Gilmore now, how old is Happy Gilmore now? Like 27 years? Exactly.

It's been around. It's just going to keep going. It's like how we thought about Caddyshack and some of those movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bad News Bears. Bad News Bears about Caddyshack and some of those movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Badness Bears. Badness Bears, Caddyshack, and Longish Yard, Slapshot. That got me too.

Did you watch your movies with your kids? When did your kids watch Happy Gilmore? That's when one of my daughters always says, I don't know if I like that one, Daddy. You're very aggressive. But I think I watched a lot of my movies with them. And I sit there for 20 minutes and then I see either they're loving it or if I see them tune out for it.

They kind of stay into it, most of them. So what bombed? What did terribly? They were, Zohan, my ass is out in that one. I don't think they were thrilled. I think that was the timing. I think it was a sleepover too.

I think their friends were over. I walked in, I'm like, oh no, they're watching the Zohan? This was a couple years ago and all of a sudden daddy's ass is out and their friends are asleep. I think that ruined the night night but everything else worked well how do you know when you're making a movie i mean you've had a lot of ones that worked but a couple that didn't do you know as you're filming it that it might not work or do you talk yourself into it i like them i like them all while i'm doing them i

believe in them all while i'm doing them uh So you never have doubt, never creeps in? Because I remember my TV show got canceled and I did, I don't know, like 18 episodes, but I didn't really realize until the ninth episode, like, oh, I might be in trouble. Really? You felt it? Yeah, I felt like the first ones, I was like, yeah, we're getting, I see the, you know,

because if you're competitive, you're just talking to yourself and the things that you think is working. Right, right. You know? Plus, there's a reason you're doing it. You believe in it. So if you believe in something, of course you think. But yeah, I used to know the world.

And when my movies would come out in the theaters, there was a thing called tracking. You know what that is? Like three and a half weeks before, they kind of give you some numbers of what the feel of the world is right now. And I sadly started being able to read that stuff. So like three and a half weeks out, I would be like... It's like a movie psychic.

It tells you, yeah, what kind of numbers you're looking at, what's going to happen. And I would know three and a half weeks out where it's feeling like it's going to go. And I would have friends go, whoa, that thing's going to be huge, man. And in my head, I'd be like, oh boy, I'm about to disappoint a lot of people. But then the ones that are tracking good, you're like, yeah, baby, you got some confidence. What was the one out of all of them that you were just like, I know this is going to be a huge hit. People are going to love this. Well, I literally thought Billy Madison when we first did it and wrote it. And I was like, well, this is going to be the greatest thing of all

time because I was a kid. It's my first one. I knew I'd want to see it. I was like, how did someone not do an elementary school movie? How did this not happen? A grown man in elementary. We were so just like excited. And then it did fine. It didn't do, it wasn't huge. But it lived on, it lived on.

Right. And so that's kind of great. But I think at that time I was always was always just like oh wait till the water boy comes out they're gonna like that i was very psyched about each one we put up now i'm just like i think this is good i like it i'm gonna work hard to make it as good as i can i have no idea where it's gonna land but um hustle i feel real good about hustles hustle will do very well yeah hustles got a nice vibe to it. It has something for everybody.

I thought I was interesting. In my house, what plays? Yeah, what plays? I don't want to sound like this is an advertisement for the movie, but we have different people in my house, right?

Me and my wife like different things. Right, right. My daughter pretty much likes everything as long as it has a heart. And then my son is the toughest audience of all.

Right, right, right. He's looking for any excuse to be out. He's 14 years old. And to be like, ah, that sucks or whatever. So the fact that everybody was kind of into it, I was like, this is a good sign for a movie. That's good. You're hitting four different demos.

That's big, yeah. Especially me, because I don't, I'm always prone to be defensive with sports movies. Sure, or also we watch sports movies and go, that guy can't play and blah, blah, blah. In this movie, you're just like, wow, everybody's pretty damn good. It's actually, Wancho is so good in the movie

that it made me kind of reevaluate. I was like, why isn't this guy a better player? How is he not a starter? You know, Wancho, when they screwed around, when the guys would just be playing ball and loose, he's incredible. He's incredible. He hits shots. I think he's just like,

he's got possibilities to be awesome. He should be an absolute stretch for asset for somebody. But this is the problem with the NBA. You can, you know, he bounced around, right? He's in Denver, he's in Minnesota. He came to the Celtics, then he gets traded twice this year. You were all over it.

You knew what he was doing the whole time when we would text about that. But his... Every time he came in, I was like, Wancho, he's in. But Wancho, when he was in, had some nice moments with Utah. Yeah. He felt good. He was friends. And Jordan Clarkson's in the movie.

And Del Demps, who was an assistant coach on the Jazz. I think that made Wancho feel good too because he knew those guys. So when he got on the team, he felt comfortable. It must be scary as hell. You land on a new team mid-season, you're not sure who's psyched you're there, who's not psyched, and you got to start over. Right. It's almost better to land on a crap team than I think a team like Utah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're kind of a set team already. Did you feel like, is it easy to get these guys to be in a movie? You have Tobias Harris in this movie and he's in actual scenes and there's a lot of little cameos from stuff, but do these people, because I always felt like with Entourage, it just seemed like everybody was so delighted to be in Entourage. Right. Right. Over and over again. And be like, Entourage, it just seemed like everybody was so delighted to be in Entourage. Right, right. Over and over again. Oh, yeah, sure, I'll do a scene.

Even like Tom Brady was in Entourage. But is it easy or hard to get those people? If you're shooting in L.A., a lot of guys want a reason to go to L.A. and hang out, so they're like, yeah, I'll do a day on that. But this one, we shot in Philly. First of all, the Sixers were so cool to us. They let us use everything. They got the whole,

all the facilities, all the coaches, everybody, you know, Doc and, and, and a lot, a lot of the players were in a lot of scenes.

And yeah, we did stuff in the morning, did stuff at night. This, we just got to hang with those guys. It's not that easy where you write a part for someone and you guarantee they're going to come, but LeBron and being a part of the movie, everything is...

LeBron's like the stamp of approval because that whole generation, I don't know. He's great. He makes the NBA. We made sure anything that had to do with the NBA because LeBron was involved, it just got done. Yeah, they roll over for that. Sure.

