The Bill Simmons Podcast - Crying MJ, UFC 249, Ominous NBA News, and 1997 NBA Finals RewatchaBulls With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to talk about Episodes 7 and 8 of the ESPN documentary series 'The Last Dance' (2:30) before discussing UFC 249 (41:40) and Adam Silver's call with NBA players regarding the possible return of an NBA season (1:04:40). Finally they revisit the 1997 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz, where Michael Jordan would win his fifth NBA title (1:25:07). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by zip recruiter. I wonder if you're like me and you're wondering what these athletes have been doing during their hiatus. Like Steph Curry. I bet he's a good enough golfer at this point to go on the PGA tour. He must be shooting like 64 is constantly. Well, some people and businesses are branching out there in this time, but there are places that

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We're still, oh, and I are going to talk about episode seven, eight of the last dance. We're going to talk about UFC two 49. We're going to talk about a pretty discouraging, uh, week in NBA news that we, uh that we really want to dive into. And then the rewatch of Bulls tackling the 97 finals. That's all coming up. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Happy belated Mother's Day, everybody. Sunday night, Priscilla and I just watched

episodes seven and eight of The Last Dance. My two favorite of the first eight. I really feel like this gets into all the stuff that I really care about, about Jordan over everything else is the legendary competitiveness, the vindictiveness, the pettiness. Rosillo, you like him more or less after these two episodes? Way more. Way more.

I keep waiting for the lead up where it was like, yeah, some of this stuff, you know, he's not thrilled. You're going to change the opinion. I like him like him even more i actually as i've watched these episodes bill i regret not appreciating him more in the moment i love that every part of it's real i love every single story i've taken his side in everything and this is not some mj guy that that you know had the posters i can't emphasize this enough i was sort of i'm annoyed at my 20 year old self of not appreciating the greatness enough because now that we've gotten to know him more intimately,

I'm like, I love this guy. We told the story on previous podcasts about how I had seen the initial DVD that the NBA entertainment made. They filmed them for the entire 97, 98 season. I saw it probably 10, 11 years later. And like the Scott Burrell stuff, that was the stuff I really remember being fascinated by that part. And like how lonely he was on the road and him just having only security guards

as his friends, stuff like that. But pushing Scott Burrell specifically was the part I remember standing out all those years ago that he felt like he was doing the right thing, pushing this guy, pushing this guy, badgering him. And meanwhile, Scott Burrell was just a nice guy. And Jordan saw something in him that he targeted and was like, at some point I might need this guy. There's something in there. I'm going to keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. In know, in 2020, I wonder if somebody acted that way, how it'd be received in the moment,

week to week, month to month. I think when you see it in documentary and all this stuff's happening 20 to 25 years ago, it seems a lot cooler, but it'd be fascinating if he was doing this now with the way the internet works and the 24-7 basketball cycle and how every little slight and soundbite and story can blow into a whole one-day thing. I just think it would be a lot harder. The Burrell thing, though, is great in that I would love if I were Scott Burrell

if Michael Jordan cared about me enough to want to motivate me. The problem is if you're a teammate or really any situation where there's this guy who's great at what he does and you're working with him, if that person ignores you, that's the worst thing. So if the worst thing MJ did, yeah, the Steve Kerr altercation isn't something you'd want all the time, but Kerr says it brought us together. mean guys get physical stuff happens I think sometimes we forget like these guys are doing something very physical and competitive and they're all wired a little bit differently and you can't have this stuff like you can't do well at my workplace so no one cares about your workplace and for Burrell to be somebody that he was just badgering the whole time because

he actually can't the funny part is is in the doc bill he's like yeah you know and um he basically admits like Burrell wasn't that great of a player and it didn't really work and hell he's a nice guy and you'd always heard that like that was his buddy because some of the UConn guys that had played with Scott Storrs like this is crazy but Scott Burrell's like best friend on the team is Michael Jordan. But was it a build-up? Was it a bit of a build-up thing? You're not going to believe. This doc is amazing. I love it.

I'm enjoying it every night. But I always felt like there was going to be this part of it where we're going to start to see this side of MJ that was going to turn people off from him. And for me, at least, I think a lot of people, it's had the opposite reaction. It doesn't go into the times when he did this to people where it didn't work. Brad Sellers, great example, Dennis Hobson. Like if you read all the MJ books, he would try this with different people. And sometimes it would drive the guy off the team within a year. And by the way, bird was like that too. And the Celtics, he had guys,

Brad Lohas was a really good example where Bird McHale, basically Brad Lohas had to leave the team. They just wrote him relentlessly. They made fun of him. He got a, he got like a perm once and McHale was calling him Fifi. And, and it was just, some guys just can't take it. It actually would backfire the other way. I think Cartwright was probably the best teammate that if you read the books, like he really went at and Cartwright was like, I'm going to fucking kill you.

Like you won't, there's a line you're not going to cross with me. Next time you, you go to go to the basket and practice, I'm going to deck you and clothesline you and end your career. So, you know, so guys handled it differently,

but I, Parrish told a story. Somebody interviewed Parrish who inexplicably is on the team in 1997 at, at like the tail, tail, tail, tail end of his career. And he was just like, he's not still on the team. Yeah. He basically had some quote, like, yeah, Michael knew don't try that stuff with me. I would just punch them. So I don't know whether, yeah, Michael knew don't try that stuff with me. I would just punch them. So I don't know whether, yeah, I don't know whether he picked certain people to do this with, but you know, the Steve Kerr thing is a great one because that's a famous story of him punching Kerr.

The part that doesn't get told as much as Kerr is the one who starts it by basically punching him in the chest and he stood up to him. And after that, Jordan was good with him from that point on. But, you know, you think about like the last 20 years, the rise of the anti-hero on TV, right? Starting with Tony Soprano and The Shield. The Shield, Oz, yeah. You go all through all these dudes who were like,

I shouldn't like this guy, but I do. And then it became more layered with like the Don Draper types and people like that. But the first type of person like this was- Boston Common. Boston Common. The first level of these people was the testosterone antihero. And I wonder if Jordan kind of was one of the people that started that. I'm just so happy you got the Boston Common reference. I think i've done it to you i think i've done it to you like three or four times in a year and you're just like okay that would i if you finally

landed it i was just i just say good night for the rest rest of the pod uh you know when you win though right we all know how this works we wouldn't't be doing this doc if MJ hadn't won all these rings. And if you don't win, it's like, oh, this guy's really, you know, he's just really kind of, kind of tough to play with. But, you know, he has a really, he has so many great lines in this. And when he gets so emotional at the end of the seven, I'm getting texts from people that I hadn't even heard from being like, I'm freaking out right now. Like people are getting emotional.

Watch MJ, watching MJ cry. And I'm just saying, look, I never asked you guys to do anything I didn't do. Yeah. And that's what I think is great about this pre-access era, even though we have the access to it now, but this thing where the world does not live on Instagram and he wasn't doing any of this to, to show up. Like he wasn't doing this to go, Oh, I'm so into it. Cause that's kind of one of the things I think is so funny about athletes today. And some of these guys are still working their asses off and they're better at it than they've ever been before. Super dedicated. There's also guys that post like a 15 second clip on Instagram and it's like grinding, you know, every day I grind and you're like, no, you don't. Or I love the boxing videos are always my favorite, like still a little work to do it's

like you're the one that put the video out like you want everyone to believe that you're so into this and you're working so hard and because we didn't know about any of this stuff like this guy was actually doing it he was expecting his teammates to do all this stuff and you factor in all the winning all right yeah it it may have been too abrasive not everybody is motivated the same way you know some people you have the same way. Some people you have to piss off and some people you have to completely leave alone or they'll shut down. And I'm sure MJ had his problems, just like some great coaches that can't quite figure out how to push all those different buttons. But I keep getting back to this thing to see him break down at the end of seven

bill, be like, Hey, look, all you people that want to talk shit or say whatever like i beat all of you i beat all of you and i did it because i cared so don't like i'm not gonna fucking apologize because i maybe cared more than the rest of you guys did and that wasn't even the most fascinating breakdown of episode seven the one i was more riveted by was tim grover almost broke down have you met grover no but i mean he's telling the story yeah he's like first of all he's so fired up that mj gets knocked out by orlando and he's like hey man when am i gonna see you again a couple weeks he's like i'll see you tomorrow morning grover's just like oh this is this is the light of my life i'm so happy i met this guy but then later he starts talking about how hard Jordan worked and he fucking got choked up.

He's talking about another dude that he just worked with and trained and he was so inspired by the guy. He's getting choked up in front of a camera crew. I thought that was really interesting. And the Space Jam part of it where, you know my maybe my only complaint of the entire doc was if you have all of these space jam pickup game if you have all of this footage i told you this just uh i i told you i told you this would joke when i saw the cut it drove me crazy but i'm like so just just let it go ahead you know it better than i do so i get out of the way no i i uh i did the recon that was all the footage oh that's it that was every morsel all

right see these guys all right still still a's across the board that's yeah see i'm thinking you have all of this footage just now like five minutes uninterrupted no no voiceover so now you know you know, you know, it'd be a good video. You and me, we should do this. Let's do this this week.

Jackson's on, on the thing. Let's arrange this. You and me watching that video, trying to identify every player in it. Cause there were two guys. Cause they, it was shirts and skins at one point. And there were two guys.

And I'm like, I know, I know who that guy is. Who would, there was like two big guys. And I couldn't figure out who it was. You're like, why know, I know who that guy is. There was like two big guys. And I couldn't figure out who it was. You're like, why is Evander Holyfield in this pickup game?

Yeah. Who was that guy? He's not. Cause he's clearly huge. That guy was huge. I think it was Arming Gilliam, but I'm not positive. The hammer? I think it was the hammer.

But, uh, so apparently, cause I, I, you know, I, I know a couple people and I, I said, said, can you just send me all the Space Jam footage? I just want to watch the scrimmages. Is that weird? I mean, we're being quarantined right now. I was like, I would just watch every minute of that, and they were like, that's all there is. They only filmed for a couple minutes. And I'm thinking like, well, that's only one of the great missed opportunities of all time. I know Jalen said Jalen stayed with him in LA, at least for a part of that, MJ.

So I don't know if Jalen played in those games or not, but at some point, it was the elite of the elite going to LA to play in those games. And I think that's how it all started in the summers with the NBA, with the guys going to LA every summer. I think that was the summer it started because the guys wasn't always the case where everybody lived in LA during the summer. That was a last 25 years thing. So yeah, I'm with you. I, to me, that was the most, that is so much more interesting than the dream team footage. We know the dream team story. There's a whole fucking documentary about it. Space jam footage. I'm all in. Plus, did you see that dome they built that's what they're going to be doing in the orlando bubble

in the vegas bubble that exactly what that dome was with the lights that's how they're going to do the games i could just imagine being a pa and then grover coming over and be like hey uh can you get out of here and i'd be like well i just I have a break so I'm just gonna get some shots up they built this for Michael Jordan and we have like five all-stars coming I love that you're freaking out about it because that's what I was doing and I'm going how do you not run more of it I mean I guess there just wasn't enough camera equipment around on Warner Brothers studios to just spend 30 minutes shooting this practice I don't even know why they filmed the minute and a half that they had I mean that's my point if you got the if you got that you got some clips then what the hell was the hold up unless somebody said no you can't do any of this stuff but yeah i'll hammer the point one more time is that when he talked about

re-sculpting his body from baseball to basketball when they set up the gym next to the court hey i'm gonna get three hours where the hoops in on top of filming and all this stuff. The only reason he was doing it was that he could go back and win championships. He wasn't doing it for anybody else other than himself. And that's the constant theme of this. You may not like the process. You may not like some of the quotes. You may think this, this, and this. But if my goal was to be this guy and I actually accomplished it in comparison to the hundreds of other athletes that always want to be the best, uh, I did it and I won. So, you know, it's, it's kind of a big F off at the end of that episode seven where he gets really, and he's not even mean about it. He's super emotional. And it just, I think anybody that's ever, you know, the guy, the pro athletes and stuff that are watching that stuff. It's going to be so inspiring. And there, he wasn't self-aware about it either.

Incredible work ethic, but it wasn't one of those things where, you know, he named a philosophy after it, or he had, it was just, he just did the work, you know?

And, and exactly. Even like when they talked about in the baseball stuff and that the hitting coach is talking about when he played baseball, he'd hit in the morning, he would hit before the game, they'd play in the game. Then he'd stay after to, you know, hit it until midnight. And then you'd come back in the morning and do the same thing. I mean, that's one of the many reasons why he was great. He had, there was also the physical advantages, which we discussed in previous pods as well. The best body

control of any NBA player ever. Um, and was the perfect size. I think if, if you were starting a basketball player from scratch, you would say six foot six, but then when you throw in the work ethic and that's, you know, bird, we always heard like growing up in, uh, in new England about birds, legendary work ethic, but burden the summers was mowing his lawn and drinking beer. And then he would use the season to kind of get back in shape. He was not a year round work ethic guy during the actual season. He was magic. Same thing. I know magic wasn't, you know, during the summers, he wasn't working out with whoever the Tim Grover of the eighties was. So Jordan was the guy who brought this stuff

in the league. And the other guy who we're going to talk about later when we do the rewatchables, Carl Malone. He was the first guy who was really like, this is a year-round thing. I'm going to be in amazing shape. I'm going to be really durable. I'm going to play 3,800 to 4,000 minutes a year. And that's when the league really starts to change.

