The Bill Simmons Podcast - Murray Magic, Boston’s Ceiling, Harden’s Big Chance, and Parent Corner With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the stunning Jamal Murray performance that has forced a Nuggets-Jazz Game 7, NBA players’ strides in working toward social justice, the Mavericks’ playoff exit on a hopeful note for next season, Lakers Round 2 speculation, broadcast gripes, the Celtics beating the Raptors in Game 1 of the semifinals, Rockets-Thunder, how the Heat match up with the Bucks, a Parent Corner preview, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I put up a special rerun podcast over the weekend when Chadwick Boseman died. We had him on my podcast in November. He was really great. I really had a good time with him and he was so obviously such a good guy. Shocking news, just such a bummer. It was amazing to see the huge outpouring from everybody the last two days. Sometimes you don't realize how special somebody is until all of a sudden they're gone, but you could definitely feel that over the weekend. Such a unique, talented actor. Anyway, if you missed it, we had an awesome conversation. You can go check that out in the archives. New rewatchable is coming on Monday as well, so stay tuned for that coming up.

We're still, and I are going to go through the hoops weekend. First, our friends from pro gym. All right. It is 820 Pacific time. Just saw another incredible Jamal Murray, Donovan Mitchell shootout.

We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about which team matches up with the clips the best. And we're going to talk about the last 72 plus hours with the NBA a little bit. Ryan Rosillo is here. You texted me. I need to be hosed down after that Murray versus Mitchell battle. My friend Hench texted me,

has there been a more insane shot-making duel like that over the course of two weeks than these two guys have been having? I'm kind of hard-pressed to think of any other example ever or you mean recently i thought you were gonna go dominique bird even that was one game no this is insane this is i i i worry go ahead you start and then i'll i'll jump in later because i i'm too i'm afraid'm going to go for five minutes on. Well, I I'll just be honest.

I wagered on Utah tonight. The theory being Mitchell or Murray can't do that again. He had 50 at 42. What is he going to have three straight 40 point games? Like nobody's done that. That's like Iverson 2001 territory. And then of course Murray puts up 50. I don't know what Utah was doing defensively. I have no explanation for it.

I don't know why they just weren't trapping him and trying to get the ball out of his hands. Anything. At one point near the end there, Jordan Clarkson was just on an island against him. You can guess how it turned out. But Denver made all the adjustments in this series. They kind of subtly figured out how to shift their offense

more toward Murray, less toward Jokic. So then when it doesn't work out for Murray, they have Jokic as the second option, which is bonkers because I voted him for third for MVP. And this series that I thought was over after four games now looks like not only does Denver have all the momentum, I don't really know what you do if you talk because you only have seven guys.

Two of them are very good. Connelly, you can't hide defensively for whatever reason. What do you do if you're them? How do you fix this for a game seven? Well, you have to hope this guy starts missing shots. I mean, we can sit here and talk about adjustments. First of all, a couple of things here. Murray in his last three games, 50 points, 11 boards, 7 assists, 9 of 15 from 3.

Game 5, 42, 8, and 8, 4, 8 from 3. That's 17 to 26 overall. And then game 6, we just saw a 50-point game from him again, 5 boards, 6 assists, 9 of 12 from 3. And that was after game 1. We actually thought Denver was going to be the problem because Mitchell puts up 57. But Murray closed that game out. Murray was the unstoppable one. So if we want to talk adjustments, which everyone will talk about,

but I don't believe the adjustments are always there, especially when it's something like this. Like what we just saw was this special. So if a guy's never going to miss, I don't know what you're supposed to do, especially when it's the two-man game, which I think is incredibly predictable over the years and kind of helped,

has led to me having like limitations on my expectations for Denver, which I think are totally justifiable because we're going to dig into who Murray has been. Cause this is not who he's been. He's never been this. This is insane.

So if you have a two man game where Murray and you're right, has had more usage. Now they flipped it between he and Jokic. You can't keep two with the shooter because you're actually leaving a guy like Jokic. And then by the way, who's, who's an unbelievable passer

in like a three-on-two hockey situation. Exactly. So if you're leaving him to make a decision, like think of all the other times we've seen four-on-three, you have one of the biggest, best decision makers, great passers, and a really reliable shooter. There was even that play, which was a classic, like, hey, how come they don't just switch back

out of bad switches? Conley tried to do that with Gobert, left Jokic wide open for a second, boom, three, no problem. But Utah's, you know, I know what's going to happen is everybody's going to say, oh, you've got to double them, you've got to double them, you've got to double them. You know what? Mark Jackson brought it up in the Clippers game against Dallas when Kawhi was destroying Dallas. And you go, you've got to double them, you've got to double them. They brought a double, immediately a pass, dunk, no contest. So these guys are not you got to double them. You got to double them. They brought a double immediately, a pass dunk, no contest. So these guys are not that easy to double.

So say you want to trap Murray. Okay, fine. But then just like you said, it gets back to Jokic four on three. And then the only thing I saw Utah do was they switched Jokic defender. So it would be a wing. So like, at least now it's not go bear having to chase this guy around this huge screen. And that didn't work because look, when you're not going to miss, there's not really much you can do. And on top of that,

throw in Jeremy Grant, 18 points, four, seven, three. If Murray's not going to miss and Grant's getting you 18 and burying four threes, you're going to lose. Well, I would have left Porter open and just doubled with his guy

or trapped or anything. Once Murray, it's funny. He's like when, when my son has too much sugar and he just gets this look in his eyes and you're like, oh my God. And you just kind of know what the next half hour is going to be like. Murray's one of those basketball players. He gets that look and you're like, oh no. And especially if you're betting against them or rooting against them, there hits a point with him where you're just like, oh, this is it. And he was very Jekyll and Hyde over the first three years of his career.

Cause last year in the playoffs, he did this a couple of times. And you're like, wow, man, imagine if you did that more often. Now he's 23. He's rounding into maybe this is who he's going to be. And what he's looked like in this series is a cross between Steph Curry and Damian Lillard. Honestly, if you're going to, if they're going to have a baby, it would be Jamal Murray in the series. I had said something after game one.

I go, you know, Murray, look out if he's this. And then, look, none of this is new. It's all the fan bases. But it's like, oh, he's always been this. Bullshit. He's been this. Like you just said, a year ago, game three against the Spurs in a game, in a playoff game, he had six points, but he was only two of six. How does the

guy who just dropped 50 one year ago, I get getting older and more experienced that dude only took six shots in a playoff game. And then in Portland game two, he was six 18 game seven. He was four at 18. How about games two and three of this series? He was MIA in those. That was, that was the rap on Murray. Yeah. I mean, we're talking a week ago, he had 14 and 12, and now he's turned into, I guess, Lillard, at least from the production standpoint. But this is nuts. Here's the weird thing about Murray.

And there's a misconception about, like, how good of a three-point shooter he is because he games, like, the last three. But, you know, for his career, in 2019, 36.7% from three. This season, 2020, 34.6% from three. And then you go in the playoffs last year was 33.7% from three.

This year, he was 52.4 going into the game. So now he's got to be like 55%. It's a breakout party. It's what it is. And I think we all thought he had the talent. I just didn't think he'd ever be able to do it consistently. I didn't think it would be this, man. This is nuts.

Something fell into place in his brain with just his control of the game. And just, we've seen it happen. It's happened in the past with other guys. I just didn't expect it would be him in the series. I thought the series was over after game four. Well, it looked like it was over because Mitchell was reminding us of what his ceiling is. And he was nuts again. I mean, they were combined.

The Mitch and Murray series. Are we going to start calling this Glenn Gary? Glenn? No. I do think it'll be, you know, we have these series every once in a while where it's like arenas versus LeBron and you have those kind of moments, right? These shootout series. This turned out to be the star of round one, this series.

And then if you're Denver, like Jarks and I, we did a podcast before game five. We're just talking about, you know, could Denver move Murray for Ben Simmons? Like, would you do that? Is it, what's Murray's value? And I was kind of like the fit with Murray and Jokic. Now, the way he's playing now, you're thinking,

well, no matter what happens in game seven, I think he's an untouchable now, and Jokic is an untouchable, and now Porter is the great X-Factor. The thing today, Porter sucked in that game. He was rebounding. That's it. And I just think the more I watch this Utah team,

especially the last two games, they just don't have enough guys. And you could really feel it today. It's so hard for them, other than Mitchell, to just get consistent offense from people. Conley, go bear, who really seems like he wants the ball more. There's moments where they were trapping Mitchell 25 feet and go bears coming out. Like, give it to me. I'll do something.

It's like, no, no, no. What are you doing? Um, I don't know what the answer is for them unless it's like a Jordan Clarkson heat check, which they were kind of hoping for tonight. He couldn't give it to him. So when they won all the games, when it looked like this thing was over, they were playing like the highest level of basketball. I think I've seen them play all year long. And you're sitting there looking at Denver going, okay, you hold off Mitchell, and now you're playing Utah's three perfect games. Gobert had almost 20 and a half, one of the games,

and it looked like Jokic was just stuck because the perimeter defenders are not very good for Denver other than maybe Torrey Craig, but now they have Gary Harris back. And you're thinking, all right, Jokic. I mean, every lob to Gobert isn't always Jokic's fault. I mean, he was screwing up some of his coverage on some of it. But then you're thinking, wow, like Gobert, who at times, just like I always try to bring up these game-to-game situations where it looked like he was a major problem for them and Denver had no answers.

And just because this has happened, it doesn't mean now there's no way that, that Utah can win game seven, but Conley didn't miss any shots. Ingalls had some amazing playmaking games in there. Mitchell was perfect, but the problem as, as Mitchell starts to bail on everyone around him, you can see them revert back to that one dimension. And I don't really blame him. Angle's had five points in that game. Yeah, I don't blame him for not wanting to kick it out to Niang for a three late in the game.

But yeah, Utah's just... I don't really have a real in-depth... I don't want to hear a seven-page synopsis or a breakdown of what happened here. Because when Murray's going to do this to you, I don't really know that there's a lot of answers. Denver did. I didn't think Mike Malone had a very good first four games. The most important thing he did, especially like in today's game where he, he basically stripped down the Millsap minutes and just went more athletic and put the ball in Murray's hands and play tomorrow. I mean, Murray played 43 minutes in that game, but you know, I was thinking big picture

that this series now is a memorable series. And we'll, you know, we'll always remember like, oh, what was the best series of first round that year? It was this one. It is crazy. Both of these guys were guys in the draft that some people loved, other people weren't sure about.