It's like that same thing with Jordan 25 years ago, right? Right, yeah. It's like, LeBron wants to do this. Okay, you do that, LeBron. Yeah, 100%. I wonder who'll be the next guy who's like that.

Because, you know, at some point it's going to end with LeBron. And I wonder, like, who will be the next guy? Because remember, after MJ left, we had six, seven years where everybody was kind of vying for the throne. Nobody really got it until LeBron went to Miami, basically.

Well, Kobe was pretty. Kobe was in there, but he also missed the playoffs one year. Right, right. Tracy McGrady, at one point, they were saying him. It was going to be Green Hill. It was going to be Shaq. And none of those guys ever told it. And then LeBron was the first guy. I was was like this is clearly the guy that he started so young

yeah started so young everybody we all knew him when he was 14 so that was that does bring in in a nice light i don't know man there's some greats out there right now though there's so many young guys that are ridiculous what a year this was. It's a talent boom. We have this, I mean, this happens in comedy, this happens in music. That's true. You think like even when you were making your first couple movies,

I was thinking about like comedies during that era. Yeah. What a cool era for comedies it was. Man. You and Farley. Yeah. Jim Carrey had three movies in one year.

Oh, yeah. The Farrelly Brothers. Yeah. All of a sudden, there was just this explosion of funny movies. Yeah, Mike Myers had a whole bunch of them. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. year oh yeah fairly brothers yeah um all of a sudden there was just this explosion myers still yeah mike myers had a whole bunch of them yeah i it was crazy it was crazy we all got shots to to do our thing it was kind of like every two months one of us got to have a movie come out you know i

don't know carrie carrie was definitely he he kicked down the doors for us with just being a monster what do you have he'd ace ventura dumb and dumber and i think the mask on like 10 months was definitely, he kicked down the doors for us with just being a monster. What did he have? He had Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, and I think The Mask all in like 10 months. Yeah, that was insane. And then he was in Batman. And then it was just kind of like,

well, he's uncatchable. Cable Guy gets paid 20 million. Yeah, yeah. That's the first time comedies were treated like big budget movies. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What did you make for like Happy Gilmore? Do you remember? Not that much. I don't remember. nominees were treated like big budget movies. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What did you make for Happy Gilmore?

Do you remember? Not that much. I don't remember. Do you think it was under a million bucks? Yeah, in that ballpark. I mean, that's pretty good for a young idiot. But I do think Happy Gilmore ended up making, I made more money down the line with how much they ran it and stuff. So yeah, I didn't come out,

I didn't start getting paid big money till actually the wedding singer made pretty good money because the first two started, did well at Billy and Happy and so then they gave me some more money than I thought I would ever get. What was wedding singer Singer or Waterboy?

Which one was first? First the Wedding Singer, then the Waterboy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was when it just seemed like... That's when everything changed after those two. I feel like that would have happened for Farley too. Oh, 1,000%. It just would have been like every year

there's a Farley movie and I'm going to go see it. He'd still be killing. Yeah, yeah. He was more lovable than any human being and would be up to do anything you ask him to as a comedian and a director. All the great directors loved him, I remember, when they'd come by Saturday Night Live.

It would be like no one else was alive. They'd be staring at Farley like, oh my God, here he comes. He would just dominate. Well, same thing, even like somebody like Letterman who interviewed like a kajillion people, right? Yes. And there's like, every time Farley came on,

Letterman was just so delighted. Yeah, exactly. I know, we would talk about that with Farley and be like, Letterman loves you, man. He'd be like, yeah, he does. Get all shy, but cocky. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe.

Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See?

Safe riding sets an example. Yeah. An example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay. Give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit.

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Who's in the SNL office? Who were you sharing it with? Me and Rock. And then next to, and it was like me and Rock are here and right over there is Spade and Farley. And we hung out a lot. And it's just the four of you guys in the wee hours.

Farley's just figuring out ways to make you laugh, usually with nudity or farting. He didn't fart that much, but he certainly was nude a lot. And then me and Rock, we shared our office. And me and Rock knew each other when we were 17. We just, we lucked out. I don't even know how it all happened that we had the same office, but we just, we were tight. Was it weird for you and Rock when all your,

you had so many different things that's taking off, and he's trying to find this niche, and he had like Nat X and a couple, but he wasn't hitting like you were on the show. I think he was more popular than me on the show. He had a lot more things going on. I was just a writer in the beginning. And then I slowly weaseled my way on there more.

But Rock, I think by the time I started really having... Rock, by the way, he used to come to the office on a Monday after I did something and be like, Sandler, whatever, whatever skit, like the Halloween costumes thing,

you know, such as that. He would talk to people and his buddies. He'd be like, that one worked, you know, like he kind of always knew

what was happening. And then all of a sudden, he would tell you something like, don't do that one again or something like that. Like, oh, really? Okay. So you felt like there was like a-picture savviness to him

even way back then. Rock thought things through. Always was like a teammate. Rock also, I remember when we would have a skit, if you had a good performance where the crowd liked it, I would walk off stage like, all right, and then Rock would come running at me. I'd be like, oh, and he would jump like we were on the Knicks and we'd bump chest and be like,

Sandler, Sandler. He was such a nice guy about it all, always. That was such a crazy time for the show because you had all these, you know, it was still a cast, but you had all these people that just went on to bigger things from the show. And then it made it seem like that's how it went if you're on the show then all these things and it was just like actually no that's not how it's gonna go it's actually really hard to make it after you leave the show it you know i a lot of a lot of people are doing well and have done well on the show and um the cast now a lot of funny people popping on that show right now. By the way, Heidi is in the hustle. She's really good.

Isn't she cool? Big Chiefs fan. She's a big, you know how I thought of her? She's like a psycho Chiefs fan. She did this, that Michael Jordan skit. She wrote that skit where he's playing quarters with Michael Jordan, the security guard. They're flipping quarters. Right, right, right. And I called up someone. I said, who wrote that sk guard. They're flipping quarters.

Right, right, right. And I called up someone. I said, who wrote that skit? They said, Heidi. I said, she wrote that? Man, that is the best. Yeah, she's like a legit sports fan. She really knows the sport. I've been meaning to have her on the pod.

I got to do that. You just reminded me. She's cool. I always file stuff away. Like, I have to have that person on, and then I forget. Yeah, I know. Of course, me too. Well, the weirdest thing for you now is freaking Harley.

