The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 102: NBA Conference Finals With Haralabos Voulgaris

Episode Date: May 25, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons and one of the world's most prolific NBA bettors, Haralabos Voulgaris, on OKC-GSW, OKC's dominance on the boards (18:00), Golden State's possible adjustments (25:00), Steven Adams vs. James Harden (34:00), LeBron's durability and rim protector role (44:00), Tom Thibodeau and the Wolves (49:00), and Joe Lacob's braggadocious profile backfiring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Clear enough for you? Yeah. I can't think of a better day for this guy to be here. You just happen to be in town. It's karma. It's destiny. Joe Lacob doesn't believe in karma. He believes in bragging when his team has seven losses at the end of March.

And they are 14-7. Haralabob Valgaris, the world's greatest basketball gambler, one of the top 100. For sure, top 1,000. haralabob valgaris the world's greatest basketball gambler one of the top 100 for sure top thousand you did not see this okc thing coming five six weeks ago because i emailed you you emailed me and i said hey they're 40 to one any chance and then we were both like no no yeah my i think i gave you a one word response no yeah and now they're a different team it's like it's like they went into a car wash got clean and came out and they became the team that we we've wanted this team the okc fans are yelling at us and complaining you know you said this you said that it's like this is why we were complaining we knew this team was here and they weren't getting there what's changed for you um a lot of things i guess

i mean first of all so this team like they went to the western conference on what four of the last six years or something like that right yeah they've had success yeah so it is a not surprising that they're good i mean they're supposed to be good they have durant they have westbrook and then they have ivaca and they have stephen adams but then they don't really have very much else in my opinion we didn't neither of us like canter or waiters that much i still had in my heart i liked waiters yeah i never liked waiters i still don't like yeah they just turned him into sticking him in the corner yeah i mean i don't think he can he's not a someone who you want to like handle the ball i mean i i ragged on them

you know why is dion waiters inbounding the ball why do you have them inbounding the bodies and the thing happened with the genoble thing and then the other one so so i mean he's but he's played so well he's hitting shots a lot of these problems that i thought he had kind of go away when you hit shots same thing with roberson roberson is hitting shots roberson is always a good defender i never ever thought roberson wasn't a good defender he just wasn't a good offensive player uh is it Roberson or Roberson? Because I do it both. They changed it to Roberson?

It's both. I always called him Roberson, but then he was like, it's Roberson. It's like the Thibodeau-Thibodeau thing. I still call him Roberson, but I think it's Roberson. He was Roberson, and now he's Roberson.

He should have made threes. Now he's making threes. When he makes threes, something has gone horribly wrong. He banked the corner three in in one of the games in the playoffs. He, like, banked it in from the corner. That's hard to do. Well, all right.

So they figured out some of the things that we complained about, right? They staggered Durant and Westbrook. That was a huge thing. They figured out a couple good lineups. The small ball lineup that they've had the last three games with basically Duran at the four, Bach at the five. I've wanted that for a while.

Or Cantor, or excuse me, or Adams at the five. Or Adams at the five, but Duran at the four playing two way and rebounding and protecting the rim. It's always been there for him. They've never really totally made him do this. So there's like a couple of things.

Obviously the number one thing is i was just wrong that's possible it's probably likely they i thought i thought billy donovan was a horrible coach me too um and if you watch the first two months of the season you'd be pretty hard-pressed to say wow this guy really knows what he's doing coaching basketball yeah um but you know there's a couple things one one could be he was trying trying different things that were see what would work. Treating regular season as a laboratory. That was in the Lee Jenkins piece. And now I don't know if this is a hundred percent true, but they were basically Donovan's

like, I tried a whole bunch of different things. Sam Preston and I talked about it. I said, some of this stuff won't work, but I want to try different things and see what we have. Yeah. Some of the things that were for me, like my first impression of billy donovan because i don't watch college was a game between the bulls and the thunder which i had a bet on and generally like my i hate this coach i'm just being honest stems from this guy cost me money or something like that right that's where it usually starts because you know you sit there and you gamble

for a living you watch these games you don't you don't you're not necessarily the most even you don't give the most even takes in some ways so i watched this game and they were down five i believe with like 30 seconds left chicago had the ball up 5 24 second shot clock and they just didn't foul and he was sitting there and he was telling his guys to like they were gonna play it out i don't know what they were gonna do. They were gonna hope to get a stop. It might've been like 37 seconds left and they were gonna get a stop and be down five with 12 seconds. So I was just like, what is this guy doing?

I don't understand what he's doing. He had a lot of moments like that. Yeah, and there were some moments also at the end of games where the players were looking to him to call a play and he just looked like he was lost. And maybe he was lost. I mean, look, it's tough to go from college to the NBA.

It's tough to coach those two players also because they're both transcendent players and so you know you there's a lot of pressure there i think but that being said if you were only to look at the playoffs only and look at this team and look at the changes they made and the type of adjustments on the fly and the way they've changed their roster lineup configuration and game plan for each opponent you would say this is not a good coaching job this is a great coaching job i agree um they went big versus the spurs yeah i think it started midway through the spurs series yeah i noticed like i really genuinely feel like in game four their entire destiny was going to go one way or the other and they were super snippy yeah second third quarter westbrook wasn't playing defense at all i remember tweeting about it he just wasn't trying abaca seemed like he had checked out

and there came this moment there and durant was just like i'm not gonna let this happen and he took over the fourth quarter and from that moment on it was like everything fell into place the caner adams lineup fell into place abaca who'd just been marginalized he looked like abaca last night yeah that's the guy i've been waiting for him to come back for three years like he was all over the place last night yeah um they're all hitting their shots too they're all making shots yeah they're all hitting like waiters is hitting shots robertson is hitting shots durant is always hitting shots uh westbrook the thing like that

they have going for them is is like they have such a simple they can run such simple offense they've always run such simple offense because they have such two great half court players but um like they just with they they just clear out with westbrook and then he just goes so fast into the paint and then just passes it to someone it's like they run they run that play where they just clear out and he just runs as fast as he can like from a from a dead stop to a start and they get like a cut to the basket i think i think um the main thing for them was just shortening the rotation that's like the biggest thing they you know candor only played eight minutes yesterday or nine minutes he didn't

play hardly at all the previous game as well. There was a game in the Spurs series where he just played eight guys. And I was like, oh, he's getting it. Yeah. This is what you do. It's a playoffs. Play eight guys or nine guys. You don't need 10.

You don't need 11. And some, some player, I mean, that's where they have a real luxury in that they have Ibaka. They have Adams. They have Westbrook and they have Durant. Those aren't just four good players, but those are four players who can play a lot of minutes. I mean, Westbrook is durable. He's been injured the last few years but before that he never got injured he doesn't look like if you ever watched a game and saw like westbrook pulling on his shorts or something he looks like he's fatigued yeah he's fatigued ever yeah so uh yeah it's i

mean it's fun to watch i mean for me i like you want them to not succeed in some ways because you want to be right but i don't I don't I'm not like that. I'm actually like, wow, this is exciting. I watched this press conference yesterday. I was like, this is awesome. We both love basketball. Yeah. And part of the reason we were so frustrated by this team was they had two of the best players in the league and a bunch of interesting pieces.