And when they got drafted, it seemed a little too late in each case. Because I remember the Celtics were picking between Jalen Brown and Murray at three. Right? And I think it was a real battle internally about which way to go. They went with Brown. But then Bender went fourth to Phoenix. Chris Dunn, fifth to Minnesota. Buddy Heald went sixth to New Orleans.

Murray fell to seven to Denver and then you go one year later the Mitchell draft where Mark and Ingo seven the draft makes sense until after seven Nitalinka goes eight to the Knicks Dennis Smith nine to

Dallas Zach Collins tenth Malik Monk eleventh Luke Kinnard twelfth and then Mitchell and Adebayo go back to back 13, 14. But you think like, I do wonder if the chip on the shoulder thing does help with some of these guys, right? When you go the four to six picks a little too late, sometimes it's the best thing that can happen to you. Not that that's the main reason these guys are so great, but it's almost better to go 13th and second you know yeah it might be better too because the team that you land on although

you know going to detroit doesn't exactly um i don't know it's probably more of a canard problem than it is a detroit problem i continue to be just amazed at the shot making the level the acceptable shot and it's something I brought up with this year's draft class where I go, all these guys think they can shoot and they, a lot of them can't, but they're still taking the shot because the grownups are taking these shots. But to think you can come off these screens and pull up from 25, 28 feet and you're like, I'm good. I mean, there's too many possessions.

There's too many people now taking bad threes because everybody's taking threes. But the special players, like these shots were just, a coach would have yelled at you about these shots. I don't know, 10 years ago. What about the one when Murray, they got the steal and he just pulled up from 28 with like four minutes left?

Wasn't even a fast break. There's nobody under the basket. And it's like 10 years ago, somebody would have a heart attack. Yeah. I mean, there's too many guys giving up layups. Like, I don't know if Oklahoma city's primary offense now is drive, get a good look at a layup, kick it at the door in the corner for three. I still can't believe Lou Dort took nine shots in the first quarter of a playoff game. We're covering that later. I know, I know, I know. But despite the three-point dispersal that we've seen from some guys,

you're like, why are you taking this shot? On the high end of it, the top of this league is so talented. It's so deep. I mean, if I were doing radio the next day and you go, oh man, you can't take Mitchell over Murray deep. I mean, if I were doing radio the next day and you go, oh man, you can't take Mitchell over Murray now. I mean, that'd be the mistake, but this is somebody who's never scored 20 points a game for a season. You pointed it out. His career three

point numbers are good. They're not off the charts. He was 34% this year, and now he's had a week plus where, I mean, I look, I'm not putting him in my top 10 because that's insane. He hasn't proven that. It's just not who he is. So that's not even accurate. I shouldn't even discuss it. He is a guy who's better in the playoffs than the regular season from what we've seen, or

at least like he's. I don't even know if that's true, though. I mean, it is now. I'd like them last year. I thought he had some big games. I mean, he was up and down, but he certainly, you know, rose to the occasion in ways that we didn't expect last year. And now he's made another leap again. I, part of it is he's not great defensively. Neither is Mitchell. Yeah. And, um, you know, these guys are great

offensive players. I don't know if the all around tag could really stick to them, but if I also think Murray's handles a little tighter. Maybe just watching them closer and closer, but if you can shoot like that, but also survive in traffic with your handle, it just opens up so many other things for you. The shot making thing, you'd think these are the kids of the Curry generation,

right? 2014, 13 and 14, those Warriors teams. You're talking seven years ago. Mitchell and Murray are both 16. And they're in AAU and in high school. And they're rounding into who they're going to be. But now there's this whole evolution of basketball coming. And that's probably the cutoff for if you're like 16, you're like, oh, man.

Maybe I'll just shoot from there. You know, there's this liberation. So now you have what we're seeing now. I didn't think mitchell was going to be to shoot the threes like that can i ask you if you're the clippers after watching these first six games who would you rather play in round two because i would have said i'd much rather play denver up until three days ago but after game five game, I don't think I'd want any part of this Denver team. I think their ceiling is higher than the Utah team.

Denver's so hit or miss though. And I'm not going to fall victim to this right now because before the series, we were all kind of collectively down on Utah, right? No, but I'm not, I'm not high on either team. I'm just saying if I'm the Clippers, who would you rather play? Yeah, but there's no way you would have

said this five days ago. Yeah, because I didn't know Jamal Murray was fucking crossed between Curry and Dame Lillard. This is new information. He just had 50-42-50 in back-to-back games. My opinion has changed. Yeah, I think I'd rather deal with Gobert

than Nurkic, or excuse me, not Nurkic, Jokic. So, yeah, I'd rather play Utah. I just think Utah's depth, you know, it looked like they were going to be able to patch it together, but you look at this game.

Niang played 20 minutes. He was terrible. He was minus 19 in 20 minutes. Clarkson, 30 minutes, and then Morgan played two minutes, and Bradley played 20 minutes. He was terrible. He was minus 19 in 20 minutes. Clarkson, 30 minutes. And then Morgan played two minutes and Bradley played five minutes. So they basically played seven guys. I don't think you can do that against the Clips.

Look at the wings too. So Utah's problem is Royce O'Neal has to chase Murray around the entire night. You can't take a break. You can't put Ingles on him. You can't put Mitchell on him. I mean, Mitchell got him in this kind of confusing, chaotic, it wasn't even really a switch. It was just loose ball. I mean, Murray went right by him

to a strong hand and he went away from the pick and he went around Murray, but then, you know, he beats Murray or excuse me, Murray beats Mitchell. And then you're thinking, oh, he got him. And then I think O'Neill or somebody recovered and contested, and he hit like a sideways floater. And you just go, all right, well, what are you supposed to do there? If you're the Clippers, you'd rather play Utah because the lack of depth. Because what are you going to do with the wings if you're Utah? Mitchell's going to have to guard somebody. It's an all-time wing mismatch.

Yeah, yeah, that's a problem. So you'd rather play there. By the way, Denver are also a good matchup to them because they have a lot of dudes to throw at Murray. You know, they got Beverly, they got Reggie Jackson. They could, if they wanted to mess around, they throw Kawhi and George on them. And then they have Marcus Morris to do at least one cheap shot and get him in trouble, get a double tech situation or whatever.

Are we doing anything on Morris? No, I think his behavior spoke for itself during the, uh, during round one. I think he's trying to set the tone. I think he's, I think he's positioned himself as I'm the tough guy on this team and he's trying to set the tone i think he's i think he's positioned himself as i'm the tough guy on this team and i'm gonna do tough guy marcus morris stuff uh yeah you also with gary harris back too um at least defensively there's options there there's grant there's harris um going against the clips you mean yeah i mean clips are better clips are better than both of these teams. I think this worked out great for the Clips.

The Dallas series, as we're going to talk about a little bit, they get a bunch of fortuitous things happen in that. And then this series, these are two round one teams, in my opinion, as great as the Murray thing has been. But yeah, it's... When you think like...

We still weren't sure about Murray really in any way a week ago. He's the winner of the round one breakout star, I think. Over Luka? Over who? Over Luka? Well, Luka was already a star. Round one always has that one guy who's like, whoa, this guy.

And I think he's that guy this year. So not Karis LeVert? Nah, can't give it to Karis. Can't give it to Semi Ojale. Any of that stuff. Quickly, let's talk about just the last three and a half days because I thought the players

got a lot of good stuff done. I mean, some of the stuff they got with the arenas and the voting and you think like on Wednesday, it seemed, you know, everything was happening so fast and they're throwing stuff out and you weren't really sure like, all right, what's their strategy? They didn't really have time to come up with a strategy, but over the course of two days, when they decided to stay in the bubble and really push for some stuff, it did seem like some really good stuff happened. I thought they did a good job on the jump on Saturday.

Paul Pierce was on with Matt Barnes, Rachel Nichols, talking about there was some meaningful progress that the NBA spearheaded there since Wednesday. And I don't know. Part of the reason of going down in the bubble was to use the platform, use your voices, try to get shit done and it it feels like that happened for the most part yeah as i said on my

pod this week i mean if the players to the point that they didn't want to play then i support the players you know i wasn't gonna sit there and say hey i love basketball you guys need to start i never felt that way. I mean, like a lot of people Wednesday, wherever you were, all right, let's go. And then you're like, Oh, something's going on here. I did think, by the way, everything you said is right. I mean, to be able to use these arenas, um, to, and they should be able to use these arenas, you know, the public gets screwed on these, these deals are always bad for the public all the time. They're, they're sold this bill of goods and all the things that they're going to do.

And a lot of it is kind of hard to confirm. And these guys, even though I'll argue sometimes not every owner, just because it says on paper has that much liquid to be able to pull off some of these moves. They always get hooked up because this inferiority complex that you have in the cities and never wanting to lose a franchise. So yeah,

I'm glad that the players, um, you know, it's, it's pretty powerful when you realize like, Hey, have in the cities and never wanted to lose a franchise so yeah i'm glad that the players um you know it's it's pretty powerful when you realize like hey we can actually get some shit done here if we don't want to go and play i do think there's another part of this that i thought was just interesting in that if you have four or five buddies and you want to say hey do you want what do you want to do tonight there's no way you're all going to be on the same page and to have hundreds of players and then staff but it was really about the players not all on the same page that first night

and that first meeting that was apparently really heated. I don't think any of that should be that surprising, and I don't think it actually should be seen as a negative. Part of me at first was like, wait, you guys can't, what exactly is the plan? And then it was like, well, look, Milwaukee decided to do something because it meant something to Milwaukee

because it was close to them. And that's cool that Milwaukee like Milwaukee couldn't go ahead and make sure everybody else was on the same page. Let's have a meeting. Let's have a committee. And now they made the decision. They made it immediately and they decided to go out there and play. And I guess a lot of people from some of the stuff I heard were upset on Wednesday, but they slept on it. They talked it out a little bit more. They got some stuff done.

But I think the plan was always that they were going to come back and play where there were just a million different stories going in a bunch of different places. Like I went back and read all the stuff and I'm going, the timeline of it was, was all over the place. But I think real things happen here, despite the fact that sometimes I think there's a push for change that isn't realistic given the amount of time, you know, there's sometimes you're like, isn't realistic given the amount of time. Sometimes you're like, okay, this can happen. Some of these decisions can be made by owners, but some of the other policy stuff, you understand that this isn't going to happen overnight. I was amazed. I was fascinated by the ballroom on Wednesday night, just how unmanageable it is just from getting

opinions from different people. Because I was asking like, how many people do you think were in there? And it seemed like before the coaches left, because I guess the coaches left maybe a third of the way in or- Well, they told them to get out of there, right? Yeah, they told them to leave. There was like 250 people in there. So think about how big that is.