His son is... A monster. You're like 100 years old. That made me feel old. Me too, man. Because we're like around the same age. I was like, really? Hurley's son's on the show? I kind of did it in such a cool way to never...

Tim would be like, he doesn't talk to me about anything. He just does his own thing. Doesn't want to be known as... Right. For the people listening, so Hurley was like your longtime guy. Right. He's still my guy. I just talked to him this morning. He was my college roommate. We wrote all our movies together. We still write our stuff. And then his son, Martin, went to NYU and he was in a comedy troupe

and they're on Please Don't Destroy, right? They make these videos. They're kind of the new version of the old school Sandberg videos. Sure, sure. They don't really do music, but they do their own weird, and they cut them up great, and the topics are all weird, and they're just great vibe, but they're like the superstars now. I Googled after the first one. I'm like, who are these guys?

Oh, yeah? And I was like hurley that can't be that i know oh he must be the redhead one but yeah hey they look a little alike but i know martin when he was a little baby yeah and i had no idea that baby was going to be funny the thing is if you're in a house where everybody's funny i think it does help there is some osmosis with the comedy especially if if people are crossing lines in your own house to the safety of the house absolutely it's going to translate at least a little bit like your kids i bet would be funny they certainly uh hear me curse a lot they're gonna definitely curse last night i was

ripping some some curses and i was like i think i gotta calm down with that yeah it's gonna be nuts my kids but no they they no, they know about comedy. They laugh at the right jokes, both my daughters. Your daughter too, right? My kids, same way. I'm always really proud of what they think is funny because I'm always like, all right, we did a good job with this. Yeah, they like the subtle weird ones.

And if something's too big, they just kind of stare like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen that but but they laugh at like snl did that thing last year with chalamet and pete davidson where they were like fake a rap rap duo with the flute now they were doing like this rap and it just kept yelling skeet skeet right yeah yeah but i showed that to my kids before it became a thing and they were immediately like, that's amazing. And they watched it like 10 times. Right, right, right.

And I was like, oh, I bet this becomes a thing. Yeah, yeah, man. And then it became like a billion. It's amazing that age. My daughters, too, when they like something, I go, oh, that's going to be big, huh? It's so weird that the kids are the tastemakers from like age 12 to 16. Yeah. Whatever they like, they're kind of ahead of, they're way ahead of us.

I feel like we lose that advantage when they graduate college, right? We become corny. We're always a beat behind. Somebody just the other day when we were putting music in another movie we produced and we were like,

we got to, you know, come up with the right tunes and then one guy the way out goes, whoever's got a little brother around here, ask them. Ask the little brother. Yeah. Yeah, like a 13 year old. What here, ask them. Ask a little brother. Yeah. Yeah, like a thirsty road.

So you're in college with Hurley. Yeah. And you want to be a comic. What does he want to be? That guy came to be a business. He worked at Goldman Sachs during the summer. So he thinks he's going financial. He's all finance.

He knows that world. He talks about, I would just stare at him and be like, I don't even know what that means. Anything. I was so dumb. And you just want to be

a stand-up comic. You're, or, you don't know what you want, but you want to be funny. I think, I know, I wanted to be Eddie Murphy.

I wanted to be a superstar. No doubt about it. When I was, it wasn't on my mind until I decided to be a stand-up. And my brother told me, I was applying to schools. And I said, what should my major be? And my brother goes, you can be a comedian. You're funny like Eddie Murphy. Or he maybe even said, you're funnier

than Eddie Murphy. Something like that. And then I went, yeah, okay, I'll do that. And then once I started it, then I became obsessed. I was like, oh, I got to get good at this. And that was that. I think I told you this last time, but you came to Holy Cross once. I did, yeah. When I was in college. That's funny.

And just the classic, like terrible college standup, although we were much more excited for you than I think maybe the kids are now, which is with like how they treat standups now. Right. Right. Right. But it was just like the big blown out, you know, the field house where we played sports. They just put the crappy stage up. Right. Right. Right. You have to go out. Everybody kind of stands there. That's right, man. But I remember being like a good vibe because it was all my New England friends came. Yeah. Well, we were all, you know, we were you were a new england guy when you started going on that on snl it's like yeah you're always filing that one away like oh yeah yeah he's from

around here i know i know and i used to always on purpose try to write stuff that i knew my new england friends would laugh at it and references and stuff like that and uh you can do the accent which helps because yes exactly from a comedy standpoint a lot of people fuck that up yeah yeah and you get as a new englander you get angry at the fake the pepperidge farm guys you would go like ah come on man but um but yeah holy cross i kind of remember that gig i don't remember everything but i do remember that my albums were starting to do well. And that was my big, even more than SNL, was my albums when I would get to the colleges. That's what the kids talked to me about. So when you're doing those albums, did you get that money?

Did you have to split it with SNL? How did that work? Some of the Lawrence company had a chance. I think I split it with them, yeah. Yeah. But that's one where I went, I know this is going to be good. Like we were saying, what movies you know. My first album and my second album, they were always saying, no, just do stand-up.

Do stand-up. They didn't want to do it the way I did it. And I would say, oh, I think I'm pretty sure it's going to be cooler this way. Because Cheech and Chong, man, that's all we listen to yeah and and and they were like well maybe you'll get that down the line but let's just do stand up and I think that was like the first time I went wait a minute I think I gotta stand up for what I want to do a little more that's like the first time I went I I'm you gotta listen to me and they're gonna like it better like this you kind of have to have that quality if you're going to become really successful because you

can just get rolled over by the wrong idea well the snl kind of taught you that when when as a comedian you went you wrote your thing and then you produced your own piece yeah and and that and so you decided what you were wearing and what, what you could talk to the director about, uh, maybe shoot a three shot instead of that, because it gives away the joke if you do that, that kind of thing. And so then, uh, when you leave the show, you have a little bit more confidence of like, uh, it's going to work better if we do it like this, when you're in a meeting with people who make stuff. Or you go like the Mike Myers thing where he's just like a cornerback and they just leave him alone. It's like Mike's going to defend the left side of the field

and he just comes in with his scans. I don't need help from anybody. That's from the SNL world, I think. Mike could tell you what, but I'm pretty sure. You produce your own stuff. You do it in front of a crowd and you see it working. So that's when you go to do a movie. You go, wait, let me just make sure we do it the right way, the way I see it.