And it just didn't work. And for whatever reason, they figured it out. Have you like the pace that they're playing at, is it a different level of pace? Because it feels to me like they are just like... Yeah, they're playing way faster than they were. And they played fast for a portion of the regular season, but they're playing way faster than...

I mean, not last game, but the previous game, game three, I think they used about seven seconds every defensive rebound. That's how long their possessions were, seven and a half or maybe eight seconds. Some number that made me just scratch my head. They scored like 1.3 points off of every defensive rebound that they got, and then they were only using eight or nine seconds or seven seconds to get into their offense, which is fast. Most teams, I mean, there's not very many teams

that are playing that fast. And that started in the Spurs series. And that was one of the things when it made me wonder if Donovan was starting to figure it out. You could hear him like faster, faster, go, go, go, move, pace, pace, pace. But he really, he was really pushing them. Every coach, if you watch Spolster,

Spolster's like a windmill, like moving his arms, go, go, go, go, go. It's like, no, no, I'm good. Yeah, so I think that's something that every coach on the sidelines tries to do is is try to go faster to me just the main thing was like versus the spurs they played big and that worked and then versus golden state they basically just abandoned canter because canter was not going to be able to defend anybody who could run pick and roll and for whatever reason the spurs didn't run pick and roll they didn't have anyone that they thought could run pick and roll creator like once parker wasn't playing well

who else is gonna do it but they could have ran pick and roll with man or they could have ran some pick and roll with kawaii they could have done some things i think that would have made that series a little bit more competitive for them they could like this the adjustments they made i thought were were were tough because like going with to bull band that just seemed like like and then andre miller and then kevin martin just like this stuff that they did in the last game the elimination game when they came back it was just kind of like wow they i think pop kind of saw the writing that they weren't going to out athletic this team his team was just too fast too strong too big it came down to that game five for them

yeah like westbrook just was out of his mind and they couldn't they couldn't handle his athleticism i i look at this thunder team we've been waiting for it really since 12 the first time they made it when they kind of just they were just too fast too athletic too young too everything for the spurs and they just weren't ready for the finals yet they trade hard in bad luck bad luck they never kind of had the right team with the right like too young, too everything for the Spurs. And they just weren't ready for the finals yet. They trade Harden. Bad luck, bad luck. They never kind of had the right team with the right pieces. But to me, like the key to everything,

other than just Durant and Westbrook being healthy, is just that Adams is really good all of a sudden. Yeah, Adams is playing great. I don't, I got to admit, it wasn't like I watched 100 Oklahoma City games this year, but I feel like I watched a pretty good sample size of them. I didn't see the Adams thing coming. I liked him.

I thought he was a good role player. This guy's like changing games. I did not see that happening. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, he's played good all year for them, but some of the plays that he's making on offense are, I mean, he's not just setting screens. He's rolling. Then when he gets the ball, he's making the right are i mean he's not just setting screens he's rolling then when he gets the ball he's making the right decision he's changing the game on

defense he's bringing like physically the thing about him that makes it so tough is and i think this is the part where you really see it in the playoff series is like the level of energy you have to expend just keeping him off the glass i think that's something draymond green was not prepared for no and you everyone, that was kind of like the thing where you could kind of get Golden State when Golden State goes to their quote unquote death lineup is they don't have a lot of rebounding size with that death lineup. I mean, they have a lot of athletes. Curry's a pretty good rebounder for his size or a great rebounder. Iguodala's a good rebounder. Barnes is okay. But they don't have someone to actually

get rebounds. and so i really thought that a team could really if they wanted to go to that death lineup that's something you could really i mean you have to go for every offensive rebound against that team because it does a few it stops the golden state from getting in transition if you can get the rebound that's one way to stop a team from getting out in transition is they just don't have the ball and then it allows you to control the pace i never expected any team though to play this fast versus golden state and succeed it seemed to me like it was insane yeah that to me seemed like it was insane like i was watching this and it was clear that um

after like the third game that golden state needs to play slow versus oklahoma city they cannot play fast against this well remember that that one game when Sacramento tried to out-fast them and we were all laughing? Yeah. We were on Twitter like, oh, Sacramento, how fucking stupid are they? Yeah. You're not going to be faster than Golden State. Oklahoma City's faster.

They're faster and they're stronger and they're better to get to every loose ball. And it's interesting because all of the turnovers and all of the miscues and all the bad possessions, like all the mislayups that they had, all this, all the stuff that you were like, oh, like there's still like people on Twitter that are like, oh, well, you know, Golden State should be making these shots. I mean, these are just shots that should go in. And a lot of it is just them trying to force something fast because in the half court,

they're not able to get open. They're not able to really get things going and they're not able to even get any any separation in transition so it reminds me i tweeted this last night it reminds me of the 04 finals yeah yeah yeah when i say the same thing and i don't think the pistons were as good as they were in those last two rounds but they could smell it and they just went to another level and the cohesion they had and athletically and they just got every ball yeah they just got everything and they were just like another level and the cohesion they had and athletically. And they just got every ball. Yeah, they just got everything. And they were just like, we're going to bully you guys

and we're just getting everything and you're not going to beat us. And that started for OKC, I felt like, in the fourth quarter of game four. Carried over. Carried over in this series. Game two, once they fell behind, they just kind of relaxed and they started to look like the OKC. Kind of like, you know, guys standing around one-on-one, all the stuff that was driving us crazy.

Those two games were so impressive. Golden State was never in those games. No, not at all. The yeah, the last two I'm talking about. Yeah, not at all. And and the other thing that I don't think people understand, and I only know this because I went to a couple of finals games there. It's really hard to play there when the crowd gets into it like that

and the team is playing like that it gets super loud it almost hurts your head like it like i remember going i think it was game three i had a headache after it was that loud yeah yeah it's loud they're banging stuff it's just it's relentless it's loud for sure i went to a couple games in in 2012 in the western conference finals um but yeah the other thing though is that they haven't won yet they're up three games to one well that's why i want to talk about this yeah there are some things golden state could do for sure i agree and it's not like okay see you know they they're killing them on the boards their defense has been great durant's only played one good game out of four right westbrook was his athleticism in three and four were incredible but i mean what do you mean by good you mean offensive offensive durant's

missing it's not like he's been just lighting it up and shooting 60 from the field he's been great two-way yeah he's been amazing defensively on the other end that's the that's the part i always wanted from him to watch him rebound and protect the rim and just kind of embrace being the four but um so so part of me is like okay so you can actually play better than this which is scary and the other part of me play both sides though like i think what you just said he's played defensively like he's never played before so he's gonna lose something and that's what you're seeing with curry yeah people are like oh curry's injured he has to be hurt i don't think he's going to lose something. And that's what you're seeing with Curry. Yeah. People are like, oh, Curry's injured. He has to be hurt. I don't think he's hurt. I just think he's guarding Westbrook for like 25 minutes a night.