Because I've been in meetings, like I've had all hands meetings for The Ringer, for my TV show or whatever, where you have like, I don't know, 50 people, 70 people crammed in a room. And it's, it's really hard for like everybody to have a voice. Everybody is sometimes you have to pass a mic around 250 people is the size of like a big wedding. Like that's like, think about like you're at a wedding and the best man is giving a speech and you got it and how big like the room is and you got it. Hey, everybody quiet down, quiet down. Tony's going to speak. And just to have a open discussion with that many people, I can't even

imagine they even had mics, but supposedly it was like Chris Paul and Iguodala were leading it. And then a couple other people were in, but I don't even know how they pulled off just being able to make as much progress as they did on Wednesday night. I honestly didn't read enough about it. I would have read more stories. Yeah. Because some of it was, was like all over the place,

right? Like the Pat Beverly stuff and Michelle Roberts came out and he basically just went at her and was like i pay your salary and he was interrupting her and then people were saying no that's definitely not what happened but then it was like zubach was one of the guys that said it didn't happen it was like well did he do that because it was his teammate look something happened all right i was told something happened but the way it was told to me was, you have to understand this is a room of 200 plus millionaires, sometimes 100 times over. And they're the best in the world at what they do. And there's going to be a confidence in your position because your whole life, like that's kind of what's led you to this point.

You've been the man throughout your entire life and whatever your status is in the NBA, once you're in that room, I can't imagine how difficult it was to try to figure it out. But I, the other part that always, I think like, just because we'll get quotes and this happened before the bubble was even announced and this thing was going to happen. If you want, we can get quotes from somebody saying, I don't want to go back and play. Now's not the time. And then it starts to shape the story. And we'll quickly forget that there's usually like another couple hundred guys that actually want to keep playing the season yeah and it doesn't mean that everything that's going on isn't impacting them jamal murray was in tears after a 50-point game because of everything that he's gone through but he clearly wanted to be out there and play so

i think you can be emotionally drained but still want to be in the bubble. And I felt like at times we'll get quotes that are released from somebody that doesn't want to be there or is questioning the entire thing when we'll actually ignore the majority of players. And this is twice now, because when the bubble thing was happening, remember you and I were talking, I go, wait, am I reading this wrong? Is all my information bad? Do most of the players not want to actually restart the season? Wow, that's weird. And then the vote comes in and it was a landslide by the players to come back and play. Let me ask you a question though. Do you think there will be, I don't know if the right way to say it is a bill due, but do you think there will be some pushback from the owners down the line and that ultimately it's still an employer-employee relationship

and this is going to be factored in to some of the CBA stuff? I just wonder if there's a day coming where there'll be some resentment from 30 billionaires that go, I understand why, because of what happened, why you stopped playing, but we're also still the ones in charge. I just wonder, because publicly we all know the players are fully supported here for the most part.

It's just something that crossed my mind. So I don't know, I'm asking you. I think they'll get through the next couple months because they all know how important it is and so many good things are happening, but it's kind of the elephant in the room, right? At some point, especially if the fans can't come back next season right away, these guys are going to turn into businessmen. And I think that's why one of the reasons it's so important for the players to get as much as they can out of this situation right now, which they very smartly and to their credit have pulled off.

And it was hard to, there were so many conflicting reports about, especially from that Wednesday, but there was some generational stuff going on too. And I thought Stephen A, when he talked on first take about LeBron, I'd heard the same stuff that when LeBron spoke on that Wednesday night, some of the younger players felt like he was condescending. So when you're just talking about other factors beyond the stuff that everybody's talked about, you're talking about this owner-player relationship that they can pretend everything's good, but at some point, they're going to have to figure out the CBA and it's going to become a leverage battle.

We're not there yet, but it's looming. And then this generational thing where you have the Giannis generation, this new generation. Giannis, by the way, the best player in the box, the team that boycotted the game and started the whole thing. And how the generational thing plays

out. Because I always feel like the best players control the league. It's usually the veterans. That's, I think, the main reason why we're in the bubble in the first place because of Chris Paul and LeBron and people like that. But the generational side of it did come out a little bit in a way that I thought was healthy ultimately on wednesday night i'm glad i'm glad they uh i'm glad they slept on it because it did seem like from all accounts it was getting a little tense and it did have something to do with the generational stuff i mean the lebron part too is fascinating because it was reported that he didn't say a word and then it's like well no that's not what happened because apparently as you're saying and heard the same things that he pissed some dudes off in there.

But that, I think, is the whole point. Like, think of any group of people, anybody, you know, your electric union, 200 people at a wedding, like you just said. I don't care who you are. It's not going seamlessly. You're not all rowing in the same direction. Yeah. You just aren't.

So when you heard these stories about arguments or people being on different pages, I didn't really look at it as like, Oh, it's a negative. Like these guys can't figure it out. I'd expect a room of that many people to not be able to figure it out. And the fact that,

you know, look, I still think the guys wanted to play. And that's why after a few days removed from it, getting some things that they wanted, getting people on the phone that they felt like were being sincere. They got something done because I'll tell you, I don't know, 10 years ago. I don't know how the story be covered.

I would have never thought it could happen when we were hearing the rumors at the beginning of the week. Like, oh, they may. The players may end up boycotting some games. I'm like, wait, what is that going to happen? And I just, you know, the Celtics and Raptors, they met. And what's interesting is Celtics, Raptors, and Bucs, I think, are all in the same hotel. And the Celtics and Raptors met about possibly boycotting game one. And I think the Bucs were thinking about it as well.

And that's the other crazy piece of this is all these people are in the same place. So you're having meetings and interactions that just could never happen in any other situation. You know, you'd never going to have all these teams in one place. I think everything about it, everything about this week feels historic to me. Yeah.

Uh, this is, this is like a new precedent of what we are willing to believe can happen in sports. You know what I mean? Like I'm saying 10 years ago, I would be like, I don't even think players would players even say, Hey, let's just stop playing games.

I don't know. That would have ever happened. The bucks were totally happy forfeit in that game. That's what they were going to do. That was their forfeit, right? Yeah. Forfeit.

And it was going to be three, two. And they're like, we're good. Cause they were like, well, wait, we didn't want the rest of you guys to shut down and everything.

But then the other players, I think some of the arguments were, well, when you guys do that, then we can't go out and play, whatever. I mean, none of it really matters. And by the way, I know historically Bill Russell and the boycotts. Yeah, there's been a lot of it. Look, there's that kind of stuff that's happened before, so I don't want to act like it's never, ever happened. But I'm just saying, at least in recent memory,

it's something that, I don't know, when I first heard the rumors at the beginning of the week, I wasn't a hundred percent sure if I, I believed it was something that would actually happen. And then there you go. Awesome. Awesome.

Uh, response by everybody. Really cool week for the league. And, um, I don't know. They made a difference, which was the whole reason they were down there.

Can I add to that? Can I add to that real quick though? Because the announcers keep saying these guys are so removed, they may not realize what they're doing and how it's resonating. It's like, you know, they have internet. Yeah, they definitely know.

I'm pretty sure they're all aware of everything that's going on in social media, especially a group of guys this young. I'd be shocked if they didn't know how big of a deal this has been the last couple of days. All right. We're going to talk about the rest of the playoffs in one second.

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And, you know, I heard them talking on the telecast about it, and then there's been some stuff online about moves they're going to make this summer, and you got to get a couple more playoff guys in there, and they're close, stuff like that. Here's the problem. They don't have any cap room.

No. Seems important. They're at 110.9 million on the cap for next year. And that's not including like holds draft picks, stuff like that. They have poor Zingas and hard away. Just those two guys are at 48 million next year. And before,

before we get to what you would do if you're a Dallas, my first question to you is 2020. The last year, this decade that Luca gets knocked out in a round one. Uh, if he's really this special top five potentially top three and I've always thought those guys can win a series

at least in the first round on their own but the Brzinga's thing is a real problem because I think by the end of the year we always felt pretty good about him with Luka would you agree I felt like that was their upgrade move if they wanted to get frisky. Because if I was building a team around Luka,

I would want to build a team that looked like the Celtics, where you just have disposable big guys, but you put your money on the wings. People like Jalen Brown type guys. Those would be the guys I would want to put with Luka. Porzingis wouldn't be my first choice. No, but considering what they gave up, and Porzingis is at that point

Nick discount. Right. But now that we have another leg injury for Porzingis, which is significant. I mean, MCL is not the end of the world, but it's not a strain. And it's the other leg too,

which is a concern. Yeah. And tall guys. We've talked about this many times. They're getting too tall. You go 7'2 and up, just weird shit starts happening. What are the total durability success stories

other than Kareem? Once you get above 7'2, it always seems like Ogascus, Smits, Porzingis, Embiid. You go 7'2 and up, I just get a little nervous. I don't think they would trade Porzingis, Embiid. You're 7-2 and up. I just get a little nervous. I don't think they would trade Porzingis, but I do think he would have value.

I do think you'd be selling relatively high. And I do think there's teams out there, like for instance, if they called the Wizards and just said porzingis for bradley beal let's call it in who says no wizards now um because porzingis because of everything we just said injury propensity for injuries at that size i mean hell i remember when durant was going to be a free agent i had people that said they have doctors that just don't trust that his feet are going to stay healthy. And you're like, okay.

Yeah. But look, he won like two rings after that. So it's not like it hasn't worked out, but it's also not like he's been incredibly healthy the entire time, too. And again, not to say that Prazingis is even in the same neighborhood as KD, but Prazingis is 36 million in three years. That's probably why it's a no from a lot of teams. So I don't think it's impossible. I don't think it's impossible to say Luka doesn't get out of the first round next year, but I don't know.

He was unbelievable. I mean, he was 30, 10, and 8 on 49 and 34% shooting in a series against a team with a lot of really good wing defenders, and he worked them all. I mean, think about who his number two options were once Porzingis went down and then get ejected in game one. And Luca still put up those kinds of numbers. Yeah.

If I'm Dallas, I'm probably not panicking because I look at this series and I think of this is the series that went as wrong as it possibly could have from the ejection to Luca getting hurt to them. Porzingis gets hurt. And you're just like, man, if we do this series 20 times, is there a version where we're throwing some haymakers

and this is going to a game seven, going deep, stuff like that? I guess with the Porzingis thing, I think you would have to run it back. But I would call some of the dumb teams, right? I think you have to kick the tires on Beal just to make sure they're not going to trade him.

