The Bill Simmons Podcast - Bubble Basketball Revelations, Houston and OKC As Sleepers, and Philly Frustrations With Ryen Russillo  

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons reunites with Ryen Russillo to talk NBA bubble basketball! They share some of the notable differences between traditional NBA games and bubble games; discuss Rockets-Bucks, Celtics–Trail Blazers, Pacers-76ers, and Lakers-Raptors; and answer the question "Who is the third-best team in the West?" Plus: the wild-card 76ers, the most fun playoffs matchups, sleeper teams, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the podcast is going up Monday morning ET. So if you're listening to this in the wee hours on Sunday night, it is not up yet, but by Monday morning, it will be very excited to have both of them aboard. You'll be hearing Raja on this podcast probably later this week as well. But, um,

Logan and Raja on Mondays on Ringer NBA. Mismatch twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursday nights. And then we'll also have group chat on Wednesdays as well. So four shows a week on Ringer NBA while the basketball is going. You can also, Rosillo, who's coming on in a second, he has his podcast as well. We'll be covering basketball on there as well.

So there you go. Rosillo's coming up. We're back on Sunday nights for the foreseeable future. We'll see what happens if football ever comes back. Who knows? Then Sal will come back on Sunday nights and Rosillo and I are going to do Tuesday nights through the rest of the basketball season, but we'll see. We'll see football. Who knows? We're as we're sitting with baseball right now. You just never know what this stuff, um, the worst the league has run, the more unlikely it is that they're going to pull off a season during the COVID era. That's my expert opinion. All right. Rosillo is coming up. Uh, let's bring in our friends for pro champ. our friends from ProChamp.

All right, we're starting this. It's 821 Pacific time. The Rockets just came back and beat the Bucs. This has been an awesome few days of basketball. I got to say, like, I talked about it a little bit on Thursday night. Every objective they had for this whole bubble thing worked. Are the players safe? Yes. Are they raising awareness for social justice? Yes.

Is this a level of play that we're happy with? Yes. Do we miss the fans? Not really. Um, how much do you love bubble basketball? I gotta say, I don't miss the fans. Uh, you know, I look, I think there's an atmosphere to it that once these games really get cranked up for what's on the line we're gonna miss them um but agree my expectations were probably low just because i'm like it's gonna be weird and as i pointed out i've been in those buildings in orlando before but as low as my expectations were which sometimes mean like it's so beyond my expectations it's been so good the players deserve so much credit for staying in shape i don't know if 20 years ago that NBA era would have come in like this. I just don't know if they would have. And the basketball, and a lot of it's on the

announcers, but I'm so impressed. So that's where I'm at. It's a cross between Summer League, NBA 2K, and some weird tournament that's happening in Turkey to qualify for like the world championships. That's the vibe with the wide cameras, a lot of room on the baselines. You can kind of see some fans, but not really. The noise is a little different. They did a nice job of using the hometown cues that different, like I'm so used to the Celtic games and the little when they need a basket. So using all those, so it kind of fooling you into thinking it's a home game in some ways. And then I got, I didn't like the digital fans in the background, the first game. I think they, they made the faces smaller and it kind of looks realistic. You know, it

doesn't totally look fake. It's's okay like there's movement at least in places that there should be movement so i just think it's an a plus i'm really impressed yeah the virtual fan thing like i i'm not going to ever be upset about it you know i'm not going to be like man this is unbelievable yannis head to head with hard and westbrook down the stretch a minute to go one point game houston with another amazing comeback and oh that guy looks stupid like that guy in row three he looks stupid so now i'm gonna let that impact my enjoyment of this um you know even even the audio like you know i've been watching a lot of baseball too and you can tell the level of like preparation what went into like how they're gonna do the home crowd it's all over the map and the least shocking thing ever was the first day with nesson where you

go you guys like you're hitting the button at the wrong time like it doesn't even make any sense it's a second late right that utah was getting blown out the other day and utah was the home team and they had utah home angst crowd and it was probably like they're down 20 and then you can just hear the crowd going. You think that's a button? Utah home angst? I think there's a home angst button. And for Utah, it's a special kind of angst as we know how passionate their fans are.

So yeah, I'm in. I thought that's what was happening. Well, there's been two huge things that came out of bubble basketball. Other than the stuff we just mentioned. One is the March Madness benches that we suddenly have in the NBA. And I don't know how much of it is for show. I don't know how much of it is these guys are just trapped in a bubble and they're basically in their hotel rooms or hanging out the same 20 people all the time that they are genuinely this excited. There's more room to operate. There's, you know, the benches are much wider. The reactions have been great. And

I do feel like the, the, the players in the bench feel like they have to fill the noise a little bit because there is a little bit of a noise vacuum. I'm sure in the court, I've enjoyed that. So I have one other thing, but just the, the March madness benches, what are your thoughts? Cause you could go either way on this stuff. No, I I've always felt like when you go to the game and you pay for one of those seats right behind the bench it's in theory one of the great seats you can have because you can watch all the interaction you can see which guys actually like each other if it's a team that had high hopes and they're falling apart then you're like look at where these guys are sitting

but this has been going on in the league now for a couple years so that seat sucks now because the team it's almost mandatory that if you're a team at the end of the bench that isn't feeling it on every single possession and up supporting guys. So like that part of it's great. It sucks to the people behind it, but I'm not surprised to see that even amplified because of boredom. I mean, think how long these guys are sitting around. There's no travel. So everybody should be fresh. And I just, I just think it's this feeling of community because at this point, you don't even have any choice, but to be around all these guys the entire time. There's some sprinting going on with the bench guys too.

So there'll be like, they showed Robin Lopez after a big bucks basket today. And he ran from like the corner all the way to mid court back. There's things that I think they're just going to kind of look the other way on with the benches. But I really enjoyed that. The other thing I talked about it a little on Thursday, cause it was the first thing I really noticed with, with the first two games where you didn't

have photographers under the basket. You didn't have the fans close to the court, especially on the baseline. And there's just a lot of room. And it was interesting to watch the players kind of explore that room on drives. And I think that's one of the reasons, you know, this is stupid, but one of the reasons the points were, this is stupid, but one of the reasons the points were so far up and why we had these games in the one thirties and the one twenties, things like that. You can drive to the basket now, full speed, a hundred miles an hour, and not worry about landing in somebody. You can dive into the sides and save loose balls and not worry about taking out like a family of four. I wonder if the league is looking at this

and if the players are looking at this going, this is kind of the way it should be. Can we make the underneath the basket? Can we clear that out? Because it's actually better for basketball. I think the numbers are up because the defense is terrible with some of these teams. They're totally confused on what they want to do.

Okay, so that's part of it. But there's a bigger conversation about all sports and what's going to change forever and what kind of access a locker room is going to have now. Players never wanted these guys in there. And there's arguments that it's an invasion of privacy and like, hey, who would ever have to put up with what we have to put up in a locker room? You wonder if that'll ever go back. I'm not as extreme as thinking that we're never going to have 100,000 people in a college football stadium. I don't think that's done forever, but you're right. Those seats are great. We've sat in them. Those baseline seats are unbelievable, but it never really made sense that you have,

especially now the guys are so much bigger and they're landing from these spots. I had a theory that we had just too many seven footers that were perimeter players and that's why they're getting hurt all the time because it was just such a weird thing for the body to keep landing like that in the way this athleticism combined with their size kind of made them more fragile. And I don't know why. I think we all just kind of accepted because that's the way it was. But I'm with you. I don't know if the NBA is going to say, hey,

maybe we should just stop putting cameraman underneath this landing area for these players all season long. Well, how are they doing this with the cameras now? Like, I'm sure there's stuff under the basket that they're probably doing robotically. Or we just don't notice it. You know, if it's missing, like, has it really changed that much?

Yeah, and are you missing photographers under the basket? It's like, oh, damn. I can't see my newspaper the next step. That'd be getting the newspaper. What do I care? I think they're going to have to clear that stuff out because there's just a field of these games and I, and the space is kind of cool. And I'm with you. There's been defensive lapses and all that stuff, but I do feel like there's a pace

to how people are playing that all of this fits into the same package. You can fly up and down, you can push the ball, you can dive all over the place and you don't have to worry about these people that are everywhere in your way. So you're saying that you're not going to be like man is mb's ass huge you haven't seen that shot i just i just won't know i just won't know during this this presentation the other thing that announcers keep bringing up and i don't i don't know if it's fair or not where you know there's just so much corner action now where you're just you sit in the corner but you have to catch. And sometimes if you're moving a little bit,

it's hard to keep track. And the fact that these guys' feet are enormous, how many times guys are stepping out of bounds. And they're basically saying that the benches, Sean Elliott was saying on the local broadcast for the Spurs, he goes, you know, that was my spot, that right corner. And the seats being there gave me another kind of boundary, just kind of feel, and it kept me in bounds.

I just think, I don't know. I don't know what happened with that. I just think players today don't pay as much attention to the out-of-bounds line. So I don't know if it's the lack of seats. I've seen it constantly, but I feel like I've just seen that happen more where guys kind of set up a little bit.

Again, they're huge. You could move it back six inches, maybe move that around, but then it's like, do you really want to space it out even more? Would it be that big of a difference? But that's just something guys keep bringing up with all these kind of changes

that we're learning about this week. I always thought it was amazing how they have such a sense for that. It's because if you're actually on a court, the real estate is so much smaller than you realize. Throw in the fact that most of these guys have big feet. Instinctively, they always know where they are. And I know they practice it and stuff like that, but you're right. The perspective of where the seats are, the baseline, it's almost like they

have this photographic imprint of where they are at all times. Even if you could spin them around, put them in a spot, and they would still kind of have a sense for where they are. Now you have these baselines. The actual baseline is fat, which may, which is what makes it seem like we're playing in Turkey or something more than anything is just the actual geometry of the court is different. They'll get used to it. The other thing they have to get used to. And this was in the Memphis Portland game, which had like five or six technicals. They're talking shit to each other other but there's no noise and the refs are picking up everything so it's like i make a shot every i'm like raseel you fucking motherfucker

fuck you and as i'm walking away the refs are actually hearing that now and they're just teeing these guys up so now these guys have to figure out a whole new way how to trash talk right but there have been a couple tees where i think that would have been called in a regular season game where guys are staring each other down, probably because they haven't dunked on anybody in five months and it feels awesome. And they're looking at the guy. There was one double header where early on, like back to back games, the way the game was called was entirely different. Like there was one Utah game. I think it was the Utah game where they came back against New Orleans and they were murdering each other on high screens like chucking guys to the ground and then the next game like any kind of clogging off a screen got called and i'm like

man this is this is like two different versions of this entirely but you might be totally right that in one game you're just going to hear more of this stuff more and more but i felt like in that one technical happy game that guys are staring each other down a little bit just because they were just felt it just felt good to be back out there. Well, this brings me to the next thing I want to talk about. So these are the best 22 teams and three of them suck. So we're really talking about 19 teams, but it's still, we had so many good games over those four days. It seemed like an inordinate amount of good games. It was almost like March madness. We're like, man, that was awesome. Then there's none. It was like, man, that was really

good. And I was thinking about it. It's because we got rid of all the shitty teams. The eight worst teams are just not playing. And you think about, especially when we get into February, March, April with the real season and you have teams that are tanking teams that got hurt and it's your shit game after your shit game. And you're just like, tanking, teams that got hurt, and it's just shit game after shit game, and you're just like, oh man, Milwaukee, Orlando, this is going to suck. Milwaukee's favored by 20. Now we just have the top 22.

They're all playing each other. And to me, I was thinking, they'll never do this. They'll never have relegation. But this is what NBA Premier League would feel like, right? Where you're just like, here are our best 22 teams. We've jettisoned the worst eight.

They're going to have to play their way back in. But this is the cream of the crop. And that's what we're getting. So in a weird way, it's almost like the playoffs. And I think that's why a lot of these games really feel like playoff games. Because the reality is, it's not like there's real stakes here.

There's no home court advantage anymore. It doesn't really matter if Dallas is the seventh seed. You know, because it's not like there's real stakes here. There's no home court advantage anymore. It doesn't really matter if Dallas is the seventh seed, you know, because it's there. It's not only because a matchup, the only reason it would matter is because that's it. Right. But, but you can't really control the matchup because you don't know where people are falling.