Was there competitiveness with all the guys afterwards with the movies and stuff? Or is everybody just rooting for each other? At that time, I think after a while, we all became relaxed with it. In the beginning you're just like, you want to do well enough to let them make another offer to do one. You don't want to have, if yours eats it and someone else's kills, they start going, okay, well you're done, we'll go with just whoever,

someone else. So I'm sure in the beginning we all had a little, like we gotta get this right. But everyone's rooting for Farley. Not a soul can root against Farley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And probably Norm too, right? Probably hoping dirty where it makes $200 billion. You know, Norm, honest

to God, everything he did you didn't root, not root, you just went, he's incredible. You didn't like say, I don't think Norm gave a shit if he did well or not. I remember Norman Chappelle, they would hang out at the same place I would hang out.

The guy, Bob Simons, he produced Billy Madison and Happy and all the ones in the beginning. So then he did dirty work and he just did half-baked and he did all the stuff with those guys. And we'd all see each other at this little place on the Universal lot and all hang out. And we were just like, fuck, they're letting us make movies. This is crazy. We were all mid-20s, low-30s kind of shit.

It was amazing. And it's also, I think that era is just over in general with giving young comics or young comedy stars just a chance in a 20 million dollar budget i guess the streamers would do that but i think so i mean i don't know and in general like what is comedy like what's what's happening to comedy over the last 10 years you know i think it's so much tougher to even figure out what's funny i think they actually do it in the way they want to do it. I don't think they want to make movies like we did and whoever, or goofy movies like we did.

They're doing different ways at it. A lot of comedians won't even do straight-up comedy parts. They just play real deep parts and then they go, oh yeah, and I also do stand up. It's pretty cool. I think it would be way safer though.

You'd think like Cappy Gilmore, you're making that now and then there's some backlash because you don't realize you're taking advantage of elementary school. It's an adult. Yeah, I don't know.

Wait a second, I'm just trying to make a funny movie. You definitely have to think differently now and smarter and be more aware and it's a good thing. When did you feel like you had fuck you power to make a movie?

When was it like, I have this idea and I'm on a run and you guys are going to make this? I don't think I ever have in my personality a fuck you. I'm always a run and you guys are going to make this. I don't think I ever have in my personality a fuck you. Well, you know what I mean. I'm always a little scared. I'm still, I would kind of, when I'm talking to my buddies, be like, fucking tell these motherfuckers.

I was more like that talking to my buddies. And then the closer I got to the building and saw the guys in a room like this in Suicide, I'd be like, first of all, how you doing? You know, like I just get chicken every time. But on occasion, I... But it must have been like late in suicide, I'd be like, first of all, how you doing? I just get chicken every time. But on occasion, I... But it must have been late 90s, right? You're going to pitch Big Daddy and you're going to be able to make it.

That one, they pitched me. But yeah, if I believed in one, I would definitely get riled up about it. I'd call up whoever says yes or no and just say, here's why it's good, blah, blah, blah, blah, let's do that. You know, and most of the time I was right. I had a couple that lost some money,

so they went, calm down with your crazy attitude of saying what's great. But most of the time they let me do my thing. Well, you're a pretty proven commodity after a while. I did. And it's a pretty safe bet. Good batting average back in the day. Good batting average.

Yes. Yes. Very, very good. When did you decide to do the production company thing? And did somebody explain that to you, that there was more value in doing it that way? You know, I didn't even, I don't even think about it. It's not that much more money in your life. It's a lot more time in my life. By the way, the good news is a lot of people that I know work at the company, they get paid. You were one of the first people that did it, though.

You should give yourself some credit. I did. It was cool. I think I did it mostly because I loved, I worked hard. I knew kind of what I was doing. Yeah. And my friends were all wanting to do it too

so i kind of was like here let's let's get you going you know i was more like um i had the opportunity to open doors for some other people and then we just did it together and um i i like i like that it's happy madison i like that my dad's on the, at the beginning of every movie I see him. It makes me feel good to, to do as many things as we did. We did. We only have done 90% goofy comedies. I like, I like doing that stuff.

It makes me feel good. So you didn't do like the hands made to handmaid's tale. No, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I that direction. Dark Travis. I would if somebody wanted. But I'm usually more confident in the comedy tone. Like I just did this really cool movie. It's called Spaceman.

And Johan, he directed it and he did Chernobyl, right? Yeah. So he's awesome. Yeah, he's like incredible director. And then when I have had opinions on the script on my acting on the cut i always say something but then i go but you know what you do your thing man because i don't really know exactly what i'm talking about in this world i'm not that confident but with comedy i will be more like you gotta fucking lose that scene man that's ruining this this and i can be very cocky with that what what do you think is the best start to finish

comedy you made like what's the one that you feel i'm sure you never don't feel like any of them are perfect but the one you just feel like check the most boxes i don't know i don't know i i like i like when i'm making them i think they all are are. But like, we loved when we were making That's My Boy. We were very excited. That felt very New England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That felt like when my brother would stop by the set and he'd watch it and be like, holy shit, that's so funny.

That's like so-and-so in our town. I'd be like, you know what I mean? That felt as true to growing up uh in new england that that i did but i i don't know i i really don't i think that's the right answer if you don't yeah you like pieces of different ones yeah i do i do i do i like some some i go fuck let's go move on to the next scene already what are we doing here i look back at some like that but um most of the time i'm happy you You worked with PTA pretty early. Yes, yes.

Kind of turned into a decent director. He did okay. I know. Things were going okay for that guy. That's funny. He did his third movie or his fourth movie? Yeah, something like that. Third or fourth movie.

He did Boogie Nights, Magnolia. He did Heartache before that. Yeah, so it was fourth. And so fourth. You just went away with him, or who'd you go so forth you just went away with him or who'd you go with I went away with PTA's daughter

we went on a little trip and while she was just any minute I could I'd say your father does

this a lot and she would laugh or whatever it was I like making fun of her daddy but he's a sweetheart you meet him ever

we've done two podcasts with him and they were great he's a sweetheart. You meet him ever? We've done two podcasts with him and they were great. He's a cool bastard. He's really like a student of the game. He is. He likes his sports.