It's tiring the shit out of him. He's possible. And if you look at how many rebounds, defensive rebounds, Curry has to go back and help on every single defensive rebound. Because Green's trying to hold down Adams. And Westbrook is like crashing every board trying to get a rebound and curry's got to box them out that's tiring i mean that has to be tiring and you can see it and then on the other end they're switching everything so if they run a pick and now he's he's got past that guy oh no he's got another guy to get past who's taller than the previous guy was

guarding him and so i think it is tough to so for durant i think like you're you're you're it's going to be tough to see a player have like a great game defensively and a great game offensively. In the same game. Yeah. Because it's just. Only LeBron can do that. Yeah. And then maybe like, you know, Durant could do it for sure.

But I think he's played really good on offense. If you look at the types of shots he's had, he's having to carry the offensive load. I mean, it's going to be tough for him to shoot 60% in a game just because they're throwing two guys at him every time. My point was, like, Westbrook was four for eight from three in game four. That's not happening again in this series. Like, he's a terrible three-point shooter who just happens to be making a decent amount of them. He's running hot, yeah, for sure. Waiters is another one.

He's hot and cold. Robertson is definitely hot and cold. Abakus, hot and cold. A lot of those guys, you know quick that can go away in game five and all of a sudden everyone's going one-on-one again and people are standing around i think what bodes really well for them is the same reason why i thought this series was going to go seven um the rebounding is a huge thing you know that game the the key i was like looking at what happened during this season i don't think you can learn everything but there's a couple things you can take away and for them to be plus 30 rebounding in a game against golden state to me was a huge red flag for golden state because

i don't think people appreciate westbrook's not getting 12 rebounds a game but the pressure that he puts on those offensive rebounds it and then when you have two other guys out there who are crashing it's it's just something extra you have two other guys out there who are crashing, it's just something extra you have to worry about. There's nobody like Westbrook. Yeah, there's no team that— When he's in the mode like that. Yeah, and this has been, I think, the best rebounding differential team

in recent—that I can remember maybe ever. I don't know. They have a great defensive rebounding ratio and a great offensive rebounding ratio. They're a good rebounding team. And so I think a lot of and then i think some of it is some of the some of the reason why they're really exploiting golden state the way they are is because golden state's kind of going to like this gimmick defense where they're we're gonna put we're gonna put our best player green on their worst offensive player robertson and we're going to have him be a rover. And how do you box anyone out when you're roving?

Yeah. And so why are you taking all of these really elaborate steps? And then so you have, it's kind of like the, they used to call the Kobe assist or the Allen Iverson assist where these guys would draw double teams and then just chuck it up there. And then guys would go and get the rebound and put it back. That was the Kobe assist.

That's kind of what Oklahoma City is doing in some ways because Westbrook and Durant, up there and then guys would go and get the rebound and and put it back that was the kobe assist that's kind of what oklahoma city's doing in some ways because westbrook and durant when they have the ball are always getting two players and so now the other players are there's an odd there's an odd man rebounding situation where especially when the player who's roving is your best defensive rebounder in green he's the five when they when they go to the death lineup and now he's roving who the fuck's gonna get the rebound well and especially if abaca isn't just happy standing 25 feet from the basket like he did most of the season and now he's actually running in for rebounds yeah and it just seemed like this sea of arms all the time that's the thing that's really that got me in the in the spurs game is is the spurs series was just like it looked like you know the spurs

would run that weave and they just weren't ever getting there's a couple weave possessions they the in the spurs game is is the spurs series was just like it looked like you know the spurs would run that weave and they just weren't ever getting there's a couple weave possessions they ran where they just ran the reeve and just nothing was happening not only did nothing happen but it looked like they were going backwards yeah they just had one more one more guy with big arms was there so it was it's interesting it's fun to watch a lot of times with hoops and it's not all the time but it's most of the time i do feel like these games are decided in the six feet around the rim sure and you know you go back through series by series by series i don't think last year's golden state cleveland was like that as much because cleveland you know let's be honest like that was a really well that was a grinded out slow yeah that was

just i had thrown that series out it was just too weird they they were playing a certain style that was a gimmick, and Golden State figured it out. Yeah. But for the most part, if you're just going to lose those six feet like Golden State has in those first four games, now you have to just shoot the lights out. That's going to be your only chance, and they've shot like shit. I agree with you.

I don't know what the explanation is for Curry, and I don't know if his knee's bugging him a little bit. It seemed fine in game two, and I think we would have noticed in game three or game four if he tweeted or something he wouldn't be guarding westbrook if he couldn't if he couldn't move like that everyone's like he oh look at curry he's laboring he can't move but he's staying in front of westbrook a lot to me he looks psyched out which is a different different thing than being hurt. I mean, I don't, he's just missing shots. Like, well, sometimes people just miss shots and then everyone, gamblers, me, you, they look and they're like,

they try to find a reason for it. Like, oh my, what is it? Is he psyched out? He's hurt. He's not feeling the pressure, but sometimes the ball just doesn't go in. And then maybe you start feeding on that a little bit. And it definitely happens when you're making shots

where you start feeling a little bit better about yourself and then everything becomes a lot purer and the shot becomes a lot purer but i don't know i mean i'm not writing the team off just because i think there's lots of simple things that they could do to make adjustments for one thing i would not be if their goal is to play azili minutes, he needs to play the start of quarters, not the end of quarters. Because when he plays the end of quarters, they're in the bonus and they're hacking him. So that's a very simple thing they could do.

They're saying they want to play Azili. They're playing Azili. So do you need to start Bogut in that? Like, do you have to start Bogut then? Can you not start Azili because of that? Or can you at least bring Azili in earlier versus bring him at the end of quarters when they're just hacking them all the time?

That seems like a pretty easy adjustment to make, right? Let's hold this thought because I want to talk about our friends at 5-4 Club. You might be busy like me and Bob here. You might be launching a TV show and a website in the same month. You don't have any time to shop. You might be doing all the stuff you do

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Where'd you get that? Like she was surprised I purchased something that she liked. There you go. That was the 5-4 club. All right. Back to the Golden State. So one of the reasons I bet on this series to go seven. I don't think I told you that. No. I thought it was going to go seven i really believed it in my heart and i thought okay

see actually had a chance maybe to win in seven and the reason was because i i thought this series for draymond worried me because you can play that lineup of death you can do that whole thing but ultimately when the other team's crashing the boards like that, and if they're going to play him big minutes, just trying to fend people off, I thought it was going to affect him. I didn't think it was going to affect him this soon. He was two for 16 the last two games.