And that leads to the kobe generation and especially lebron who i think has kind of mastered this version of what jordan did i mean the amount of time money energy lebron has put into his body really since i would say about 2008 it's it all starts with this jordan run when he comes back from, uh, right. When he, when he tries to beat the Pistons initially in 91, right? So this is 30 years of this, but he's,

he's the prototype. What did you think about the baseball thing? Was anything uncovered in watching the baseball part of it? Cause it's not only have we, we had moments where we watched this where you go, I still can't believe an NBA owner. Let this guy walk away. Uh,

it's still hard to process 25 years later, the greatest player of all time decided to play minor league baseball. Yeah. It's never totally passed the smell test, but I thought they did a good job of laying out the case of how

all this happened. I still feel like there was going to be some repercussions with Stern for all the gambling stuff. Okay, but just last week, you said you still don't believe it actually happened, though. No, I don't. I'm saying maybe he was

going to get suspended for five games or fined or something like that. Who knows? I just think it was all these different factors. It kind of makes sense, but yeah, but I just think it was, it was all these different factors and it, and it kind of makes sense, but yeah, it still does. The part that will never make sense to me is that you have this competitive guy who just feels like, yeah, I'm good. I've, I've done this. Now I get the whole, didn't have the competitor, the carrot being waved in front of him, all this stuff we've

already talked about in the pod, but it's so hard to accept the whole this guy was the most competitive he's an animal and then he's just like yeah i'm good i'm not gonna play anymore it just it 90 adds up but there's still a 10 where i'm like i still feel like there's a tiny bit more to this that maybe we'll find out someday or maybe we'll never find out okay well let me let me throw a theory at you based on because it was something i was thinking about as i was watching that part of it because there's the writer that says the reason why he wasn't suspended and they do shoot it down and that's always been kind of my argument that there's no way that stern could sit in a room with mj and say you're going to be suspended for i don't know how it's 18 months or

it's like hey most of a full season and then some of the next or whatever, and that it would never be exposed, that there wouldn't be one smoking gun person that would say, well, this is what happened or a different version of the whole thing, and the fact that Stern would want to ruin his own product. If you believe Stern was capable of rigging Patrick Ewing to the Knicks, why would he not want MJ playing? And top of the investigation, as you go back and research, the investigation was like uh just throwing the media

a carrot to get him to leave him alone and there wasn't really even an investigation at mj anyway so as you talk about him leaving and something doesn't add up i think one of the things that we knew then and we're learning is that maybe he is so driven maybe he's so head first into basketball that the way his gears are going when he's actually playing is more mentally exhausting than anyone else because he actually is successful as a player because he he puts so much into it that he's more likely to burn out like there are there are people in their fields that are so great at doing what they do. And they get to kind of in this headspace that actually they have a hard time

of just keeping this, this pace that maybe is better for the long run, but doesn't have the peaks. I think that's might be the 10% I was talking about. And that's something that we wouldn't be able to understand. He's the only person who would know. He was incapable of taking games off and he's been very vocal about that through the years. Every night I play basketball,

there's people in the stands that have never seen me play before. I'm always going to try my hardest and try to win everything I do. And that's also the kind of person he was. I need to win at all times, every second of the way. And if he felt like he couldn't sustain that and stay at that level, and it just wasn't acceptable to him, and now his dad doesn't get to watch him anymore.

He had all that stuff up. It makes sense. But he's the only one he knows. I'll tell you this, though. That guy from 1988 all the way through 93, and then the guy who comes back from 96 to 98, the load management thing, he just wouldn't have done it. And I,

and I'm not saying this is our, our era is better than this era. I'm just saying he was, he couldn't, he couldn't have done it. I don't think he was wired that way. I don't think it wouldn't have been acceptable to him to have like a Thursday night game against whoever Damien Lillard and the Blazers,

and just be like, yeah, I'm going to take this one off. He just wouldn't have done it. So I think when you think about that layoff, and we talked about this a couple weeks ago about, oh, if he hadn't retired, he would have won eight straight titles. I don't think so. I don't think what he was doing was sustainable. And you even see that in the 97 finals that we're about to talk about

heading into 98, where there's real atrophy for him from the day-to-day basketball thing. Like his percentages just go subtly down. Like it's harder for him to get his shots off because he played 304 games out of 304 in three years. Never, never missed a game that last three years, not sustainable. i don't think

i agree with you on the load management just of his mindset but there's also this kind of thing like when it's not an option and it's not part of professional basketball no one was going to do it you know we used to have that in baseball where guys would play 162 all the time and now it just seems stupid right i'm not the biggest thing yeah like that's that's actually dumb you know yeah it's unbelievable accomplishment but i don't i don't know that you know not being able to hit for a week and and going oh for four because you're just grinded after going like 100 straight games like so even though i can be anti some of the rest arguments certainly not all of them,

if it were socially acceptable, the NBA socially acceptable, MJ may have taken a couple of those games off because he wasn't doing anything different than anybody else in the league. But it's hard to even fathom that considering every single episode, you just see that he's just different. Do you think Kobe,

after eight episodes of this documentary, do you think Kobe's career is even more interesting? I mean, I knew all the, we were there for all the Jordan stuff and then all the Kobe stuff. And it was always apparent how much he was impacted by everything Jordan did on the court, off the court, work ethic, the tireless competitiveness, all that stuff. But then when you actually watch this all together,

it's a lot of what Kobe ended up preaching when he played, especially the second half of his career when he started talking, when he did the Mamba stuff and started talking about inspiring his teammates. It was basically the more vocal version of what Jordan did this whole time, but never talked about it. And then Kobe was doing the,

here's my mindset on all of this version of it. And I don't know which one's more interesting, to not know what's happening in the moment or to hear somebody talking about it the entire time as they're doing it. I am more of a subtlety person person but you could make the case either way none of that part is is all that um new to me you know i just look at patterns and the way people talk and his his whole cadence the way he would emphasize words in his sentence the way he

the the tone he was at kobe was doing an mj impersonation the entire time and that's fine because like at least kobe was the kind of guy who could back it up with his work ethic and caring about winning and all that different stuff but i mean kobe wasn't just tasting his own legacy i think he was trying to emulate mj the entire time and when i would say that when kobe was still playing you'd get pushback as if it was some kind of like oh you just you know it was like a dig on kobe yeah you're digging on kobe you're like look i mean this is this is undeniable like you ever heard billy donovan talk and go whoa dude like how how impressionable were you when you were around patino like billy donovan talks just like rick patino it's weird you know it's it's almost like like wow like you whatever when he was

coaching with providence like you just your pattern the speech the whole thing is the same deal so like when kobe did the 2009 orlando finals deal where he was just pissed off at everybody remember he was doing all those post-game pressers yeah like i felt it was a bit more of an act but if that was the act to motivate him like like Jordan never had this peak and valley thing. Like he was always kind of, you know, whatever he was in was in his own register where Kobe, you kind of didn't really know what you were going to get all the time. In 09, he went real hard on this me against the world thing. And it was going to be his first ring post Shaq, which we know how important that was to him. But then when Kobe kind of at the very end was like,

oh, this is all done. And then when is everybody's favorite, it was, it was a real quick one 80. So like Kobe had a bunch of different personalities that he seemed to go to where even though he was impersonating MJ, MJ always just felt steadier.

If that makes sense. I think that was why I had one of the reasons why I had such a hard time with Kobe during his career. Cause I always felt like it was this carefully crafted MJ homage impersonation something. But to hear him talk about it on the documentary, I thought was really cool. Where he's just like, I don't win five titles without Jordan. He gave me advice. I learned every single thing that I ended up doing from him. So it's not like he was like pretending it wasn't happening. Like he was totally honest

about it, but it's way better. It's way better than Dion waiters doing an MJ impersonation, his whole career and trying to carry himself that way. And then you're like, what's going on? You know what I was thinking as I was watching this tonight, you know, that Jordan ends up June, 1993, he's in the finals. Then we don't see him again until March 95. So he's gone 21 months. The three greatest athletes I've seen in my life were Michael Jordan. I caught tail end of Ali, but I barely remember it, but at least I was like alive and coherent and pooping in a toilet. So I'm counting it. Congrats. And then Tiger. And those were the three guys that I think hit this level that was just

higher than everybody else who did their sport in the last 50 years. And all of them had layoffs for completely different reasons, right? Ali loses almost five years with the Vietnam protest thing. Like, gives away his title because he's so convinced on this thing. Jordan leaves the baseball, which we just discussed, and then Tiger gets the combination, the knee surgery, and then the stuff with his wife, and he's basically gone two years it's so strange that both of them leave for for at least almost two years and then in ali's case twice twice as long and then some um when they were still like technically in their primes you know ali was ali was dead set

in the middle of it i mean ali is just i think it's just under four years for Ali, right? Something like, it's between four and four and a half. I can't remember. So Ali doing it, as a fighter, you can just see that he's robbed of those years where you're supposed to be in the ring. And look, he comes back.

He's still incredible, but he just looks like a different guy. I mean, everybody. You could hit him when he came back. I mean, he was 85% as good, but it's very similar to the Jordan thing. When Jordan comes back for the second three titles, he's not the guy that he was the first three titles, but he figures out all these different ways to basically be the same guy.

And that's basically what Ali was doing. He just kind of reinvented himself. And think about that. And I don't know that I can turn it into like what's harder to do because I still think any combat workout is so far beyond rowing sucks, running sucks. Basketball is a whole different kind of shape that you have to be in and just the different angles and the start

stop and all that kind of stuff. I'll tell you running routes. If you haven't done that in a long time is, is horrible. Not that anybody over 40 is probably out there running routes all over the place, but not being in a situation where you're actually worried about getting hit by somebody else. Like it's just, it's a different tension that you have. That's that's beyond any of the anxiety that you have in like a three minute round is just different than everything else. But when I started thinking about MJ coming back and playing that end of that season before they got eliminated by Orlando to think that he basically admits like,

I was kind of like, you know, I wonder how much hoops he was playing. And he basically says none. So to not really have played any hoops for 18 months and then come back right into an NBA game, that might be more insane than just a fighter coming back to fight a few years later, even though I think fighting is tougher than everything. Yeah, because Ali was still training during that whole time and, you know, staying in

shape and sparring people and stuff like that. The baseball body thing. We talked about it last week when we, um, when we did the Orlando thing, it's not, I don't think it was the reason they lost. They kind of gloss over the whole Horace Grant was on Orlando. Wasn't on Chicago part, but you know, he, he clearly wasn't a hundred percent himself and you could see it the next year when he comes back. There were some things. There were some very, very deep, nerdy basketball things

that I took issue with in this doc, in the last two. Okay. Like the Charlotte BJ Armstrong thing. It was, first of all, a little too much BJ Armstrong. Just in general. It just was. I'm sorry. No. Armstrong thing. It was, first of all, a little too much B.J. Armstrong. Just in general. It just was. Like, I'm sorry. No offense, B.J.

But, you know, that Charlotte team, they were never beating the Bulls. And it's not like Jordan came out. It wasn't like the LeBradford-Smith story where that was all true. He was like, I'm going to score the same amount of points he scored against me.

And then he basically did. He didn't, like, destroy Charlotte like that. the same amount of points he scored against me. And then he basically did. He didn't destroy Charlotte like that. The box score just doesn't back it up. And then in the Seattle finals, it was the same thing where he just wasn't that good in that series. I think he really only had one really, really vintage MJ game. I think they were really tired by that point of the season. And the Peyton stuff. I think I, I honestly think it was this simple. They lost,

they were up three, nothing. They thought they were going to sweep. They blew game four. They were like, ah, we weren't focused. Then in game five, it was like, oh shit. Oh, the Seattle's actually better than we thought. They kind of lost their eye on that one. And then they just took care of business game six. I really don't think there's much more to the story, but he didn't play well in that series.

And, you know, I know what they have to do in documentaries. And obviously my friend directed it. So it's not criticism because you're trying to present, you know, the narrative that's pushing along what you're doing. But he just wasn't that good in that series. He wasn't. And I think that's kind of the pimple on the 96 bulls. The fact that if they sweep the Sonics to close out hammer game,

game four, and he puts up 40, I actually think we would say they were the best team ever. I, it'd be pretty unassailable at that point. They would add, I think one playoff loss and that's it. There would have been 87 and 11

i gotta admit i laughed a couple times on the sonics thing um because this entire it's not even this documentary but this mj run is littered with opponents going, man, if we adjust, whether it's the Knicks in the Eastern Conference, and the Pistons thing is always kind of weird. Like when Isaiah's been doing these media hits, going, well, no one likes me because I beat Bird, I beat Magic, I beat MJ. You're like, you realize you're using the same

defense of yourself, or your defense of yourself is the same thing that MJ did. MJ ended up beating all of those guys that you're talking about and no one hates MJ like they don't like you. So that's not a great defense. And when you talk to, well, not us talking to Barkley, but when Barkley talks about it, Barkley really thought, oh, you know what? We're game here, game there. 93 is different. I'm sure Carl Malone feels that way about a bunch of different chances in 97 and 98.

Lakers fans that are like, 91, that team was limping in there. Portland going, you know, we're actually... Have we noticed a theme that this Jordan guy even lets you... A lot of these games are closer than maybe you would remember at the time. You're like, oh, that was another four-point game.

What happened? Oh, 23 every single time closed you out. And as far as the Sonic series and Gary Payton, which I'd expect Gary Payton to say, hey, if I had guarded him earlier, maybe it goes a different way. It probably wasn't going to go a different way. When you're up 3-0, right, when you're up 3-0,

you will not play as hard as the team that is down 3-0. It usually happens 2-0. Also, the Bulls, that happened to them how many times in the 90s? There must have been eight, nine times where it was like a closeout game. Yeah, they would always let up at the wrong times. It was the history of the team. So, yeah, I think it was 5-for for 19 in game six, the closeout game. But I just think that team was beat.

And that was the other mild criticism I just have about the 96 bowl season is I just don't, nobody at any point talks about what it was like to watch Jordan and Pippen together during that comeback season when Jordan played the full 96 season, that 72-win season, which we talked about in the pod a couple of times, so I'm not going to rehash it too much. But they hit some higher being as a combo. They were really attuned in a way that I just haven't seen on a basketball court other than with those two guys. LeBron and Wade had, they got close, especially like in the 27 game winning streak where at that point they were year three. They had the continuity and the chemistry they had. It started to get there.