Go to Sacramento. Sacramento is always willing to do something weird, right? Little, little healed Bagley. For Przingis. Yeah. Do it in a second right now. Who would, who would do it? Sacramento or Dallas?

Dallas. Sacramento do that. Well, any question that starts with, will Sacramento? I mean, as long as I'll just say yes, right? Well, my answer to the look good question is, this is the last time this decade he gets knocked out of a round one.

I think he's too good. How can you be that certain? Because I like to say things that we have no idea if it can be proven or not. I'm just looking at the bird magic. We have to keep track of the next 15 years. We're going to check in when you're 70.

That Luca prediction is close to working out. It's great. In 2029, I'll be like, remember that time I told you he was never going to lose in the round one ever again? I call you. I'm like, he still hasn't lost in the first round. And you're like, Luke Perry.

Bird magic. Those guys, by the time they were 22, they're just making round twos. I think LeBron once he hit 22, he was at least round two every year. So if he's an all-time guy, got to make round two every year. You got to 50

plus wins and make round two. I don't know what they do with the Porzingis thing though. And I don't know, like, let's say you're running New Orleans and they call you and like, and they, and you can kind of tell they wouldn't mind having the Porzingis conversation. How nervous would you be about him physically trading for him? Really? Especially if I already have Zion on my team. Yeah. I think that would be your answer. We can't. Do you guys realize we have Zion on our team? Yeah.

We can't look at this. I thought huge, this year was a huge win for Luka. And I did worry last week that that Clipper game, the awesome game four would be one of those games that like a month later, be like, ah, it wasn't that great.

I still feel like that's going to be his version of like, I don't know, MJ's 63 point game. No, MJ 63 point game. Not, not as iconic as that, but like that I am now on the map with a memorable game. Kirk Gibson's home run bigger deal. Kirk Gibson's home run or Luca. Don't think it's Kirk Gibson home. I think it's the, it's the discount version of the 63 point game where it's just like, Oh, that was the game. He's put it. He went on the map, but you're more anti the 63-point game, where it's just like, oh, that was the game he went on the map. But you're more anti the 63-point MJ game

than anyone I've ever met in my entire life. Because I think the 49-point game was just as good. His game one game, he basically has the same game. It just didn't have two overtimes. When we were doing the rewatch of Bulls series, every week, Bill and I would text back and forth. I'd go, well, let's just do this. Let's do an 86 celtics game let's do the bulls 63 point you're like hey lost he did i was like okay but that's that's iconic and i'd be like what about this game

like now we're gonna do this one okay the next week we're like what about this one nah we'll do this one i was like all right you know what i've learned that we're gonna do this bill it's the bill simmons podcast we're not doing the 63 point game. I thought you liked most of the choices. I liked most of the choices. I just learned early in the process that I was just going to say, yes, I was like 63 point games, a little overrated. It really is.

See, I just, you just proved my point. He lost. Hey, did the Mavs win that series? No, but they won that game. They won the cool Luca game. All right. Let's go to the biggest question in the podcast. Rockets, Lakers, who do you root for?

Me? Who do you root for? Who does Ryan Rosillo? You don't gamble. Deep down, you get attached to certain players, certain storylines. You try to be objective, but there's that 10% sports fan.

And you were like, I'm kind of rooting for this team. Like Dallas Clippers deep down. You're rooting for Luca. It'll be a lot. It'll be more fun. If Luca wins, you don't really care.

Rockets, Lakers, Rockets, Rockets. Um, probably your least favorite basketball game. Probably since I've known you, I didn't know if there was something in like the eighties that you hated before i got to know you i don't like the way seattle used to screen

but yeah and then the lakers um who are just the lakers it's just fun to root for them to do badly who are you rooting for mr doheny mr 405 over here lakers baby there isn't any probably about it i did a whole segment on this last year. I just said, Hey, for all those times where you think somebody doesn't like your team, I'm just telling you, I don't like your team. I can respect Houston. I liked Antonio. I liked Darryl Morey. I respect what Harden does, but I'm not going to keep doing this. I mean, I feel like I do this every single week. I will be, I will be all Lakers. I'm going to ask Jeannie bus to meet up in Manhattan beach. I'll be like, Hey, where are we going for the game let's

cheer the let's cheer the boys on so you're like all in on caruso like you're just going to imitate being a laker fan next yeah i'm going to talk about how underrated caruso is i'm going to say caruso you don't see it in the stats which i actually think is kind of true um and see it's already happening i'm going to tell you that kuzma just needs more time with this group kuzma would be a star on any other team. That's a good one. Instead of saying like J.R. Smith and waiters are washed, I'll say you have no idea, though. Their ceiling is a lot higher than others. And what happens if we get Rondo back?

No, no. For J.R. and waiters, you got to do the thing like, hey, man, don't be surprised if they steal a game. Yeah, absolutely. Waiters will get you 20. He's not afraid. He's the most confident guy out there. You know what I'm going to do? I'm even going to stick up for Brandon Ingram and pretend he was this good the whole time in LA. So I'll tweet at some people about the Pelicans and go, Ingram was always this good. I'll say Kawhi actually did want to play with LeBron. What else could I do?

Oh, you could do one of our tricks. You could do one of our announcing crutches that we're going to go do later. People don't realize how good Dwight was. Dwight has been way better, though, than we ever thought he was going to be. He's still rearing his ugly head at some point. He's definitely rearing his ugly head. Wait till they do Hack of Dwight when he's out there and the Laker fans lose their mind. We thought it was going to be a zero.

Or maybe a negative 10. And it's at least a 50 for his minutes. For Dwight? Yes. He's been competent. He's still Dwight Howard. I'm not saying...

But whatever it is, Dwight couldn't be Dwight. He couldn't be annoying, disruptive Dwight because one, he accepted it because LeBron's there. So that was something. Give him time.

There's still three rounds left. There's still a couple. Well, hey, that means you haven't beaten the Clippers. Who do you have as your Lakers' best five? Push comes to shove. Here are the five guys that they have to play with their backs to the wall, because I don't even know if they know what it is yet.

Well, the closing group, when they go small is 80 lebron pope caruso kuzma right and then is that a five that wins the title i have some bad numbers for you i mean there's i i just because i can't believe how much caldwell pope plays. Like I really can't. He is basically their watermaker and every once in a while he does. Okay. But it's just like to, to think that he's not going to rear his ugly head as, as we get to nut crunching time here in these last two rounds, potentially like,

I just don't know how you trust that guy. No, I mean, AD was everything you wanted in the mid range stuff that we thought was a problem on some of the shooting in the bubble. Um, he made every single mid range shot against Portland. He was incredible. LeBron had a bad two games as far as a shooting standpoint.

Then he was 11, 18, 10 to 12, 14 and 19. So he was perfect again. But when I went through the top five guys in minutes or top six, like Pope was a, and again, this is five games, but Pope at least hit 40% of his threes against Portland. But that's about it. He was like a, these guys were so below the baseline efficiency that you would want for players. He was bad. Kuzma was bad. Danny Green's been kind of a mess. And Caruso is not an offensive player at all I mean he just isn't he did a really good job against the pick and roll as the primary defender on the guard on the pick and roll and some of that stuff so some of those numbers were pretty good but the closing unit for them yeah and I actually think that they would like the J.R. Smith thing isn't working at all and there are no signs at all other than that he hasn't been good for two years. What the hell were they thinking with that one?

I'm trying to think, like, Danny Green, though. Does he... I'm trying to remember because I don't want to... I think Green has to be out there when we get to Nutcrunch in time just because he's done it so many times. Caldwell Pope is the guy I would not trust. And against Portland,

if you're Caldwell Pope, you're like, this is great. They've got Hazonia I know I'm better than that guy yeah when you go to minutes Danny Green was actually third in minutes but some of the minutes stuff with Portland I mean once you figured out like hey Portland can't really

guard anybody this thing is over last night was a tough night for everybody who had held on to the Simon stock it would be like it was a little night for everybody who had held on to the Simon stock. It would be like, it was a little like a Roddy, Roddy comeuppance.

Remember how much Simon buzz there was? There was even some on this podcast. I think I started it, actually. I think I started it. And then it's like, wow, here's his moment right here. Dame's gone. It's Simon's time. And then you watch. You're like, ah, not ready.

Maybe someday. Where are you right now? If Hazonia were traded to the Celtics, would you become a Nets fan? I just think this will be Hazonia's last basketball team. He has to go to Europe. He has to fulfill his destiny of playing in Greece or Italy, something like that.

That was amazing how much they needed Carmelo just to not lose by 40 every game. Like, he played real minutes. He was guarding LeBron. It's insanity. No other playoff team would have played Carmelo for one minute. And then people are like, man, Carmelo's really proved that.

It's like, yeah, he proved he could be a mediocre guy in a playoff team. But he's just old. It's, you know, it's what it is. I admire that he was in there and he made a couple of big shots and stuff like that.

But when he's guarding like LeBron, LeBron must have thought it was like, this is the greatest round one he ever could have had. It was like, oh God, he can guard it by Carmelo Anthony. I still think the LeBron love for mellow where it's,

it's this like LeBron, when you were the focal point of all of this criticism and all these topics, and then you, you become like inherently like dismissive to anything. LeBron's been doing this for years. A lot of guys, quarterbacks do this all the time,

where if you were to say LeBron, like, you know, Florida, Florida has got a lot of coastline and he would say, you know, a lot of EverglBron, like, you know, Florida, Florida's got a lot of coastline. And he would say, you know, a lot of Everglades though too, you know, and you'd be like, what?

Like, no, like, what are you talking about? And so Mello, this whole thing was a win for Mello because it just became overnight that he couldn't play. Like he wasn't good enough to play in an NBA game. And he proved that that was never the case,

but it was always about fit. Hey, when you come in here, are you going to accept a role or are you going to be disruptive? And then once Portland had all their injuries to the wings and then guys opt out and they were like desperate to keep the guy around to give him buckets.

But LeBron, it's just funny. It's a very funny LeBron observation that he was after the fact, like mellow, mellow, mellow, and you guys and mellow, mellow. And it's like, dude, you could have had mellow on your team. For two years. For years.ellow. And it's like, dude, you could have had Mellow on your team for years

and you didn't. You're like a way station for almost washed up NBA stars. Mellow was the one that you, over the last four years, you're like, eh, I'm good. Kind of weird. Let's do

announcing crutches. So I've noticed the two best NBA announcing crutches are people don't realize dot, dot, dot, or this guy doesn't get enough credit for dot, dot, dot. So let's use Jason Tatum's defense as an example.