But somebody at the Warriors who I was talking to before the series was telling me, like, we need Bogut. And I'm thinking, thinking like that's not a great sign like i like bogut at this point in his career i don't know if that's the guy you can count on like if they're kind of basically if you're counting on bogut and azili to really win this series for you that worries me and that's why i just thought it was a bad matchup for them can't do they have to play bogut and azili more you said that you'd play azili more in the beginning like what would you do yeah i would play them you have to play those guys especially

when adams is out there i mean look i would just play my vanilla defense my the defense that i've played most of the year um i would not try this rover strategy that they tried in the playoffs last year that worked versus memphis but memphis didn't have a player who could cut off the basket like roberson can cut he look how many baskets did roberson get yesterday where he was cutting off cutting off the basket making a cut to the basket cutting off his man or just had nobody guarding him and went in and got an uncontested rebound and put it back because there was nobody guarding him because they were roving that was the old tony allen that's when tony allen kind of figured out how to do that. His career took off.

Yeah. So I would say that I would just play vanilla. You do have to play big. I don't think their death lineup is going to be like a lineup they can play for 20, 25 minutes a night anyways. And I would play slow. They don't need to play fast. They're a better executing team in the half court.

They run better sets. They have better plays. They have better bigs who can pass you know bogut may not be in the player he was before like you said but he still is a good ball he still sets great screens he still makes good passes he makes good passes to players who are cutting off the basket they can run a lot of misdirection they need to ball fake a little bit for this team who's overplaying every passing lane yeah make them pay a little bit for that uh who's overplaying every passing lane yeah make them pay a little bit for that uh and then slappy all year and you definitely saw it yesterday it was just yeah lazy passes all that stuff they're they've always i mean they've they've always

been a team that is has made you know they've always passed the ball around and tossed it around had some turnovers but you can't turn it over again like you can turn it over against the grizzlies you can turn it over against the calves you can turn it over against even the spurs you're not turning it over against a team that has westbrook out there on the floor because that's just two points fast down your throat immediately as soon as you turn it over well you've been i mean you've been following this stuff forever you can look at this one of two ways like i watched a ton of golden state this year whenever they are in a position like they were last night either draymond just went to another level and just had one of those alpha dog draymond games or clay and curry got hot or one of them got hot or somebody started making three

i got hot yesterday 19 straight points for the team yeah and okc survived it that was a really bad sign yeah um the draymond alpha dog thing i don't think it's happening in this series there's just too many big bodies so that leaves curry yeah and you saw curry in game two it was just like i'm i'm winning this game right now and he just went on one of those curry runs and that was it uh the difference this time with this team that they're playing there's just no fear at all the way i i honestly think westbrook believes he's better than Steph Curry, and he's playing like it pisses him off. I think he looked, and I think Chris Paul does the same thing.

I look at Steph Curry, and they're like, really, you guys are saying this guy's better than Jordan? Like, I'm better than this guy right now, and that's how he plays. I'm not saying it's true or not true. No, right. I mean, it's definitely not true. But he believes it. Yeah.

I mean, look, he should believe it he's all these guys are really fucking amazing athletes they're they're the best in the world at what they do and there's no i mean if he wants to think he's better than step curry that's great and i don't think there's anyone who could say that he's not and have actually i mean look curry's a great player there's things westbrook can do that curry can't do and there's obviously things Curry can do that Westbrook or no one else in the world. He destroyed him in those two games. I mean, that was like a 10-8 boxing round. Yeah, now Curry's got to get back. And he's got to get back. Yeah. And, you know, I think that there's things they can do to get him going a little bit. It's a lot different. I'd like to see this Oklahoma City team.

I mean, they scored 72 points or 74 points in two straight games in the first half yeah that's some ridiculous unusual it hasn't happened in 29 years yeah and so i would just it's it's going to be different they have to win one more game and they have one game at home to do so so uh if golden state wins the next game it's three two that's a lot of pressure on oklahoma city it's a lot of pressure on Oklahoma City. It's a lot of pressure on Golden State too, of course. But I feel like I think this is the game that can kind of turn the series a little bit for Golden State. Where if Golden State can just win this game at home, now they're in a situation where there's... I don't think Oklahoma City wants to go back to Golden State for a game seven.

So there's a lot of pressure in some ways. Tate and I were talking before we started this. I was saying 35 years ago, the 81 Celtics, and we had season tickets, so I went to all these games. They're down 3-1 to Philly. Come back game five, win game six in Philly, win game seven. One of the great three-game sequences in the history of the league. But the difference that time around, that series was close every game.

Yeah, this one has not been. This was two blowouts, and that would be what worries me. Once they blew them out once at home as well. Yeah. Okay. See, kind of once, once that game was out of control,

they punted it. You could see it. Yeah. That's why I'm not too worried about that. But, but there's a big, there's a big, there's a big like compounding effect of like everything that happens in,

in the, like with this matchup where when Golden State misses a shot, Oklahoma city is way more likely to score on the next in swing possession yeah so like a lot happens when golden state makes shots and a lot it changes things now you're not looking at westbrook fast breaking it because they gotta take the ball out of the basket yeah and so it's it really i mean this sounds like you know i feel like barkley or something when i say this but it really comes down to making shots for Golden State.

It's a seesaw. Yeah, you make a shot, you score, and they can't fast break. It's a four-point swing. Oklahoma City hasn't, aside from the we're going to clear out and have Westbrook just attack and then have someone cut to the basket, which, by the way, is a pretty fucking good play, and the offensive rebound, and they haven't really had a lot of success in the half court off of makes or off of dead ball possessions versus Golden State.

So this is a question of like, okay, this Golden State team talked about themselves as being the most advanced, the most intelligent, the most light years ahead franchise in the history of the NBA. Big mistake. Yeah, and I think so now it's like, okay, so you believe this

and maybe they have the right to believe this. Now let's see how you react. What are you to do is your coach going to make the right adjustments are you going to be able to do something to stem this you know can you maybe go a half without giving up 74 points would that that would be nice the first half see if they can do that um and that's why playoff basketball to me is like the greatest ever this is this is exciting it was shit in the first can you imagine how much fun we'd be having if we bet okc four to one before the playoffs be having yeah be having fun can i ask you a question this is important the last time you were on the podcast you said there was a way to beat golden state but you wouldn't tell us what it was i feel like now okc's up three one i think you can tell us but i just feel like it's a secret

sauce you wouldn't spill it but i think it's it's it'd be like pretty lame for me to be like oh yes no either way that's what i said like i just feel like if i didn't tell you before before i don't think it's okay to say it now like basically i i just think it would be it'd be like so they're doing some of the things like basically i thought there's three things that you needed to do okay let's hear it well i could say the one thing that i did not think was play fast that was not in the recipe for sure that was actually i wanted teams to play really slow um but definitely crashing the glass against them was uh was definitely a pretty big component of it this team switches everything. This team being Golden State, they switch everything.

They play small. They play this death lineup. And they want to run off of misses. And I think teams just were so concerned with getting back in transition versus them that they just completely punted all offensive rebounds and completely ignored it. And I think that's a big mistake versus this team.