I think Steph and Clay have had that to some degree, but I've never seen it like with Jordan and Pippen that year. And I wish somebody had said that in the doc. Cause it was really special. It was the memory I have of seeing those guys in person was those two together and how sick they were on defense. The two Kawhi thing that we joked about. That analogy. So I don't know if you know this.

Spoiler alert. But they end up winning the title in 98 too. That's how this doc ends. That's how it ends? They beat beat the you know how they led it was like what's gonna happen with this pacer series oh shit are the pacers gonna beat them they actually the bills beat the pacers that's what happens uh but that's another one i mean add reggie to the list where you know they're going, ah, you know, this series in 98,

it's just, it's just kind of funny that you could probably pick 10 guys that all think that they were a bounce or two away from getting them. And none of them, none of them get them. And that's, it's like the Pats thing. Like the Pats.

Yeah. You could argue they should have more Superbowls. They also just kind of left. They could have less Superbowls. So the six is the right number. Alabama football. I could make cases for three or four more national titles, but they've also got a couple in there where they got

in back as the four seed after a loss. So Alabama has like the right number. MJ is like the only guy in recent memory that actually has the number that go out. Like that's the only one you could say is maybe that piston series in the migraine for Scotty, where could they have seven? But does that mean he's exhausted against Phoenix in 93? jordan's the one guy out of this whole group and these we're talking like the handful of greatness in modern sports last 30 years where you go all these other guys have losses and wins that could have gone the other way and and he's the guy hearing about historically all these other players and say oh i wish i had you i'm like yeah but none of you did well you know who else was like that tiger Tiger. Tiger had like the Chris DeMarco title,

the Rocco Mediate title. What was that? He had a third one where, what was the, who did, who did he beat Rocco Mediate in 2008? Was that the U.S. Open? He Rocco Mediate, Chris DeMarco. There was a third one. There was the us amateur one that he won. It was us open. Then the, uh, the Chinese guy, why Yang remember that one? Or did that guy beat him? But tiger had a bunch of these two and house on the line. Yeah. Coming up next, I'm going to forget every tiger title. Uh, but he had the same thing where he, he would get into these situations where it's like, all right, it's me versus Tiger with four holes to go. And you're just like, ah, you're fucked.

Yeah, totally. No, you're going to lose. You're going to lose. And that's actually what was amazing to deliver that many times. And it is a good point. You know what I used to love was the Tiger stuff where you go, yeah, but he's's never come back he's never had to come back wait wait what are we doing okay just there's some guys that you just go you know i'm gonna back off on any criticisms here i'm not gonna like come up with with new things here and i

remember working with a guy on radio and we're talking years and years ago and we would start at these segments and it was always frustrating to me when people would say the same stuff over and over again i'm not a tiger fan i just find it more interesting when he's in the mix on sunday be like holy shit like you should trademark that sounds like you're a tiger fan yeah no one's ever said that but this guy i worked with would say you know he's great but you know he's never really had the pressure on him to you know have to come back from a few strokes down going into the final and i was like what like you want to do that segment i was new so i'd be like yeah i know it sounds like a great segment i'm going to lay out a little bit more on that one though we uh coming up we're going to talk about ufc and a

couple other things and then near the at the second half of this podcast, we're going to do rewatchables. The 97 finals. I forced Russillo to watch- Five jazz games. Way too much of the 97 jazz. So we're hitting all that. First, let's take a break. So a few days ago, I fixed my background for my Zoom

because I'm doing these podcasts in my little pool house here. And I needed to step it up. I'd put a lot of stuff in my office at work, and I had to just bring it back, bring back the goods. So I made my wall. I put some of my best stuff behind me, including my book of basketball poster, my White Shadow, Ken Howard poster, and one of my favorites, my Miller Lite 1986 NBA Champions poster. It's got Tommy Heinsohn, Red Auerbach, Casey Jones, and Sam Jones. I think I have the only copy.

I don't know. It's very possible. But one of the reasons I love that poster is because eventually Miller Lite became my favorite beer. Listen, during this time of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer a day looks pretty different as the original light beer on my wall right now.

Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller Time, a moment for people to come together in real life to connect over a few beers. But Miller Time gets a little tough and can't be with your people. It can be enjoyed with your people though. That's the thing. Just do a Zoom, do a Google hangout, do whatever you have to do to see your friends.

Maybe do a little social distancing on your lawn, six feet apart. Miller Lite is the beer that makes Miller time possible. Miller Lite, the original light beer that tastes great and is less filling, which means it won't get in the way of enjoying time with your people. Tastes great. Goes down smoothly. It's the original light beer while you're home. Enjoy a classic. Available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibility.

Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. All right, we're going to audible to UFC was last night. First real live sporting event we've had since the quarantine. I was fascinated to see how it was going to work. The only real thing we've been able to see has been WWE and AEW, the pro wrestling. Pro wrestling feeds so much off the crowds. My assumption heading into this UFC 249, which I dabble, I'll get some pay-per-views. My best man at my wedding, Jeff Gallo, huge UFC guy. And I always just text him before every pay-per-view.

Should I get this? And he'll tell me and I'll get like four out of the 12 or four out of the 15, whatever the big ones are. Have you ever been to one? I've been, I've done the whole thing. I've dabbled. I know what's going on. So my thought going into it was that the crowds were super important. one? I've been, I've done the whole thing. I've dabbled. I know what's going on. Uh, so my,

my thought going into it was that the crowds were super important and there was a little wrestling element to it where the guys feeding off the crowd and like for knockdowns or knockouts or anything like, and the guy jumping on the octagon, the top and posing for everybody. I was shocked by how much I liked the no fans. I really thought it was compelling. I liked her in the corners. I liked her in the punches and kicks. I was as riveted as I've ever been by any UFC product. Well, you're a bigger fan than I am. What'd you think? Loved it. And I saw your tweet and I didn't want to do the thing where, you know, how like, once you become kind of friends with a guy and you see a tweet, we were like,

what the fuck are you talking about? Oh, the pro wrestling? Yeah, you were like, man, the wrestling didn't play as well. The UFC's been much better. And I wanted to go, well, you think because one's actually fighting and that's the product? The product is the two guys actually trying to fight each other. And you're right.

If you're just looking at an entertainment standpoint, that's why I didn't send anything because it wasn't that vicious. It was just the wrestling part of it is the whole thing. Like if the focus is just on two guys in an empty arena, it's, you know, it's not as cartoon. It's weird to be cartoonish when the fighting isn't real and you can't really even compare it to the UFC. I mean, the UFC ultimately is like,

how are these two guys going to handle each other? And the wrestling component has so many other things that it's leaning on for it to be this big event. So I'm not even missing wrestling. I just think they're so different. The reason I did that was because it was just so weird to watch wrestling with no fans. I couldn't get past it. And, you know, it has some disadvantages because they're not actually fighting, but the grunts, the, the, the kicks, the, the pounding on the mat,

things like that. The sound effects were way better, but it just, it felt off the whole time. Watching the UFC made me realize like, do we even really necessarily need the fans of these things? We're getting, we're getting so many other,

we're getting so many other elements in this telecast that I found so much more compelling than just cutting to a section of fans screaming. So you've been now, this is funny because it ties into all the MJ stuff, but now the debate is, you know, one of the many debates that are out there is the Chicago bulls entrance in the nineties is that the greatest entrance in sports.

And it's hard to kind of go against that. Um, I think there's some college football stadiums that are right up there if not better than it but it's kind of hard to argue like we're not talking about mj being better than an entire college football program but there's some stuff in the south that i would put up against anything yeah but conor mcgregor coming out and seeing him live when i went to go see him in vegas once and first of all i mean this doesn't count as the entrance, but to see the Irish goons, and I mean that as a compliment, I mean, they are just another level.

Like, you think you see guys get drunk at SEC football games? Like, these guys are, there was like 10 or 12 dudes who were arrested before they even got in. And to have a place be that pro-Irish, which is crazy because it's the States. And the guy that McGregor was fighting when I went was, was Mendez. Who's like a West coast guy anyway.

And you've got this Irish him right into biggie. Like that is, that's unbelievable. So like those entrances are so important, but then again, once the fight happens, it's all about the fight. So, I mean, it was a great card.

Gaethje is this guy. He's won fight of the night basically every time he goes out there. And the beating he put on Tony Ferguson, who hasn't lost in forever, and the fact that Ferguson... I mean, it was just as entertaining to see Ferguson take every single punch, and then they finally call the fight at the end. Cause Ferguson's insane. But I, I just think that it's, it's so much more of just two guys with everything on the line.

And I thought that Anik, who's going to be on with me to, um, Tuesday, John Anik's going to be on with me Tuesday with Rogan and DC. Like they were, yeah, they,

they kind of were all like buying into the idea that like, this is weird. And then they noticed that some of the fighters could hear what they were saying. And then fighters started saying in the post-fight stuff, like I could hear some of the stuff DC was saying about what I should be doing. Hardy even said that. So you lose the theater, right? The coolest entrance I've been in person for was when Ricky Hatton fought Floyd Mayweather, which I went to. And when he came out and he, same thing as the Irish goons, like just half the stadium,

losing their fucking minds, flag singing and the theater. And the answer is you're right. It's one of the best things with UFC. I'm saying the stuff we gained, we it's a, it's a loss gain thing. We gained some really cool stuff.

I, the, the fighters in the post fight interviews talking about how they could hear the announcers and Greg Hardy saying, yeah, I heard Daniel Cormier was telling me how to avoid those leg kicks or whatever he said. And so I decided to change my strategy. I was like, oh my God, the guy heard the announcers in mid-fight. So I did a tweet last night about who, what NBA team would be the most affected by that. It's clearly the 76ers. I wanted to really do a Brett Brown, like a really mean Brett Brown tweet, but the pandemic, I held off. It was like,

if you're a Sixers fan, would you rather have Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson and the players listening to him or Brett Brown? I'd rather take the ESPN crew. I'll go with Van Gundy. That's for sure. Yeah. Van Gundy wins out of those three, at least. Right, right. That was a great... That tweet I liked. That tweet was great because then I started thinking about it the whole time

because there were some Celtics games in the early Pitino era. We got to Pitino in record time on this pod. But where that's exactly what it was. It's exactly what it was. Because it would be quiet. Here's what was crazy about the Ferguson fight, which is one of the most brutal sporting

events I've ever watched in my entire life. I mean, it was really like, you're, you're worrying this guy's going to die. And then, and then his history is he's the boogeyman. And it's just, even in the post-fight interview, he's completely eloquent, putting his thoughts together. And you're just like, you just got punched in the head 120 times. And you're thinking about gate D's. How do you say his name i'm gonna fuck it up every single day yeah i want to call him gathy so bad because but it's the spelling versus the pronunciation so up but gacy's i i kept thinking like well what if he breaks his hand like how many times can you punch somebody flush in the face before you like fracture a knuckle

before you have a hairline something, before your hand starts to swell. Because these were all like plus shots that the history of his career, these guys either go down or get wobbled with half of those. Ferguson's just going forward. Ferguson got wobbled a couple times where you're like, okay, he's done.

Like he was doing some leg stuff where you thought both of his hamstrings blew out at the exact same time. Or like somebody just went, you know, Carl Spackler on the old achilles in the back and i thought oh he's done he's done and then he recovers like he's a mutant and i have so many of these fights where i look at the guy that loses and gets worked where i have just as much respect for him as the guy that won but gaethje's that gaethje's that guy everybody's kind of been talking him up a little bit more and more i mean anik again who I said we're going to have on.

When I did, who do you think is the toughest human being you've ever come across in the UFC? Last year, he picked him. So I was like, wow. And I sent that tweet out last night going, Anik called this a while ago. He's been really good on that stuff. I lost.

I had a parlay with the heavyweight who knocked the guy out in 20 seconds. Ngannou? Ngannou with Diaz, who I ended up losing that one. But then I rallied back. I chased with Gaethje. Two to one underdog in this. But, you know, with the no fans and just with the sounds of the fight, it actually started to get really brutal.

It was 25 minutes of that, you know, and you're getting no crowd reactions at all. And I was thinking like, first of all, if there's ever been a big spotlight shown on the brutality of how tough some of these fights are, like here's your 25 minutes right there. And the second thing is like, it actually probably helped him. There wasn't a crowd because there were times

when I think he would have tried to chase the knockout, which is kind of what Ferguson wants, right? He wants, he wants you to get super excited. And then all of a sudden the fourth and fifth rounds you're done, but because there was no crowd urging him on, he was able to just, you know, he, it was almost like watching Jordan, these Jordan games were doing, he just had command of, of every moment of that fight. I thought it was an incredible performance. I loved it. And I'm just glad that I think people watch and gauge you for the first time.