But when you talk about like, is Denver going to be the three seed, the four seed, are the Celtics going to play Philly in the three, six, or they can play Indiana. It's like, ultimately it doesn't matter if you're the lower seed, cause you can just go into the, you know, there's no home court. You don't have to win a game seven in Boston. So why is everybody obsessed with relegation? Like I get the concept of it. And the idea that last game of the season in soccer, where you go, if you guys end up on the wrong side of this,

you get dropped down to a different league. I just think the people that love soccer and love relegation are the same people that are so pro player like do you really want to argue for 120 less jobs like what do you what do you want to put them in the it's never happening g league put them in it's never happening it's never happening the owners are never going to vote for it i like having the filet mignon league i like having the best 22 i like that having the other eight teams were you locked into wizards nets no i wish neither of those teams were here i mean d honestly do you miss the knicks are you no i don't they're not involved there you bet you bummed out you couldn't see mitchell robinson but i think that's such a a predictably critical thing where when the nets and wizards

were there well granted look the nets are the ac right But they're like, why are the Wizards there? Why are you doing this? You just go, well, because if you had left them out and the Wizards go, hey, mathematically, we're still in this thing, as absurd as it may seem, you can't just tell us we can't come to Orlando. So those are just minor things that when I look at debates about it, I go, there's no debate for me.

Who cares? They're there, and they're not going to be there very long, and we just keep moving on because the rest of the basketball has been uh incredible like i just i i don't know i don't know what i expected i i guess you know sometimes you think like are they gonna be running around and use pennies where like one of the numbers got ironed wrong and it's stuck and the nine is melted to itself and you know there's there's people off in the corner with like warm buckets of water because people can't find ice like no it's been all first class considering the circumstances i can't imagine and i've said this on my podcast

like if it doesn't work out and one team for whatever reason gets exposed and then they're eliminated and we have all these bad headlines or whatever as far as putting themselves in the best position to to pull this off it's unbelievable man it's unbelievable what this league has done it's also rejuvenated a few of the teams right like milwaukee right before the pandemic yannis got banged up they were kind of you know they had the one seed clinch they were kind of on autopilot at that point now that now they look like the milwaukee from the first part of the season in the last night um a couple of the other teams, like Portland, has been completely reinvented.

Nurkic looks awesome. And we'll talk about them in a little bit. But yeah, Portland looks, you know, they might not make the playoffs, and yet you could make a case they're one of the best five or six teams in the West. But there's been a couple teams that needed it. I thought Boston was going to be one of them, because it would be like, oh, Kemba will be back.

You know, his knee will be fine. And it, meanwhile, he's still somehow on a minute's limit. But, um, I think if you're just talking about a quality of play offensively, really high level, like some of the stuff Lillard was doing in those two games, he had these quarter long stretches where that's about as well as I've ever seen him play. You know, the TJ Warren just annihilated the Sixers the other night. He had career high, I think it was 53, but I, it's just the kind of stuff that when the act, when the real season starts in October, guys aren't coming out of the gate, usually playing like this, you know,

where it's like, man, oh my God. And it was all over the place. I didn't, didn't you think you'd see more people that were like, man, that guy hasn't worked out for four months. That Tatum was the only one where it looked like he hadn't touched a basketball forever. And then he was awesome today. Yeah. I mean, Tatum's scrimmage games. And in the first couple of games, you're like, man, you know, that you'd heard rumors about, he doesn't have a basketball hoop at his house. You're like, you know what? You could probably get access to one. i understand there's some limitations here and then you'd watch you go actually harden i thought looked a little beefy but it doesn't matter i mean it doesn't

matter considering what he did to close out uh against dallas um how about that 30 how about that 33 footer he hit did you see the last video of that regulation? He had a shot from the hash mark in the flow of the game. And as he was taking it, I was like, not a bad shot. They were like down six. I was like, yeah, he can make that. No, he's, it's just so like, look, I've done my hard and rants before, but it's not like I don't appreciate what kind of shots he can make. And think about that game.

That game, Dallas had 85 at the half their offensive efficiency if you just went by like per 100 was 145 in the first half 145 Dallas has the best offense in the NBA at like 111 112 I think during the regular season which I think still surprises some people and Houston still ends up winning that game. So some of it's great offense. Some of it's guys. I think the majority of it, Bill, you're right, that whatever the standard was,

there's very few people that just said, screw it, and didn't care. They were professionals about it. They took it very seriously, which I think is what everybody wants that cares about this, and it just shows that you care about what's in front of you. Like if you're the Clippers, if you're five or six of these teams in the West, you know, you have a real chance here. You have a chance to do something. Maybe it's less teams. It's obviously less teams in the East, but there's also defensive things that have happened. And, you know, I know we have a long time here to go through it. So I'm not

going to just do a five minute monologue on bad switching, but there's some real confusion. And you can see the difference with Toronto against LA last night, where they knew exactly who they wanted to be defensively the whole game. They had the rules in. And Philadelphia, in their game against the Pacers... Save Philly. I want

to hit them later. But that's just another example on the other side of it, where you go, none of you guys even know what you're doing right now, at least on the high screen screen there were a couple teams that looked like they hadn't practiced yet it was like first game for it was almost like uh when a high school team comes back for the first day of practice and they just there's a bunch of new kids and it's just a disaster that's what philly looked like and And Philly has good defensive players. I mean, they have five on Simmons. It's not a team. TJ Warren should be scored 53 points again.

We're going to take a break. We have a lot to cover on this. So back in one second. Hey, with the Home Depot, decorating your home is now easier than ever before. Start by heading to homedepot.com where you can shop everything for every room. Browse thousands of furniture pieces and decorative accents to fit any style. Explore bedding and bath linens, kitchenware, small appliances, all at the right prices. Whether you're going for a brand new look, a seasonal refresh, or simply a few finishing touches, the Home Depot has all the pieces you need and the best part. Shop today and you will get free and flexible delivery with easy returns. Plus for a limited time,

you can save even more on the styles you love when you use code Billsimmons10 at checkout. I went there, I wanted a Keurig. I just did. I already have a coffee machine, but you know, late afternoon, you want the little quickie cup. And I went to homedepot.com and I got an awesome Keurig. And then it suggested the little, the Green Mountain one cup thing.

So I got those two and it was awesome. And it was super easy and they shipped it right away. And that was it. Here's some great news. The Home Depot offers free delivery on select items,

$45 or more, which I took advantage of. But now for a limited time, you get 10% off the styles you love when you use code BillSimmons10 at checkout. Valid on select items online only. Find exactly what you're looking for and more at homedepot.com slash decor, D-E-C-O-R. All right. One thing I was, I mentioned on my Thursday pod, just wanted to hit it again because I was bummed out.

I had to turn in my entire awards ballot and not count these eight games. I get it for all rookie and even all defense, stuff like that. But I really felt like MVP, all NBA,

those three teams were up in the air for me in a lot of ways. And I kind of wanted to see these eight games. Like I put Donchich on my MVP ballot. I didn't put Harden on. If Houston goes like eight, no, in this bubble and Houston rises to like a three seed, I would have wanted to account for that in my ballot. I really would have. And I just think they made a real mistake. I admittedly care about it way more than most people but i just thought it was so weird that these eight games don't matter for award purposes

yeah but when you have a vote like you should care you know it's a really important thing i think it's an honor to even have it so i get you know there's there's so many pods we've done before we're like hey i want to do kind of my updated all nba teams and i'm like yeah okay i know you've put so much time into it. And there's been a couple of times where it'd be like last minute, be like, hey, I'm doing it. I'm like, man, I need like a few hours to take it as seriously as you do

to hang on that conversation. So who did you do? Cause I didn't, I didn't catch it all. I imagine you have Marcus Smart, first team, all NBA and first team, all defense, right? I did. And I had, I had him as MVP coach of the year. The trifecta.

Oh no, he coached of the year too. Give me your quick though. Go ahead. Well, I'll give you like a good example. I didn't have Lowry 13 mile NBA and I really agonized over it, him or Simmons. And I thought Simmons defensively. And as a two-way guy, I just thought,

I just thought he had a better season. He was healthy the whole year, all that stuff. And I went with him like by a thumbnail over Lowry. And then after one game over the weekend, I was like, I'd flip that. Like if it goes this way for the next day, Toronto looks so good in that Laker game and they're just running on all cylinders. And Lowry's their best player, isn't it? And Lowry's their best player. And I really wanted, I mean, part of the problem is the league has too many good players right now. So you mvp ballot you only have five picks davis wasn't on my ballot hard who was your ballot my bet my ballot was yannis lebron kawaii yokage luca okay god but so no seems nuts to not have harden on it but i mean

if you really what's weird is i put hard in first team omb and I put Luka second team on NBA. So I kind of split the split the vote on that. I just thought Luka was more important to Dallas throughout the season, whereas Harden had that, which we talked about in detail in our pod, the last 20 plus games for Houston when Westbrook was the best player in the team. Yeah. Where Harden wasn't as good. Yeah. But now you saw, you know, Houston, they had these two huge come from behind wins.

When we did that last podcast right before the pandemic hit, Houston looked like they were running out of gas, right? We were like, well, not sustainable. You can't keep playing like this. They got out rebounded by like 30 today. It didn't matter. They somehow won. I think we're going to change our opinion on Houston. How many more times over the next 12 weeks. I'm going to say like eight. 12 weeks? Well, we have 12 weeks of reference from them because I think once they run into the Clippers,

I mean, would you pick them to beat the Lakers? I think, like you asked me to do the third best team exercise. Want to do that now? Yeah, let's do it now. Can I give it a greenie setup? Only if I can give you one because I've missed. Can you do it? Why don't you do the greenie setup? Only if I can give you one because I've missed. Can you do it? Do you want to do a group?

Why don't you do the greenie setup for this segment? Beach erosion. The next great coastal dilemma. And of the Rockets, the third best team in the West. That's next. Beach erosion. Beach erosion is an issue. Houston is now our four seed.

Just FYI. They've jumped two spots. There is a whole tapioca pudding. Denver is 43 and 23. Houston 42 and 24. Utah 42 and 24. Oklahoma City 41 and 24. And Dallas is basically too far out. So I think the team out of the, we'll get to the question in a second. I think the team I would want to play out of the top six plus Dallas is Utah. I think that's the weakest of the seven. Would you agree or disagree? Totally agree. They, even though they had that really nice comeback with Mitchell,

I just can see the frustration with Mitchell without a second score in Bogdanovich. Even though, you know, Conley actually looks better than he did. He's looked better this week than he did through long stretches, so that gives me a little bit of hope. But can I throw a Utah theory at you? Because if we're doing this, it's all part of it, right? We're trying to figure out. The question is the third best team in the

West, okay? So Lakers, Clippers, who's third? Right. Unless you want to be really funny and go, well, I have the Clippers third, but I don't. I'm going gonna throw a question to you is gobert peak dwight howard light so i left him off my all-nba team because after like the fourth piece where you had to read between the lines because it was obvious his teammates didn't really like him that much i was like like, can I just vote for Bam Adebayo?

I know, I know Miami. I know they love him. I know he's valuable to them. I know they're overachieving. I'm just going to vote for him. That there's, there's stuff going on with the whole Gobert package. It seems like.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the basketball side of it. Um, you know, I, I do think that there's a, there's an issue, but it doesn't mean like there's plenty of teams that have had guys that haven't got along that win so that's not always like the first impediment like hey everybody needs to be best friends but gobert

goes from project to oh my god this guy is incredible what he does defensively and then the screens the number screens the guy sets all these plus minus numbers that we've all talked about now for years when you really dug into like pico bear you're like i can't believe this is the kind of actual statistical backup to how impactful this guy is in such a great way but you become that guy and you know you're staring at big money which he's going to get anyway um and you want to be more a part of the offense like the joke is that all big men don't actually love basketball right that's always the joke that we always hear and it's like if you're going to keep the big guy happy you got to give him some more touches yeah but here's the thing but we have the blueprint for how this should

work for gobert it's 2011 tyson chandler in dallas play defense set some picks but he's too young he's not there yet and that's my point like the dwight's who he is though that's who he needs to be so you're answering my question you're yes, because Pete Dwight was this incredible force. But it's like, well, look, if I'm like the guy, which he isn't because Mitchell's the guy, but Dwight's like, I need more of those touches late in games. And Stan's like, you don't have any moves, man. You don't really have any moves. And I think with Gobert, all the cleanup stuff is great.

But the number of times that he loses the ball or he waits and he stalls, I just think that that drives those guys crazy. And now with no Bogdanovich to kind of balance the wing scoring, even though there's some other players that I kind of like, that's why I had really high hopes for Utah. And now without Bogdanovich, that's the team that everybody wants to play right now in the first round. There's another piece.