You can beat this team. So the OKC, the 62-32 rebounding game that curry made the 35 footer to win it you felt like there were weird lessons in there yeah that's something that you could i felt like the spurs could capitalize on this because the spurs are big i felt like oklahoma city could capitalize on it and i felt like just any team that decided they wanted like a lot of teams are like oh we need to match up and go small with with with to match up with golden state but if you look at how oklahoma city's going small to match up it's with a 610 super freak with the longest arms i've ever seen yeah so they're not really going small he's playing a bat as well on both ends as he's ever played and they have the

best rebounding point guard in the nba so are they really they're really going small uh it's interesting it's they are because they're taking out their huge big big lineup but um but yeah so that was that there's that was a big component of it for sure this crashing the boards really making them pay for these switches um and then there's like some other types of offensive stuff that i would have wanted teams to do and i don't know it just it seems like i said it was it's a little disingenuous for me to say now after a team is already having success because i could just make it's not disingenuous i i knew i knew you'd give an honest answer yeah here's another another question that i wanted an honest answer for you're

starting a team would you rather have steven adams or james harden i'll take Harden. Really? Yeah. I think it's an argument now. Yeah. I think I've probably written more words about how bad the Harden trade was than anyone with a platform. Right. And. The Harden trade still was bad.

It still was bad. He was the number two MVP last year. Yeah. That's bad. But Adams has made that has saved that from being one of the worst NBA trades ever. But people always, always. It was a draft pick. It wasn't Steven Adams. bad but adams has made that has saved that from being one of the worst nba trades ever but people always always it was a draft pick it wasn't steven adams they you can buy those saying it could have been kelly olenek it could have been yeah or you could buy the i mean for a while robert sarver was

just selling those steven adams draft picks i mean you you could get those without having to give up james harden would be my point it's kind of like the gasol trade everyone talks about the control the gasol trade like oh talks about the Gasol trade, like, oh, people thought it was such a bad trade, but look, look at Marc Gasol. Yeah, Marc Gasol was a throw-in in that trade. You can't take like a situation where a player that nobody in the league values

and you could get for basically nothing. And then it's not like Presti was like, okay, we're going to make the trade because there's a guy in New Zealand and I want to get one more bullet in my gun for this draft pick. It wasn't, they could have gotten a draft pick another way

without giving up James Harden if they wanted to. If their owners weren't. These are all great points. Weren't so cheap, they could have just bought a draft pick. I still love Steven Adams. Yeah. So would you,

I mean, the trade is still bad because of that for sure. And they could have had both if they really were smart. I mean, they could have gotten another year of Harden and then made the same trade. Or they could have just like traded someone for a draft pick.

Yeah. Or bought one. Golden State kind of was the new era team. I love how this is an entire podcast on one series. It's so great. No, we're switching in a second. Okay. Basketball, Twitter, Golden State.

This was Nirvana. This is where basketball is going. Yeah. I never really bought that, though. basketball twitter golden state this was nirvana this is where basketball is going yeah i never really bought that though well now okc is doing bully ball and they just have great players and and they're probably going to win this series i never thought it would be oklahoma city but i thought the spurs could beat golden state i probably would have been betting the spurs in every game versus golden state i don't think the spurs could really score against golden state

which was a problem but i didn't think that Golden State was going to just go in and just completely crush the Spurs. I thought that that was a series that maybe they wouldn't win the series, but you could make money by betting because you'd be getting the games they lose. I feel like San Antonio would have covered. They would have been getting 8 points, 7 points, 6 points, and probably losing by less than that. So you think the Spurs are watching this series going,

what's their takeaway that they should have done in round two as they watch this what would they have done differently just gone bigger the whole time crashed the boards not worried about no they should have they should have they they should have um tried to attack cantermore and then i think they would have had a better they the spurs look the spurs probably weren't going to win the series but it's just interesting like they what they should have done is they should have tried to generate better looks on offense in some ways and maybe that's just hard but if you look at like the first game they crushed them they were all mid-range shots yeah that was like their big thing the mid-range and they continued that for the entire series and it's kind of like they like if you only look this is the crazy thing if you only looked at this year's

playoffs and you were evaluating coaches and you didn't know anything about what happened you just pop pop wouldn't come you would think yeah you'd think popovich you'd be calling him like some triangle moron like who's taking like you think he's the guy he's like whitman just they they had the most long twos of any team in the playoffs and they also had it in the regular season too i thought he did some really strange things in that series and i you know it coaching's really hard i think we're probably way too hard on coaches what else are we gonna be we're not gonna be like oh i want to be russell westbrook because look at i can do that too i can do a turnaround jumper but you can sit sit on a bench and think you can coach it's it's it's reasonable to think you can coach well they're probably not true but it's reasonable to think that

i do think the announcers don't ever talk about coaching so there is a void for us to talk about it because like and this is i love van gundy and he's a great guy i think it's crazy how much time he spends talking about the refs versus not talking about coaches well he's in the coaching fraternity he'll never say a bad thing about it. And so is Mark Jackson. But when you're watching these games and they're just refusing to talk about coaching decisions and coaching mistakes and all that stuff, but every referee thing is just dissected to the T.

I think Van Gundy does talk about, like, I would do this, maybe they should look at this, or you can't do that. I think they do a little bit of it. But they would never criticize Popovich during that series. No way. But it's hard. I wouldn't even criticize Popovich. Neither would you. I think they do a little bit of it. But they would never criticize Popovich during that series. No way. No, but it's hard. I wouldn't even criticize Popovich. Neither would you.

I mean, it's just like. Oh, I would. Because they cost me money. So I'm not going to take that personally. Then that's probably. Maybe I would too. 10 to 1. Right.

If they cost me money, I probably would too. 10 to 1, I had them. Sure. And we could add OKC at 40 to 1. It could have been our greatest combined bet we ever did. That would have been a good one. If San Antonio and Golden State weren't winning the title, I would have, then it's okay.

There were only four teams that could win the title. I still don't believe Toronto can win the title. I'm sorry, Toronto. No, Toronto's not winning the title. Actually, let's talk about that series in a second, but we got to pay homage. Hold on. Okay.

We're going to talk about the Cavs series in one second, but a quick break to talk about our friends at Sling TV I really hope you haven't spent the NBA playoffs figuring out which one of your friends will invite you over to watch games or saving up to spend a wad of cash on drinks so you can watch at a sports bar do you do that Tate?