You're like, well, who is this guy? And you're like, actually, all of it. Like, he didn't even have to go to the ground last night. And he's great at that, too. His left hand, like, you can't believe he's, I don't know, maybe he is left-handed. But, I i mean he's set up traditionally the whole time and he's hitting these clean left hooks he must have hit ferguson with 50 left hooks and i'm serious like every time they're clean compact they're not like the only time he would really get wild and then his corner goes hey you gotta dial it back like 10 and that was the thing that even the announcers were talking about as he was getting into the

octagon is that you know everything he kind of has this wild fury about him but it's sort of controlled and then to hear the corner go hey just dial back some of these haymakers here like just give me 10% less on these but then you have Ferguson whose body is just sort of like Ferguson has this body of a guy that would suck at a pickup basketball game but if he guarded you you're like okay he's got these weird big shoulders and really long arms and then his movement is unlike anybody else and you know he's he's just different some of these guys have been fighting for a while once their chin is gone it's almost like a running back who's just gotten hit too many times where all of a sudden it's like how come ricky williams can get tackled by the ankle now you're like right it's because you know

when ricky williams was awesome and then i'll never forget like watching ricky williams all of a sudden you're like okay he's done like he's just he's going down every single time and it happens i mean that's just what happens to fighters and tight ends been doing this yeah tight ends is a good one too you know ferguson reminds me of those guys in the kumite in the montage the beginning of blood sport where they all have the different weird fighting styles where there's like that one guy who's just on the ground hopping around. Then there's like the big bear hug guy. And then it's like, here's Ferguson. He has no style. He's doing spin moves for no reason. He's falling on the ground. He's going left, right. And, you know, he ends up nailing Gaty with the, with the uppercut at the end of the second round, which in my

opinion, the uppercut, if the guy's leaning forward and you land the uppercut at the end of the second round which in my opinion the uppercut if the guy's leaning forward and you land the uppercut correctly is the most devastating punch of all punches I have that in pole position and he hit it perfectly Gaethje was leaning forward the way you'd want it to and I have no idea how he didn't

get knocked out you should get knocked out on that every time I don't care who you are I don't care how tough you are that's a knockout and And he, and he just, just in a minute, he was fine. I didn't understand it. That was the Tyson thing. When Tyson was right, when it was prime Tyson, it was this compact left to right head movement. You couldn't really square them up. And then he got underneath you and it was that uppercut. And that's why, you know, whenever anybody would say like, well, Tyson really struggled with some of the bigger guys but like not when he was younger i mean these guys were like big trees falling all over the place so yeah i mean once

tyson had probably been as unhealthy as any professional fighter we've ever seen and things caught up to him but early on tyson used to chop all these big guys down so whenever anybody would talk like Tyson versus the other great heavyweights and be like oh he would have a look he'd have trouble with Ali because it's Ali but Ali I don't know how we ended up in this whole thing maybe it's because all the LeBron MJ stuff but yeah Gaethje watching him just go back to that like I just was double checking he was an all-american wrestler and he never even went to the ground against Ferguson so that's where the you know some of the other guys that he'd be lining up against where you're like, you know, he didn't even have to show that part of him yet.

He could stand up and exchange blows and just pepper Ferguson for a half an hour and not even have to do some of the other stuff. Tyson's uppercut is one of my like three or four favorite boxing weapons. Like I always loved the Frazier coming out of the crouch left hook. Ali, Ali's the greatest fighter of all time it was like his kryptonite it was just how it was thrown

the way he launched forward it would just land on Ali even in the first Ali fight it was like peak Ali and he would still get him with it he just couldn't figure it out I love that one and then the Hearn straight right off the jab.

Most memorably in the Duran fight, which is still probably my favorite knockdown. That's your favorite out of all those? It's just like, it just flushed. And Duran was like, he's the all-time, you know, nobody did that to him. No, he's toast. And he's like toast.

He dies. His spirit leaves his body it's unbelievable what about what about the mickey ward head body head oh that's a good one i like it uh what what i really thought was notable about the ufc last night other than i just enjoyed having sports and unpredictability and people watching a live sporting event, not knowing how it was going to end again and all these different things was it made me wonder what the NBA would look like with no fans. If they took some of the lessons from the UFC pay-per-view, most notably, if you, if you had the mics picking up the sound of the game and the guys talking to each other and the grunts

and people muttering at each other and swearing at each other and all that stuff, I don't know if the NBA would have the balls to do that, to basically remove the trampoline from the game so that if somebody falls off the tightrope and somebody calls somebody a motherfucker or

whatever they would be worried about in that situation, maybe you'd have a tape delay. Maybe you could bleep it, whatever. But if you could hear the conversation on the court, it would honestly be like what it was like to go to a game in the eighties and nineties before they started playing music. Cause before they started blaring the music during the actual game, if you're sitting close enough, which I was fortunate enough because my dad had good seats, you could hear the people talking, you could hear the coaches, all that stuff. And I do feel like it would be an asset for the NBA games. Do you think the NBA would ever have the balls to actually do that? Well, hey, now you're pitching something. I was pitching this to my roommates on

the couch over 20 years ago, where I was like, there's going to be a way where we could mic everybody and then maybe have it just be on HBO, which is kind of what the NFL has done anyway. I would love it. You would love it. I think all of us as NBA fans would love it. But I think a lot like those coaches corner, the huddle, the reason they all suck, you know, for a while there, I'm like, Scotty Brooks just says rebound at the top of his voice every single time out. And you're like, no, it's edited so that nothing strategic is given away and nothing is given away that makes any of these guys look bad. And I'm that the nba with mic access in whatever version of the nba we get if we're going to get it um i don't think they want us hearing confirming all the stuff we know that

these guys say to each other and some of the names they call each other so i don't i don't think the nba wants that even though we're going to be very entertained and as i've thought about it in the ufc model like people have to accept that the nba does come back and whatever versions that we've heard kicked around i'm not going to be a guy i'm just don't complain about it because it it's going to look bad you know other than the uniforms it's going to look like a you stuff like when you were watching these rewatchables that we're doing and thinking of no one in there for playoff games like i know you brought it up and you're like this is going to be terrible it's it's going to be a necessity, you know, like, but I get it. Like, it's not going to be great. And I don't think it's, I think it's kind of a waste of time complaining about it.

I think it could be cool if they, uh, open the door on the sound, but what you just talked about, like I lived through it when we did the courtside show for HBO in 2018, you know, a show that we had everything in place. And I thought it was a really good show, except for the piece where we just couldn't get the real behind the scenes stuff. They just wouldn't give it up. And one of the reasons was, I think like about 10 days before we started filming that show,

it was for the 2018 finals. Kerr had had that moment with Durant when he pulled Durant over and he's like, let me tell you a Michael Jordan story. It was during a game and it was like a minute long clip. And, um, and it became a big thing on social media and, and Kerr was furious that they use that clip. He's like, why, why is that on the internet? Like, that's me talking to my player. I didn't want that to become a public thing. And then after that, they really cracked down. And that's why if you're, you know, for the people listening, when they, when they see the behind the scenes NBA stuff, and it's like, we used to have a lot of Scotty Brooks going, come on guys,

dig in. Yeah, let's go. Hey, let's pick up the intensity. That's because that's all we're going to get. We're never going to get the real shit. We're never going to get the stuff like that. There were so many great moments in the UFC thing yesterday. Even like Greg Hardy, we thought there might be something wrong with the guy he was fighting with his foot.

He stopped throwing any punches. Yeah, he missed the kick. He was clearly hurt, but we didn't know for sure and the announcers were calling it out. And then the fight ended. Normally, you'd hear the crowd cheering, but we could actually hear them talking. He's like, my but we didn't know for sure. And the announcers are calling it out. And then at the fight ended, normally you'd hear the crowd cheering, but we can actually hear them talking.

And he's like, my foot's fucked up. My, my, my leg hurt. And Greg's like, oh man. So he's like, oh fuck. Like Greg Hardy was mad. He wanted a better fight, but that's a moment we never would have had if you could hear the crowd. So I don't know.

I thought there was a lot of good stuff. I also, we should point out Joe Rogan was a pantheon performance by him. Being no gloves, no mask. He's touching everybody. He's walking in splattered blood. He just could not have been less afraid of the elements.

I loved it. It was a macho performance by Joe. It really was over the top. Yeah, that was something they weren't going to do. They weren't going to have those guys wearing masks. No. They just weren't. I actually think it might have been something like, you're not wearing masks.

But he was touching everybody, though. At one point, I thought he was just going to rub his hands in the blood or drink a spit bucket or something just to really push it over the top. But what's funny is they were all spread across they said they weren't sitting together when they did the announcing they said they were in different parts around the ring which i thought was yeah when they did the stand up there right next to each other right because there was some video

they were running back and it was kind of like at the triple box deal where it was anik in cormier and then and then rogan and then once you get in there and then there was a post later on the pettis serrani fight was good and you know it's been you know it's been what seven years since they had fought i believe and uh pettis got this one again too but then they were hanging out later with pettis the core's light serrani with a bud can and they were like arm and arm and i was waiting for somebody to be like hey you know guys like oh you can hang out and then you're like well we just rolled around in each other's bodily fluids for you know an hour right well not an hour but you know what i'm saying yeah we're

good if we had anything we gave it to each other it was a big night for mithuin yeah yeah that dude that dude's nose was caved in he He, he couldn't have been happier. He's just like, yeah, I won. I don't care. His nose had a big dent in it. It's just pouring blood. It's like, ah, it was a great fight. I had a good time. These guys are a different breed. They really are. They're different breed. Most people would be like, my nose is caved in. I should probably go see a doctor. He's like, I'll do this interview for 10 minutes. I'm good. Yeah. They're different in the sense too. Like, I'll do this interview for 10 minutes. I'm good. Yeah, they're different in the sense too. I think it was the Cerrone fight.

I forget which one. I don't know. Whatever. And it happens all the time. So this isn't exactly something new. But seriously, one guy's dropping a kick, like a leg kick on the guy's head. And the bell rings.

And one second later, they're laughing and like yeah I've I just gotten kicked in the head and then serious I'm not exaggerating two seconds later so the second left on the clock bell second after the fight and then it's like high five and laughing at the guy who just kicked you it's just such another level and then yeah, yeah, the Methuen guy, Cater, he, you know, salt of the earth. You just love those guys. Because then as soon as the fight's over, big win for him. People didn't think he was going to win that one. He's like, hey, you know, and the first responders, hey, give it up to them.

Anyone at any medical services, medical devices, you know, the T, you know, straight shooters. Well, we also had a Fall River guy who lost. Fall River never loses. If you picked like what three Massachusetts cities are going to have a UFC fighter, my top three would have been Lowell, Methuen, Fall River. Probably would have been my just go-to picks, not knowing anything. So we had two or three. I didn't think we had a Lowell, Methuen, Fall River. Probably would have been my just go-to picks, not knowing anything. So we had two or three.

I didn't think we had a Lowell guy in there. No. No, I mean, I'm trying to think if those are the top three towns. I think people would say Brockton. Dorchester's like, I don't have time to train. Like, I'll fight, but I don't want to have to jog. Let's, uh, let's take a break. Cause I want to talk about just quickly some of the NBA news from Thursday and Friday. Cause, uh, it's going to be the return of pessimistic bill right after

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I'm pretty discouraged about the NBA coming back. Ultimately, who cares? Like, I just want the pandemic to go away and everything to get better and probably caring too much about a lost NBA season should be the least of our concerns. But I really did think they were going to figure this out. And the mood coming out of that Friday was pretty grim where there's just so many variables and it doesn't seem like they can get a handle on all of it.

They can't agree on anything. And the only things they seem like they can really agree on is if it works, it's gotta be the bubble situation or Orlando or Vegas, which we've been talking about on this podcast for the last month. Um, other than that, it doesn't seem like they figured out anything. And the reality is they're running out of time. It's May 10th. And if, if they don't figure out some sort of plan by the end of this month, I don't, then at some point you're going to get, you're going to be going against football. The longer you push this back, which if you're going to do that, why even do that? I'm assuming football comes back or you could say nothing's going to come back. But I really thought that Friday phone call was going to be the beginning of movement and it's not, and it wasn't.

And I don't know where we stand. Okay. So let me follow up with you. Like, what are the things that you're hearing post Friday that put you into, I don't think you're wrong by the way at all, but I want you to stay on this and share more with us on why you're so deflated after Friday's call. The players union was being more assertive than I expected, which is fine. But, um, but there's just a lot of agendas and it's hard for me to figure out how those agendas are going to align in a real way over the next couple weeks because I think you have competing agendas even with the owners.

I think you have different owners who feel differently about the pandemic and what we should do. Oh, you definitely do, first of all. Yeah, we definitely do. We can't get five people to agree, never mind 30. Yeah, I think in a weird way,

I thought the owners would be more of like an LA-New York bubble type of situation with how they saw things the same way, but it's not. And I think you have some guys who are like, well, fuck this. If we're coming back, let's play it in the arena. And why can't we have limited fans?

And then you have other people like, this is wrong. We're going to get all these tests and we're going to be taking tests away from other people. It's not worth the PR hit. And I just don't feel like they're off of the ground floor of a lot of these discussions. I don't know what they've been doing the last two months. I know they're being careful. I know they're trying to learn as much as they possibly can. But now we're at the point where at least a plan should be in place. If we feel good about this plan, how are we going to do it? How many tests would we need? Can we proceed? How many teams should we have? What is the exact number of people we can put into this little bubble, et cetera, et cetera. And it doesn't seem like we're close. I was reading this stuff and I tweeted about it.

Ramona Shelburne talking about all of the different angles of this. And I hope Ramona didn't think I was going at her on the piece because I did quote tweet it because I kind of was disappointed by Michelle Roberts quote when it was talking about, you know, quarantined bubbles and, you know, everybody's going to go to one city and play it out of there. And she said know that's like incarceration which is a horrible horrible analogy and if you are the head of any players association that position is combative by nature you were always going to be all the baseball guys like hey you guys screwed us over for decades we're coming

at you but then it got to a point where it was like donald fair didn't even want anything to do with any kind of compromise you go back to some of his early PED proposals on the player's side they were laughable and that was actually one of the biggest reasons why it was hard to even get any testing once the owners decided they wanted the testing um there's all sorts of NFL stuff people Jean Ipshaw's he's too in with the owners he doesn't rep us enough the Billy Hunter stuff was a mess which I know maybe you'll get to but Michelle Roberts and it's not just about that quote, but I felt like right now, in my opinion, would be that when everybody's trying to figure out how to get any games back, that you have to have more of an open mind and that maybe now isn't the time to be combative. And even she had asked about, hey, what does the CBA mean? What does it

mean for paychecks? And Silver's answer was amazing. He's like, hey, sorry, but there's no provision in the CBA about a global pandemic. There's no clause. There's no page I can refer you to. This is all unprecedented stuff. So even though I understand the nature of the position to basically say, well, the owners say, you know, blue and we got to just think it's red. I was disappointed by her quote. I was kind of disappointed by her whole approach.