He likes his Dodgers and Red Sox. He's allowed to like two, apparently. I never knew. So he's a sports bigot. You're not allowed to do that. But I think because his father's

New England, he gives himself the Red Sox, too. I don't like the two-team thing. You're not allowed to do that, but I think because his father's New England, he gives himself the Red Sox too. I don't like the two-team thing. You can't do that, right? I did with the Mets as a kid. Different leagues are okay, I guess. Yeah, yeah. At some point, they're going to play.

Could happen. Then what do you do? Well, apparently, he just lives with it and he's allowed to hate the Yankees and like the, I don't know, whatever he does, but he's a great, what a weirdo that PTA is. What did you, uh, what'd you learn from him when you did a PTA movie? Anything? Certainly, man, I, he thought differently than I did. He just very, I never made a movie like that. I'm,

I watched him do his thing. By the way, when I do a movie like that, like I did for Paul, I just give myself to those guys, whatever you want me to do, I'll do. Yeah. And whatever you think is right, then I'll have my opinions. But if you say, no, no, no, I go, okay, let's move on.

But then that's kind of, I learned to be that kind of teammate with him. But just watching him work was different than anything I've ever seen. Just so many cool moves, dolly moves. I would walk over to the, if I remember correctly, he'd be watching a playback of what you just did, headphones on, and he'd be kind of going, like doing some thing that

he had the score already in his head, like what he wanted the sounds to be. And he just saw what he, he had the vision of what it was going to be. And he's like one of those psycho attention to detail guys. Oh, yes. The water bottle shouldn't be

there, it should be there. He frames his shit cooler than everybody. Yeah, he's just so sharp. By the way, did he tell you I went to his house one time? I don't remember exactly the age, but it might have been first grade or something. He had something written. I want to be the greatest director in the world

or something like that. when he was like seven yeah oh my god I go director you picked he goes yeah yeah I knew I wanted to do that I was like you didn't want to be like a superstar you'd be like no I wanted to be a director man I think Spielberg was like that is that right well just like I think I think the truly great directors they just things come out of their eyeballs differently like they see a room and they just see the movie shot for it. It's like, yeah, you know, and I think either they're happy or you don't. He's, he's, he is such a, just a normal dude hanging out and he happens to be a genius. Like you'd have no idea. He knows as much as he knows. He just seems just like a goofy sweetheart when we talk, right?

You know his dad, right? Yeah. That his dad was the ABC guy? Yeah, yeah. Someone's killing hookers and Dan Tannis got a partner. Next on Vegas. On the love boy. A little fantasy

on it. That's pretty cool, man. What amazing. That guy was an icon when we were kids. And he That's pretty cool, man. What amazing. That guy was an icon when we were kids. And he was funny as shit, too. He was a comic, too. He had his own show when I think Ohio or something. Yeah. Yeah.

And by the way, can I show you this bruise? Yeah. What's that? Jesus, what the hell is that? I think I got hit by a golf cart the other day. I think that's what caused it. Something happened. My daughter's friends were driving by in a golf cart,

nicked mine, and I went, did I just get hurt? Did they just dislocate my elbow? What'd you learn from the Safdies? Couple maniacs. Yeah. Again, they very think every they never want to do anything they've seen

before they never want to do anything that doesn't feel that it could be real if they're very like bullshit detectors every five seconds they're like no no no you can't do that no no no he wouldn't say that like they are all over every word,

every move story-wise, wanting that they're just hard work and sharp guys. They love movies. They love old movies, new movies. They're open to everything. PTA and those guys got tight now. They're really, really close benny was in the uh last one yeah yeah you know licorice pizza yep the the last time we did this the movie

hadn't come out yet and we couldn't talk about the ending which i still won't spoil if nobody's seen it but yeah what was it like for people in your life like like, Oh, people who, for the, for the ending. Yeah. Like were people like, what the fuck dude? Like what happened? Yeah. A lot of that.

A lot of people going, some people in the first, first couple of weeks, just going, wait a minute, man, that ending, man,

I got that on the street a few times. Like that ending was a little much, man. Then I had some people go, that's the only way out for Howard, man he had and that had to happen or you know what the movie came out two years ago we can spoil it you get shot in the head at the end shot in the head is that the first time you died in a movie yeah i think so i think that was part of the shock it's like they just killed sandler that's. Sandler lives in every movie. I know, man.

And then they show me dead for a while. That was cool. It was cool. I don't know. My kids still haven't seen that one. I always say that to them. They're like, can we watch Uncut Gems? I'm like, yeah, that's a tough one.

I didn't show that one to my kids either. Right, right, yeah. I'm just like, just watch, just go with it again. Just put it on again. I told you this. We didn't talk about this on a pod though. So after you helped a lot on Hustle. Oh, really?

I'm not surprised. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They helped on the script a lot. All the guys, the whole gang. So we taped with KG. It was like December before the pandemic. And then the pandemic happened like 10 weeks later. I think it was one of the last podcasts I did in person, but it was interesting during the pandemic,

you've made a couple of movies where you get to go away location. That's true. And in the pandemic, they became, my daughter would always be like, let's watch a movie that's set in Hawaii. We're like, all right, well, we can watch, just go with it again. But we would get to go to a place for two hours instead of just being stuck at our house and being afraid to go to the grocery store. But it was funny. Like a couple of those, it's almost like Netflix should have had

a You Get To Go Away section on there. That's so true. You know what I mean? Because growing up, you see a movie. By the way, when I was growing up in New England, I'd see a movie in California. I had no idea. You were just like, it's incredible out there.

Oh, my God. Holy cow. Remember Battle of the Network Stars? Oh, my God, yes. Where did they shoot that? At Pepperdine? Yeah. Unbelievable, dude.

That show was my favorite. What's Robert Conrad? And Gabe Kaplan. And Gabe Kaplan was a great jock. I wrote a whole column about that for ESPN, the magazine once, about how I thought that was the greatest sports moment that nobody talks about. And Gabe Kaplan.

Gabe Kaplan beating Conrad at the 100-yard dash. He did? Yeah. That's incredible. That must have made Conrad furious. It's on YouTube. It's great. Yeah, it's...

Fast break. Another good movie. Great one. Yeah. That was one... I mean, this guy in Hustle feels like a little bit Absolutely. Gabe Kaplan-y in Fast Break.