They lose Bogdanovich where Conley can make up for some of that. But their bench their bench is just bad now. It's all Clarkson. Their bench was teetering on not being good but then now everybody moved up a level so now you're basically riding the Jordan Clarkson rollercoaster.

Which he had some good moments for them after the trade but I don't trust him. He can't be your only guy. Anyway know? Um, anyway. All right. So here's who I have for, uh, in my opinion, the third best team in the West. I think it's Oklahoma city. I think if my life depended on it, I'm using that corollary of what team do I trust the most, especially in this bubble situation? I think I trust them the most. The Houston thing, I still can't get out of my head when they basically careened into the guardrail those five games before the pandemic.

When you even saw it today, they fell behind on the Friday game. They should have lost. There was some stat. It was, I think, the third time in 700. Two times in 720 games. Somebody was down seven in the last minute. Teams down seven with, what, 45 seconds to go were two in 711. Yeah, so that's total fluke. But they did come back today against this Milwaukee team. Now, Milwaukee didn't have blood, so they were really missing a point guard. No, but I thought they were really missing a point guard in the last four

minutes. Kind of settle everyone down. It looked like Dave Vincenzo wanted the two seat. Most of this game. He was bad. He was so bad, but, um,

okay. See the guards, the way Chris Paul has been playing the way they looked, uh, this weekend, uh, they had the Adams thing, Robertson coming back the way they looked this weekend, they had the Adams thing. Robertson coming back, if they can get him as a

rotation guy by the time we get to about five weeks from now, if they're feeling good about him, I just like their team. I think they're really hard to play. They really bring it, and they're unconventional, and they can put up different lineups and stuff. I think the irony of all of it is they make this Paul George trade.

It seems like they've completely tanked the decade. They're just going to move into this other direction with all these picks. And yet you could argue they're in a better spot than they were with, with Paul George, with SGA and with Gallo, um, being able to get Chris Paul, who I feel like they're going to trade at the end of

the year. So this feels like an all-time rental to me. I just liked the team. And I think without in the bubble with no home court advantage, that's, it's just not a team I would want to play in a playoff series. I wouldn't want to play them if I was the Lakers. Cause what we saw in that Toronto game, if you have multiple guards that can create shots, you have somebody in the middle who can at least put his hands up and bang bodies around and make it a little bit hard for Davis. And you have 18 fouls to throw against LeBron. That's how you beat the Lakers. Okay. You know, what's funny is I went into this when this was the homework for tonight, where I was like, I think I'm going to pick Oklahoma city for a lot of things. You just said three guard lineups to close three ball handlers that can all get to the rim. I think I'm going to pick Oklahoma City for a lot of things you just said. Three guard lineups to close, three ball handlers that can all get to the rim.

I think Schroeder's finally hit that point that's so hard for young players where it's like, look, if you just accept that you're never going to be the best player on the floor, I'm not saying lack confidence, but if you can just accept you're no longer the best player on the floor, you can have a really nice second half of your career. And he's somebody who I went from not really liking that much when he thought he was the guy, kind of the Reggie Jackson syndrome, where then he's fit in perfectly. And Shea is going to be a multiple-time all-star when he thought he was the guy kind of the reggie jackson syndrome where then he's fit in perfectly and shea is going to be a multiple time all-star when he has his own

team and i think all of us would want a stephen adams on our team and then i think we always thought somebody was going to get hurt whether it was paul or danilo like you're like when one of these guys are going to get hurt and now they're healthy they have the best net rating of any team in the nba in the fourth quarter and it's a massive number they're like a plus eight two in the fourth quarter but here's what it is it's it's it's a massive number. They're like a plus 8-2 in the fourth quarter. But here's what I'm going to tell you. You know what it is? It's a professional basketball team. They know what they're doing last five minutes.

I worry about their small line. Well, Chris Paul is the reason why they're so good in those closing games, but I worry about what their small lineup will look like. I like what Lou Dort has done, because I think he's just a dog. He's out there to fight, but he's a bit of a two-dribble guy offensively, and then the collection of the rest of those wings, there's fight, but he's a bit of a two-dribble guy offensively.

And then the collection of the rest of those wings, there's little moments. They're all kind of mini Jeff Greens where I'm like, man, look at that play by Bazley. And then it's like, oh, has he been out there for 20 minutes? Oh. So they kind of have a rotation. But I'm just going to tell you that you're wrong and that it's Houston.

I went in trying to say it was Oklahoma City, but I think it's Houston. The defense has not been a problem. It's really not. I'm not saying there's this great defensive team. They're in the middle of the pack. The rebounding rate numbers are atrocious for them. They are, if you look at rebounding rate, they were like 25th in the league,

and if you go since they went small, they're last, and it hasn't hurt them because look at that Milwaukee game tonight. They set up, and Brooke Lopez historically sets up probably too far in the post anyway and when he got deep he got results but people aren't really posting him i mean dallas had this big lineup against him a couple nights ago and yet dallas still kind of played five out with luca they played small with big players and so even though the defensive numbers aren't through the roof and i worry about those rebounding numbers here's where i kind of decided you know? I can't pick anybody other than Houston.

Records against teams over 500 of those top teams in the West. Lakers are 18 and 11. Clippers are 17 and 12. Houston is 16 and 11. I think that's 17 and 11 now with the tonight's win against Milwaukee. And OKC is 10 and 17. That's a good stat. I like that one. So can can we agree houston has the highest

ceiling for the three seed but okc is the safest pick there's still stuff that scares me about houston and as i've admitted to everyone in that city you know we all know how i feel about watching them play but i have to give them credit their defense defense against Milwaukee, I mean, how many times has Milwaukee kept driving through these guys and they keep batting the ball away? So, you know, it's not like they lit it up from three. They just took a million of them. They didn't turn the ball over. I think Houston, yeah, I think the Houston ceiling thing

is the thing I like the most about them. And I don't want to just make it the hockey playoff analysis where it's like, man, if they just get hot, like the defense isn't killing them. And I still think whenever we expect these bad matchups big versus small it doesn't burn them the way you think it should and i think it screws teams up sometimes too now look anthony davis semi-game series he better have his ass on the block going to work against those guys and just making it hell for him it felt, it felt like Porzingis could have done that on Friday night. I think he still had like 38, but it seemed like he didn't want to just stood on the block.

He just could have had a five foot jump hook over and over again for the entire game if he wanted it. Yeah. You know, look, I get PJ is going to get in your way. And, you know, Lopez trying to back down PJ Tucker. You think Budenholzer would have been like, hey, guy, you're not moving him like you're just not moving him. You have to set up early and you have to go. As soon as you get the ball, you, you're not moving him. You're just not moving him. You have to set up early, and you have to go.

As soon as you get the ball, you've got to make a decision. You've got to make it quick. So, yeah, over the course of a series, there's still some limitations I think they could possibly have. And I'm not even doing this as a recency bias thing. I went through it thinking I was going to pick somebody other than Houston, but when I saw that record against teams over 500, they can hang. They can hang with these teams.

I'm not picking them to come out of the West, but, um, you know, considering what's happened with Utah and then Denver with all their injuries. So it's probably not fair to make a full statement on who they are, but,

um, and they don't seem better. Denver has the luxury of, it doesn't really matter where they end up with seeds. I think if, you know, if we had a home court advantage situation, like with the normal way we have a season,

Denver would be really nervous about dropping to four because it adds to the Lakers in round two. But now it's like, all right, whatever. We just need to get our guys healthy for four rounds. I have a Houston comment. And this was something that was happening the last couple of weeks before the pandemic hit. Westbrook's offensive rebounding

and how he has figured out when Harden has the ball and he's Harden's doing his thing. And it's the sixth second and neither he's going to do the drop back or he's going to do whatever he's going to do. Westbrook seems to have mastered knowing exactly when Harden is going to do what he's going to do and taking this angle. I don't even, it's almost like watching a pass rusher trying to get to the quarterback. Who's just figured out like, I'm going to do this and I'm just going to hit him in the back and strip him for a sec. He's going in and he's getting these crazy off balance of, I don't know how many times I saw it over the weekend. It was at least four where I'm trying to think, like, what other guy in the league has those?

Yeah. His step with purpose, you know, has always been something. He's just over his career. He's gotten rebounds that no other guards have ever gotten in the history of this league. Do you feel like he's better? I think this is the best version we've ever seen of him. Well, the great thing is that he's not making every single basketball decision for 40 minutes. Yes. And that's a plus because he can get so frustrated because he's so intense.

And that was one of the things. I mean, look, this is real. They got bounced in the first round with him running the show every single time. And that team that lost to Utah, that shouldn't happen. You shouldn't lose to rookie Donovan Mitchell in that series in the first round. Was that two years ago? And that was't happen. You shouldn't lose to rookie Donovan Mitchell in that series in the first round. Was that two years ago? And, you know, that was a problem. So now to know that, hey, all this room is going to be wide open,

you know, he was making – I mean, it was bad. Like, they got rid of DiVincenzo defensively. There were times where Marvin Williams got stuck one-on-one with Westbrook, and Westbrook's, like, drooling, going, I don't know how I want to score. And then they brought DJ Wilson in to add some he doesn't even play anymore, really. And, you know, DJ gave up an offensive rebound because he couldn't even comprehend that Westbrook would have that energy off a cut behind him. And then Wilson does the classic like my bad. You're like, no shit, you're bad. That was a huge,

huge offensive board you gave up because you just you just assumed it was a guard that couldn't get around you. It was a terrible rebound to give up. I think it's really hard for a guy to reinvent himself when they turned 30 and after, because I think he's 31 now. Hey, what he's done. I think if you look at it, I'm almost like an NFL running back. He was like your typical high usage priest homes in the early two thousands kind of running back, right? Where he's going to have 350 carries nine, you know, 90 receptions, whatever. And just the whole offense revolves around them. But then you get to the playoffs and somebody like Belichick comes along and I, yeah, we'll just take that guy out. We'll win. He's, he's kind of changed himself

into more of an Alvin Camara type running back. Right. Where he's, it's like maybe 20 carries a game now, but now he's doing all this other stuff and he's got the little wheel route coming out of the backfield and the offensive rebounds. And, um, I don't know. I just think it's pretty cool.

I think usually guys are finished products by the time they're like 28. You don't see in the NBA, like somebody kind of rethinking what they do and i'm really surprised that he's been this happy being a second banana too i mean technically he's 1b and hardens 1a but um i didn't think he had it in him i gotta be honest think about these years in oklahoma city okay 25 year on 32 five attempts a game from three under 30 percent four attempts from three under 30 percent he's a 29 ish rounded up for he took seven threes a game one year and he actually hit 34 percent which is weird and that might have been the worst thing for him because in the next two years he's

a 29 again at four and almost six attempts per game and so he hasn't hit it from three this year but he stopped i mean he'll throw one at you every now and then i think six weeks in yeah when he's decided you know you don't make these anymore i asked somebody that used to be with the thunder i said what you know what could you even say to westbrook like hey that 30 footer you took like from sideways that you almost broke the rim what what was the thought process there and you just westbrook's a stubborn guy and he would just go like in the moment you know that was the thought process there? And you just, Westbrook's a stubborn guy. And he would just go like in the moment, you know, that was the right shot. And you'd go, well, you know, we're on year five, a 29% here, man. And the league average, I think used to be

like 33. I think it's 36 now and you can't keep taking those shots. And so now because of Harden, because of trust and the fact that he was shooting it, I mean, his first two months is the worst Westbrook we've ever seen of his career to now go to seeing what he would do in these switches. Reinvention. Yeah. Your boy Barkley was the first guy who was just volume three is not making any of them. And they're like, wow, he's almost making one third. It's like, yeah, but the defense is delighted every time he's taking one.

And Dwayne Wade was like that. That was all mental with Barkley. Barkley was just doing that to make, to keep you honest. Can I give you one more team? My third favorite team for the three seed. So wait, you have, you have three rankings for the number three possibility in the West. So I have Houston as highest ceiling. I have OKC as safest bet to do damage.

Houston as highest ceiling to do damage. Houston as highest ceiling to do damage. And then I have Portland as my other one. I think Portland is yours. The poor, but the Portland's a wild card. They got back Nurkic and Collins. It's shocking how much better they are than they were four months ago. And I don't know what happened with this Gary Trent jr.

I know he was playing 20 minutes game during the year. Did you order a jersey today? I was blown away by him in the two games. Like honestly, just to share with everybody listening right now, I get a text from bill has said, I think I'm going to need about 45 minutes on Gary Trent jr. Tonight.