And I find Michelle Roberts fascinating in that she never is criticized, really. Like, there's always kind of rumblings. And if it's from the team side, like, no one's ever going to want to hear their complaints because she's the opposition. But I don't know. Look, I think some people are just straight up afraid to criticize Michelle Roberts. I know I am at times, even though I've criticized other player reps, um, not just fundamentally, cause I'm usually more pro player, but I was disappointed in her quote. And then I started thinking about her more and more. I go,

I don't, I don't know that anybody raves about her, but there's never really been anybody that's, that's laid it out. And I think there's some people who just think she's checked out now at this point too, cause she's off the job pretty soon. She's been under the radar from a job performance standpoint. There's not a lot of arguments about her for, against this is, was, is a chance for her to distinguish herself in some way. I've, I've never heard anybody be that impressed by her. I don't want to, you know, crush her, but I've never heard one person go, you know who's unbelievable? That Michelle Roberts. Maybe it's impossible to find somebody in that job. I think this was a chance to distinguish herself and she didn't.

But I think the overriding factor right now with all these people publicly, and I'm talking about players, owners, union people, networks. They're going to need a bunch of tests if they're going to do this. That's one thing. All of them are afraid of the PR backlash to that. Totally. Yeah. That is paralyzing. The second piece is that Trump has met you know, a bunch of the other commissioners and some of the owners. And I think Adam out of anybody is really hesitant to, to make it seem to his players that Trump and all the baggage that he has that we don't have to go into, um,

bullied him into coming back. And he doesn't want to want to even be accused of that. Cause you have to remember right now, Adam in 2020 is basically still throwing a no-hitter from when he took over the league. And he hasn't really had a huge L. He hasn't had a huge loss. And this, like having players come at him, being like, you just want us to come back

because Trump wanted that. There's just doors being opened now for him to get criticized, for the weed to get criticized, for the owners to get criticized that they haven't really dealt with in six years since the Sterling thing. And I think just everybody's being really, really, really careful. I don't think everyone can agree on the right circumstances, the right pieces of the agenda to really care about. And the reality is they're running out of time. They just are. They're running out of time. Yeah, they're absolutely running out of time. Unless football is delayed, then you go, wait a minute, can we work together

with the NFL? But I don't know if the leagues are sitting here strategically going, hey, how are you going to do it? Again, I think something you pointed out where I think everybody just wants baseball to kind of say they're back so that everybody can kind of follow the lead and then I wonder if it's going to turn into one of those deals because I'm definitely afraid of whatever version of a second spike if it exists if it could happen I'm open to the suggestion that it could happen right um but would it would it be a guy test positive and then that means you're justified in testing all your players and then that guy just goes home and you keep playing because the first version of it rudy gobert's testing positive okay no basketball

no hockey no baseball all right like everybody shut it down no college sports and it was instant if it takes so much planning and so much going into ramping this thing back up is the version of it like yeah okay a guy tested positive for coronavirus and we're just going to get him away from everybody and test everybody else the other thing on the testing too uh the pr part is massive every league that i've talked to has brought it up multiple times but then i look at like a nate silver had a tweet about testing results that actually looked like it was a really positive thing and then i made the mistake of going through and reading all the comments and I'm talking like verified people that are covering this all over

the place. So as we're sitting here talking about the test, I've heard people say, well, you can just run a temperature gauge on everybody else. So you're not using tests for people that are asymptomatic or, you know, not showing any symptoms asymptomatic if you're positive. But, uh, I, I don't, I don't know what to believe on that one. Like, I don't know what to, like, I know there's one article I can read that convinces me of the temperature thing. And then other people are like,

oh, I actually know the temperature. You can have it. You can have the antibodies, not have a high temperature, but then that means, you know, all these different things. So I can't imagine all the different factors these leagues are trying to figure out

by navigating through all of this stuff. And yes, after Friday's thing, I'm more pessimistic like you are. It was also crazy to just hear them come out and actually say what we've heard people whisper and talk and things that we had a good guess that it was going to play out this way, but to hear them actually acknowledge it, that the attendance is 40% of their revenue. You know, you can fudge those numbers any way you want. I know to a certain degree you can't, but they're pretty careful about not just coming out

and saying a round number that somebody can latch onto like that. And they did. They're like, our business is down 40% now because it's like just starting with no fans in the arenas. Then the second piece was, we don't think we're going to have fans in our arenas even for the 2020-21 season. For them to acknowledge that,

now you're talking about, all right, well, what happens if, you know, my dad gets his Celtics season ticket bill or I get my Clippers season ticket bill? They've just come out and said, we're basically not going to have fans at games next year. We don't think. So how are you going to bill your fans?

Like that's one of the ways that they get money up front. You can put the money away for six months. That's why you see NBA season ticket holders. They get, you know, buy playoff, buy your playoff tickets, but you also have to buy next season's tickets and a layaway plan or pay all up front and you get this off because they're trying to get that money in April for games that don't start until the end of October. They're just putting it away for eight months. There's no games. You're paying way ahead of time for entertainment that you're not even getting yet.

Are they going to make us do that? All of these things. This is why I'm just getting more and more pessimistic because these are massive decisions. It's not just one decision. It's like 12, 15, and everybody's not on the same page. Yeah, that's kind of what we learned on Friday. I mean, that's why both of us are kind of sitting here like, man, and back to the Michelle Roberts part of it, too, where I would go like, hey, I thought the players wanted to come back and play. But the way she sounded, it's as if, OK okay if you guys don't want to make any compromises like are all the

players good with losing the rest of their money or are they thinking hey the checks have kept coming in because the owners haven't cut that off yet even though the revenue is taking the hit but I guess even with the 40 percent and I think the 40 percent number is the entire thing with them yeah it is uh so it's not it's not necessarily 40 of what you were expecting to make this season it's 40 of the remaining stuff i'm talking about it's really for next season yeah right but that's why i would have thought at some version i mean not losing the tv money is still the most important thing but i would think more than anything so i you know i i get that it's it's some kind of, but I can't imagine owners are going,

well, if I'm not going to make any attendance money, I'm okay losing it all. And that's the same for the players. Who was the one who said, I think it was silver who was like, we want to keep best of seven for every round. If we do this.

Yeah. I was shocked by that. I actually think that's dumb. Hey, this to me, this is a chance to rectify something that was dumb in the first place, doing first round best of seven. Make it so that, you know, if you get a 3-0 lead in the series,

you win the series. So whether you're up 3-0 or 4-1, series is over. I thought one of the benefits of this whole thing would be that we wouldn't have these stupid first round series dragging on when one team is clearly better than the other team. You can get away from that. But I don't know. I hate the single elimination thing. I'm done with reading everybody's proposals.

And I get it. Everybody's bored. I love it, too. But even I'm done with it. All right. And you're like the king of proposals. You'll come up with stuff that no one cares about. I'm out. All right. And you, you're like the king of proposals. You'll come up with stuff for that. No one cares about, but give me,

give me your five worst teams to win a single elimination NBA championship. Oh, if they just did it that way. Yeah. You have to win four games. Who would make people the maddest? Yeah. You though. Give me yours.

Like who's the number one of all the viable teams of the rockets. When the title that way i'd be out of my mind i'm just so mad that's the only right answer first of all because what do you do do you like i don't even know what to do with that one before we get back let's let's hold off on talking about what we would do with the rockets winning four games that were supposed to count as an nba championship if they just did single elimination which is not going to do but if LeBron got it and then all the MJ people would be like that doesn't even count that's yeah that's a half ring that's not even a half they wouldn't even give him that um Giannis's first that would feel like is Giannis now arrived is he is he gonna is he on the path now to be one of

the all-time greats for winning a single elimination oh i think philly would be the number two make people the maddest oh that's a good one brett brown championship coach yeah fuck this there's no way they would have been serious philly might be worse than houston the reaction that you get well then you'd also have all the philly people getting mad about the reaction and that actually could lead to a civil war yeah see that's that's right because people wouldn't want to give i'm trying to think who Philly people getting mad about the reaction. And that actually could lead to a civil war. Yeah. See, that's right. Cause people wouldn't want to give,

I'm trying to think who would with like, which city winning would hold, like, would the public hold back the most recognition? I actually think the Lakers are high on this list because the LeBron factor of people saying like, that's not really your fourth ring. So that's part of it.

Philly would be so nasty because it'd be saying, Oh, you fucking idiots who said Ben and, and B can't play together. It's like, well, they actually don't like each other, but that's part of it philly would be so nasty because they'd be saying oh you fucking idiots who said ben and and b can't play together it's like well i actually don't like each other but that's fine yeah you guys yeah they won four games yeah ben's trying to leave uh clippers clippers would make people mad too like really this is your first title you just won four games with your instant team and you had no fans anyway so this they're actually the biggest winners if there's no fans in the playoffs. There's definitely a Miami thing though.

If Miami did it and they had like a four-day parade and then Wade was given an honorary ring and then it was another documentary that was six parts long or something. And then you're like, geez, guys. Can I tell you a story about my greatest sports moment of the last two months? Yes.

So my son has been playing a lot of 2k really likes it really getting into it he has my team all this stuff and he's always trying to get me to play and i'm like i don't really i'm not a really a big video basketball game guy like i'm like i like football i like golf i like driving games i'm like the basketball so he's like what are you afraid he's doing that whole thing i'm like oh I like football. I like golf. I like driving games. I'm like the basketball. So he's like, what are you afraid? He's doing that whole thing. I'm like, oh, you want some young buck? I was like, I was like, I don't even know what the buttons are. I'm going to, I will beat you.

So we play all time Lakers, all time Celtics. I don't even know what I'm doing. He's beating me. And I'm like, by, by about third quarter, I figured out he's up 20. I'm like, start over. Let's play two normal teams. I'll be the Celtics. You can be anyone you want. He's like, fine. Okay, quitter. So play another

game. 2020 Rockets against 2020 Celtics. I'm like, you can pick anyway. You can be the Lakers. Be Davis. He's like, no, no. I'm going to be Harden. I'm going to be Houston. I'm going to score. I'm going to score.

I'm just going to have Harden score 100 points on you. I'm like, okay, bring it on, motherfucker. So we go Rockets, Celtics. And you guys swear at each other too. No, I didn't really call him motherfucker. Yeah, I actually, I threw that in to cover the story. So we go Rockets, Celtics. And I'm doing all 2020 Daryl Morris shit on him.

He's just playing conventional. He's trying to get alley-oops. You know, he's, cause he doesn't really understand like the how basketball is played now part. He's trying to do donks and beat people off the dribble and shit like that. And he's scoring. And then I'm coming down. I'm doing slashing kick to like Hayward in the corner, Tatum in the corner,

having like Kemba work around picks. I'm just shooting threes and I'm beating him. I'm up eight. He's getting madder and madder. I'm up 10. Harden's scoring like a madman. Harden's on his way to 60 and I'm winning by 10. He's like, yeah, but Harden's going to get 60. And I'm like, this is so funny because of other people were here. This is the whole problem with the James Harden experiences. You're going to brag that he got 60, but I'm going to beat you by 10 points. So we're going, going, I'm hitting threes. I end up, I break them. I win by like, I don't know, 18 Harden ends up with 60. Didn't matter. Irrelevant. He gets so mad. He storms off, takes the disc out of the game. I suck at this. I'm never playing again. He's mad at me. I'm like,

no, you don't understand. You just lost to modern basketball. It had nothing to do with you or me. You didn't understand corner threes and setting a p and just fire up as many threes as possible is always going to beat what you're doing hard lesson for ben simmons that's my story anyway beating him was my highlighted the last two months yeah kids freak out about that i had a similar experience last christmas with uh sully miller who i had on the on the podcast and i played with the warriors i think he was the raptors but we put it on like a lower level and i just started cooking with with curry and clay yeah lost and he turned it off he turned it off on me and he was he was mad though i know you know wait wait wait he was he was in toronto he was like sacramento i said look i haven't played

forever i'm gonna be the warriors he's all right, I'll be somebody terrible. And it's bad. Like young dudes don't like getting worked by the old bull. I would say the 12 to 14 is the sweet spot for handling a loss the worst like this. He was so mad. He was mad for like two hours. And I had to throw in a couple of digs too. I'm like, hey, man, I might be 50, but I was playing video games when you were like a zygote. You're never beating throw in a couple of digs too. I'm like, Hey man, I might be 50, but I was

playing video games when you were like a zygote. You're never beating me in a basketball video game. I was doing a lot of that. I was doing a lot of, a lot of strutting after anyway, fuck the rockets. We're going to take a break and then we're going to do the rewatchables. Hey, no one is more reliable and committed than the men and women of the military. That's why since 1933 Navy federal credit union has been committed to being there for our members through all of life's changes. During Military Appreciation Month, Navy Federal Credit Union is celebrating with special offers on car loans, credit cards, certificates, and more. Now more than ever, they want to say thank you. Join Navy Federal Credit Union in thanking service members during Military

Appreciation Month. Show your appreciation with tweets, posts, captions, and letters using hashtag mission military thanks. Navy Federal Credit Union, our members are the mission. That reminds me, speaking of Navy Federal Credit Union, the new rewatchables that's coming Monday night, Crimson Tide. Maybe the best Navy movie ever. It's either that or Top Gun. But yeah, me and Chris Ryan and Sean Fantasy break down an absolute classic. 25 years after it was released, Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman

had a lot of fun doing this one, the Rewatchables. The best pop culture podcast there is, other than the other ringer pop culture podcasts we have. Check it out, Crimson Tide. That's coming Monday night. All right, back to this pod. All right, rewatchables. We're doing the entire 97 NBA finals concentrated in the last two games, but this is such a fascinating document in so many different ways. This is what Jordan has become. Honestly, it'll be great at this point.