Absolutely, man. That movie was awesome. I loved that movie as a kid. Watched it over and over. It was one of my three favorite movies. Really? As a kid. Now it's like, I think it might be the most inappropriate

sports movie ever made. Yeah, I haven't seen it in years. I have no idea. But it has like that iconic Bernard King performance. Bernard King's in it. Where he's like really good and believable.

It was one of the only times they figured it out. He's in love with the girl who... That was the other guy. The other guy's in love with Swish who's dressed up as a guy.

Oh my God. That wouldn't play either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Kimmel's favorite movie. That was one of the things we bonded about. Yeah, Fast Break. So wouldn't play either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Kimmel's favorite movie. That was one of the things we bonded about. Fast break, Bill? Yeah, fast break. So cool, man.

The thing is, we all watched the same shit because we were all in the 70s. What else were we going to watch? And it would be on TV. Yeah. Fast break would come on once or twice a year and you're just like, I'm watching this. This is pretty amazing.

That's what's happened with sports movies, I think, because there's so much sports on now, I think it's harder to hit with a sports movie. We just did a podcast about Rocky III. And on rewatchables, we were talking about, when this came out, it was like a big deal. We didn't have, 1982, there wasn't a lot of sports on. You know, you got to watch your local teams.

There was two games on Sunday for football. It was Monday night baseball. Yeah, wrestling on Saturdays. So Rocky's going to fight Clubber. Yeah, that was tremendous. Oh my God. I got to go to the theater and see this. Couldn't believe it.

And how cool Rocky was. How cool Apollo Creed was. Oh man, Apollo becomes a good guy. Yeah, that was a good move. That was great. Clubber Lang, great villain. Mickey was insane. Mickey dies.

Mickey dies. That's terrible. But I'll tell you,. Mickey was insane. Mickey dies. Mickey dies. That's terrible. But I'll tell you, by the way, KG's coming right now. Right. I think I hear KG out on the other side. Yeah, be careful. No, you got time. KG doesn't rush anybody.

KG's early. He's habitual. He's always on time. He's ready to roll. He's got to make it happen. I'm hearing it. I'm seeing through a silhouette of KG. It's kind of like just a badass outside. But what were we talking about?

Fast break. We were talking about fast break and sports movies. Oh, and Rocky and Mickey. And I was saying every time in this movie with Wancho, when I'm giving him encouragement and trying to give him a chance, I'm just like, come on, man. I can't do it as good as Mickey. Mickey was so real. Every bit of advice you gave him was so like you felt a guy who was in a gym every day of his life for 70 years. I was saying that. I was just like, all right, I've been in a few basketball gyms.

I think I'm kind of entitled to this, but it didn't feel like Mickey entitled. What's your pickup basketball? How we look in these days now that you're old? It's been a rough one for me. The groin. You retired yet? I'm coming back. I have to come, but I haven't been playing.

I played horse a little bit last weekend. That was hurting. What about full court is done? I'm coming back. I just, when we were making this movie, one day- You got the bug. I know that my damn groin, I popped my groin or something,

and it's never been perfect again. I'm having a hard time. It's so, they say I did it golfing. Really? Swing it too much. You plant your foot, you turn, and that sucks, man. I don't even know. But I'll be back.

I thought you would be done at this point. When I would be playing with these guys and they'd say, these kids would say, how old are you? And I'd say 55. They'd be like, whoa, I didn't know you were that old, man. Yeah, that was pretty good. The last time I really played a lot was my early 40s, and they were always impressed because we'd go play at USC.

They'd be like, oh, I'll take this guy. I won't have to. Right, right, right. They'd be like, oh, no, he's actually more of a pain in the ass than I'd be like, you know, they go, oh, I'll take this guy. I won't have to. Right, right, right. And they'd be like, oh no, it's actually, this is more of a pain to the ass than I thought.

That's right. But I lost it though. By 43, I was. What was hurting you? Why'd you quit? I just, just felt things

starting to go, right? You're like a split second late on stuff. I'm definitely slow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like there would be, I remember there was one time I was playing, there was this rebound and I saw it and I couldn't, and I was just watching the ball go by me and then somebody jumped. Oh my God.

And I was like in a movie watching the rebound. Right, right, right. Versus like just, there's rebound, I'll get it. That's so true. And that was when I was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. I think I kind of always had that where I'd see a ball up,

I'd be like, let me get that. And somebody would just out jump me, rip it out. I'd be like, what the hell? Well, the fun thing for playing when I got old was you have so much like native basketball intelligence, right? You've seen everything and you can be in these pickup games and you could just be like, all right, I'm going to, I know what the, I figured out this guy, he only goes right. All right. Now just play him right. And that, but so you could cheat with all these things that make up for how old you were that's true yes and plus when you're older they let you get a little handsy would yeah they feel bad shirts and stuff yeah calm down man yeah what keeps you what

keeps you going with just making movies like does your family get mad does your wife give you shit that i do it too much or that yeah like why haven't you scaled back yet you've been making movies for 30 years pretty good they're pretty good on it they kind of like the kids would be like what's the next one

oh they're just used to it they just they feel alright with it that's what I do and they also I think when I'm not doing it I'm kind of a psycho sitting at home

and getting in bad moods and not knowing what to do with my time especially with this new groin I can't play hoop. They're just like, get him out of here. He's in a bad mood.

So they like it when you're busy. That's how my family is. Yeah, right, right, right. They think they miss me. And then when I'm home for a couple of days, they start going, you know, like, that kind of sucks. That is kind of ornery. But they like, I'm home at night.

I come home at night. I come home at night. I hit run my house. My office is like five minutes from my house. Yeah. So I just randomly come home and hang out for a half hour, then I get back to work. How old are the kids now? 13 and 16.

Your daughter's what? Yeah, I'm 17 and 14. Yeah, we're pretty close. Got it, got it. So yeah, yeah, your daughter's five. So the 16, they're starting to go away. 16's not talking to me as much as you. Yeah, it's rough. Yeah, it hurts, right? It's a big ego hit So yeah. Yeah. So the 16, they're starting to go away. 16's not talking to me as much as that. Yeah, it's rough.