And I said, I'm with you. Just let me add five to it. This is a team that was completely destroyed partially by their wings, right? Hazonia, who I think pound for pound is the worst player in the league. I really do. I think he's a zero to a player. I don't know what he does

well. Every time he's in the game, his plus minus every game is awful because he's awful. We need to do a better job with that. No, we need to constantly be updating our over 20 minute game Like who currently holds the worst He's horrible

Not the last player What does he do well What does he bring to the table So then they bring Carmelo in Who all he can do is do like pull up jumpers And that's it Like he can't guard anybody He's actually he's pretty good at boxing

And grabbing rebounds I think Gary Trent Jr. comes in And their whole team falls into place. I thought Nurkic looked spectacular. I thought Nurkic was going to be somebody that, you know, maybe it was going to be 80% what he was. I didn't know how bad that leg injury was, but he's 100% what he was.

Collins is all over the map. Every five minutes, I change my opinion on him, but at least he's a body. And I got to say, Dame, I don't know where he is on the top 10 players in the league list and what the qualifications are,

but is Curry better than him at this point? Oh, come on. Let's take it easy. Game to game. I'm not talking about career. Don't do this when Curry's missed a year. No, no, no. I'm not talking career. I'm not talking playoff chop, stuff like no. I'm not talking career. I'm not talking like playoff chops, stuff like that. I'm just talking game

to game. The stuff Dame is doing now consistently reminds me of Curry. Like he's just, I just feel like he's money. I feel like he's going to get to 30 to 35 every night. They're down 24 to the Celtics and I'm

not turning the game off because I'm like, off because I fucking know Portland's making a run. I know Dame and CJ are coming back, and they did. I just think he's in the top eight or nine for me now, and I don't know what the list is, but I just think he's great. Some of the stuff he's doing on these drives, when he's 35 feet from the basket and he's bringing whatever and he's going in and he's wading through traffic and doing these crazy full- speed lefty spin layups like he's fucking unbelievable i know

i'm not i'm not i know i'm not breaking new ground say dame low is unbelievable but i just think he's at another level than than he ever was yeah but i i still think you know when he closed out oklahoma city and he did it against westbrook when westbrook looks at dame is like you're, you're not even in my neighborhood. And you're like, actually, Lillard might be better than you. But here we are praising both of them just because of how deep, as you said, the top is. I wouldn't have Lillard outside of my top 10, no doubt. The Curry thing, I'm not going to get into other than I think- Well, we both love Curry. Right. But if you ask Curry to say, hey, take every shot. Although, look, he had CJ and CJ offers us some balance. I don't know if you want to do more on trent but trent's like 40 from three now he takes four of them a game he doesn't give you a

ton of rebounding or assist but he just he you actually need his toughness as a guard because sometimes you worry about defensively like if you come at them with big guards and it's cj and dame then you really worry about it i also thought like some of the stuff they were doing offensively in the first half like i almost feel like Brad tests the other team with Kanter. Like, hey, we like Kanter's rebounding. We like his effort. He's really good around the rim. Kanter's incredibly good.

He's always been good. Going back to when I'd watch tape of him before the draft, I was like, man, this guy's really good around the rim. But I would watch what they were doing. I'd be like, how do you not test Kanter in the high screen role with Lillard-McCollum combinations or a rolling Nurkic or even zach collins who i'm with you his footwork and his hands i fall in love with collins all over again and then i'm like what the fuck are you doing out there and then he's like fouling somebody 30 feet from the basket i'm great you're like what are you

doing exactly and so you know they were running like side isos for mellow against jalen brown of all people where you go hey advantage jaylen on this one like as good as mellow is and i'm not an anti-mellow guy um i was what are you guys doing and then they switched it back where they're like hey we're just gonna have dame get into a shot off these high screens and boston was screwing some of it up and a lot of it's dame too like i thought they were kind of talking it up going there was one with wanamaker and Thijs and Thijs just went the wrong way and you're like what happened there there was another one where Tatum had to chase him from the corner and Van Gundy's like well Tatum lost him because he went under and you go he wasn't going to catch him over and then Dame

just starts pulling up for anywhere and they're like this isn't coverage anymore and then Boston brought all of its pressure up to just meet him and stay two with him as much as they could because he was changing everything that was happening in the game. I am stunned. The defense is now, I mean, they're basically there like Memphis was throwing traps at him. They're trapping him 35 feet from the court. He's, he can't even get the handoff from Nurkic because the guys are just there on him like fly paper. And he's still navigating this whole thing. I, i i i can't remember a smaller guy who has had defenses more thrown at him like this other like going back to like the iverson era would be the last guy but iverson didn't stretch the floor like i mean the league didn't stretch the floor

like this so you can't even really it's not a knock on iverson it's just a different approach people are going in this portland game going when when Dame gets the ball 35 feet for the basket, we've got a show like he's James Harden. Yeah. Do not just make him give the ball up. That's why I think he's gone to another level because he's solving this whole different level of chess that teams are playing against him and he's still getting his points and he's still getting everybody else involved.

We're going to take a quick break and come back with some more. Let's take a break to talk about FanDuel. Put on your checkered pants and your most ridiculous shirt because fantasy golf season is in full swing. If you think you have what it takes to beat me, House, some of the ringer staff in a season-long fantasy golf tournament, well, you can enter

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Get your act together. Do it. Age and location restrictions do apply. Quickly off that Boston-Portland game. How many seconds do I have to complain about Boston's 2019 draft what 45 seconds no man take as long as you want no i don't i don't want to i don't want to do a whole celtics rant yeah but you're gonna so why am i gonna get in the way of that

they're like one guy short they had i think the 14th 20th and 22nd pick in a draft that had good guys. And they took Langford, who I still kind of like, whatever. That was a potential pick. They did the 20th pick. They trade Thibel to the Sixers, trade down four spots and get 33. Clark goes 21 to OKC, who trades into Memphis.

They could have just taken Clark at 20. I don't know if you noticed this, but Clark is pretty good on the Grizzlies. He would be playing for the Celtics. I'll tell you what, though. Scouts were all over the place. People were all over the place on him. And now it's just like, oh.

Go ahead. Well, Grant Williams at 22, who teams are now leaving five to six feet open in the corner. It's like one of those. It's like when we were watching the Jordan games when they were just leaving Adam Keefe open by seven feet. So he's basically unplayable. And then Carson Edwards is headed for Italy. They had all these picks and they just went, went Oh four. And then,

but then you think the other piece where they thought the Sacramento pick from last year was going to be this crown jewel lottery pick. Awesome pick somebody that was going to be a potential all-star along the lines of Jalen and Tatum. Then Sacramento inexplicably does well. That pick ends up being 14 instead of four. It's just crazy to me that they got nothing from that draft. If you told me a year ago, if you told me a year and a half ago, Boston's getting nothing from this draft that will help them in the 2020 playoffs i would have been like get the fuck out of here what happened did we trade all our picks for like a future pick we went we goose egged it we got nothing but that's that's the reality they're going into this playoffs and none of these guys are

going to be able to help them anyway none of them i rant yeah no um i still i'm looking at this and going cam johnson over tyler hero that's that's unbelievable um well that was the other one the southics lost the coin flip and instead of tyler hero they fell to 14 and they took langford but man i i just can't believe they didn't they didn't get anything better from that um can i can i give you one more boston this will be a 22nd one. Only one more. You're going to let people down. This is it. I'm kind of backing on Gordon Hayward,

AKA Mr. Education reform. He's, he's, he's got his mojo back a little bit. And I actually thought they made a huge mistake in the Friday game. Cause Brad was so determined to get Tatum out of this crazy black cloud funk.

He was in Hayward was doing kind of whatever he wanted in that game, but it was never getting the ball. And then this game today, I like some of the stuff he did too. I'm wondering, do you think Gordon Hayward, the one player who doesn't need fans? Cause he's like,

he's a fucking gamer, right? He's home by himself, just playing video games for eight hours a day. So now he's in this weird bubble with no fans. It's like Gordon Hayward is home. He's back heads up for gordon hayward i'm afraid that well first of all you know now that we're in year three of this thing um yeah and it's not a bad signing i i just i will argue that with anybody you sign gordon hayward yeah you sign him and

but then to have the development of not only tatum and then getting Kemba but then Jalen Brown turns into this guy where you know Tatum and Brown even with my buddies they're like how come you're so much harder on Tatum and less on Brown and I go well because I think Tatum has a chance to be something I don't think Brown can be yet there are moments where like Brown closed that game out against Portland because he's just he's probably the tougher of the two mentally you know like Tatum and I don't want to make too tougher of the two mentally. I don't want to make too much of the Tatum scrimmages in some of these early games because he was really good, especially in the first half against Portland. But when Tatum floats, it feels like he's almost floating

out of the game a little bit. I never feel like Jalen's floating, no matter what. I always feel like he's kind of locked in. But you add that development of two other wings that kind of play your position to Gordon Hayward. We were never going to get the version of Gordon you wanted just because of limited opportunities you know because of the roster too but I'll

ask this if you're going to go full pirate don't you have to be a little more aggressive because if you're going to go with the pirate look I just feel like it almost raises our expectations of what you're going to be like as a player if you're going to go that kind of you know swashbuckling mustache you know I agree and I've been very open about it over the years of what you're going to be like as a player if you're going to go that kind of swashbuckling mustache.

You know I agree. And I've been very open about it over the years. Toronto fans are going to be mad that we didn't have a nice little jerk session about them. They looked awesome. I'm going to throw this at you. Is that the worst possible matchup for the Lakers in a seven game series, multiple ball handling guards that they have to account for.

Lowry is just, they don't have anyone on the roster to cover him. Toronto has multiple dudes to throw at LeBron who are athletic and can make him work. They're not going to start him down, but they'll make them work. And then size to throw Davis and a better coach. And Vogel's a really good coach I think Nick Nurse is the best coach in the league yeah that's that's yeah I was actually thinking about that today because I go well there's some things in that Lakers Toronto game that I couldn't figure out what LA was doing but I'm not an anti-Vogel guy at all but I just you know it's always going to be advantage and nurse and the rest of the league will tell you that like this the rest of the league

worships a nurse and when I would talk about tiers of teams i was always surprised how many people in front offices would include toronto as the fourth team and there's a couple teams that were like yeah maybe you're right or whatever i go well isn't isn't it the tier of the two la teams in milwaukee and then the second tier starts with toronto or whatever i guess it just still seems unfathomable that they're gonna have a chance to come out of the. But I think we all have to accept it because you're right. The depth with them was something we noticed last year. We were like, you know what they did? They built a team where seven or eight guys are all comfortable

with the basketball in their hands. About the only player they play in the rotation that you don't expect to be able to create his own shot at the end of the shot clock could be Rondé Hollis Jefferson. But they went small with him. They can throw two different bigs at you. OG was like right up into LeBron and no one's going to shut LeBron down, but you just got to make them work.

Right. And what I loved about their defense is they had pressure on the ball right after half court with it. And it's almost like the Lakers. It's like a pickup game. Like, are you guys going to be these fucking guys? Like you're going to, you're serious. And it's like, no, no, this game counts.

But you know what? To beat you. If, if Lebron is going to handle the ball as much as he's handling it you have to do that you have to look for every little edge you can to wear him down even by two percent and they have the guys to do it i thought it was interesting from the box score um and it was and when i was watching it it's how i felt and then I looked at it, they basically played eight guys Toronto did I like teams that are like, here's our eight these are our guys

we'll mix and match whatever, we have our crunch time five, these other three guys will come in and that's it, we're not trying to figure out who we are, we know who we are these are our best eight guys and we'll play a little Hollis Jefferson. Might grab one of these other guys for five, six minutes.

Yeah, we'll throw this at you to go small, to show it to you, which was frustrating, I think, from a Lakers standpoint. Because I think the Lakers' problems in that game were fixable. Where, you know,

why are you letting JaVale and Dwight get these good spots closer to the basket, even though Anthony Davis can do all these different things? They were trapping Anthony Davis like crazy and Anthony Davis is smart enough that he's not going to force things and he's going to make the right pass but then you're like you didn't take a shot in the first half like man that can't happen and then when it's Rondé Hollis

Jefferson in is this five and Davis had a few there was like a few minutes stretch there where they let that lineup sit there and they didn't even take advantage of that so I know I interrupted you there for a little bit but I just those were little things i was looking at watching that game going these are fixable for la but they got to be they got to make this quicker like they've got to understand this a little bit quicker because it just it felt weird that davis was such a non-factor just because of the trapping i still i obviously not counting at la I, cause of the two guys, but green, like green was over seven in that game. And we've seen this with green greens, not reliable a hundred percent of the time.