He's a superhero. We're all assuming he's going to come through every step of the way, no matter what obstacle Utah team that had been around for a long time. We didn't really have a feel for them. Not enjoyable to watch as we're about to cover bulls go 69 and 13. This is the culmination of just a brutal 20 months that we talked about on your podcast. And we did the wizards pod where they had hit this point of, they're basically the Beatles at this point. They're this traveling circus. They're covered differently than any sports team ever, all that stuff. Jazz goes

64-18, 11-3 in the playoffs. They beat the Lakers, the Clippers, and then famously the Rockets. Stockton hits the three. The Lakers series, that was the Kobe Airball series. It kind of lost in the shuffle where Shaq's first year, Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, pretty even series.

I remember in the moment thinking, oh, the Lakers will beat Utah. Utah always loses. Utah's done. And wasn't the case. It was MVP Carl Malone still being an MVP. So anyway, we get to the finals and the subplot emerges. The real MVP versus the guy who won the MVP.

But then this whole other thing about, no, Carl Malone was actually awesome this year, 27 and 10. Incredible defensive player, such a good passer. The whole offense is built around him. He's a deserving MVP. Where did you stand in 1997 on this question heading into the finals do you remember yeah i do uh this was none of us liked watching utah back then okay no one did and even though there was never a series where i was necessarily rooting for jordan i was i wasn't rooting for the utah jazz it just it was

the nba finals it was on and there wasn't anyone I was emotionally connected to about the entire time. Now, because I was a huge Barkley guy, and I know I'm biased, I've always thought Barkley was better than Malone, and I think this series does not. This is a bad series for Carl Malone fans, by the way. It's awful. You had the number one assist guy in the history of the league

setting you up on every single possession your entire career. And Malone was a really good shooter for a big. He was incredible as a rebounder. He's pretty good as a passer. Good on fast break. As a closer on the wing, was putting the knee up. Pretty unstoppable. Yeah, and and dude he played

every game he played every game and he was actually like a real tough guy like when he and rodman getting into it there's part of me that like wants him to fight rodman for real because he would have twisted rodman up i mean he just he just would have but whenever i see some of those dollar memes about five four three build your dream team carl malone's always on like the four dollar line when he's on it and barkley's always on like the $4 line when he's on it. And Barkley's always on the $3 line. And when I think of peak Barkley versus peak Malone, I know who I'm taking.

I'm taking Barkley. I wouldn't even argue it, but the composite, the full stat picture of who Carl Malone is, is incredible. So the fact that they're in this finals, they have this incredible record. They're awesome at home. They have this amazing home court atmosphere that's like ruthless,

which is part of the Rodman story when he says something about Mormons and gets fined and then does a weird Jim Gray interview where he starts crying before game six. He was out to lunch this series. Right. He's so bad in the closing game.

I respected what Stockton and Malone did but it might have been the first time I was realizing something that you and I have just started talking about more and more the separation between playoff basketball and regular season basketball that if you're going to run this pick and roll with these two hall of famers like you're going to win a bunch of games but when I look at in this series, there's like three or four guys for Utah that wouldn't even play in today's NBA that are playing minutes in the NBA finals. So you have the 2017 finals,

Golden State averages 121.6 a game, 91 shots a game in the five finals games. The Cavs were 114.8, 90.2 field goals a game. This 97 finals, and it gets worse the next year. The Bulls for the series, 87.8, 90.2 field goals a game. This 97 finals, and it gets worse the next year. The Bulls for the series, 87.8 points. Jazz were 87.2. 74.8 field goals for the Bulls, 71.2 for the Jazz. Say that again.

So the difference is what? How many shots? The difference is basically 35 shots a game. Total. Now, a lot of that, too, like you could talk about, it's not even defense. It's not, and both teams were slow-paced teams. Chicago's a slow-paced team because they're running their stuff.

But when you're running these side pick and rolls or Malone pin down where somebody comes up only to try to get it back to him in the post, like that takes time. And that's what they did. Well, but they also, they had a deliberate decision to slow down because they had two older guys,

Malone and Stockton. They're 33 and 34 in this series. And Stockton, both of them had played a ton of minutes since the mid eighties that Stockton at that point. And I forget what year it started, but I always thought it was brilliant. Jerry Sloan's thing where he would take him out at the exact same points in the game. Malone was like one of the

most durable. It's him, Kareem and LeBron are the three most durable basketball players of all time. He was ridiculous. But as things started to slow down in the mid nineties for a variety of reasons, they really benefited because they didn't want to run. They didn't have the guys to run, but if it was an 84 to 81, 75 to 72 type game, they had an advantage. Um, couple of things going on in this series.

Rodman is just terrible. This whole playoffs. And they're talking, the announcers are talking about him in a couple of points. I watched a lot of the series this weekend. They're talking about him. Like he's gone after the year. I think everybody was like, fuck this guy. He's enough.

Malone was doing whatever he wanted with him. They're playing Brian Williams, who became Bison Dele, a lot. Rodman's only 27 minutes game in the finals. I think Bison Dele was over 20 and plays a lot in game five and game six. And Pippen is banged up, but still going. This is, by the way, this whole thing for Chicago, Bill, is MJ Pippen. And then, you know, Kerr has his moments,

especially with the game-winning shot. But Kukoc takes 36 shots. If you look at field goal attempts, Kukoc for the series is the third highest player in field goal attempts, and he's at 37. So basically he's averaging six shots a game as the third most attempts. This series is all offense of MJ and Pippen, and then really curve with some shots in that game six. Jordan's usage rate in this series was 37.9 and Pippen's 25.5.

So it's basically the two of them. It's interesting. At the top of game one, they do this whole long NBC intro. And they come out and it's Gukas, Bill Walton, and Marv. And they're talking about how the Bulls just haven't played that well. And this is a team that would 72 games and 69 games that just made the finals and is the favorite. And they're like, yeah, they're just not playing well.

They can play well in spurts, but they can't really go in. And we can feel it because we've watched a lot of Bulls games now. Their defense just isn't at the same level by the time we get to this finals. They can't do the thing that they were able to do during this second three Pete, where if they needed to dial up the defense, do the full court press for one quarter, whatever they just, they they're running on fumes at this point in a lot of different ways. So game one, Hey, people like me, innocent bystander. I'm a Boston fan at that point. I don't, I don't really have a horse in this race. Were you rooting for anybody back then? I was so mad about the Carl Malone thing. It was the MVP. Oh, I lost my mind on it. I was so upset. I really care about the MVP. I was like,

I just can't believe it. What are we doing? MJ won 69 games. Go watch his fucking team. Everyone knows he's the best player. What, why did we do this? And then Malone actually makes the finals and it becomes this whole, Oh, these two guys head to head. And what's funny is I watched the fourth quarter of every game, except game two. I watched all of game five. I watched the whole second half game six, Bill Walton's disappointment at Carl Malone as the series goes along is the funniest thing about all these games on YouTube. Where is

Carl Malone? Why is he settling for jump shots? Finally, a defensive rebound for Carl Malone. Walton is just like eviscerating him. And then MJ ends up winning the title. And by the end of it, I was just like, all right, let's all agree this was the dumbest MVP we're ever going to give out,

which I still feel that way, right? This is still the worst one. Yeah, but it's always that way with MVPs, though, is people go, look what Utah's doing. And again, it's before this whole thing, but the fact they got to the finals, because prior to this, it was very Rockets-ish in that, oh, yeah, Utah, they're going to win a million games.

They win at home. Stockton, pick and roll, pick and roll, pick and roll. So them making the finals, you're like, oh, okay. And then the end of game one, Utah should have won this game. I mean, it's not debatable. And then Carl Malone misses two free throws. For whatever reason, he can't make free throws in these finals. He shoots like 59%.

Let me double check here. Basic stats here make free throws in these finals. He shoots like 59%. Let me double check here. Basic stats here. Six games in the finals. Free throw percentage, 60%. And this is somebody who made their free throws for his career. He can't make... He misses two, and then MJ just casually comes down. Game winner. You know, they should have been down.

They weren't. Hey, I'll just hit a buzzer here in game one. Did you remember the last couple minutes of this game being as good as it was to watch? Because you have just in the last two minutes. No, because the flu game and then game six with Kerr were the game winner. Game one just gets lost.

Pippen makes a three. This is the last two minutes. Stockton comes down answers with a monster three. Jordan gets fouled. Monster. That Stockton three is huge because he wasn't really shooting that much at that point. And then he's like, all right, enough of this. And then hits a huge three Jordan monster that's that Stockton three is huge because he wasn't really shooting that much at that point and then he's like right enough for this and then it's a huge three on the right side Jordan gets fouled makes one or two misses the second Stockton comes

down misses a three same shot but he misses it Malone gets the rebound gets fouled with like 14 seconds left goes to the line tie game game, gacks him. Both. Jordan gets the rebound, even though he's on the third position on the foul line. He's got Antoine Carr next to him, who, I don't know when Antoine Carr's doing that, but it's just, Jordan was just like,

I'm getting the, he's going to miss this, and I'm getting the rebound. Gets it, and then comes down, makes the game winner, and does the fist pump that kobe would end up i i think uh admittedly stealing that fist of the one fist pump up there and by the end of that you're just like god what did we do with this mvp thing how stupid was this but it's a really exciting game i really enjoyed it game two is a blowout hold on real quick though i know we're gonna fry up one of the biggest things though too, in this is that Utah was trying to figure out

how to double MJ there late. And Carl Malone was like the guy that would bring that. He screws up like they screw up for double team attempts on MJ at the end of this game. And it's just so funny how it's like, OK, this guy is just going to go ahead and win. The Antoine Carr stuff is hysterical. But I want to stay with your walton thing real quick as it carries over walton crushes malone every game like you and i've watched almost every game now in this series in the last weekend walton who was weird because if you like bill walton now

i it's not my thing i get why people like it and i actually think that more broadcast with espn with all of this college basketball inventory when things start up again i think espPN should have always done some different things like I think they should have had yeah I'll say selfishly like Van Pelt and I with somebody who's like a straight-laced college basketball guy put us on a Tuesday and have the two guys on your radio show be doing color commentary for like an ACC game like I actually think you have all of these college basketball games try some different stuff so even if Bill Walton's not my thing and i'm more of like a dave pash guy i like that they're doing it and then walton's doing all this stuff and people really seem to like it so i'm all for it what people don't realize and again walton becoming this vociferous dude who couldn't talk this is like

drake going from delgrassi to run in the Right. And Walton, who just wasn't even interested and didn't have that kind of personality, had the speech impediment to become this guy that fixes it all. And if you've ever met Bill, he's a really, really incredibly nice guy. He's like mean and nasty. And I didn't even like it. And it's weird. It's just so it's like the weirdest thing

because everything's like the biggest deal. And sometimes he's not even making any sense and he's getting the play wrong, but he's just all about the hyperbole. And for whatever reason, he decided that he was just going to crush Carl Malone in every single moment. Even when he made fadeaways, Carl Malone's just great fadeaway shooter as a big, there's nothing you can do with it. And he hits that shot. And when he would take it, miss it, Bill Walton would act like he threw it underhand from half court. And it colored.

I'm watching it mad that Malone was the MVP anyway and hating some of the shots he took. And Walton, who I was never a big fan of, announced those games in the mid-90s. It was the one time I felt like I'm completely aligned with Bill Walton. Even though he's being super mean. I totally agree with everything he's saying. So game two is a blowout. MJ goes 38, 13 and nine Malone six for 20 from the field. Now we're like, oh, this could this be a sweep or is Utah's home crowd?

Can they save this two, three, two series game three, Utah wins by 11. Malone puts up 37-10. 15 for 29. Field goal. And this is where... I watched the fourth quarter of this. The Bulls are just... They're having a lot of trouble scoring.

They... The Rod... They're not getting any offensive rebounds anymore unless it's Pippen or Jordan. They can't figure out the coup coach thing. Steve Kerr is ice cold. They can't figure out the Kukoc thing. Steve Kerr is ice cold. They can't figure out what their five is. This is not a Kukoc series.

What is? Your whole Kukoc? Is there a Kukoc series? When was it? Alert me. People were so mad. They weren't really that mad, but the last answer to start off, it's like, hey, what's up with Kukoc?

Go back and watch these games. You're like, no, they were good. Yeah, they were fine. So game four. Game fours are always perennially kind of the great game of a series if they go six or seven. Odds are game four was the best game.

The teams have felt each other out properly at this point. Utah wins 78-73. 140 field goals total in this game. MJ scores 22 points, no free throws. Zero in the third. The Bulls only shoot 12 free throws total, and there's some really fishy calls at the end of this game. And I would like to usher you into one of my favorite NBA things, Russillo. The David Stern referee vortex from 97 to 2003, where you just could tell with certain games, the instructions were like, Hey man, stop, stop calling those

cheap fouls on, on this, or Hey, you've got to call them alone on those moving screens, whatever they told the rest before the games are just executed correctly. For whatever reason, the bulls aren't just good. The bulls are going to the basket. They're just not getting any calls. This is Walton really gets frustrated about Carl Malone, not taking over, but Jordan makes two straight Utah misses five straight shots. The bulls are up five with two 30 left timeout. Pippen goes to the bench. He's stretching out his back. That's weird. Come back in Stockton makes a 28 foot three. Now all of this is notable because the bulls never blew games ever. This was like Rivera blowing a save or it's just like, Oh, it's the ninth inning. Rivera's going to get the save.

It's done. The bulls are up five to 30 left up to one in the series. The game's over. They have Michael Jordan. They're not losing Stockton hits his three. Jordan comes back with a fall away. Hornacek mislapped timeout bowls. Now there's a minute 30 left bowl still up for an MJ does the turnaround follow a thing on Russell Stockton comes running and strips them fast break fouled in the layup makes one or two. And then basically the bowls don't score again, but this leads to the famous Stockton play where gets the rebound long baseball pass to Carl Malone layup. Uh, Steve Kerr misses a corner three and Utah steals the game. MJ misses a three that goes in and out of the buzzer. Utah steals it. It's two, two. I remember in the moment being absolutely shocked by this. I thought, I thought it just had all the makings of like, Oh, of course the bulls are going to win tonight. Now it's two, two game

fives in Utah. And there's, do you remember there started to be a little buzz at this point? Like, ah, maybe Utah figured him out. What's going on here? The Stockton steel on Jordan's incredible. And it's just a tribute to Stockton, uh, watching these games, him in the pick and roll, the way he would drag all the attention towards him, knowing he was setting up the other thing.