Yeah, it hurts, right? It's a big ego hit, yeah. Because I literally love this kid more than anything on the planet. She loves me too, but she's not dying for me to enter the bedroom. It's really depressing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're going in like, hey, how was school today? It was fine. It's like, just, I'm not questioning you. I'm just asking how school was. That was my morning this morning.

I came in. I said, hey, kid, good morning. She goes, hi, can you shut the door? And I go, yeah. What time are you going to be back? Dad, I told you I'll be back at 10. Just asking. Do you have like the Life 360

where you can track them? I don't. I don't. All my buddies have that. Life 360. That's a good move. I like to know where my kids are. That's good.

I know me too. Me too. Especially when they're driving. Is your kid driving yet, the older one? Gets it in a month. Gets the license. Be ready for that.

That breaks your heart out. They just want to get out. They just want out. They just want to get out. They just go places. Where does your daughter go? Anywhere. And you track it and go, she's on 17th Street right now?

Yeah, I mean, she has some sports stuff, so they'll be like, I'm going to practice. So I'll be like, all right, did she make it to practice?

Right, right, right. That makes sense. I'm going to my friend Paige's house. All right, she got to Paige's house. I don't know if that ever... Her podcast is awesome though buddy I told you

oh thanks love it I wish she did it more she gets how many has she done so far she hasn't done one in a couple months she's threatening to do

like a Stranger Things thing oh she should I know she's perfect I know in your house that was probably that was this last weekend

they watched every moment of it that was it you were like the moment of it. That was it. You were like the king of Netflix until Stranger Things. Hey, listen, man. You had a good run. Listen, man, you make Stranger Things movies, then we'll talk. That's just some TV shit, man.

Well, I heard that last season, because they split it up. They're long episodes. I heard it's like two plus hours. They're incredible. That show is awesome. And, and Levy's part of it. You know,

Sean Levy. Yeah. He's a great guy. And yeah, that shows that that dominates my house for sure. They did a nice job of, um, building up the stuff for the kids,

but also having stuff for people like us. It's like, Oh, that's Winona Ryder. It's good to see her. Yeah, Winona's cool. You know, people from our era. Absolutely.

Except for the parents. Did your daughter go see Olivia Rodrigo last week? She didn't go. She didn't go. Didn't go. But she's ready to review the next album when it comes out, right? Yeah, a little concerned about the second album.

Yeah, I remember. That's a hard one to follow, but I think the kids are going to do it. Second albums are tough. Second albums are a pain in the ass because I remember Billy Madison was such a big deal to a certain amount of kids that when we were doing Happy Gilmore,

again, the Caddyshack thing, and then we kept going, ah, it's not as weird as Billy. They're going to be mad at us. You do overthink shit on your second one. People are more suspicious because they loved what you did the first time.

And then any move you make, they could say, what? I thought you got me, man. You don't. Right. Well, you also, because you always had to go back and forth with the comedy but then occasionally do the drama. I, you also, cause you always had to go back and forth with the comedy, but then occasionally do the drama or like the, I thought you always, I liked some of the risks you took. I think I think comics have issues sometimes with, it can't break out of it, you know, where it'd be like, well, I'm not, I don't want to see you in this dramatic thing. I'm used to you just making me laugh. Right. Right. I think people, your drama, Sandler, I think is, people are used to that. They're used to it by now, yeah.

Yeah. But I think many comedians, I got, I got, I had, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson wrote me a movie, so that's a pretty good place to be.

I think most, most comedians who would do serious stuff will handle it or could handle it or it's just lucking out who's putting it together. One of the things with you

is the impact on the Jewish community. Yes, yes. Juliette Lippman, who's one of our Inner Circle ringer people, she's always felt like that was the most underrated Sandler piece, like that you would take care, because she always feels like there's not enough content

in general, like the Hanukkah song. Right, yeah. But also just in general, you're aware. I'm aware that I'm a Jew. I think that- No, just from some of the comedy stuff that maybe is untapped, you're willing to go there. I definitely grew up where I'd be excited

when a comedian would talk about being Jewish or an actor would say about being Jewish or an actor would say they're Jewish or say they're Jewish in a movie or whatever it was, it was exciting. So it was on my mind in the beginning of my career, just I wanted to just not ever hold back talking about being a Jew. But then the Hanukkah song happens

and that becomes the iconic, That's the Jewish thing. It was a good one. And then I did eight crazy nights of comedy. I just always wanted to do stuff like that. I don't know enough about being Jewish and the religion to get too deep into it. But I always wanted to make sure I was proud. We've always joked about having a podcast called Jewish Stuff

and that Juliet was going to host. And we were always like, what would be on Jewish Stuff? And we just never did it. But we always thought, oh, man, this would crush. People would listen to this. But we never knew it would be on past 20 episodes. Yeah yeah you can only go so far that's funny man uh all right so hustle's coming out yes um what's your next thing after this i did a movie called space man oh yeah you missed i did that i did an animated movie with robert smigel you know him? Yeah. Legend. He's a legend.

He's directing it with a couple other great guys. We wrote that. I saw the guy Paul Sato wrote that with us. Oh, and Bill Burr's in that. It's me and Bill Burr play

class pets. I'm a lizard and Bill's a turtle. It's a good animated movie. It's coming along. Then you got 50th anniversary of Vestal Del in a couple years. I'm going to show up to that. God only knows what kind of festival that's going to be. I remember the last one was fun.

What was the last one? 40th anniversary? That was 40, which Eddie showed up at, which was a big deal to me personally. That's right. Eddie was cool. That was when they felt like that was the gateway to him hosting. Yeah, and then he got it done. That was. You're right.

Yeah, that was big. And then it's going to be even better this 50th because there's more people who have been on the show and more people showing up. How about the fact that the show is going to be 50? It's fucking amazing. I never knew that you wanted to come back. That was one of like a revelation from like two years ago or whenever you were doing Uncut Gems or I forget that you would have

come back for that last year, but they basically said, no, you're not coming back. Well, you know, I don't know if I wanted to come back, but I didn't have that opportunity to make that decision. They were kind of like, they removed the choice from you. That's kind of insane. It was for the best. I'm glad they did it, but I didn't have that opportunity to make that decision. They were kind of like, you're not coming. They removed the choice from you. That was kind of insane. It was for the best. I'm glad they did it, but

it wasn't like, it wasn't, I don't even remember. I don't remember who did it, who the people there were that made that decision, but it was just kind of, I guess. I mean, the show was in flux at that point. Yeah, we were there long enough. We were there. I'm baffled how long a lot of the people are on the show now,

but they're still fun to see. Yeah. You don't go like, all right, how long are you going to be? You're kind of like, I feel comfortable watching this person be funny. Yeah, I always thought it should be four or five years and you're out. That's kind of, I think I was three or four. And Farley was what, four? Yeah, about that.