Anyone who watches basketball this year knows that Jason Tatum is an excellent defender. Now, in fact, this is why I made him second team on BA, anyone who watches basketball this year knows that Jason Tatum is an excellent defender now. In fact, this is why I made him second team all NBA. But then you watch these games and the announcers, and it'll be any crew. At some point, Tatum will do something incredible on defense and he'll immediately get the,

this guy doesn't get enough credit for his defense. Or people don't realize how good Jason Tatum is defensively these days. So I just think we should take some stuff off the table for these announcing crutches. Tatum's defense. You're no longer allowed to say that people don't realize he's good at defense. LeBron's passing. We know LeBron's an amazing passer. Please don't tell me that LeBron doesn't get enough credit for his passing. He led the league in assists this year. We all know he's a good passer.

Doc Rivers plays coming out of a timeout. You know, he doesn't get enough credit for how good he is coming out of a timeout. I actually think he gets too much credit. I think it's the other way. It's overrated, underrated. I think there's always going to be, no matter what,

there's always going to be a slight hesitation with you on Doc. I think there's the other way. It's overrated, underrated. I think there's always going to be no matter what, there's always going to be a slight hesitation with you on Doc. I think there's too much bad blood there. I think he gets enough credit. I like Doc Rivers. Dwight Howard's hands. Does he like you? Probably not. People don't realize how good Dwight Howard's hands are. No, I think they realize. He was the second best

player in the league in 2011. People don't realize and he doesn't get enough credit, Brooke Lopez, his defense. He doesn't get enough credit. You're on fire with these. He's really good on defense. I'm just saying, I'm ready to table those. Do you have anything else?

Yeah, I got a couple. Did you know that Dwight Howard and Josh Smith played at AAU together? People don't realize. Yeah, that one was a big one. The other, one of my all-time favorites, different sport, is Clayton Kershaw and Matthew Stafford played together in high school. That one has just been absolute beat into a pulp.

How about people don't realize what a good offensive player DeMontis Sabonis has turned into? I hadn't really thought about that one. Is that still bothering you? Well, he made the all-star team. I think people realize it now. He's really good.

People don't realize how crafty Goran Dragic is. He doesn't get enough credit for it. I have a bigger one. It's just Lillard being underrated. You're like, no, he's the third best point guard. He's definitely properly rated at this point. Yeah. I mean,

he was so underrated for so long that you just go, what do you want? You've got to, you have to have more than sort of a weird Western conference finals appearance, which is actually pretty good compared to some other guys, but that's that one. And we are both very pro Lillard on this,

but in a million years, I don't think anybody takes them over Harden or Curry. I just, I just don't think you do. People don't think anybody takes him over Harden or Curry. I just, I just don't think you do. People don't realize what a good defensive player Anthony Davis is. That one's insane. I mean, he's only been this good for this long and can switch onto everything.

People don't realize how passionate Kevin Garnett is. Night in, night out. People don't know that Larry Bird is from Indiana and, and had a growth spurt. Oh, that's another good one. The growth spurt thing.

Oh, with Giannis. People don't realize when the bucks drafted him, he was six, nine. Yeah, no, we do.

That's why I went 15. We, we know that he's seven feet. No, I think Tatum's defense is the funniest one to me. I, I would say, is he one of the four best wing defenders

at his position now? You put Kawhi over him. Do you have like a whiteboard in a shed out back where there's whiteboards like a beautiful mind? Just Russell Simmons over here where you're just... Where the fuck do you keep track of your your top my top fours i don't know that one i just threw out what how about this i'm not even saying it's not possible

but how i want to know how you came to that conclusion what three wing defenders do you like more than jason tatum right now kawaii kawaii one definitely um ben sim. I'd put Ben Simmons over. Probably Ben Simmons. I still love Draymond. Yeah, true. Draymond. I don't even know what position he is anymore. He's doing this whole like personality thing. Now he signed with CNN.

He killed it on TNT. Like he's starting to that Barkley corner. He's starting to eye it. I think starting to look, he's starting to get it in now for five years from now. All right. People don't realize how good of a talker Draymond Green is. Michael Kidd's Yolkrist?

He's got credit for it. People don't realize that after his career is over, he's going to have a lot to say. No, he's been pretty talkative. He's been pretty talkative. We're going to take a break and come back in a second. Hey, you can add a little excitement this football season

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with promo code BS so they know I sent you that. It's Fandul sportsbook promo code BS. You must be 21 plus, present in Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, West Virginia, Indiana, or Colorado. First online real money wager only. Refund issued as non-mortarable site credit that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fandu.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. West Virginia, 1800-GAMBLER.net. Indiana, 1-800-9-WITH-IT. Colorado, 1-800-522-4700. All right. Weird question, Priscilla. Should they have tweaked these playoff rules

a tiny bit in the bubble to have more of a home court advantage? Because you watch that Toronto-Boston game today

and you think, wow, this couldn't have worked out for the Celtics better just from a pure basketball standpoint. Normally,

you go to Toronto, weird place to play, a lot of noise, tough place to win. Toronto's super comfortable there. And here, it's like the bubble. You're playing the Toronto sound effects. This is something we've noticed over the first three weeks. I was thinking, even if they had said the home team got the ball every quarter, even that's better than what they have now.

What's your take on that? Do you have a take? My take is usually it starts with why do we have to always tweak everything here? And I know it isn't fair. I mean, but the whole, the whole thing is, Hey guys, it's not going to be ideal. You know, when you start hearing about guys being there two plus months and then especially everything that happened, um, none of it is ideal. I'm okay with that by possession, but I think the real problem would be, do you just do it by seeds? Okay, so if you're the higher seed, you get the possession every time

because there's also some of these teams, at least if you've gone back to the beginning of the playoffs, where you may be the five seed, but you're a game behind the four seed where then there's other teams that are separated by more games. So again, if it was just the possession thing, where you start- For if you had home court. Yeah, no, I get it. I'm saying if it was just the possession thing, where you start at home court.

Yeah, I get it. Right, you're home court. So that means for those games one and two, I'm okay with that, but I feel like the NBA was a little concerned with how much can we really do stuff that's never been done before to try to make up for what's really a sacrifice for everybody.

What about the five rowdiest fans from the home court team's fan base gets to sit behind the road team's bench during the bubble? So like Boston, games three and four, now we're bringing Murph and Sully and the J-Bug. We just put them right behind. They can still get kicked out like it's a real game. They're wearing masks. No? I just think you're asking for

fights because guys are so bored right now i mean have you noticed have you noticed how much like patrick beverly and russell westbrook they're like the sixth man right now in some of these games before westbrook came back and played but like beverly there was a call when donchich threw the ball at the ref which he did and donchich is a huge complainer and he served the technical throwing it at kennedy beverly was already on the court it was almost like he anticipated it so through the ball at the ref, which he did. And Doncic is a huge complainer. He deserved the technical thrown at Kennedy. Beverly was already on the court. It was almost like he anticipated it. So I think that that part of the arena has been so active

because there's so many guys that are so bored that it would get way worse. Because then if you're one of five guys heckling a team, you can't hide out with the other 16,000 people. Well, at the very least, I think... Do you have others? That's the thing. No, that's really it.

That's all I got. I don't know what else you could really do. I mean, they're doing all... You know, they do the cues from the home team's games. So it makes it feel like it's a little more familiar when you're home. But really, there's no way to advantage it. And I think for Toronto, that, you know...

I'd be bummed out if I was Toronto. I'm down 1-0 in this series. Boston's in control. I think it's a weird matchup for Toronto anyway, which we're about to talk about. But I think for them specifically, it's really going to hurt them. And I think it's going to hurt Milwaukee too

against Miami. Because Milwaukee really could turn it on at home and they got a lot of energy from that crowd, especially Giannis. And Miami's a weird team. You know, they're that team that could just make 17 threes in any game. So at the same time, I like it because this is the most organic who has a better team situation we've seen from a playoff standpoint. But it's just weird that the regular season has meant so little. Did you think, especially when we had both one seeds lose in the beginning, what else did we have? We had the Clippers, well, split with Dallas before they were eliminated. And it was something that was brought up was, you know, we always hear this

about role players, right? Role players in playoff games disappear, or, you know, they'll have a moment, but you can't really count on them because in the playoffs, it's entirely different because of the setting, the backdrop. And then we started hearing, well, you know what? It's easier to shoot with these backdrops because it's not a big arena.

Okay, totally buy that. There's no real pressure on, you know. But as I heard that being brought up more and more, especially after just the opening couple games of the playoffs. Yeah. I just, I couldn't help but push back on it and go okay so does that mean everything we've seen is a lie does it mean that everybody talent wise is closer

and it's just that the superstars are better dealing with circumstances because that doesn't make any sense movement size shooting skill all of these things are real like i think they're real from the years of watching these games under normal settings but we were desperate for some sort of conclusion to why the playoffs started out the way they did. And guess what we got? Portland can't play defense. The Clippers are better than the Mavs, especially without some guys, you know, um, Milwaukee isn't, you know, they, they were ready to forfeit a game against Orlando and they still like their chances of three, two. So it didn't really kind of play out the way I think some were searching for some new outcome that at least,

you know, after the first round. What do you think in round one, what do you think the most glaring, oh, if this was normal, this would have really helped this team situation was because even though Boston was better than Philly, and I still think Philly probably would have rolled over. I still think Philly in a game three with their backs to the wall down to nothing with that crowd. It could have gone either way, right? The crowd could have lifted them or that crowd could have turned on them in the second quarter. But I, I just think that Philly crowd in games three and four would have been so much more profoundly impactful for better or worse for that Sixers

team. Cause if they're down three, nothing in game four, they're getting booed that whole game. So we, we missed out on that too. We missed out on some of the bad stuff. Yeah. It's, it's two answers. You're right on Philly. They're back game three. They were incredible at home this year. Yeah. Insane record and you like their chances, but the end game, especially without Simmons is probably what the hell's wrong with this team. Look at these bad contracts. When does Brett Bryant get fired? So I still think we got the conclusion to the Sixers part of this story that was probably going to happen if we had a normal circumstance. What about Lakers game one? I think it would have been hard for Portland to win in LA, especially when they haven't really

had an important playoff game in what, eight years? There definitely would have been an energy for that first game. I think it would have been nuts. Portland's not winning that game. Yeah, it would have been tough. Poor Portland. We'll talk about them later. I want to talk about the Celtics because it was an impressive job by them today. I think there were some mismatches and advantages in their

favor that I know both of us felt like existed for them. Zach picked them to win, win in seven. I think the wings and, and the fact that Kemba looked better. And the fact that they could kind of survive with Gasol out there, which they certainly did today.