And then if you decided to not stay with him, he was going to immediately take that shot. And you watch him going, he should be shooting more. It's a little bit like the Nash stuff where you go, how come Stockton's actually not taking more shots shots but it's just the way he was built and i think the 15 000 assists that worked out all right for for stockton no concerns right right but he hit some of these huge shots in these games where stock is like all right enough of this like

let me just go ahead and hit one of these things and you know there's some of the stuff that they do at the end of game six and five we we'll talk about where they're running just this two man thing. And all he's doing is like, okay, if you want a third guy to get involved here, like I'm going to slow him down with this dribble that I'm constantly keeping alive and I'm doing all these things on the Jordan strip. It's this help defense. I actually thought MJ getting called for the foul was the wrong call there. Stock. Oh my God. It's a terrible call. Like it's actually kind of funny to see MJ not get a couple calls. They didn't get any calls in this game. He does the LeBron block in the

2016 finals on Stockton and Stockton's pushing off and they're like foul. With two hands. Yeah, that was bonkers. I'm with you. I was shocked by that. So that doesn't happen. Then MJ actually makes a mistake on that incredible Stockton rebound past Malone, the baseball thing, because MJ doesn't get back. that incredible Stockton rebound past him alone.

The baseball thing, because MJ doesn't get back. He lets Malone get behind him. And then as I'm watching it, I mean, I knew what happened, but watching all these games, I'm almost like, wait a minute, Jordan missed it. The three almost goes in. I forgot. It hits both sides of the rim and then goes out. And it's an impossible three.

He's dribbling left to right, and he kind of turns and squares his body. And the ball almost goes in. And even though you know the outcome for 20-plus years, you're sitting here, at least I was watching it, kind of in disbelief going, oh, that's right. They lose this game. Walton still is killing Malone all the time. I mean, it's the the constant Marv has a couple

very disappointed MJ moments oh you know MJ not not exactly getting it done to to the standards right and they're like Pippen hits a shot at one point he's like Scotty Pippen like there's I don't think it's this game I think it's another game where MJ has 30 plus and he's like yeah I think it's game five but like he'll say Pippen carrying the offense right now and you're like yeah mj's almost got 40 dude but yeah settle down marv so the stockton thing let's do that quickly because that baseball the three that he hits to basically save this game when they're down five and then the steal and then the baseball pass this is kind of the john stockton game of of the series he's I had a hard time writing about him in my book because if you go through his actual prime, he's got the 88 playoffs, uh, going against the

Lakers when that team kind of had their breakout moment, they take the Lakers to seven. He's really good in that series. But then, you know, you go from like 89 to 96 and I, and I listed all the, all the guys in my book, like Kevin Johnson whips them in 1990. Um, Terry Porter outplays them in, in, uh, 92. He had a lot of trouble with Gary Payton, especially in 96. Um, where Gary Payton just whooped them. And I think he hit a point where people were like, eh, John Stockton, he's fine. He's putting up stats, but eh. And then he has this career rebirth in these two playoffs because he hits that big three to win the rocket series. And then some of the shots he hits in this. And I think by the time this

playoffs are ended, it's now become a thing where it's like John Stockton, that dude's fucking clutch. And it just wasn't the case for most of his prime, but he was able to kind of reinvent that, but basically by making huge fucking plays and I'm with you. I don't understand why he didn't shoot more threes. He was a guy, his entire career, like Nash, every time he shot a three, you thought it was going in. It's, it's just the, you almost want to go in a time machine and go tell him in like 1990, like, Hey, John, shoot threes, shoot like eight a game. It'll be great for you. Your team will be better off. Don't it's not selfish. It's actually selfish. You're not shooting. Right. And I don't

like his whole thing was I'm going to like i'm gonna do what i'm reading you and that's how i'm going to react and if i'm throwing it over to a hall of famer carl malone is going to be getting like 28 a game then i'm good but where i always feel guilty with the jazz specifically these two guys is there something to be said about never missing a game but when it's you and another guy who's really good for like 15 years where you're playing this two-man game every game for 15 plus years, the accumulation of stats, it's great. But I also think at times it can be misleading in,

well, who would you actually want in one of these games? There's a bunch of point guards I would still rather have over Stockton is my point. Oh, yeah. But I mean, think about where we were with the league. They win 64 games in 97 with a jazz team that clearly wasn't one of their best teams. Just wasn't. You have Stockton Malone.

Like Greg Foster, who always thought he was an all-star. Like the Greg Foster moments are hysterical. When Antoine Carr comes in and hits a couple of buckets and then it's like, uh-oh. And then he's taking like turnarounds. Right, like, yeah. And Antoine Carr was one of these dudes. Antoine Carr in this series, Ostertag,

you know, he's a good passer. He's mobile. Foster, Isley had moments and he actually had a really long career, but he has some moments in some of the games in Chicago where he just dribbled the air out of the ball. Byron Russell's all right. Hornacek is a nice third or fourth option on a good team,

that kind of stuff. But he was another past his prime guy at that point. Hornacek was great on those early 90s Suns teams, but he's also in his mid-30s by this point, and he's bounced around and been on a couple teams. Yeah, and he's out there. He's also battling, you know, they put him on Jordan,

and then they switch it to Byron Russell, but then Hornacek ends up on Pippen, and then in the beginning of game six, they're like, hey, look, you're just too big. If you wanted to do, by the way, because I don't think any of these social media arguments have anything to do with truth. Like, I think memes are to make points

and video cut-ups are to make points, not to tell the truth. But you could if you wanted to do an anti-MJ thing and be like, let me get this straight. Dan Marley's guarding him. Jeff Hornacek's guarding him. Tim Legler makes an appearance. The Ricky Dumas stretch is embarrassingly bad.

It's way worse than what Marley did against him. And then even though Craig Elo did a terrific job closing out on the game winner and Elo, no one remembers that he actually put them up on a game winning. What was going to be a game winning layup there, but that would be the kind of thing where it was like, I don't care that I'm telling the truth. I'm just trying to make some sort of point that,

Oh yeah, you love MJ. Like these are the guys guarding him, but it would be unfair. Dumars and Starks were probably the best ones. Stockton in the, uh, 97, the point guards,

he goes against in 97 playoffs, Derek Martin on the Clippers, Nick Van Exel, Matt Maloney, just a legendary, terrible performance in that, uh, Western final Stockton kills him.

And then Steve Kerr in the finals basically. And then in 98, Matt Maloney, again, Avery Johnson, Nick Van Exel in the Western finals and. And then in 98, Matt Maloney again, Avery Johnson, Nick Van Exel in the Western Finals, and Kerr. I mean, what was really going on was the point guard situation in the league went downhill big time

because you had Magic and Isaiah are gone. KJ and Price are kind of fading away by the 97 range. Pennies never really gets to where he needs to go. Kid and Marbury aren't ready. Kenny and David Stoudemire are not there yet. Iverson's not ready. Strickland and Van Exel are probably the only guys like in their quote

unquote primes at this point, Mark Jackson, Mookie Blaylock, not really there. And that was it. It was just this weird, do you say Peyton? Did you say Peyton?

Yeah, we, we said Peyton was the, I think the best point guard of, of that stretch. Um, but yeah, it's, it's weird to look back at that jazz team and be like, wow, they won 78 games and you watch them and it's like Howard Isley, Shannon Anderson, Greg Foster, Greg Oster, but the leak was just, uh, just not in as good of a shape back then. Uh, all right. So go to, uh, game five, the flu game, which features stuff like the jazz are

up 23 to nine. They're 36 to 20. Um, it just there's Scotty has a one dunk over Cromalone. That's awesome. But they're, they're talking about the flu the whole time. Gukas is really into it. He's like, Michael, he's just,

he's really laboring Marv. He just, he's in so much trouble. And now we would be suspicious if this was 2020, we would feel like they were manipulating this. We would feel like the guy was milking it. They, nobody was doing that in 97. So they're coming back from commercial and he's got an ice pack on his neck and he's covered in sweat. And it's like, oh yeah, there's clearly something wrong with this

guy. But in the second quarter, they do that bulls thing and they just will their way back. They start making plays on D they play an awesome quarter. Jordan has 18 in the quarter. And somehow they get it. So it's a four-point game at halftime with Jordan clearly sick. This is where I put in a little thing for you here. Power rank the jazz players you haven't given up yet before I get to the second half. Here are your nominees. Greg Foster, Shannon Anderson, Howard Isley, Greg Ostertag, and Chris Morris. the second half here are your nominees greg foster shannon anderson howard isley greg

oster tag and chris morris out of those five who have you not given up yet on yet uh you know i kind of like the way shannon shannon anderson came around even though he has some bad bad layup moments in game six unbelievable to get His game six, it was like he was drunk. What happened to him? He kept beating Pippen on these backdoor cuts, and you're like, what the hell is Pippen looking at? Because honestly, Utah watching this, you go, it'd be weird to defend them today

because you would just ignore these guys. You would ignore other guys. So even though we talk about the spacing of today, I think some of the defenses of today would look at this and go, why is Karl Malone staying 15 feet out on Dennis Rodman? Even though we talk about the spacing of today, I think some of the defenses of today would look at this and go like, why is Carl Malone staying 15 feet out on Dennis Rodman? Like Utah for being,

I think they were ninth in defensive efficiency. Chicago, I think was second. So Utah was a good defensive team, but they just do some stuff at the end of these games where I'm like, what the hell are you guys doing? What about, what about when they would have Oster tag would be at the top of the key

watching the Malone Stockton thing with like Jeff Hornacek standing next to him and Anderson five feet away there. You'd have three guys at the top of the key, all five feet apart. And in the corners just open. And it's like, we'll just put a shooter down the corner. What do you, this didn't come up in any coaches meeting. You didn't, you didn't realize that in any coaches meeting. You didn't, you didn't realize that this would make the pick and roll easier. It's bizarre to watch.

Really. It feels like the running, running the ball on first and second down every time. Like that's what it looks like with some of these defensive assignments where you go, why, why are you showing on him? And,

you know, I know that we've, we've talked about some of the stuff where you go, well, the illegal defense, illegal defenses. i'm telling you like they they try to double mj in game one and they screwed up like four straight possessions or four or five positions in my notes so um talking about the guys that gave up on i want to stay with the flu thing real quick though because i remember watching in the moment going all right like enough he's sick and they were glued to him the whole time on the bench and that became the thing and it made me think that like the way we do seven one-on-ones with enos canner

about fasting and you're like hey he's not gonna be playing in the fourth quarter, but here's our sit-down with Dennis Kanter. If this happened now, it would be – Rinaldi would be in a bubble above him just on flu watch. We would obsess about it in a way that would – people would end up deciding, like, maybe LeBron's better than this guy because they'd be so annoyed by it. You're talking beginning of the internet, no Twitter yet. I mean, we're 12 years away from Twitter even becoming anything yet. And nobody knowing he was sick until you start watching the game. So I think that's why they were doing it that way because they wanted to make sure everybody

who was coming into the game knew that Michael Jordan was sick. Now you would just, we would know, you know, 12 hours for the game. There was no way to know back then. You just into the game knew that Michael Jordan was sick. Now you would just, we would know, you know, 12 hours for the game. There was no way to know back then. You just turn the game on and be like, what's wrong with Michael Jordan? Why is he all sweaty?

Why does his skin look like, you know, he looked terrible. Murky. Yeah. His skin looks murky. Um, we always,

there's been various reports on what happened. My favorite is the hangover thing that he got, but it really does seem like it was food poisoning. I don't know why it's called the flu game. It's the food poisoning game is what it was. I think he- And he doesn't get hangovers, by the way. Like if we'd learned anything through some of these mid-90s years

is that he could stay out all the time and that he was ready to go. I told you when I went to Park City, I had a source telling me that he was the guy that spit in his food, or it was his friend that spit in his friend, which again, I didn't believe any of it, but it was just great intel as inaccurate as it probably was. Yeah. It was like when you run into the guy in Boston, who's like, I was there for Clemens's 20 K game against the Baroness. You're like, no, you weren't. There was like 9,000 people. Like dude, Rosie Ruiz. I was on that tee. Yeah. You weren't there.

Stop it. Uh, so Chris Morris is tee. You weren't there. Stop it. So Chris Morris is the guy you haven't given up on yet? I've always loved Chris Morris's, the version of him that I believed existed. I think he also murdered the Celtics when he was younger. I don't know. I feel like he had some really huge game against the Celtics. Do you remember that?

I think Heinzen the whole time was like, I can't believe this. Yeah. Nobody. At one point in, in, in cause Morris hits a bunch of shots. He is, he's 11 points in this game in game five.

And at one point, Marv goes, Chris Morris, a tumultuous time, a tumultuous seven years with the nets. It's tumultuous. And then he goes with Chris Morris, a tumultuous time, a tumultuous seven years with the Nets. It's tumultuous. And then he goes, with the Jazz, hasn't gone that great either. One time he was escorted off the bench by security guards because Jerry Sloan wanted him to leave.

He just throws this out. Like, what? Chris Morris was escorted from the bench by security guards during a game by his coach. So anyway, he hit some shots and you watch game six. I watch game five. One of the really fun things about this game in the third quarter, there's some great Brian Williams, Carl Malone bitterness because Carl Malone does the cheap elbow in his back leading to bison daylight coming back.