Farley's four counted for like 14 though. He was a tank, man. He came and wrecked things. When did you reconcile that he wasn't around anymore? It must've been like for like five years after you were like, wow, that guy, oh, he's done. Ah, man. I remember getting the call. I remember I was in my house and picking up the phone, and it was Brad Gray, who also he passed away. He was Farley's manager. They kind of managed that. Bridleston Gray managed a lot of us, right?

And Brad, we were right, I think we were writing The Wedding Singer or something. Something like that. Oh, Big Daddy or something like that. Anyways, I walked to the phone, hello, and Brad goes, oh man, I got bad news. What happened? And then he told me Farley, and I just remember going, oh, fuck. That's fucking horrible. I thought of his family and his mom and the dad and his brothers and sister and blah, blah, blah.

So, of course, I don't remember how long it took for me to, you know, when I talked to Spade or Schneider or other comedians, Tim Meadows, that we all loved them, we were allowed to talk about it out loud and feel comfortable telling stories and laughing. Yeah. It took, with those guys, pretty quick. about it out loud and feel comfortable telling stories and laughing. Yeah. With those guys pretty quick. But outside of that, I don't remember feeling that able to talk about it for a couple years.

And then Norm recently. Man, that was... I haven't been able to watch the stand-up yet. I love that guy. Because Netflix just put it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny as hell. Is it? You liked it? Yeah. Yes.

It's very funny and very sweet and demented. But yeah. Yeah. It was like traveling around with Norm. We did this tour a couple of years ago and we were together all the time. And he had that secret going on that none of us knew but it still was funny as shit being with him and by far the the fucking funniest craziest bastard

you know and smartest fucking guy guy no knew every historic, everything. Knew his sports incredible. Yeah, he was a legitimate degenerate. He was a degenerate. Yes, he really was. Especially golf. What's interesting about him was- Tweeting away with golf. You could put him in a room with like seven, eight people,

and for some reason he would just become the center of the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. I remember one time Kimmel and I went to see him when he was doing his show and Sal was there. We had all these funny people, but it just,

something about him. He just became the center force. He would hold court. It was like you were on his podcast. And he was very generous with giving out compliments to other people he liked and like, ah, yeah. We had this deadpan thing that was just so unusual. You just never got used to it. Other people he liked and like, ah, yeah. But yeah.

We had this deadpan thing that was just so unusual. You just never got used to it. Right, right, right. It'd kind of like be sizing you up. And then all of a sudden he'd make the joke two seconds after you thought he was going to make it. That's funny, man. You're always like on your toes. Kind of a fucking sweetheart though, too. Totally. A gentleman, when he would talk to my mom and dad, he would always stay with them longer than most.

Hey, Mr. Sandler. He would just shoot this shit with my dad. They'd sit and talk. And with my mom, he was so sweet. He cared about his parents a lot. And Super Dave was like that, too. He had the same kind of energy. Uh-huh.

Where you just, for some reason, he would just become the center of whatever the conversation is. it seems people who don't give a fuck, you kind of go like, hey, let me hang out with that guy.

How do you get like that? It's like a little light in their eyes. Yeah. Where you're like, what's this? All right, we're wrapping up Hustle. All right,

brother. Available theaters? No, maybe a few theaters. Because it's in a theater. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. I saw it in the Palisades. Some theaters, but mostly on June 8th, Netflix.

But I was going to tell you, Bill, you know what's funny? Colin Quinn, you know Colin at all? He's one of the funniest guys. Every comedian loves him. And when we did Grown Ups, Colin and Norm had a lot of time off together if they weren't shooting and they just hung out all the time and Spade sometimes would be with them

and they would just, like I talked to Colin, he said that was like one of the best summers of my life, just being with Norm every day in Boston at a coffee shop just shooting the shit and watching Norm be Norm the whole time. Wow. Yeah. Well, that's a cool, I mean, you made two grownups.

I don't think you realized how iconic they would be for kids. Or did you? I knew that it would be something I would like to see as a kid. Yeah. To see a fucking getaway lake weekend and hanging out and parents being funny and kids being excited that their parents were fucking nuts and uh i knew it would connect us i didn't know when i walked down the street now i would hear about it so much just like happy i just you don't know how long it's

gonna last yeah it's cool i mean in the chris rock basketball stuff i don't know i just swatted more i maybe just that I had him set more picks. Just clear it up. Rock never liked any of those moments being on a basketball court. Kevin James was like

kind of athletic though. He's an athlete for sure. Basketball wasn't his game but he certainly could play. He could cheat it. He could cheat it. Actually, we played a few three-on-threes with Kevin, and

when it was a loose ball, it was fucking terrifying how quick he would go get low, die for it. We're like, we're not going to die for balls at this age, man. Yeah, that's the guy who takes out your sales. Alright, good luck with us. And good luck to my Celtics, because we're taping this day before game one. I think this is

happening for you guys. That's quite a defense. I think this is happening for you guys. That's quite a defense. You think this is happening for us? I know everyone is picking the Warriors. They really are. I was surprised. But that role they're on, the fact that they win on the fucking road so much, the Celtics, they're crazy. That defense is crazy.

Granted, the Warriors do everywhere you go. You're like, well, he can fucking hit that. He can hit it from everywhere. There's so many guys that can hit. Yeah. That is quite a fucking team you're playing. But Celtics are pretty ferocious, man. Good luck.

It's weird when I don't feel like home court matters in either arena. Because both teams are just good on the road. Yes. So, whatever else can happen. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Good to see you. So yeah, it's going to happen. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Good to see you. Great to see you.

Okay. Thank you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Adam Sandler. Thanks to Kyle Crichton for producing it. Thanks to Steve Cerini and Dylan Berkey. And we'll be back on Sunday night after game two with Priscilla.

See you then. then