He's almost like when he's playing well, it's the added bonus, but I don't feel like you can count on him for four straight rounds. He's going to have games like the game Saturday night over seven Caldwell Pope played 30 minutes in that game. I think that's a real problem because I think he is below average but he's their best shooter like if you look at the three point percentages he's like right at 39 I think 39 so do you think he's an average player would you say he's below average I'm saying there's I think he's average but I think he's needed because he's another

spacer of the floor like think about this This team is the one seat in the West. And because of everything that's happened, they added Dion waiters and Jr. Smith. And they may have done now. So that brings about an X point. Dan waiters. The good news is he actually looked good in the first game and okay.

In the second game and might actually be able to give them a little irrational confidence guy off the bench. The bad news is they're relying on Dion waiters. And I actually think they need them because it's just a lot of a Kuzma. I think they figured out how to unlock him at least a little bit. And he's their third best player, but the four through 12 is, is pretty sketchy.

And the fact that they don't have that Avery Bradley piece where it's like, oh, here's a gamer. The other team has a really good offensive guard. Here's a game where we'll play Avery Bradley a lot and we'll put up with whatever happens offensively. But we know we're getting defense out of them. They don't have that piece now. And I don't know. I think it's a beatable team, but my bigger point is I think all these teams are beatable.

I think the Clipper, I think everybody has some sort of a flaw where you look at them and go, man, well, they, that's not great. But if you go down the line, you could say that about every single contender we have.

Well, that's really been the thing now for about two years, right? Cause post golden state, you know, we kind of knew what to expect. And then we also had a Cleveland or really we had a lebron run for eight years so we actually but you didn't before the before the injuries though you didn't feel that way about golden state last year did you i still felt like they were i was like wow those four guys

it doesn't really matter they're still the best no that's what i'm saying is we're on the same page here is that we we became so accustomed to the predictability of LeBron against Golden State that this is this weird two-year season now where whenever it's new, it's hard. There's still reservations I have about Milwaukee. Van Gundy was pointing it out tonight during the broadcast. You are kind of this space and three heavy, and they also give up a lot of threes. That was a weird loss for them. I thought that was kind of a weird loss when you're up 112 104 which is a couple minutes to go and that's what houston could do to you um toronto you never thought this would happen i mean i'm supposed to somehow buy into philadelphia when they're the sixth seed all year and they still look screwed up even though imbeed has a monster save it save it that's i know i know i know but then you know you go back to the lakers and we were really high on the Lakers before this whole thing. Remember, we were starting to do those things

where you're like, man, you know what? I might just trust them the most. It's Davis, it's LeBron. Like, why are you going to make this complicated? And then I look at how he matches up against the Clippers. His shooting numbers are the worst against the Clippers of any team

he's faced this year. His field goal percentage, his three suck too against him. It's not the lowest, but he has the lowest overall field goal percentage against any team against against him it's not the lowest but he has the lowest overall field goal percentage against any team against the Clippers and it makes sense because they've got the two wings and when Beverly's there you can throw it at him and I think if I'm a Clippers fan I'm going look I get it Anthony Davis in the matchup and all that stuff

but no Trez the Lou Williams situation Beverly not starting the game and then again it's out there yeah so the Clippers fans are not looking at that one the same way, but you're right. I could talk myself in and out of all of this because it's still, we don't have one group here out of any of these top teams, however many as you want to name, we don't have one group that's ever proven anything. And everybody has a team that has a certain something that could be a problem for them. And that's what we're talking about.

We were talking about OKC before. I have no idea who guards Chris Paul on the Lakers. Now, you could go the other way and go, who the hell's guarding LeBron on OKC? That's why it would be a really fun series. But when you take Chris Paul and SGA, how are you going to play LeBron, Kuzma, Davis, some sort of a wing,

and then I guess like Caruso? I think Caruso's their closer until the rest of the guard thing gets finished out. But think about that. Do you even like Caruso? Like, I think he's okay. I think he's better defensively than he is offensively, but he's become such a crowd favorite because he's a white guy with, like, bad hair. So remove all that.

Is he a 10th man? Is he a 9th man? For them, he's part of their closing group, man. I know, but that's what I'm saying. Take him out of this and just think about it. Is this somebody that's going to be in the crunch time of a championship team? Alex Caruso. Who's

the worst person who's been in the crunch time of a championship team? Derek Fisher in 2010? The least talented guy who is closing a game for a championship team. Richard Jefferson in 2016? No. When he was like old, kind of washed up, but savvy Richard Jefferson? Is that it? I don't even know. He was on your team. I think he was on your kind of washed up but savvy Richard Jefferson is that it he was on your team I think he was on your team

like 12 years ago who which guy I don't want to say his name because he's going to punch me who is it perk perk wasn't closing games though was he in 08 I mean their best lineup was a small lineup

don't say it to perk I edit this out I just I wanted was he in 08? I mean, their best lineup was a small lineup. Don't say it to Perk. I edit this out. I just, I wanted, I wanted to mess with you. I don't believe that. I was simply suggesting it to see what you would say

and I'm glad you defended him. Well, Perk, Perk was better than people remember on those Celtics teams. I think people seem to think OKC Perk

was Perk the entire time, but Perk from 08-09-2010 I thought was an above average center. He was perfect for what they needed. He was perfect for the way they played because they never needed him to score. So the Lakers thing, it's weird

because I don't even think Avery Bradley's that good, but I thought he brought something specifically that they needed that they had not replaced. Now, could waiters coming off the bench as a reliable Jordan Crawford on Utah type of guy for six minutes each half be a new wrinkle that you know maybe that'll be a fun wrinkle compared to the defense or losing I don't know okay stay on the Kuzma thing though because they were talking him up so much in practice and this gets back to my kind of young guy finding himself this is not a skill thing this is a role thing and the first half of the Clippers game I thought he looked lost like really bad and

he had like a nice swing pass that led to a three then he hit another shot and he was better in the Toronto game so maybe it's heading in the right direction but you know the way Kuz has talked about it's like oh you know he's still trying to figure out. He played 55 games. Okay. He's played 50, now 57 games, I think, with the Lakers this year. Right. And he is in that group of young guys who are like, this was way easier when I was relied on.

Like, he's too young, I think, to accept that you need to figure out some ways to win within the game off of these other guys. And so even when he has some of these moments, it still doesn't always feel comfortable. So this, this coups, I shouldn't even say it that way, but this Kuzma, um,

revelation, like there's all of a sudden that he's going to turn to this guy that really helps them. I mean, maybe it happens, but it starts to feel more unrealistic when you're, what are you asking? You're asking him to be like the number three every time in big-time playoff games,

maybe on the way to win a championship, when for the most part, most of the season, he's proven that it's just still a role that he's incredibly uncomfortable with. So we'll see. I think when he's playing defense and he's really active, it seems like it unlocks a little something for them. But I want to point out with Kuzma because you talked about how young he was.

He's 25. He's 25 years old. He's been in the league three years. That's what I mean more. It's three years than the 25 thing. And he was like a leading scorer last year. He's a career 33% three-point shooter. Last two years,

last year he was 30.3%. This year he's 30.8%. I think people seem to think he's like career 33% three point shooter last two years. Last year, he was 30.3 this year. He's 30.8. I think people seem to think he's like Robert Horry, you know, just as dead high from three. And he's just not, he's not, you're right.

And teams are going to leave him alone in the playoffs and make him take threes and they're going to play way off them. So, you know, look, if they win the title, it's going to be because LeBron and Davis just bully balled everybody. And that's very, very, very possible. It's certainly something that we

thought was probable heading into the, uh, when the pandemic shut everything down, I still like the Clippers slightly. Um, but I also think that Lakers are just a good, that that's a good matchup, the Clippers because of the Davis thing. Davis can do whatever you want. There's never going to be, I don't care if Harold's there or not. They're not stopping Davis, no matter what happens. So, um, I had a couple bubble favorites for you. Actually, let's take a break and then I'm going to go bubble favorites. Hey, if you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there's a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescription

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Go to GetRoman.com slash bill to try out a three-month supply of nightly defense for just $5. It's free to chat with the doctor. Your first order is just $5. Again, getroman.com slash bill. Eligibility requirements and additional terms apply. Okay. We mentioned Gary Trent Jr., mentioned Nurkic. You mentioned Jalen Brown. I thought he looked really good. Lowry was great. Westbrook, I liked all the stuff he was doing.

TJ Warren. We did not mention Grayson Allen. No, we didn't. Didn't know we were. Who closed with the Grizzlies in a very dramatic last-second loss to nerd basketball punchy bag DeMar DeRozan, who made a couple of huge shots and won the game for the Spurs. Grayson Allen closed the game and was having some moments.

Is Grayson Allen going to be like a 12-year NBA player? It's starting to feel like he is i couldn't believe like when he couldn't get any minutes with utah i was like he must be bad right right especially utah they love the white guys you can't get him any minutes out on the floor and it wasn't as we've talked about like this utah team wasn't the deepest team and i would ask about him and i was told oh we really like him we really like him which you know i rarely will you get a front office to say he sucks yeah this guy so we fuck that pickup pretty bad um you're like what's the other semi-ojalay no we really like him because when the trade happened you know what i'll say this now utah when the trade happened i was

like oh yeah you, looking at it. I go, Grayson, who cares? He was like, no, no, we like Grayson. I was like, come on. Come on. So maybe, just maybe. He wasn't a lack of athleticism, and it's not like he's really small. And he's a credible shooter.

So sometimes I have a hard, like there was the longest stretch where you'd go, oh, this guy will be good. And you're like, nope. And then the next big white guy comes along that can make shots. And with shooting being such a, like the only thing anybody cares about anymore, but it's not just automatic for those guys. So maybe he's, he's figured it out. And I like that he can go to the basket too. He's not just, he can drive. Yeah. Yeah. He can drive and drive with either hand. I really liked Dylan Brooks and he, he might've cost them both of those games, especially today. He, the

Rosen just took them to school down the stretch and especially on that last play. But in general, I, I, and maybe it's cause we haven't seen these guys in a while. And I'm, I'm just excited at basketball back. I thought jaw was at another level. Jaw was going wherever he wanted on the court. I watched every minute of both of their games. Um, and I, you know, he doesn't have to step back three yet.

There's shots. He doesn't have that. He's going to have three years from now, but man, if I was a Knicks fan, I know we've talked about this before, but I was a Knicks fan and we came within one pick of that guy on top of all the other shit that's happened in the Knicks over the last 20 years.

It's just brutal. I mean, they had the most ping pong balls. They had the highest percentage by far to get Zion or John Moran. And they ended up three. And I still like RJ Barrett, but I mean, jazz out of control teams.

When he, when he has a head of steam, guys are just backpedaling like full speed. Cause they just don't want to have their ankles broken. And he's still getting to wherever he wants with either hand. And Jackson, although Jackson's not rebounding for some reason, but Jackson offensively, he looks like he's back. That team, I like that team.

I don't know if they're going to make the playoffs, but that is a really nice foundation. I'd almost like to see Valanciunas get out of there just to let everybody go wild and get him out of the way. Like, hey, you know what? i know you're talented big and everything but we're just we're gonna put you in a time machine back to 2002 no no you know where you put them san antonio it's like your time your time has come you're always supposed to go there look they were supposed to trade tony parker for him and then it didn't happen

you remind you remind them of tiago splitter they They really want you. Like a better Tiago Splitter. So Memphis and Portland, who I think are very entertaining to watch. And then New Orleans who people were trying to will into this 8th seed and meanwhile they couldn't guard you and me.

So it's like cool. It's a layup line. It's a layup line it's a layup it's embarrassing yeah so be like oh cool well portland or memphis will be the eighth seed and san antonio is like hold my beer we would you guys be interested in a little derosen and gay and patty mills in your one eight matchup anybody san antonio will not go away it's unbelievable the lakers are like goodakers are like we don't have to worry about dejounte murray like we just go under every single screen right now for him um a little let me let me

just do a minute here on new orleans yeah you got to imagine how they're just going to be psyched if they don't make the playoffs that they can rest zion look we all want to see more zion we get it there's a limit on the minutes they're gonna baby the hell out of them and that's fine but when it's a game that matters for seating for the first real game back and you can't figure out how to have them close the game and he's it's embarrassing it's just what's the point you know and i i like that whole organization and i really like a lot of the pieces of the team but there's just you know to have derrick favors catch the ball and watch everybody just do stuff while you're like are you going to do something with the basketball and then zion sitting on the

bench when it's a game that you need to get in the playoffs like why are we rooting for them to get into the playoffs when they don't even seem to want to get another playoffs and then the flip side of it is portland on on friday and then especially in in that Celtic game today when they could have rolled over. And Portland is playing every game like it's a game seven. You know, I don't think Lillard came out. Lillard didn't come out in the second half. And they're pressing him.