I was thinking though, big picture. It was the first time I started to allow myself to think like, oh man, could they make the finals? Like, and I'm not saying they're even going to beat Toronto. I'm not jinxing it. I'm not doing any of that stuff.

But you just think like, all right, to get through this, then what happens? And I was thinking big picture. It's weirdly their best window to actually win the title over the next three years. And you wouldn't think that because Tatum's young, Brown's young, the whole thing. But you look at their salary cap situation

where they're not going to be able to replace whatever that Hayward salary cap spot is. Even if he opts in for next year, it's basically this year and next year for that. Tatum, they're going to have to pay. So they're going to be at a point, Tatum, Brown, Kemba, those three guys are going to be the entire salary cap. They don't have any of these draft picks left that they knew they were getting that Sacramento pick

a year and a half ago. They knew they're getting the Memphis pick last year. Now, now it's kind of circled back to, you know, they don't have this awesome pick every year that they could at least shop that's gone. Then you think in the East, you've got no Duran in Brooklyn. That's changing next year. You have Milwaukee, who's going to have home court again next year. And Giannis, who I don't think either of us feel like has hit his peak as a player. You have Philly, who's not going to be as much of a mess as they were this year. Next year, you have the Lakers and the Clippers who will have been together for a year and they'll just have more of know, more of a team kind of thing.

And then you have Luka and Giannis, who are going to be the two most important guys in the league. They're going to be better next year. So in a weird way, this is kind of a nice window for the Celts. And I don't know if the window is going to be as juicy as it is right now in the home court advantage. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense.

When you started, I went, okay, here we go go and then i gotta be honest like you did you didn't even i landed the plane you did golden state has to be and i left out golden state right and it's i think no one forgets durant and kairi are on brooklyn but it doesn't feel real until we actually get to see those guys and durant's arguably the best player in the league so you go oh wait like whatever it is it's gonna look good it's just a best player in the league. So you go, oh, wait, like whatever it is, it's going to look good. It's just a matter of does the Kyrie part of it work,

which, you know, whatever. I have my bets already placed on that. I think the only thing that would change that is that Philly could conceivably be worse. Maybe there's a better version

of Miami in another year or two. But I mean, unless Bam takes it to kind of perennial all-star, you know, third team, all NBA type of stuff, as much as we love Bam, does he take it to kind of perennial all-star you know third team all nba type of stuff as much as we love bam does he take it to that level and hero i think hero and robinson i could see them being better next year well they should be better right because they're yeah they should be better um but the toronto thing because of van vliet and how much he's going to get paid i don't know how they're going to pull that off or at least a year later.

The only thing that I would say, all right, let me just try to counter because I agree with you. Actually, the more I think about it, the only pushbacks I would have is that if Tatum ascends to where we think he could go, losing Hayward and not filling that slot, maybe Tatum and playoff games

looks like he can maybe carry a team for an entire series, the best version of Tatum. And even that doesn't feel as locked in all the time. What if Giannis leaves, though? Right, and that wouldn't be for a year. Because the reason I was thinking about it, I was thinking about the 2012 season, which has some similarities to this season,

where you had the condensed regular season and the playoffs, and you had some big injuries and some other things. And OKC just kind of, all of a sudden, they were in the finals. And all of all of a sudden they were kicking ass and you were like, wow, they're windows now. And then they didn't get back there. And you just never know with the league sometimes. It's been a recurring theme on this podcast, that's for sure. Between injuries, cap, some team gels together,

some team self-destructs. The East seems takeable right now. And you go forward a year, I don't know if the East is going to be that takeable. I think Boston will be better because their younger players should get better. But man, I mean, that Brooklyn team, that's like a contender that is just gone this year. And the upside of, they have some trade pieces.

There could be a KD, Kyrie, third star kind of mega team thrown together that I'm fearful of. So not DeAndre Jordan now? Not DeAndre. He's not the guy. And then Milwaukee, whatever they do. If they fell short this year, they'll do something. Yeah, would this be the Chris Paul thing that we revisit after this season, where I didn't really ever think he was going to be traded before this season just because of a number,

but would Milwaukee... And I'm not going to say it's the same thing because I trust Milwaukee ownership more than I trust Cleveland ownership, but Cleveland for years, every single year, every off season, then basically every trade deadline, trying to convince LeBron, we're going to do everything. And ultimately what they did was made it harder to make the team better. So they made minimal improvements that were going to lead to long-term problems. And you wonder like, let's say Milwaukee loses to Miami. Like, I mean, I don't think it's impossible. I've seen plenty of people picking Miami here. I'm going to be one of them in about 20 minutes.

Okay. So if that were to happen, does the front office say we need to be bold and maybe really take a swing at it? It's funny. I know you have this happen to you, but you'll talk to teams that are stagnant and that are bored and they'll say you know we're kicking this around right like westbrook was one of them where you go do we just say fuck it do it because you know we're not that interesting we're not breaking up anything that's going to go any like do we just do it and the answer like 99 out of 100 times is now we're good good. You know what I mean, though? We've seen the last five years. I think it's because

contracts got shorter and because of all the player movement and it's the age of player movement. Every offseason, there is multiple huge moves. That brings me back to this Boston point. All I know is I know

what the league is right now. And the East seems super winnable. And I watched the West and the Lakers, they figured it out against Portland. That Houston series, which we'll talk about a little bit later in the podcast, is such a bizarre series. They cannot be happy about it.

And then the Clips, when Kawhi's playing like that, he's the best player in the playoffs. It's still a team that feels like it's feeling each other out in a lot of ways. Even today in game six, Donchich all of a sudden gets hot and you're like, oh my God, is this going to go seven? I still don't 100% trust them. So to the Boston point, they're two guys short.

They're still a watermaker. You had Robert Williams was all over the map. He missed at least seven defensive. He was either laid on a rotation or is in the wrong spot, but then he'll do a couple other things. I think Brad is just like, ah, this guy will do five good things. And four bad things were still plus one and the good, bad thing thing. But the, the watermaker had some classics today, but yet Tatum Brown Kemba is, is, is, is that the best big three left?

Whoa. Um, who's got a better third guy than Kemba? The Lakers have the best two, right? I'm saying best three. Who's got a better third than Kemba? Oh, Westbrook, Harden, Jeff Green. Yeah. fuck it. Sorry, you're right. No, no, let's stay on this. Let's stay on this. Is it Clay, Steph, and Draymond? I'm talking about teams left in the playoffs. The final eight. I'm just running through my head right now. I mean, it's not OKC.

It's not Utah's third guy. It's certainly not Denver's third guy. It's not Miami's third guy. Dragic, Bam, and Butler. Clippers, you could say Harold, Lou Williams. they're not as good as kemba harold harold's you know everybody's gonna probably lose on the third um portland's out uh milwaukee's third guy it's you know we'll take your pick because i think what's interesting about boston as a playoff team yeah they do they have the three they have the

best as far as like the... Most reliable three. Yeah. I don't think that's a crazy statement. Are we forgetting anybody? Because I want to make sure we cover our asses. I don't think so. No, we're not forgetting anybody. I think what makes them

an interesting playoff team is you're not going to have all three of those guys disappear in the same game. You know? When you have three... And I think the Clippers... Let's say Kemba was on the Clippers,

and you know Kawhi's not going to disappear pretty much every time in a playoff game, but if he did, you'd have the Kemba wrinkle, which is, you know, I guess Lou Williams would be the discount version of Kemba in some ways. But what struck me today is I didn't even feel like the Celtics

played that amazing. They got great shots. I thought there was a world in which they actually could have played like 20% better than that. If I'm Toronto coming out of that game, I'm terrified by the shots Boston got. Every shot was great. They missed so many layups and little four footers around the wind. They missed wide open shots left and right. Then Toronto was going to a zone and it's like, all right, this is working for two minutes. And then all of a sudden it wasn't anymore.

What, like what adjustments do you make if you're Toronto? What do you do? Well, the biggest thing going into this series, which I wish I had studied a little bit more prior to Sunday's pod,

but you know, everything was kind of all over the place, was that Toronto's the number one transition offense in the NBA, but they're going up against the number five

transition defense. And you could even see on Lowry drives and stuff with Van Vliet, it was almost like the mini Giannis wall. We always talk about the Giannis wall. You could see Boston in transition trying to cut that off. Because when you look at Toronto's half court numbers, and these are pretty significant. If you go their half court points per possessions in just half court,

okay, so we're not talking transition. Half court sets. Toronto's 16th in points per possession, according to Synergy. Cleaning the glass that cleans up those numbers a little bit, takes out garbage time. Yeah. 18th. And then there's another site that's PVP stats stats where they're actually following a dead ball. So an inbound Toronto, they set up the hack half court offense.

They're 24th in the NBA in points per 100 possession. So they're essentially a bad half court offensive team. So if you as Boston, who's been really solid all year in transition defense, and I think even for a series, Brad gets these guys to tune it up even more. And we're talking about Tatum's defense who's incredible defensively even though he had such a slow start offensively his defense was awesome smart makes a million little plays yes he drives me crazy but there's a million little plays and they're just other guys have no interest not even they're not even aware that you're allowed to do those things okay yeah and then you have Jalen

who has the size and the athleticism to hang with some different people. So if I'm Toronto and I go, we are about transition offense and we beat all the bad teams, we're average against 500 teams. Boston wasn't great against teams over 500 either. So they're about the same there. But with Hayward, I loved Boston in this matchup. Without him, I reluctantly picked Toronto. And I'm not trying to freak out about game one because we both know the shooting side of it. Boston isn't going to shoot that well.

Marcus Smart's not going to light you up from three. Toronto's not going to shoot this poorly. But the transition part of this matchup favors Boston all the time. So if they can make Toronto be a half-court team, so what do you have in Toronto's offense? You have two smaller guards that aren't really dribble drive guys

or dribble pass guys. They're big set screens, but neither a Bacher or Gasol role. So that means you have to just kind of stay out and contest them or two on the driver. And it really comes down to like, are they going to let Siakam go and try to create off the dribble, which I still don't necessarily think, even though we saw it a lot last year, but when Kawhi is down on the court with you, having Siakam be the focus of the offense to kind of dribble, drive, and create on his own, and even though the numbers are okay, that's a problem.