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You can even add channel packs like Sports extra package for just five dollars a month extra no installation no extra gear no annual contracts and an easy online cancellation you just need an internet connection and you're ready to go start watching for seven days free at sling.com slash simmons and get sling tv on your favorite device restrictions do apply all right i use slink tv yeah slink tv is great i do when i travel works pretty good calves raptors is there any way lebron all right let's say that there's three more games in this series i'm gonna say lebron has 78 field goal attempts or free throw attempts in those three games there's no way they're not having the calves in the finals they're gonna do whatever lebron it's like if you look at him cross-eyed probably a flagrant one i don't think they do that anymore stare at him for two seconds it's a flagrant one

yeah i don't know he's gonna put his head down and go to the basket and they're gonna call fouls and that's how this is gonna go because we're not ending up with oklahoma city toronto that would be something then lebron is like shack it's like every play could be a foul every time he goes to the basket it could be a foul could be a charge like it's just it's however you want to interpret it so i just think i think lebron goes i think he has 40 points and shoots 25 free throws i mean look there's no there are i think 11 or 10 point 10 and a half point favorites tonight so it's not it's not like they're not expected to win so i don't know i don't think it would be fair to say that oh they the ref they're

supposed to draw fouls i mean lebron's a great foul drawer i don't think i don't know i'm not really big on the whole the league wants this team i know i used to be that way and i think that that is was a reasonable way to believe things because i don't think david stern was the most honorable person to ever to ever be a commissioner of a sports league you know um i could be wrong i don't think in the adam silver i don't i don't think they care about this stuff but i do think what happens is the coaches start sending the stuff to the league and the league tells the refs like hey watch out for this watch out can they send someone send a memo to the league for Dwayne Casey being on the court, clapping his hands in the ears of players shooting three-pointers?

Can they do that? Yeah, that's one of your pet peeves. I hate that more than anything. The coaches and the 12th men interfering with the action. It's just so Bush League. So here's why I think you can't just pencil Cleveland into the next round. They're not very good defensively. No, they have no—

They have a lot of below average defensive players. They have no rim protection whatsoever. And that's where I think the light went off for Toronto. And we're like, wow, we can actually just drive and kick and drive and kick and then just kick and drive. And there's no rim protection. Do you think you could score 20 points on Kyrie Irving? No.

Could you get to 15? You might be able to. What? I think five years ago, I could have taken him off the dribble at least once. I'm not sure what I could beat him at, but it wouldn't be anything involving basketball. I've never seen anybody less interested in even being a passable defender at point guard. He's just not interested. I don't know if it's not interesting.

It's like, I didn't sign up for this. I'm here to shoot threes. I'm not interested in defense. I'm going to make a token attempt to cut over this pick and roll here. Yeah, he's not ever really engaged on defense. And it doesn't look like he should be a bad defender if you looked at him. He doesn't look like he should be a bad defender. FYI, Russell Westbrook really wasn't playing defense that much all season.

He kind of was occasionally interested in it. Now he's playing out of his mind. But in this first series, he was just taking entire quarters off. He wasn't even trying. He does that, though, sometimes. It's weird. I don't know if it's a case of him taking plays off or his mind starts working in a weird way

where he gets his chip on his shoulder. Maybe that's how he rests because he's an alien. But Zach did a good job of pointing out um when love and kairi are together the raptors just figured out like this is great let's take advantage of these two guys it's amazing who are they guarding oh let's all right well you guys and then everyone's just taking turns torching them that's where lebron has to be if he you know if he wants to go down as being one of the greats of all time which he is obviously but that's where if he wants to have down as being one of the greats of all time, which he is, obviously. But that's where if he wants to have another run at it, he's got to bring it upon himself to be the rim protector.

Because it's not going to be Tristan Thompson. It's not going to be Mozgov. It's not going to be Channing Frye. It could be Channing Frye. He's not a bad defender. Yeah, but you can't play Channing Frye with Kyrie, with J.R. Smith, with Richard Jefferson. At some point, you're just not going to get points. You're just going to give up points every time.

The fry was a nice little wrinkle for them, and then he stuck with it. I thought the last four minutes of his coaching in game four, Ty Lue. Oh, Ty Lue. Was among the worst four-minute stretches anyone's had in the playoffs. It was really bad. Yeah. It's interesting, though, because i do think they've

a lot of coaching is just how hard do the players want to play for you that's a lot of coaching you're seeing it now though okay and you see it you see it with the with the calves though too i mean the calves didn't want to didn't like playing for blat for whatever reason and maybe it's that players meet that meeting that blatatt conducted with LeBron where Blatt was naked, except for wearing a towel. Or he said, did you read about this?

Or he called him into his office and he had just gotten out of the, Blatt had just gotten out of the shower and called him into his office. He just had like a towel draped around his body. He was soaking wet and they just sat there and had a conversation. And LeBron's like, that man's only wearing a towel. Sounds like basic instinct. It's a little weird.

So I don't know. It was just, there was a disconnect. I feel like the players don't have that same disconnect with tyloo so they're playing a little bit harder that team is at the same time it's kind of a it's a roster that doesn't make sense and they made it work the best they can make it work but really lebron is a power forward at this point in his life yeah the same way okc has thrived with the rain at the four in this round three i like when lebron plays the four and they spread them out and now you need a rim protector with that and yet they just have three other power forwards yeah and then tristan

thompson is just undersized he's like draymond green without draymond greens like in terms of size he's about draymond green size and not as not as big just not very tall and he makes sense in certain series but then you put him with Biambo, and Biambo is just going to do better than him because Biambo is out of his mind right now and is kind of the Tristan Thompson kryptonite. So you said the worst four minutes you've ever seen a coach coach. No, not ever.

I just thought it ranked among the worst stretches. So for me, it was, I don't know if it was game three or game i believe the game that went to overtime when the when the raptors were up seven before it went to a game one ended up going to overtime miami won in overtime but the raptors were up seven about five minutes left and yeah and and miami went small with winslow at the five and casey was like okay we need to go small we need to go beyond bow and basically miami's entire offense revolved around getting rebounds getting to the paint getting layups and they came back and won the game in overtime i thought that was a really poor decision but the

great thing about casey has been this year is like even if you want to say every first instinct he's had has been wrong which i think you could maybe make that argument every second instinct he's had yeah he's been so quick to make the adjustment and fix it. So it's kind of cool. Frank Vogel lost his job for one of the worst stretches of the playoffs. I really think game five, I think Larry Bird watched game five

when they blew that big lead and they didn't make any adjustments as Toronto came back. I think Larry Bird was like, I can't watch this anymore. I just want another coach give me another coach he's he's gonna experience what that roster is really because the toronto was so much better the talent on toronto's team is so much better than the pacers

that for them to even be able to compete in that spot was a you know combination of nerves from toronto and poor shooting from derosen and lowry and and just i think game plan from vogel i think they did a pretty good job of game planning i mean he went to his bench too much i like vogel too i think vogel in orlando is going to be that team is going to be fun to watch they're going to be exciting they're you know not going to compete for anything for a while but he's a he's a good coach there's lots of coaches who are really really good yeah and then there's coaches who i think are like not good, terrible. And then the rest are kind of like in the middle.