They're doing a million things. He just stayed in the game. Like, he really wants to make the playoffs. I do not feel the same hunger from New Orleans. But the shame of it is Portland's schedule is so tough and they just so much damage. They go into the bubble playoffs at 29 and 37. Now they're 30 and 38, but they did so much damage to themselves that first part of the year, they might not be

able to recover. And it's a shame because they are one of the eight best teams in the West. And I think Memphis is Memphis is certainly better than Orlando or Brooklyn. And it's just another classic West year where you have 10 good West teams and six good East teams. Thoughts and prayers, Jonathan Isaac. It was so fun, again, to watch him. And you have this hope that one of these Orlando guys

is going to work out and be something and to see Isaac get hurt. That one didn't look good. No, that didn't look good. Okay. It's time. Philly? Actually, let's take a break and then we'll do Philly.

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Once again, blueapron.com slash Simmons. Blue Apron, feed your soul. All right. So watching this Philly thing, which was hilarious because we're reading for two weeks about how they finally figured out their lineup with Shaq Milton. Horford's going to come off the bench. They've really unlocked this. Here we go. Jake Milton has zero points in 19 minutes against Indiana. Horford was, I think, minus 76 in 10 minutes in the game. And they get torched by TJ Warren,

even though, as I said earlier, they have Simmons and Theibold, two guys who you would think would be able to slow down TJ Warren. Then you have Embiid who for, I would say at least half the game was being guarded by Sampson. It was six foot seven. Jakar Sampson, St. John Jakar Sampson. Yeah. And Embiid's like, let me get the ball 25 feet from the hoop and I'll decide what to do. It's like, you're being guarded by somebody who's six, seven, go, go close to the basket and just scored them every time. It was a Brett Brown disaster. They look terrible. At one point, shake note was yelling it and beat in the huddle,

which I watched live. I was like, Whoa. And they cut the commercial and it's like, wait, did they, is that, was that, was that a fight? And then come back and they're downplaying it. But, um, it's groundhog day. And I, I just, I don't get it that team is so talented it's such a tragedy from a basketball standpoint that that team's gonna lose in the playoffs early okay we need more just so we you know i know we we have a time limit here We want to get this over before the sun comes up. But I told myself as I did the reprep, when I'm in it, I can name everything. For the most part, you're the same way. All of us that are really in it day in and day out, we know who everybody plays for and that kind of stuff.

If you ask me as close as I am to college football who every quarterback was, all the Power 5 schools, I would get so many of them wrong right now because I'm just not thinking that way two weeks into the season i'm gonna know everybody what the recruiting ranking was who offered them and then their backups because i just do my own prep on that it's always because i just love talking about quarterbacks so when i started ramping up again for the restart a week or so i'm going over everything again okay because it's been four months plus a shutdown where i wasn't reading stuff religiously like we normally would be. And I looked at their roster and went, how are they the sixth seed? Okay. Like it happened again because the same thing happened. We did the preview of the entire season where you go stack up Milwaukee's roster and stack up Philadelphia's roster. Like I can't pick Milwaukee. I can't.

And then it plays out again, incredibly frustrating. And so what I've told myself on this restart was don't have a second first impression. Don't talk yourself into something that completely contradicts what you felt about a team. Yes, some teams are going to be more amped for this. Yes, there's going to be some outcomes that we can't expect. Obviously, this is sports and it feels really unpredictable going into the playoffs, but don't completely change how you feel about a team or players just because we've seen it now for a week when we had four months off. Don't let there be a second first impression. And with Philadelphia, when I watched them in that Pacers game, again, it's Pacers, no Sabonis, Brogdon didn't even play. And the Shake Milton thing's been a nice story. He's like 40% from three. That's not who he was last year, but now all of a sudden it's all unlocked

and Ben Simmons is going to be incredible who they still stagger that ben simmons and bead thing for all the people that say that's not an issue because it is an issue and i still don't know what it's going to look like when they're closing big games horford's been a disaster except for certain things defensively and i get that i forget tobias harris is out there all the time even though he had a monster game against the pacers josh richardson's not even close to being the guy that he thought he was going to be but milton got yanked I forgot about him yeah I forgot to even mention him I'm telling when you look at the roster you go wait yeah how is Josh Rich like Josh Richardson used to be a guy you everybody would want on their team I gotta say I can't remember one thing he did in that game they had to put in Raul Neto to run the

offense and Neto I don't even know how much it was his fault sometimes I'm I'm second guessing myself and some of the coverages, but I know when the players all start yelling at each other or when Shaq Milton gets yanked seven seconds into the second half. They played seven seconds, and something got messed up on a defensive thing, and Brett Brown's like, fuck it. You're out. Raul Neto's in. And the announcers, at least the Pacers side, they were like,

huh, what's going on? But what happened to that segment on the jump about Shaq Milton? I guess we have to delete that from the internet it felt a little like that's kind of the other point is that i'm supposed to take the pacers this year or excuse me the sixers this seriously but their their prospects have improved this much because of shake milton that was saying this last week and i'll give give you credit. He played well for like four games. And they're like, well, we've solved this. So here's my thing with Philly.

And you saw it at the end. Did you watch that whole game? I watched the whole game. Okay. And that high screen thing, they couldn't figure it out. And they were getting it wrong every time. But remember, Indiana's up by like seven or eight or something. And Philly is just like, they do this crazy full court press on them

and unleash their athletes. And they got like one steel. They almost got like two more steals. And it was, you're watching this. You're like, Oh my God, this is the 2000 Ravens. What, what is happening? And I realized like, they just have to not worry about offense at all. Like they, the only way that they can turn this around is with their defense. Cause they have, they have size, they have speed, they have athleticism. They have like two high end guys in thigh bone Simmons. Richardson used to be a high end guy. I don't know what happened to him this year, but if they took, if they could bottle what they had in that last minute, as they're like scrapping to try to come back and just kind of make that their style and then on offense whatever you have in bead you have three point shooters like you're

going to get to 100 points but to me the defense is how they're going to win and it's like they don't even care about it until they're down 10 with a minute left they give up 53 points to tj warren and they still and they still like didn't believe it was real they had they kept following holiday on these high screens and then they would, a couple of shots, granted, from Warren are incredible. Yeah, like 28-footers. At some point, you go, you just have to get a hand up.

And by the way, that frantic thing towards the end, I think they had an incredibly stupid foul where they were down a possession and so it was, the thing was, they basically were going to have to ride it out a little bit or wait it out because you know there's always this thing depending on where the shot clock and the differential okay but it doesn't mean you have to foul right away when you have to

foul and they ended up just you go okay so you guys screwed up on defensive assignments you didn't even have any idea because i think netto all of a sudden is like wait a minute i'm the starting point guard and i don't even know that was always on him you would see these breakdown breakdowns yeah and they're all looking at each other going what the fuck and then they're looking back at Brett Brown and then you have this foul at the end where you go okay so now we're just going to foul guys at the wrong time and it's just a very hard team despite how a week ago I'm looking at that talent going oh my god like how is this team bad and here's here's the funny thing I I talked to somebody about this. Like wouldn't Philly be better off getting the sixth seed,

playing Boston, being on the other side of Milwaukee, and then maybe facing Milwaukee? Like wouldn't it make more sense for them to tank into the sixth? You go, well, Brett Brown doesn't have that kind of equity. This group doesn't have that kind of equity. It can't happen. They're clearly going to catch the Pacers. And now you go, they might be,

could they possibly be what could they possibly be there by trying right well we were heading into the bubble and i even said on this pot i was like the three six like boston playing philly and b that's going to be a real problem and it was mainly because i hadn't watched philly for four and a half months and i forgot how dysfunction how weird they coached they were i watched that game game. I'm like, that's fine. If that's the three, six, I'll welcome it. We have a much better coach. I'm not a better coach and we'll figure it out. We'll be fine. But Stephen, Stephen Adams looked like Shaq against the Celtics as a scrimmage. Um, if Philly just says we're going down in flames with Embiid, Simmons, Harris, and Theibel and name the fifth guy.

And we're just trying to make our bones on defense and we'll just post up Embiid. That's what the league is kind of hoping that they don't figure out. And I was thinking like, who did this remind me of? So Shaq goes to LA in 96. Shaq doesn't win the title until 2000. Shaq, during that whole stretch stretch is like 29 and 12. He is the best center in the league. Hakeem's getting a little older at that point. Robinson's starting to fade a little bit. Uh, Duncan's in there, but he's more of a

powerful at this point. And every year, here's what I wrote down. Talented, expensive, awesome franchise center, poorly coached, will fold in any series. So here's how it turned out for them. 97, they lost 4-1 in round two to Utah. That was the Kobe Airball ending. Everybody remembers that. 1998, they made the West Finals. They won 61 games. Got swept by Utah.

That was the series when Nick Van Exel did the one, two, three Cancun when they, when they were down three, nothing in the practice thing, it became a big deal. Go look up, go look up Nick Van Exel, one, two, three Cancun. Lots of stories written about that. Then in 99, the lockout year, three coaches swept in the second round by San Antonio. So a team with Shaq in his prime, in his prime got swept in back-to-back playoff series. And you look at that now and you're like, man,

what the fuck happened? Hey, I mean, they had young Kobe. They had Shaq, they had Eddie Jones. Wait, they had Robert Horry.

They had Derek Fisher. Like not two top 10 players. Maybe, maybe two top 10 ever. Right. How did that happen? But Maybe two top 10 ever. Right. How did that happen? But I was there and you were there. It happened because they were terribly coached.

They're dysfunctional. They had weird chemistry. The pieces didn't quite fit. Phil Jackson comes in. Kobe kind of becomes Kobe. And then it all kind of fell into place. And I wonder if Philly is like that late 90s lakers team where we're going to look back 20 years later and be like oh my god what happened they had a bead and simmons they had

150 million dollar payroll how did they get swept but i feel like that's where we're heading i don't like them for the celtics uh despite the dysfunction but i it's just weird like We're supposed to keep sitting here going, well, if Philly ever pulls it out. There's just this rule that I've believed in more and more is when you have all this evidence in front of you, whether it's quarterbacks or basketball teams or relationships, and you go, no, this is what that person is. This is who it is. We have seven seasons of this. We have five seasons of this. You've known this person for a couple years, and this is how they deal with you.

Believe them. And Philly, at this point, it's just, I would imagine, I mean, as brutal as Sixers fans have been to you and I over the years, everything we've said, they feel. And that's probably what's so frustrating about it. None of this was unfair. Just watching that Patriots game and going, this is where you guys are at right now with a handful of games to go before the playoffs, and I expect you just to turn it on. And I still may pick them to beat the Celtics, but I'm not going to pick them to beat

grownups like Toronto or Milwaukee. And that's kind of like your grownup lines of Oklahoma city. The other, the other side of it is a team that isn't, they're not grownups. I don't, you know, I'd like the biggest accomplishment they have is a quiet bounce. Be like,

man, if we had won that game, you're like, it was in the second round. Okay. Like you're, you're, you're imagining a lot of stuff going right after that shot.

If you were to win an overtime, which was again, a dismal game, you know, they have two spectacular players. Simmons has these moments where like sat like Saturday, they give him the ball, you know, and that his little spot in the foul line on the left and you kind of know he's going to go left. The defender knows he's going to go left and then he still goes left and does that swooping lefty Dr. J layup. It's unstoppable. He's unstoppable in transition.

I really like his game. He's, you know, obviously missing that one thing where he doesn't trust his own shot. But a lot of the stuff he's doing off the ball is really good. And same thing with Embiid. Embiid had like eight baskets in that game. We're like, oh my God, there's nobody in the league like this guy. And to not be able to harness that is embarrassing. It's really embarrassing. And they could have handled it by getting, I just think they ran the course with this coach. And I think we thought that a year ago,

I think he's very well-liked and very popular. And it became that Scotty Brooks, okay. See thing where it's like, ah, we got to give him one more year. And you're just, you're just throwing away years. And the window is too short in the NBA.