So I think it's all of these different things in that first game. I thought that was Toronto's biggest mistake today. When they were really trying to establish Siakam on the low post, stuff like that, I was delighted as a Celtics fan. Like, please do that. The stuff I'm worried about

is all like the high screen stuff with your guards and you guys just wearing down Kemba over and over again. And, you know, Van Vliet and Abaka high screen and stuff like that. We're just like putting miles on Kemba during the series. You're posting up Siakam. Like we can handle that one. And I'm not even, I just don't think he's that good of an offensive player. I think he's good, but he's not good enough to like, you know, take it to town against Boston's wings on the low post. I didn't understand that at all. And then they kind of, they figured it out as the game went along, but then they couldn't make a three and you know, it's tough to overreact when a team

goes 10 for 40 on threes. But on the other hand, um, Boston really didn't play with that. Well, yeah, they went 17 for 39 from three. Their defense was really good. Defense was good, but they missed a lot of stuff around the rim. I felt like they gave away a lot. I didn't think they were that great on off. I thought they got good looks, but they weren't closing. Tatum was missing layups.

Tice missed at least three or four layups. Ocele missed an alley-oop. Wanamaker got his three things blocked as usual. Wanamaker looked like he didn't want to be out there today. But, you know, that's what happens. That's why you're a backup, at least in the regular season. The Robert Williams thing was funny because when he first came in, he misses two Ibaka threes immediately.

And I thought Brad was going to call a timeout and go, Hey, time Lord. And then, Hey, Serge, can you come here for a second? Hey, Rob, this is Serge Ibaka. Right. This is what he does. He's been killing the Celtics for 10 years. For some reason, he always plays well against Boston.

I just want you to say hi to him real quick. Can we go back to the Siakam thing, though? Because you sound too critical of him. I just don't think he's a super talented offensive player. I think he's a good offensive player. But to me, it would be like if Boston went into the series and we're going to post up Jalen Brown. I'd be like, why?

Why are we doing that? He's not that guy. He is the guy that he's been. He's transition three guy. He's wide open three guy. He's set him a screen and he curls off, goes to the basket, stuff like that. But why are you posting him off?

And I know the Toronto fans are like, no, no, Siakam posts up. But if you're the Celtics, that's like a delight if they're doing that. You have so many different guys who can defend a Siakam type. Yeah, that's a problem for him. I just wouldn't do that.

And he tailed off and you were talking,, that's a problem for him. I just wouldn't do that. And he tailed off, and you were talking, he was 23 a game this year, and you mentioned either on my pod or when you did the Raja pod, one of them, you were talking about

how his shots went down as Van Vliet's usage rate went up, stuff like that. I just don't think he's an elite offensive player. I think he's a really good offensive player, but not an elite offensive player. So running everything through him, I thought was a really weird choice. Now I'm criticizing Nick nurse, who I think is the best

coach in the league. So I just want to, I just want to say that I'm not saying I know more than Nick nurse. I just think, I think they misplayed it. I think they thought they could get an advantage out of that and get him going. And it, they fell on their face. How often do you think though we see stuff that may not make sense in the short term, but as part of a long-term thing where it's like, Hey, see Ockham hasn't played as well.

He shot it poorly in the seating game. 39%. He was 42% from the floor against Brooklyn. 31% from three. Like let's try to get him going. Kind of thing. Yeah. Do you think that has anything to do with it?

Maybe. I just think that's playing right into the Celtics' strengths. As you said, the transition defense is great, and they're really good at defending swingmen who post up. Semi owned them. He couldn't move Semi Ojale. Right. I mean, this is the most valuable Semi's looked in a game in a year.

Their weakness is Kemba defensively, and the Raptors, I think, as is the most valuable semis looked at a game in a year. Their weakness is Kemba defensively. And the Raptors, I think as this series go along, are just going to attack him with their guards and just make him constantly have to do stuff defensively and then want to make her to a lesser degree too. But I think if you're the Celtics, you know, it's such an interesting team. And I was ready to hear a conversation today about it

with the announcers and they didn't do it. Like Cantor, who I thought was really effective in the Philly series. He's just out for the series. And Brad does that with him where he's just like, yeah, um, take the next two weeks off. We'll we'll, we're going to need you for round three. It's crazy. Cantor was huge in the Philly series and in a couple of the quarters. And now I guess they must've looked at it. I'm like, yeah, we don't want him 25 free for the basket. He's just couple of the quarters. And now I guess they must have looked at it and like, yeah, we don't want him 25 free for the basket.

He's just not going to play. But I do think that's an advantage for the Celtics team. They have a weirdly malleable lineup depending on who they're playing. It's one of the reasons

the matchups favored them against Toronto, I thought. I didn't like Gasol, especially in the last seeding game. That was the game where I got excited

about Boston against Toronto. I'm like, wait a minute. Hey, pick Boston, pick Boston. Then I just thought losing the Hayward piece was such a problem because it was just another wing that could chase these guys around

because they kind of start with, they put, you're right about the Kemba Van Vliet. Like I would expect more Van Vliet. Toronto then went two bigs. Then they were like, wait a minute, can we just go really big

against Boston? And every time you felt like Toronto, because I always feel like any team that's halfway decent makes some kind of run. So you can see a team down 20 and they're like, oh my God, can we just go really big against Boston? And every time you felt like Toronto, cause I always feel like any team that's halfway decent makes some kind of run. So you can see a team down 20 and they're like, Oh my God, they've cut it to six. But like that actually, I feel like that happens more often than it doesn't. But every time Toronto would crank up that pressure, they cranked up that pressure to start the third quarter defensively corner three, Jalen corner three, Kemba corner three smart. And you're like, okay. And then

they had a nice little push again, where I think they got it to like 11. And then they brought the pressure up. Tice runs baseline and finishes with a dunk. And so the zone thing that ESPN got really excited about, there were two possessions that they ran a B roll of coming back from break. We're like, look at Nick nurse thrown in the zone.

I mean, if a coach, I seriously, if I were an NBA coach, I would run a box in one, like twice a game. And then tell every reporter I ran box and run so that everybody thought I was a fucking

genius. Be like, oh, Rosillo's willing to do anything. This fucking guy boxed in one of two out of 110 possessions. He did a triangle in two. This guy's unbelievable. He doubled the inbound. Fucking madman. But he the zone didn't do. I don't I didn't. I can't always keep track of

exactly how many zone possessions there are because sometimes you think it is and then it isn't and the coach is like no that's not what we were doing and they certainly know better than we do but Tice dropped a pass and Tatum lost the dribble it actually like it really didn't have much to do with the zone and then when they went with the bigs that didn't really do anything I think it's two things like you said it's seeing a Van Vliet who was terrible. He, Siakam, and Lowry were so below their standards that that's just going to be fixed in the next game. It just will be. I have a theory, though, I'll throw you at the end of this.

So it'll be attacking Van Vliet, or excuse me, Van Vliet attacking Kemba. And I'd expect that they may have moments where they bail on Gasol, where they just say, hey, let's go small, and let's see if we can outsmart this team. Maybe they're scared of the wings. I don't know. Or flip side, I actually think they should post up Gasol. They posted him up once and I was like, oh shit, I hope they don't start doing that.

I don't know about him now. He's always given the Celtics problems and he's big and he's a good passer. Yeah. Back when I was in college. But yeah, I mean mean i would just go i would rather go to him than see akam on the low post i guess is my point let's uh let's take a break can i before the break ask you a question yeah so i know how much you hate it when i interrupt the breaks what if i throw a theory at you yeah that is certain to upset our brethren to the north. What if Toronto post-Kawaii

regresses back to the Toronto that was overwhelmingly disappointing in the playoffs and we just don't know it yet? Oh, like Kawaii was the kryptonite for that, but now this is who they are for the next 20 years? The Toronto fans don't care. They're so psyched

they won the title. They're good. I don't know about that. Because then it would be like, wait a minute, they have a winning pedigree. They understand it. But I mean, this was a group with Lowry that was, again, it was a different coach. I don't know.

It was just something that popped in my head. I just wrote it down. I meant to ask it to you. And I don't even think I believe it. Just something to throw out there. Take a break. Hey, when it comes to scoring great hires for your business,

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free. Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. I want to talk OKC Houston and then Miami's chances in round two. I don't want to say it was a tough break for OKC because everything that happened in the bubble, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, had to happen and should have happened. But if you're talking about a team that was in a better shape just basketball-wise on Tuesday night than they were this weekend, it's OKC because it bought Westbrook enough time to come back. You mean Houston in a better spot. I'm saying OKC is in a worse spot because Westbrook came back and actually looked pretty good. And it's interesting. The line on that game on Tuesday night was four and a half Houston by four and a half. And on Saturday, it was still four and a half. And I just think Westbrook had to have been worth a couple of

points. But the worst case thing that happened for OKC in that game was getting Schroeder knocked out in the second half because their biggest advantage was to do the three-guard thing. Once that got removed, that game was over. Is there an adjustment you could see them making in game six, or did

they shoot their wad here? Yes. They cannot have Lou Dort be their primary offensive weapon every time he's out there. You don't want him to take 20 shots? No, no. I'm going to go off here a little bit because Oklahoma City's offensive approach in Game 5

is one of the dumbest executions of a game plan or lack of a game plan or lack of adjustment that I can remember seeing. Now, yes, there are bad teams that get blown out in the playoffs. You can say, hey, they sucked that day. Okay, that's fine. But as far as expectations with a smart team, with a team that's played well in big spots,

found like they figured some stuff out against Houston, what they did in game five is, I don't want to say disgusting. I don't want to say I was offended by it. But I just couldn't believe it. I'm still here removed from it a day later, dumbfounded, that a team would allow that to happen. Okay, hey, guess what? I mean, it's essentially like, okay, what are they doing?

Okay, they're going to leave Dort open. Okay, well, he's going to shoot nine times in the first quarter. Lou Dort is going to shoot nine times in the first quarter. He's going to start 0 for 7, 0 for 6, and 3. Well, I guess we lose. I guess we're just going to lose because we're going to, because it wasn't just that Dort

was taking the open shot. It's that he was taking some threes. I counted like three or four of them while the game was still kind of in the balance where he was taking them with like 15 seconds or more left on the shot clock.

He is now at 16, under 16% from three. He has the highest volume of three-point shot attempts of any player on the Thunder in this series, despite the fact he's now at 16, under 16%. He's five for 32 from three in this series. Okay, so guess what?

Houston is going to leave him open, so you need to figure something out. Whether you mess up your shooter rotation and bring him in earlier, or you have Dort use him in earlier, or you have door, you know, use him in just a very different way. Just a couple of times to mix it up.

Like, I think this is something that's so overlooked with coaches is Houston does a good job with this. Hey, the hardened thing's getting a little stagnant. Let's do something different. Let's have Jeff green, bring the ball up and we're going to have hardened be the screener.