I wanted Vogel to go to Houston because offensively I was never that impressed with him. But Harden could just handle the offense and Vogel's good at all the other stuff. But Orlando would be fun because we've never really seen him with creators. No. Who is Houston going to hire as a coach? This is the most ridiculous thing ever. There's a lot of Mike D'antoni buzz i mean no there is but it's just like i'm reading they want to interview like the james borrego who basically weren't a fan of his he wasn't a

terror he he he's not i mean i'm sure he could be good i don't know but he wasn't as an intern he wasn't very good in orlando didn't really seem like he doesn't look like he's got the gravitas of the team he's not really making the players play but it's interesting i just think like this is a like do you think so my question is do you think james harden's gonna look at the whoever the coach is and be like you they need to have someone who's basically gonna tell james harden or whoever else they decide they get rid of dwight howard they need a coach who actually is going to command presence in the locker room, and maybe that's Borrego. Maybe it's Steven Silas.

Maybe it's, I guess, Steven Silas is out of the running now. I would want that job. I was so happy Tibbs. He picked the right team. It was the smart pick. It's going to Minnesota. It's like you can build something. I have a franchise player.

Yeah, he's in charge of who's running it god what what an unbelievable gig yeah what a spot towns i think wiggins i'm not sure if wiggins is the number two but he's definitely he could be your third best guy in a title team yeah uh and you have the chance to build something you got another lottery pick you're gonna have cap space. And I really believe in Towns. I think. I love Towns. Towns had probably the best rookie season. I mean. Oh my God.

There's like. If you were starting a franchise from scratch. Towns is in the conversation. Yeah, of course. Just because of his age. Would you rather have Towns or Davis? I'd rather have Towns. I think I'd rather have Towns too.

Because he's younger. Davis has been banged up. Not as injury prone. Yeah, Davis has a lot of injuries. He's just more natural. rather have towns i think i'd rather have towns too because he's he's younger he's not an injury not as injury prone and he's a lot of injuries he's just more he's just more natural he has like a more natural fit in the league towns is just a natural center like towns is already doing the things that everyone says that anthony davis needs to develop like in terms of jazz needs to develop his jump shot he needs to develop towns already has all that he already has all the polish um he's more skilled he's not as you not as freakish in terms of nobody is. But I'll take the guy who's...

I mean, I think Towns could have a very Tim Duncan-like career with way more offensive polish. I was going to say C-Web with the Tim Duncan DNA a little bit. He's very C-Web-y sometimes. And then you just hear him talk. He's great. He's like 19 going on 35.'s more mature than i am and i'm 40 yeah he'll he'll he'll be there he'll say he'll be there for 20 years and that's i hope you and i are both big tips fans i i can't wait to see him i thought he did miracles with that chicago team yeah he almost

won a playoff series did he win the playoff series with nate robinson or they lost in seven i can't remember versus who that it was the bulls net series when nate robinson was the bulls crunch He almost won a playoff series. Did he win the playoff series with Nate Robinson or they lost in seven? I can't even remember. Versus who? Remember that? It was the Bulls net series when Nate Robinson was the Bulls crunch type guy. And they almost won. I think they ended up losing in seven. Yeah. All right.

Wait. Back to Cleveland. I don't think Cleveland wins the title. I think whoever comes out of OKC Golden State, I think the Western, whoever comes out of the West golden state i think the western five whoever comes out of the west is just gonna win i don't believe in cleveland i don't think they're good enough defensively i think it would be really strange they'd have to shoot the way they shot versus atlanta maybe not that good because that was otherworldly good right that's your scenario they make 17 threes a game i don't think it's realistic yeah it's i mean they have the guys

who can make them and they're definitely open shots that they're getting they're they're not i mean it's possible but yeah they they would need to have a superhuman performance from lebron who doesn't make jump shots anymore who really only scores on the paint yeah who remember that year when uh the second miami title year when he was just what was he was like 60% from the field for most of the season. It was like he had, he'd moved to this higher level of basketball where every, it was like every shot he took, he wanted to be a high percentage shot that went in.

And he was at, I don't know, 61% in February or something. And people are like, Oh my God, what's happening? Yeah. This guy's a higher species.

That, that guy it's year 13. He's not the same guy, but he's 90% the same guy. And he's still able to play 46, 47 minutes in a playoff game and then come back two nights later and play 44. It's amazing. There's never been anyone like this guy. No, it's amazing.

It's, yeah. I would not, I mean, I would not count. I mean, I would not. The thing about LeBron the the teams that have really beat him in the finals he's lost a lot in the finals obviously yeah um are teams that he played teams that really game planned really really effectively against them did things uh i don't see i don't know i don't i don't really see a situation where he's going to get to the finals and have like the ability to beat

golden state or oklahoma city just because they're just way better the teams are way better but i also don't really i'm also not really thinking that if he gets to the finals it's going to be a complete blowout either i mean they competed last year and he did so with delavadova tristan thomas i don't even remember. Tristan Thompson, sorry. Just a bunch of scrubs. And Golden State got super tight in those first couple games. Draymond, who's on the podcast, even admitted it.

They just a moment caught them. And I think that's what happened in Oklahoma City these last two games. I think it was a little bit of a Douglas Tyson slash 0-4 four lakers when the pistons were just coming and coming and the lakers you know they win game two on the crazy kobe three that goes to overtime and they win an ot and they're like we got this it's fine and detroit was just you know they were like clubber lang rocky three like they were just ready i think the thing that's like key for them is i don't think they ever ever expect to lose and so go wednesday yeah and so when they and they definitely after they won game two i don't think they ever really expected that now they're going to go into oklahoma city and just get throttled like that

do you see what curry said after the game he was like he's like we'll be fine we've been in oh yeah i did see that we're a great team he's like we're a great team. We've been in. Oh, yeah, I did see that. We're a great team. He's like, we're a great team. We're going to respond. Well, I actually saw that. And I saw the, I watched all the pressers. And incidentally, the one, the guy who impressed me the most was my favorite coach, Billy Donovan. Yeah. But Kerr, when, if you watch the Kerr presser again, and just watch watch it with like does he believe what he's saying

like it didn't strike me that he like i think he does i think like he wants to but i just it just felt like he did like there was doubt there like fuck well how could i not be down they're down three games to one i mean because he knows that's the six feet around the rim they're not controlling yeah and he knows like even though those bulls teams which had luke longley and bill wennington all those guys ultimately they always controlled that six feet just with jordan and pippen and rodman sure and just like a wave of just roll guys but they were always able to control that territory except for the one time in the orlando series when shack and horace grant which the league has now scraped from there's no no you'll never see those games on hardwood classic but shack and horace grant

just bullied them right and i think he's starting to probably worry that they're just getting bullied a little bit yeah for sure i mean they are getting bullied but they can i mean look they if they get the types of looks that they have generated all year they should be able to they should be able to get good looks against this oklahoma city team that is a good defense they are playing good defensive scheme they're switching everything that was like the thing that basically the spurs did this like when the game that went was like 88 86 or something like that whatever that game was they said sort of switch everything that was like the first team that really had success using that strategy and then every team that golden state played for like the

next week or two weeks or three weeks did that minnesota switched everything boston switched everything um teams that never like minnesota switched everything boston switched everything um teams that never like minnesota not only not necessarily switched everything not only in that game but actually made it like their go-to defense for the rest of the season like this defense works it's like oh wow when you can actually incorporate this principles and you have i mean houston does it but houston doesn't have the players you can actually switch and then and then follow through they're not awake yeah but it's interesting so uh i i think they can get the looks that they need to get i don't know that they'll win the series i

think obviously they're right now it's not looking very i'm going to game five are you really i thought about it i looked i feel like there's real history what day is that it's it's thursday night what's what what day of the month is it uh 27? No, it's tomorrow. 26. 26, yeah. Yeah. I might go to that. There's real history, man. Who are you going with?