As we know, everybody thought a year ago. Okay. Well, granted we're past a year after the title, but leading up to that playoff series or multiple playoff series, you're in Philadelphia. I mean,

I think most people are going to remember this and listening to this now, but it was just a form of conclusion that Brett was going to get fired if they didn't do something special. And then they're like, oh, wow, they kept him.

And I'm telling you now that same stuff is picked up again. But now, at least for Brett, he's just, I guess, going to get paid more if they go ahead and make a change.

And if they were to get bounced in the first round or embarrassed in the second round in like five games and everybody's looking at each other going, what the hell? I don't know why you would try it again with everybody and i'm not even on the breakup

and bead simmons thing uh even though i understand all the different arguments the numbers how they're better together and and you know i think some of the eye test stuff is just different than what some of the efficiency is with both of them on the court which definitely has had awful stretches and it has improved with just those two and how Horford messes the whole thing up. You always are probably going to lose the trade when you have those two guys. You know how you were talking about Westbrook

on offensive boards? Simmons almost does some of those offensive rebounds at his size that make less sense than Westbrook. I'm not talking about his size as the advantage, just that he's that quick to the hoop on anticipating some of these offensive rebounds you're like it felt like everybody else thought it was a timeout and simmons is just that much better than everybody else he looks lebron-ish sometimes when he goes

absolutely where it just seems overpowering i really like the top four in the east though i i'm a huge fan of miami i gotta say, I just typed out their top nine. Butler, Bam, Dragic, Duncan Robinson, who's just keeps getting better. Crowder, who in a playoff series is not going to be scared. Harrow, Olenek, who always has moments in a seven game series. So I have two really good games. He might get some MVP votes this year. Kendrick, Kendrick Nunn, who, if he's your, you know, third or fourth guard in the rotation. Yeah. Yeah. Considering what, where you got them. Yeah. And then Iguodala. Iguodala. That's right. So you have that as your top nine, you have Spolstra as the, as the head coach and you have a team that seems like they really like

each other and overachieves. And I don't know what happened with Butler with missing that practice today. I don't know. By the time people hear this podcast, there might be some story behind it. But you can kind of see why Butler left Philly because he was like, wow, this is so dysfunctional. I'm out. He leaves Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. He's like, I'm good. I'm going to start my own little family over

here in Miami. I think it turns out way better than he ever could have expected, mainly because I don't think there's any way he could have known the kind of player Bam was going to turn into this year. And the Duncan Robinson thing was just bonkers. There's no way he knew Tyler Harrow was going to be a rotation guy right away.

He probably saw Harrow dressed at the draft and was like, eh. There'll probably be a four guy right away but probably saw heroes dressed at the draft it was like yeah as if there'll probably be a four seed there's an outside chance they could catch the celtics but uh i just really like that team i think that would be hard to play and i and i'm just thinking in my head like if philly somehow got to five and we had this miami philly series and all the talking heads are going i'll tell you it worked out great for Philly. You just look at the talent on both sides and they're just the board. And it's like, we've seen this over and over again. The overachiever well-coached team is just put on earth to beat a team like Philly.

And maybe you're right. Maybe they are better off playing in Boston. I think Boston's too talented for this Philly team that has as many holes. I think they would lose to both of those teams, actually. The Miami matchup is really interesting because the zone numbers. I don't have this

to the letter here, so I'm paraphrasing the number that I read. But essentially, Miami's played more zone possessions against Philadelphia in just the games against Philadelphia combined. I think it's like over a hundred and something possessions of zone. Then 20 plus teams have played zone all season long. Wow. So Spolster doesn't care. He'll go for it. And you're seeing more and more. I just love that these coaches go,

and it's really kind of stupid how stubborn everybody was about it for years going, why wouldn't we just throw somebody off with zone if we don't respect certain things that we're doing? Now maybe you get more used to it and the surprising nature of it has gone over some kind of series. I love watching Bam

so much. Even though I worry about what he would give up defensively to battling Embiid over seven games, the idea Embiid has to chase Bam around like that doesn't seem like that. Maybe you put Simmons on him, but then where do you put, you know,

you might be putting Embiid on Iguodala. Like I'm serious. You might try to do some cross matching there because Bam initiates so much of their offense. It's not Jokic level, but it's a trust that's along the same lines and he he had a couple plays in that denver game and that denver game is not the end all be all they're missing their entire backcourt they're missing will bartz they're missing their top three perimeter

guys michael porter jr making some cameos where i was like oh this is why his coach coach malone can't stand him because porter was screwing up all these different things and Malone was about to lose his mind. But in that game, at least for the execution for what Bam does, he's just a really difficult matchup. So you can't just write him off because of the size disadvantage against Embiid because Joel has to chase him around. And he won't be afraid when Embiid does that intimidation thing that he does sometimes with centers that works. I don't think he's intimidating. Bam. He might overpower him. He might have 45 points,

but bam, we'll keep coming at him. Do you think, you know, the, all these teams are in the bubble. There's nothing to do. They're basically hotel room going to the barbershop that created for them.

I think they have like ping pong and shit like that. Maybe they go to the pool. These teams are just spending a shitload of time together. And I wonder for certain teams that are really close, right? Like the bucks, like that's like a really good thing. You have all these teams, these teams are getting along anyway. So you put them in that situation. It's like, that's great. Like the Lopez brothers are best friends. Giannis has his three brothers. Like George Hill's a great guy going down the line. Then you go to this Philly team where it's like, we always hear that Ben and Joelle don't like each other. Who knows how much of that is true, but it's the same kind of whispers you always

heard with Chris Paul and Blake way back when, and that turned out to be true. But just in general, where you have like a semi-dysfunctional team that can't really figure out what it is, Al Horford's making 30 million a year, He's unhappy. I wonder being in a bubble, if it makes it worse, better, or the same, what do you think? I feel like it would make it worse. Well, at least you can always go to your room and just hide from everybody. You know, you're not traveling. So even though the schedule, when people were saying, oh, it's condensed, it's going to favor younger teams all these different things people really didn't factor in not flying for two and a half months i would imagine is the best version of of resting yourself then i don't care who you are

you cross you fly cross country you're just kind of wiped out for a little while never mind i haven't oh yeah basketball game so unless you're jaylen yeah he would just do it but he's private jet now right no jaylen just i'm just kidding sleep on jets he might be is he is he a private jet guy now um the fact that you're not going anywhere is is something i don't know that we talked enough about as far as the condensed schedule because the condensed schedule isn't doesn't feel as condensed when you don't have to fly across country all the time but no it doesn't feel as condensed when you don't have to fly across the country all the time. But no, it's a really good question,

because I think you could still hide from everybody, but it would suck if you were a loner. If you're that loner type, and then you're forced to be around everybody, and you're just kind of wired a little differently, and then you don't really know what to do. I mean, I don't know if it's going to impact wins or losses. I think the Clippers thing was maybe the only time we wondered.

And the Lou Williams thing bummed me out, because you just go, you have a chance to win a championship and if you expose yourself to this and then you hit up the whole team and expose them to it, imagine if that happened and you ruined the chance for a franchise like the Clippers especially. I mean, forget any team. It's a selfish move. And so maybe that stuff's all in the past and that's

all done. I could only see that maybe being the kind of thing that could completely disrupt a team, not even necessarily somebody testing positive for COVID, but somebody becoming, Hey, three weeks in, we're not as good.

We're down to Oh three, you know, maybe, maybe it's a selfish act where the team ends up getting upset. I could just imagine Caruso being like, you guys are going to the barbershop again. Fuck. All right.

Yeah. Cool. I'll see you guys. You guys want to get burgers later? No, Dudley and Danny Green are hanging out with them. Just got to have a couple of people. Well, the funny thing about doing this podcast Sunday night, now it's 9.52.

We have all these games tomorrow. It's just as never tomorrow, Monday at 10.30 in the morning, Raptors heat. And then at one, Nuggets thunder. And then at 330, Grizzlies Pelicans. It's a huge game. And then we have this random Spurs 76ers game. Like Embiid might have 48 points.

This might be the most dated Sixers discussion on the planet in about 12 hours. Then we end with Lakers jazz. Does that stuff's going to move fast? I still think we're going to have some injuries. Knock on wood, I hope we don't. But to go from just ramping up like this and playing every other day

with the intensity that these games have, I think I'll be interested to see how it affects the older players. But I'm so glad to have back. I loved all the social justice stuff. I think they did a really nice job across the board, hitting a balance between all these different things. Westbrook's interview was awesome, too,

when he was talking about unity and everybody coming together for it. It was really cool. The announcers did a cool job. I liked the plexiglass. The dumbest thing for me was the coach interviews. I hate those anyway, but now we have the sideline reporters with the fucking mask on. They're cleaning up Chernobyl with the microphone from eight feet away,

interviewing some coach, being like, Brad, what happened there in the third quarter when Portland scored 40? What are we getting out of this? And why is this happening? And do we need this? I would say no. Other than that, I was happy with everything. Buddenholzer, when he does those interviews,

like he's clearly learned from the pop. He's under the family tree. He's acting like a pissed-off parent whose son just fucked up the amateur at the local country club member-member who his kid three-putted, and he's just had seven gin and tonics. That's what Bud is like in those interviews

where he's just so like pissed off about the whole thing i hate to your people speak to your espn people about this one they got to turn doris burke up she's had two games where when they go to the crowd noise you can't hear it's weird it's it's different than some of the other people that have been in the booth like mark and jeff and breen i could hear perfectly the TNT thing. You could hear Stan. The bigger spin thing was they had countdown and the guys were all interrupting each other. It's like, why do you have four people on a studio show in different spots

on some tape delay thing? That's never going to work ever. Why are you doing that? Just pick three. Why are we overthinking this? I don't know why I care about a pregame show. You know how it is, though. No, it's just because you can't It's tough to tell one of the one of the people on the show hey you're the you're the fourth most important so now you're

not going to be on the show well we'll have a double elimination show like in the basketball um quickly baseball if i gave you over under three and a half more days in this season are you going under or over i'll go over for days in the season, but I've talked about this on my pod. Every piece of information that I had on it is that people thought it was like a less than 50% chance of this happening, which doesn't mean you don't try. I'm not in that camp. I say you got to go for it. You got to try. The blame thing, I'm really tired of all the different angles of blaming people because then it was like, oh, the Marlins did all these things and these guys are a casino. These guys are a strip club. I don't know if any

of that stuff is true, but it feels like everybody's so anti-Manfred, which I understand, that we're past the personal accountability thing. You know what? If you're a young guy and you want this to work and you're traveling all over the place, you're going to have to make some sacrifices here. Trust me, college college kids that's why when i look at college football i'm like i don't think it's gonna happen because i would if i were a college kid i'd go out i'd want to talk to people i'd want to go out and hang out and i'm not going to criticize the kids for one of the way i know i would have done it you're like that now at the age you're at now i've been solo man this has been uh this has been i mean i'm pretty solo to begin

with but this is uh this is a pretty intense solo run for your boy that's for sure i was on a text thread with a couple of my high school friends including my friend jim grady who we used to go and play shuffle shuffleboard at at uh sam's in portchester until like four in the morning and i was asking him if we were 24 years old and this pandemic was happening. How many months before we just snapped and had like a four o'clock night at Sam's and we're, and we were like, probably within the first couple of weeks, we just would have been like, fuck it. We roll the dice. I totally get it. Like when you're in twenties, you have no regard for anything. You just,

you just want to live your life. You don't want to be told what to do and you want to take chances and do dumb things and we're just seeing this all over the world i'm not saying it's right i'm just i just know i'm not either who's older i don't want to be a total hypocrite knowing that i wouldn't want to hear from anybody i mean that that's the most predictable thing ever and then when on top of it if you're a college athlete and let's face it like you're a big-time college athlete on this campus guess what a lot of girls are going to want to talk to you and you know the college male that goes oh i'm i'm not dating this semester i'm going in my

i'm staying in my room until this is all settled nobody's doing that stayed on saturday yeah it's just not going to happen it's not going to happen so the college thing scares me because i don't know how they're going to pull it off especially if students go back i just. It's not going to happen. So the college thing scares me because I don't know how they're going to pull it off, especially if students come back. I just assume it's not happening. I mean, it was so funny with the Manfred thing talking about if the players don't take this a little more seriously, the season's going to be over. It's like, well,

you're putting your trust in the future of an entire season in the hands of a bunch of people who probably aren't going to make the right choices. Okay, but what was he supposed to do? And this into oh rosillo's defending manfred i'm i'm defending if you all agree that hey this is how we're going to try to do this because everybody shot down the bubble thing which the bubble thing looks a hell of a lot better now although i think i think they had to stick with the bubble i to me i can't believe they they didn't do but nobody

wanted to do the bubble apparently well then don't have a season then you can't do it the way you're doing it now how much of this is impacted by this red sox pitching staff that you want the season to end in three days it'd be great i was i was power walking on friday i just power walk around la because i'm losing my mind i'm power walking the other day and i'm listening to a podcast and i look up and there's these two dudes walking in front of me and one of them's wearing a Mookie Betts Dodgers t-shirt jersey. And I just got so bummed out. I mean, it was already bad enough. I'm already hearing from all the people in my life who like the Dodgers and just say, Oh my God, Mookie's amazing. I had no idea. I'm like, yeah, I fucking know. I get it. I know. I watched it for six years. I have no idea. Yeah. I was like, I had no idea. It was this good man. He's such a good base runner. It's like, yeah, I fucking know. I get it. I know. I watched him for six years. I have no idea.