He's Brian Williams and with a hard forearm shiver and then it continues and he comes down and he's like basically trying to go Malone into a fight and then he scores on him like a minute later. The dunk, the right handed. Oh, it's great stuff. So anyway, fourth quarter, MJ goes up a notch

and you know, he finishes what does he finish with? 38 points. It's amazing to watch Walton just veers into where is Carl Malone? Like he's just like, he's just losing his mind. The Carl blows that doing better. Uh, it is a Carl Malone chokerama. It's really, it's, it's not a, it's not great Stockton hits another monster three, uh, and Pippen it's to put them up three near the end. Pippen hit some free throws. Utah's up one incredible sequence. Stockton missed three. We're now in the final minute Malone Utah rebound Malone airball as Walton's just like, Oh, like it's

like screaming comes down. Jordan gets a foul, makes one or two, but gets his own rebound leading to the famous play where they reset. For some reason, they hop off because Pippen's posting up. Pippen's like five for 18 in this game. I'm going to settle for the Pippen post up every time to MJ hits the three. And then the incredible sequence where the Bulls are up three. Utah comes down, they get a dunk Stockton, the Oster tag, 14 seconds left.

Bulls up one. Pippen is trapped in the corner and the inbounds Malone's right there. Pippen's like a 65% free throw shooter. And Malone just freezes. Doesn't do anything. The bulls get it out and they end up getting it to somebody else for a dunk and the jazz just completely blow it. It's unbelievable.

It's an unbelievable game to watch. It's like when you watch sports movies and the other team that's not the hero in the sports movie fucks up like the team at the end of Hoosiers when they're up four and they're just fucking the game up. And it's like, oh, that makes sense. It's a sports movie. That team has to fuck up. This was real life. And they're doing all the other team in a sports movie. That team has to fuck up. This was real life.

And they're doing all the other team in the sports movie fuck up moves. And that's it. They're carrying Michael Jordan off. This game's a fucking sports movie. Other themes. Ron Harper, non-existent through this series,

it felt like. And I always like Ron Harper. I like the version of him that exists. Let's look at a couple of plus minuses that may not mean anything. John Stockton was a minus 31 in this game. He took 10 shots and had five assists. Again, Malone can't make his free throws, five and nine. Greg Foster was a minus 28 in 16 minutes.

Took three shots, missed them all. Did make some free throws. So it's just one of these deals that's very repetitive throughout this entire Jordan thing where this series felt more and more like two guys without a lot of support and then Michael and Scotty,

although the Kerr part in game six is really a big part. Kerr comes through. Yeah, he comes through. Comes through huge because it's not just that shot to win it. It's a couple other threes that he had hit a couple other bucks he hits he it's a two-pointer it's a three and scotty they have this run that i'll get to a little bit later but it's it's just living in it must have been so much fun to be a bulls fan to just never

be afraid of any of this like these were expected outcomes and it's even funny too like when mj hits the game winner and one he's exhausted in this one in game five but you can even say on one of the shots that they hit in game six they're so matter of fact about it like oh hey you know we just won game one of the nba finals on a buzzer beater all right cool little arm pump let's head let's head back because it's not it's so routine to him is really the point I'm trying to make. Chris Morris outscores every bull on the, in game five, except for Pip and Jordan and Luke Longley. If you want to know about the bull supported cast Rodman, this 97 playoffs is just a no show. He comes through a little bit in game six. He's a little more active. He was hurt. He had some off court stuff. And, um, you're going to, you're going to describe the Game 6 interview for us in a second.

But I will say this. This was the time of Jordan's career when he really was a superhero. He hit that point. And only a couple of basketball players have hit this point. I think Bird hit this point in the 87 playoffs with the steal against Isaiah where you just assume the guy's going to come through. It's like he's just done it too many times.

With Jordan, the flu game was not surprising. You kind of thought he was, it was like he'll figure this out, he's going to win. It was like he was our generation's Ali. And yet he was so sick and he was so, he wasn figure this out. He's going to win. It was like, he was our generations Ali. And yet he was so sick and he was so, you know, he wasn't even drinking Gatorade. Cause he was afraid he's going to throw up. Uh, I actually think it's an underrated game, even though it's a famous game. That's been talked about a million times. I think it's an amazing accomplishment that he pulled this off in the altitude in Utah is the other thing. It's not like he was in like Orlando,

you know, is in the single toughest place to play and the guy was fucking sick. There were 47-3, including the playoffs at home before that loss. And really loud. 47-3. Place is going nuts. Awesome crowd. Alright, go to game six. Malone was 1-6 in the second half of game five.

So game six, Rodman had said while he was in Salt Lake, how's it going here and he was like well it's all these mormons and then he they were like what and he's like no like repeat that he's like all these mormons basically saying like he couldn't he couldn't have any fun he couldn't be dennis in salt lake which is not a shock um right he's so interesting though what a fascinating guy so then he does a sit down with jim gray where it gets for those, I just don't think enough younger people listening understood what those interviews are like.

Like, okay, cool. You're like, you're getting the sit down with Rodman. And then Rodman does, Oh, people just want to be out for Dennis Rodman.

And great is a really good job of pressing him. He's like, well, Dennis, you're the guy that kicked the photographer. You're the guy that said, Hey, you know,

and what he had said about the Mormons was dismissive. And then he ends up being fine. And he's like, why i just donate to that to the church he's like but everybody's got all these thoughts on dennis rodman dennis rodman dennis rodman and then it just gets weird where you start to actually feel bad for him knowing that dennis probably a lot of stuff going up there and he starts to cry and gray's like hey are you getting emotional he's like i'm not getting emotional and then he starts breaking down he takes off the microphone in the middle of this this is all pre-game to game six they're trying to win another nba title and by the way this is all on youtube it's all there right you guys could go watch this it's it's fucking bonkers right and gray's like are you going to be back next year he's like i

don't know i don't you know i it's just the whole thing is is weird and it's part of you know dennis's uh quest for attention and all this but at the same time you're like this this whole thing is weird, and it's part of Dennis' quest for attention in all of this. But at the same time, this whole thing is just really, really weird. But that was the point we were trying to make a couple weeks ago. Nobody wants to hear it. It was worn out by 97. And you hear the announcers at one point.

They're talking about Rodman like he's not coming back. They're like, well, we know Rodman's not coming back. They're not putting up with this again. But he ended up coming back because they didn't really have another option. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And, you know, he actually takes a three in this game. He takes a turnaround jumper. Like, he's trying this stuff, and none of it's working.

This game is painful. I text you after watching. I said, please don't assign me any more of this series. It's two to two, five minutes into the game, basically. And then Malone airballs another free throw it's just insane once you miss those two at the end of game one he's a mess the rest of the way even the ones that went in he's falling back he doesn't want anything to do with it walton the quote draw iron please carl like he just says like straight up he airballs when he's

on his case what what would you have believed bill Walton, like, if we just read quotes that he said this series, like, we're like, what a loser Carl Malone is. Like, where was the line for him to cross? Because it's, like, almost there. He's straddling it the whole time. If you watch all of these games, you're going to wonder. Like, I was close to researching, is there

some Malone-Bill Walton thing that I don't know about? Because it's like, Carl does not have a great final. Like, you can look at the raw numbers and go, oh, look at him. He was pretty good. They didn't have a ton of options. There's just so many moments where you go, I need the MVP to look different than this guy at the end of the close of some of these games. It's just bad.

I mean, this game is just bad all the way through. The Bulls bench is in there, and they do a little 10-0 run with, like, Kerr and Buechler. That's the run. That's just bad. I mean, this game is just bad all the way through. The Bulls bench is in there, and they do a little 10-0 run with Kerr and Buechler. That's the run. That's the run. It's Kerr, Pippen. And that's really fun. No, and MJ's waiting.

It's the start of the fourth quarter. MJ comes back in around 8.33. The Jazz are up this whole game. They're up the entire game. The Bulls don't take a lead 74-73. Yes, the first lead since the Bulls are up 2-0. This 10-0 run is Pippen, Kerr, threes, and then two mid-range jumpers, and then MJ comes back in. They won kind of the game with MJ being on the bench, and then MJ takes over. They go

to double him with Stockton. And then that's where we occur. Wait, go backwards. Oh, Brian Russell hits a huge three. It's I'd forgotten this. It was 86,

86 with a minute 30 left. Yeah, this was out of three of the four games. The bulls won. The games were basically either tied or they were losing in the last two minutes. The series was a lot closer than I remember. But Pip had missed.

MJ missed a fall away. Jordan missed a drive, no call. And Shannon Anderson just keeps missing layups. And it's really bad. And then finally it ends up with the MJ Kerr play, which Utah just cannot figure out the double thing this whole series. They're doubling with Stockton. Kerr moves into the foul line hits a

little jumper right because when MJ hits uh the three in game is it the is it the flu game game five where he hits the three because they double tip in and then Jordan just repositions himself and then hits that three I mean it's just nuts I know we see it every week but you're like oh these are three other game winners that sort of get lost uh for here. But MJ makes that read when they go to double. You're right. Russell hits that monster three. But Utah can't really get anything going. And it's not like their defense is terrible, but I feel like they always kind of go.

I mean, again, it's going up against MJ, so whatever. But their offense, okay, what are we running here? What are we running with our pick and roll and stuff? And when it's really focusing on two different guys and there's not this third option and a lot of the offensive stuff that they're running i do think it becomes a little bit easier yeah it just comes a little easier and uh well and your guy pippen makes an incredible steal to clinch this game it's basically he's like ed reed no it's it's crazy no he he makes a read i think it gets tipped on the inbound and then pippen i don't my my video footage isn't perfect on this but i think the inbound it just ends up kind of

like goes cross court and then pippen gets over there and then kukoc gets a dunk and then you know i look it's crazy kerr hits the game winner and they're gonna win a title and everybody's like totally relaxed like oh okay hold on you know we get a possession here we gotta stop them the highlight the pippen still is a great moment all right do the vesey stern thing so they're launching the wnba the we got next campaign they run a full feature on women's hoops and james naysmith saying that basketball is the perfect women's sport hannah storm they throw to to her. It's like, hey, WNBA is going to be awesome. Stern talks about it. He's like, we can't wait to expand.

We have this many franchises now, but there's so many people interested in expansion. And then they come back and it's Peter Vesey time. And Vesey deserves credit for being a guy that was on TV with a different background as a non-player, non-coach, who was really at the time, like as big as any other NBA writer out there, you know, Bob Ryan, maybe the only other one you put Sam Smith up there. No, no, Bob Ryan and Vessi. There's somebody in LA that I'm not thinking

about that definitely is a big deal too. But anyway, all right. All right. Look, so Vessi sits there with Stern and it's like, all right, David, what's going on with these salaries? You got role players making way too much. What are you going to do here? Whether it's the coaches who are making too much, the players are making too much. Some would say even the commissioner's making too much. That was his opener?

Yeah. Well, because it was based on this thing where Phil Jackson was allowed to, and I think this is kind of some of the stuff where Kraus was like sick of Phil. Phil had a clause in his contract that allowed him to openly negotiate with other teams while he was under contract with the Bulls. Okay. And there was a lot of stuff that went on. I'd forgotten about this. You would know better than I would on this. There was like a lot of stuff where it was like, wait a minute, Phil can just sit here and like throw out feelers while this team is in the playoffs and i think that was some of the stuff with kraus and reinsdorf were like who's this fucking guy and yeah vesey's like how did you guys allow this to happen is this something that's going to happen with coaches contracts in the future and stern i mean while it was right and stern goes it got past us like doesn't bs at all just looks at vesey and goes you you know what? They slipped one past us. We didn't notice it.

And it's going to be the last time it happens. And then it leads into Vessi essentially saying like, everybody's making way too much money. What are you going to do? And David just goes, well, you know, I would agree with you on the third part about the commissioner.

We'd love to get some of the NBC on air guys to have a salary cut as well. Goes back at Vessi. They yuck it up and pretend like the whole thing's cool but I remember just so many people like Vessi was abrasive he's in New York City you know he's an old school columnist where they write that kind of stuff like once was it Alonzo Mourning who he called the Oregon groaner yeah instead of the Oregon donor because he barely cares yeah yeah but that stuff played like that was the stuff you couldn't do that now you'd be done if you did it but vesey was the first

one of the first media members that you know he'd be at their halftime he would just crush somebody with an opinion also backed by hey this is kind of the this i don't want to use the word scuttlebutt because i sound like a loser but uh hey you know this is kind of what's going on. I'm going to fill you in a little bit here, but fuck this guy. And, you know, unfortunately, Vessi's not even really a part of it. He's not a part of the last dance at all because I know that came up.

But the back and forth with he and Stern is one of the most entertaining things of game six. I liked when he was on TV. I enjoyed it. Because he passed the test of you never knew what he was going to say. Cause it felt like he had no buffer at all. He just didn't give a shit. He's like, I'm going to,

I'm going to say whatever. I don't care what the repercussions are. No, actually people cared. And he was off TV. I think when he was on TNT with Barkley, that went really badly. And I think that was it. It was a early with bar early Barkley TNT. There was a clash. You can research that was it. It was a early with early Barkley TNT. There was a clash. You can research some of it. It's in, it's on the internet. There's some good Vessi stuff,

but yeah, he would challenge these dudes. So my, my big takeaway from a 97 reliving it was by the time we're done with this series, everyone's like that. This is the greatest basketball player we're ever going to see. We don't even know the 98 seasons coming yet. We, he, he had already finished. He'd already submitted the resume and we had approved it as this is our best basketball player ever. It was done. It was

a wrap. And then this last dance season pushes it over the top. So when you're watching, uh, either episode seven, eight, or the last two episodes, I think that's a good way to frame it. All right. Uh, Ryan Rossella pleasure pleasure as always so what do you have on tuesday we got annick john annick from the ufc i'm also going to reorganize every college football national championship little little project i've been working on and then also this week uh the story of the drug website silk road the man behind it, a book came out, American Kingpin. I'll have the author Nick Bilton on.

Great. All right. See you next Sunday. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to Navy Federal Credit Union. May is Military Appreciation Month. Navy Federal Credit Union, proud to serve active duty military veterans

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