Huh? Who are you going with? I'm going in with somebody that works with me here. Oh, okay. I want to get, I don't know if my girlfriend will be back in town by then. She's coming back from some yoga retreat. That would be something. Yoga retreat.

It's real history, man. Like Golden State could just, this is the 18-1 Pats, but even worse, because at least the 18-1 Pats made the Super Bowl. So tomorrow's the 26th? Yeah. And then if OKC, like this could be the Westbrook-Durant,

like if you're the NBA, what story is a better story for you in the finals? I almost feel like it's Westbrook and Durant. These are two of the biggest stars in the league, and they have actually a chance to play LeBron for the title now again. I don't know. I don't know either. I think whoever comes out of the West is a good story for the league.

Oh, they can't lose. Cannot lose. Better than the Spurs, actually, for sure. Can I admit something to you? In the third quarter of game four against the Spurs, that was the first time I really allowed myself to think about durant boston oh really they were getting all snippy with each other in the huddles the body language is terrible it just felt like everybody hated russell westbrook everybody was out for themselves and i was thinking like we might get him like this

might be it like we like he might just be like i'd rather go to the east because the east is i mean if you're a superstar yeah you want to go to the east don't travel as far yeah you get to play the rafters in the eastern conference finals something's almost won in round one we had like four guys yeah jared solinger taking threes yeah the east is watered down if i'm a superstar i'd be like i'm gonna i got i got minnesota coming i got this golden state juggernaut i got pop get me to the east that's why my i'm worried about miami if bosch retires and riley is just so resilient with how he just keeps reinventing that team wow that uh that he's just gonna end up with somebody is my fear but can remember how everyone said the east was so strong this year on On my Twitter, everyone was telling me about how,

oh, the West is terrible. The East is where, all the teams in the East, look at the winning records of the teams in the East. I was like, okay, great,

awesome. But do you really think like Charlotte is going to beat Oklahoma City or, I mean, or the Spurs or Golden State or even, even Utah? Yeah, there's really only, it comes down to you need a couple of the guys.

And that's why the Clippers season was so disappointing. Because we forgot about the Clippers. Yeah, because I thought Blake kind of hit that level last year in the playoffs. I thought he hit that final level for me. Chris was already there. And to not have them in this playoffs, just to remove that team completely, was a bummer. I would have loved to have seen chris paul and blake griffin play this play this uh warriors team in round two

instead of the blazers i think they could have beaten them if curry wasn't healthy but we'll never know no i mean if curry wasn't healthy the the if i mean if curry was out uh there wasn't very many teams in the west that golden state was going to beat i would have sat him for the whole portland series they were just they weren't winning that the portland wasn't winning that and very many teams in the West that Golden State was going to beat. I would have sat him for the whole Portland series. They weren't winning that. Portland wasn't winning that series. And I know Curry came back and we had a great moment, but I just don't understand the reason.

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which you can subscribe to now on iTunes, SoundCloud, everything else. Who are you picking to win the title? Or you can't say? I don't know. Hey, you sway it. What's that? You're always afraid you're going to sway the gambling public. No, I mean, it happens for sure.

Especially because if I, yeah, I don't know. We should have bet OKC 40 to 1. Probably. Why didn't we talk this out? I don't know. We should have bet OKC 40 to 1. Probably. Why didn't we talk this out? I don't know. We should have talked it out. When did they, I mean. It could have been one of our great bets.

Could have been a great one. We knew they had the talent. We could have had enough money to go to this game five. Our court sides are going to be like $25,000 because it's Silicon Valley. It's such a joke. Joe Lacob, I just want to give him a hug if I see him. He's got to regret that story. I don't think he's the type of guy. Joe Lacob, I just want to give him a hug if I see him. He's got to regret that story.

I don't think he's the type of guy. If you were one of the 10 best blackjack players in the world, would you brag about this? First of all, it's blackjack. There's no best 10 players in the world. The house wins in blackjack. No, but it's not bad. It's just like there's basically the difference between the greatest blackjack player in the world and someone who knows how to count cards and do basic like basic strategy because you need basic strategy counting cards and maybe you want to be really advanced you can like shuffle track like yeah there's that's like a that's like

an afternoon course like this isn't like any skill that doesn't chess it's not even poker it's not it's just like there's no such thing as one of the top 10 they're all anyone has the same talent anyone would who can fucking count knows how to be a great blackjack player it was so crazy i think i am one of the 10 best drunk blackjack players ever possible i think i am i'd put my if there was a drunk blackjack contest i think there's not even like a corollary to how stupid that statement is like because it's blackjack it's like it's not it's there's no strategy it's not, it's, there's no strategy. It's just like, it's basic. Okay, you need to know when to do this.

Okay, great. I learned that. They sell the cards in the gift shops. And then you have to be able to count, which is hard. But once you learn how to do it, my ex-girlfriend learned how to do it. And like, she bought a DVD. And I would say that she probably would be like. She's like the, one of the 15 best blackjack players.

She's for sure in the top not as good as joe laco the top 20 after watching i really believe in karma and i think it was i chuck and i argued about this on the podcast i i just when things are going great don't brag about them uh to that degree and don't especially when i credit for especially who was already there when you especially when you have a transcendent player who's like, I mean, this team is, a lot of the stuff he said is true. They know how to do this. They made the right decisions.

They have a great organizational structure. They really embrace analytics. All that stuff is true. They made hard decisions. They got rid of the coach. They got rid of Monte Ellis and got booed. He did lots of things that he should be applauded for. Built this team.

They tanked. Monte Ellis was a ballsy trade. Great tanking job. They played five players for an entireed month was a ballsy trade great tanking job they played five players and then for an entire game did you make did you make money on that tanking job oh yeah oh yeah for sure so did cousin sal and i yeah it was great it was like they need to get to the dude they only played five guys for an entire game i've never seen that happen madison madison still though that was i want to do i want to do a documentary about the documentary for sure mark madison please shoot threes that's the only time we've ever seen a team willingly throw a game. Mark Manson took like seven threes.

Yeah. Right? That's never happened. Nope. Teams at least try to fake it. All right, Bob Vulgaris. Thank you. We can check you out at Horalabob, one of the best NBA Twitter accounts.

And thanks for doing this. I would have kept going, but I have to pee. Yeah, yeah. For sure. So talk to you later in the week. Thanks for listening. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes.

And picture me rolling.