Yeah, I was like, I had no idea he was this good. Man, he's such a good base runner. It's like, yeah, I know. I know. He's so small and he smashes them. Then I had one of my friends the other day was like, I had no idea he had an arm like that. Did you see the throw he made?

He threw out that guy at third. I'm like, yeah, I know. He's one of his things. A 10 out of 10 at every single baseball skill yeah we we all were aware as red socks fans that's why i was so bummed out um meanwhile my dad is texting me asking me who the hell this guy is every day the red socks or a starter out there that's not named uh avaldi my dad is like actually upset about it you would. I don't blame your dad. Remember I had the whole five-year grace period for when you win the title? My dad, there is no grace period at all.

My dad's like, I'm 72. This is the worst pitching staff we've ever had. This is bullshit. I think it's the worst pitching staff, at least in my lifetime. You and I were playing that game the other day, and I was throwing some Jimmy Williams lineups at you, but still, at least Mark Portugal

might get just six solid. Yeah, I was telling you, we had that year when Aaron Sealy started a opening day and I always thought that was the nadir, but this thing today where they had to use the opener on a Sunday night baseball game, they brought in Bryce. He was actually pretty good. He struck out the side, but, um, that they just, they basically have one starter. And then E-Rod looks like the, looks like the worst COVID casualty of the sport. Like he really had like real complications.

He's out for the year. And this was the guy they were counting on as the number two thing. But yeah, rough year. And I think it's going to, I've been thinking big picture about, all right, let's say this season ends after two weeks. Like just how weird the baseball reference is going to look 20 years from now when you'll have these, you know, Mookie Betts, 2020 season, 38 at Betts. And it's just this wiped out year.

Like it's the only equivalent, I guess, would be hockey. That 06 hockey year when they just had no season. But they didn't have a season. So it's gone. Well, we're basically not having one now. Yeah, but I guess the fact that it'll technically have happened. The only thing I want to ask you about baseball is I kind of regret that Jeffrey Loria doesn't still own the Marlins. Although I don't really mean that because he was... Just from a comedy standpoint?

Yeah, because would they put up a division banner if they never played again at 2-1 and won the division? Maybe. Maybe like, hey, you're going to come out next year and we're going to hang the banner. It's almost a sellout. It's so bad.

I think people have been asking me, oh, if baseball, if this is happening with baseball, this means football won't happen. And I just feel like football is happening. And unlike what happened with the Marlins and, uh, and the Cardinals,

if there's like 10 COVID people on a football team, they'll just be like, all right, you guys, you guys go over there and just bring in the next 10. Like they're, they're playing the games. Once they start, they're not giving up that money. Okay. But it may be, all right, you guys go over there and just bring in the next 10. They are playing the games once they start. They are not giving up that money.

Maybe this is the great Boston correction. The city was on absolute fire and so instead it's like, okay, not only is the second best player in baseball going to end up on the Dodgers where you have to hear about him every day, you're going to have a staff that Pawtucket would cancel the season on.

I don't want to say anything bad but like could brad stevens coach the knicks in two years and by the way all the pats are opting out on defense maybe that's what's happening maybe this is a big a big correction coming from the city 20 years they were like yeah there's just the the mystical things that are at work here were just like it was way we overdid it like yes they were a real calvinistic group of people but we overdid it we just let them win non-stop for 20 years and now let's have them have a dude that got cut from the reds as their number two starter and mook you'll be in la i don't want to say anything about brad brad would brad steve i'm trying to think what would be the worst. Not even the Knicks. No, he would get

let go coached at Pacers. If he left the Celtics, it would be... Actually, he'd go to college. He'd go to do North Carolina or something. I do always think it's funny how Duke fans would be like, oh, well, eventually he'll take the Duke job. Do you really think that Duke is... If you're an NBA guy, you're an NBA guy.

I get what Duke is, but I just always kind of thought it was a little insulting to the Celtics that it would be like, well, then, you know, he'll move on to something bigger and better like Duke.

You're like, what? You're really counting out the Pats? No. No, I'm not because the rest of the division, the rest of the division is not. The Jets just got decimated. Right.

Buffalo's defense is a concern miami you know what i i'm not writing off the patriots and i'm not one of those people that you know this belichick tanking thing i don't i've never bought that i'll tell you this had to buy into it had to buy ben simmons a red throwback cam newton jersey pat that's not gonna be be delivered until August 18th. He's more excited for Cam Newton than any Boston athlete that has been acquired by a Boston team.

Ben's a rough kid. Well, he loves video game Cam. He knows him from the video game. So he just assumes it's going to be like the video game. What's the rule on Ben swearing at home? It's been broken a lot. Unfortunately, I got to tell you something that would bother you from an annoying,

a paranoid Rousselo. No. So Ben's been playing a lot of two K during the pandemic. He's really into it. And they have, so they have this whole car thing and it's almost like you have to buy packs. My little brother shows me all the time, so I know what it is. You get these special cards.

The best card you can get is the Galaxy Opal card. The Galaxy Opal basically gives whoever the player's superpowers. You try to get the whatever. So they put all the draft prospects for 2020. They put Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball and James Wiseman. Those guys are in there with Galaxy Opal cards and they're fucking awesome. Like James Wiseman, it's better to have him than it is to have like Kevin McHale. Cause he, you know, he could make threes. So my son is playing these games. He now thinks these guys are going to come into the league and be incredible. And

I'm trying to explain to him, like the mobile ball is probably going to suck. He's like, no, no, his galaxy Opal cards. Amazing. I i'm like this isn't real life ben he's not gonna be very good okay just trust me that's why i never understood why wolverine didn't stay in the ufc like if wolverine were really that way he would have just like gone why are you fighting in backwoods dive bars in canada like just shut it down you're miserable you don't have much of a family kitty pride is out on you like why wouldn't you just go all right dana i'm gonna cut to 185 and just beat the shit out of everybody well that's what really would happen with wolverine well i'm guessing at least one of those three guys and maybe even all

three lamello wiseman and at the end of it's probably play 2k right so they get this card they're probably so excited. They have this card with superpowers. It just feels like a recipe for disaster. Like think about in 2013, if we had like, Oh, the Anthony Bennett galaxy, Opal cards out, he's fucking amazing. He's like Carl Malone. And then he gets into the actual league and he's just hot garbage.

Yeah. That's not cool. I don't think they should put those guys in there. I'm with you. That shouldn't happen. Here's another thing that bothers me. You can't not ever have played in an NBA game and then be the best player in the video game. You can't be better than like Hakeem Olajuwon.

Okay. But what's worse making Bill Simmons quarterback Patriots 99 across the board and Madden out of Colgate. Yeah. That's also happened. Here's the other thing that frustrates so that then they created these goat cards that are like higher level in Galaxy so the Ben's like obsessed with like they only made Magic Shaq Giannis LeBron no Barkley doesn't have one he wouldn't Barkley your guy wouldn't sign up for the game there's no Barkley Barkley's not in 2k't sign up for the game there's no Barkley

Barkley's not in 2K so they have the goats it's all the best players and Vince Carter what and Tracy McGrady dunkers those two guys

have goat cards but like I don't know. Julius Irving doesn't. Dirk Nowitzki. There's no Elgin Baylor go-card. There's no Jerry West go-card, but Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady have one. Is there a Kareem go-card? No.

And there is for Tracy McGrady. There's a Wilt go-card. But yeah, Tracy. What about Bob Pettit? He didn't have one. Bill Russell has one. And that apparently came out this week. But I was just like,

where are our priorities? We're giving James Wiseman and Galaxy Opal card. And we're giving Vince Carter a Goat Card. Vince Carter. I love Vince Carter. Great. Great rigger podcaster. I don't,

I don't think he was one of the best 50 players of all time. Do you? No. Yeah. He's not. I mean, I think it might have been just, I don't know. Oh, I'll leave you with this. Big news.

Big news for next week. I'll give you a week to research this. Okay. Thank you. I've been redoing my pyramid again Because I watched a lot of basketball games During the pandemic Especially from the 90s

I think I might have fucked up with Patrick Ewing He's too high No, I had him as the last guy in level 2 But I think I should have actually put him in level 3 I think I should have had him a little bit higher I think he was a little bit better Than I gave him credit for. And I have some regrets.

I can see how you got to that though. I can see Ewing's a tough one. Historically. He's probably the toughest, right? Cause he was the best guy on a real contender there. 90 through 90. But I was watching like this Pistons Knicks series the year after the Bulls beat the Pistons.

The Pistons had this one last year, this one last hurrah team. And the Knicks like beat the shit out of them. They knocked them out of the playoffs. Ewing had a lot of like, he had a lot of skulls. You know, he won a lot of playoff series and was in the mix in a really

relevant way. Really from like 89 to 95 and i i think i discounted it too much so i'm reevaluating i was would always wonder if ewing georgetown ewing is as impressive as any college player i've ever seen he's unbelievable georgetown ewing is like the best defensive center i've seen since i've been alive. The most intimidating thing. You just were like, this sucks. And that team should have won more than one title, by the way. But. John Thompson.

I don't know. Because it wasn't as big of a deal. I wonder if Ewing had not let himself get as big. If that would have changed what would have happened. Because he became kind of. Maybe it's the 90s and it was a plotting a plot. His knees went on him a little bit. I don't think his knees, I think by the time the late eighties,

I think his knees were probably 75, 80% what they used to be. But think about it though. He, he spent four years in college. Think about that. Think about John years in college. John Thompson could talk Patrick Ewing into coming back for his senior

year that guy could have come out right away he could have come out out of high school people would have freaked out about it if it happened so i don't i don't know that he would have gone number one but ewing that's i don't know man it's tough because you think another one was uh kareem who's the best college basketball player of all time, but spends four years in college. And then when you start comparing the greatest players of all time, he loses these three NBA years that he could have had if you're comparing him to LeBron.

And he still had this amazing longevity. He has all these different arguments. No, it's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. He lost these three years where he would have put up 30 a game. So, yeah. Anyway. Anything you got to plug? Ryan rossillo show still doing that we are still doing it doing well and uh we got carol lawson the new head coach of duke women's basketball and also she was an assistant with the cell

selects for years so hopefully we get some uh good stuff. She's she's awesome. House and I had a great conversation with her at summer league once in 110 degree heat, but she's a good Hank. I look forward to listening to that. We're solo. I'll see you next Sunday night. I can't wait to see how the NBA evolves over these next seven days. This is fun though. It's good to, uh, good to feel normal again for two hours. Good to see you. Yeah, absolutely. And updating the standings, your Oklahoma City Thunder, imagine if they're playing the Rockets in the first round. I mean, that's a dream.

Right. If we had OKC Houston in the first round and Portland Lakers and Clippers Dallas, those are some bangers. And Miami Philly, those are some bangers. And Miami Philly. Those are some bangers. All right. I'll see you next Sunday. All right.

Thanks to Rusillo. Thanks to Spotify. Thanks to Home Depot. With the Home Depot, decorating your home is now easier than ever before. Even if you want to get a nice, awesome Keurig machine

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you get 10% off the styles you love when you use code Billsimmons10 at checkout. Billsimmons10 at checkout. Valid on select items online only. Find exactly what you're looking for and more at homedepot.com slash decor. We will be back on Tuesday with one more podcast here new rewatch

well it's coming up Monday The Sandlot that is coming up late Monday night stay tuned for that don't forget to check out The Ringer NBA Show

with Logan and Raja their first podcast is going up Monday morning Go Celtics I don't have I don't have I don't have