And then we're just going to mess up like what you're used to seeing with us and just show you something something different. Let's have Jeff Green bring the ball up, and we're going to have Harden be the screener, and then we're just going to mess up what you're used to seeing with us and just show you something here different, and it may have a lasting impact. If I'm Billy Donovan, I'd probably take Dort out for a weird substitution at nine minutes if he's already 0-4 from three,

and go, you know, let's just do something where we plug in a different look, because then if we want to bring Dort back, we're fine. And by the way, Dort wasn't exactly lighting up Hard because harden was killing them he like hadn't missed a shot had 20 points like that so that's the key point dort wasn't even slowing harden down in the game so he was it was a disaster you let him to continue to shoot and

here's another thing like danilo stunk chris paul took off the first half of game four but closed so well and had like 22 in the second half of game four with that big comeback. He wasn't great. The no shooter thing's a problem. Shea was throwing the ball, like literally punting it out of bounds. So Gildress Alexander had like one of the worst games I've ever seen him play. Again, I'm just going to mention one more time. Danilo went from 29 points in game one to one point in game five, but Steven Adams usage rate. And sometimes it's because of their lineups, but he he gets a couple touches early and then they never go to him but he's he's sneaky disappointing in that he forgets how big he is he plays small sometimes like he's this big new zealand guy with his huge family and he's he's tackling ox in new

zealand during the quarantine and we're like big badass steven adams and no one would ever fight like him then play like it. He plays soft. He's one of those guys. You almost need him for the series where the other team has an awesome center and Adam can just bang bodies with them for a series like this. I just don't know what his role is. PJ Tucker got his third foul and we know he didn't like the call because PJ disputed it and PJ leaves the game And the next possession after a dead ball, it's like, why don't you get Adams deep on a seal?

Or have him go block to block on a screen so he can get a deeper catch. Just do a different action to test them out now that PJ's out of the game. And Dort takes a three. And so that was for a team that I have. And I'm not, look, we both picked Houston. Do we both pick Houston?

I know I picked Houston. I picked them as a, I didn't feel great about it, but I just thought it was the best player in the series. Serious. So I'm just, I'm taking the best player. Fine.

All this is, is, you know, moderate expectations of what the thunder can be. I don't think they're this great, great basketball team, but I think, or I thought they were smarter than this and what they did in game five.

I can't, I don't do this very often. Like I, Bill, I guess I just, I'm, I'm dumbfounded. I sat there in silence for like 10 minutes after the game going,

like, what the fuck did you just let happen to you? And they could have lost game three. It was basically one play. So really like, I don't know. You look at the numbers too. And I don't know where,

uh, I don't know where, okay. See, he goes here. They're basically shooting 30. They're shooting 30% from three. The only,

the only real positive from them offensively is they're getting to the line more than Houston. But, um, I just think Houston's better. And I think Houston knows they're better. And this will lead to the Chris Paul trade this summer because there's no real way to improve the OKC team.

So they'll move him this summer. You know, Houston was upset about the free throw disparity after game four, but it was like you took 58 threes. Like, what did you expect? Houston actually got to the hoop at will. And then, you know, Harden got a couple calls earlier. So I think that freaks you out if your door is a defensive player where you think like, hey, maybe if I get away with a couple of things, then Harden isn't going to be as tempted

to drive at me. The Westbrook angle, I'm not surprised the line didn't move because the Westbrook part of this was like the most, the eighth most significant thing that happened in the game. Like he ran around, he looks, it's hard to ever think that he looks wrong athletically. Cause he's still such a specimen, but he was rusty and he was okay. He wasn't great, but it didn't even factor into any of this.

It's time to, it's time to officially talk about it. Jeff green. Do you miss him? He's, he's almost, he's basically 16 and7 in this series. He's taken seven threes a game and shooting 47% from three.

Living with a personal stylist, man. Houston. He even has 2.2 assists, which is close to his playoff high for a season. This is a guy. People don't give him enough credit for how much he's bounced around. I know, because everything is so positive. I would love it.

You know, Jeff Green, yeah, he's been on 38 teams. People don't give him enough credit for what it's like to move. He's taken a little bit from each system, and you're right. Moving's a pain in the ass. You got to change the names and the bills. You got to find new friends.

You got to find new restaurants. They're going to try to get you a bigger truck and you're not going to need it. So check the square footage. You know, you have new different airport. You got to get used to that. People don't give Jeff great enough credit. I can't wait till the next time. And an answer says that people, I don't check my Twitter, but you, you, people can hit Twitter replies for Rosillo and send us whenever this happens though.

Cause we don't get enough credit for when we point out stuff like this, this Jeff green thing, though, if they didn't, they just pick them up off the waiver where they didn't trade anything for him. He was just, yeah. Free agent signing just available. He's also one of those guys. You think he's like 40 and he's only 33 because he's been around for 100 years. And it feels like when he was on those

Georgetown teams, I feel like that was a million years ago. But I can't overstate how good he's been since he joined the Rockets. And naturally, I'm not going to trust it.

He's one of my most frustrating Celtics probably of my lifetime. He's my dad my most frustrating Celtics probably of my lifetime. He's my dad's least favorite Celtic of the past decade, but he's doing everything you'd ever want from Jeff Green. And the irony is they really needed a guy who does the things that he does. That kind of hybrid stretch three, stretch four. I can grab a rebound. I'm a decent athlete. I can make threes. I can run the floor. I can fill the lane. All the things, the good version of Jeff Green does on paper who inspired us to do this ringer video where you could look at it on

our YouTube channel. It's a support group when you don't want to give up on guys. And your guy was Jeff Green. And we did this whole parody video about how ridiculous it is. This one fucking loser who won't give up on Jeff Green. Ha ha ha ha and now he's the second best rocket until westbrook's 100 how the fuck does this make sense he got cut by utah in december he signed him right they would love him right now the celtics they would give him a three-year extension if this is what they were getting out of him right now imagine him giving this kind of production now part of it has always been the skill. That's why people are frustrated.

You're this big. He can handle. He can pass. Now, I do think that there's a rule, kind of like Cinderella, once the clock strikes 159 left in the game, something happens. Okay?

Yeah. Like, there's a two-minute thing with Jeff Green where that's kind of how I'll judge some players. Be like, okay, that's a nice three that made it, you know, whatever it is, a nice three that made it you know whatever it is at 240 left are you going to make that shot with 140 you're going to make that shot with 40 seconds left like alexa comes in and says jeff green there's two minutes left in the game and exactly goes off the alarm starts going off his head oh i guess they're fucking some stuff up it's never been i you know, I've almost, I'm trying to think of like equating it to your group of friends where you're constantly like, why do we hang out with this guy?

Ted sucks. And then, and then, you know, July 4th weekend, you're, you're, it's someplace on the, like a new England, you know, you're like in some stretch of like a new way. We'll take a Newport, you know, Nantucket vineyard, Nahant. I don't care. Whatever you want to call it. And you're like, you know, Ted has a boat. Like what?

Ted has a fucking boat. And then you have this epic night. You watch the fireworks. It's like one of the, you bring your boat to the Marina. You're waiting. You go out that night and then you're like, you know, Ted's all right. And then the next week you go, you know, that's not even Ted even ted's boat he stole it and there's a warrant out for his arrest and we're all now accomplices and you go we can't hang out with ted and then like six months later

he's like hey i have tickets to daytona i'll never forget when tommy heinzen compared jeff green to james worthy that time which time he for an entire season. I got to say, Mike, he reminds me of James Worthy. And it was... But taller. That was the ceiling of Jeff Green because he would have these games where he'd have like 37 against somebody. Yeah, this isn't because he's bad.

Or he'd dunk over somebody. That's what makes him so fucking frustrating. But I wonder with this Houston team, it's so chaotic and so weird and so different that maybe it almost reprogrammed Jeff Green's brain. So he, it's like all the baggage is gone now. Cause he's playing this sport that doesn't resemble the other,

uh, eight teams that he's been on and the situations he's been on. It's almost like a blank slate. Is that possible? It's like memento. I don't know if there's a moment. Do I remember it? It's like Memento. I don't know if there's an easier system. Remember that movie Memento? Do I remember it?

Yeah. Or do I? No. I remember it. I love it. Like Jeff Green's brain is just blank now because the Rockets weirdo system

has just like diffused him. So we're at the beginning of the movie and he's like, what year was I drafted? Right. Remember when it was me, Durant, and Westbrook were the big three?

His form just says Utah, Memphis, OKC, Boston, right remember when it was me Durant and Westbrook were the big three his forearm Utah Memphis OKC Boston Orlando and he's just like why are all these cities on my right forearm

the funny thing is he has had some decent moments you know like in game seven he scored like 17 a game and then yeah

you were talking the Cavs in Boston game seven Cleveland Boston he's the reason that weird Celtics team without Kyrie didn't make the finals because Jeff Green He scored like 17 a game. And then, yeah, you were talking the Cavs in Boston. Game seven, Cleveland-Boston. He's the reason that weird Celtics team without Kyrie didn't make the finals. Because Jeff Green, LeBron needed anybody to be the second best guy for him.

Jeff Green was like, I'm the most disappointing player of any top five lottery pick of my generation who's actually had a decent career. I'll step up. I got you, LeBron. I'm going to be your James Worthy for this one game. But even like when he was on the Celtics, he had the decent career. I'll step up. I got you, LeBron. I'm going to be your James Worthy for this one game. But even like when he was on the Celtics,

he had the, he had the heart issue. So he missed that year, which I think really, they trade Perkins for him and then he's out. But then he had a playoff run with the Celtics where he was really good one year for the Celtics. Yeah, it was 13 when they lost to the Knicks. And he averaged 20 a game in that playoff series. So he's had these flashes

and at some point turned into a punchline. But for his career, he's 16 a game. He's played 908 games. He's a career 44% shooter. I don't know. I've stopped trying to figure it out a while ago. I don't, I don't understand it. I don't know if there's any way to understand it.

And that's my Jeff green tick. Do you want to take a guess? He's been in the league since 07, 08. How many seasons, full seasons where he's had a PER over 15? Oh, probably like two. Zero. Zero. 15 on the dot is his highest ever and i you know again per all the stuff it's all moving but when you have zero seasons above that i mean it's really simple he'd

have that one dunk where he just posterized three players on the other team and you just be like holy shit i'll say this. Super nice guy by all counts. I'm actually happy that I'm actually happy that he's having a moment this late in his career where he's become this essential guy.

Now we're playing the Lakers. Let's get back to that matchup. Are you rooting for the Rockets because of Jeff Green? I'm rooting for them for Darryl because I worry what could happen if they don't win this

series or if they got swept. And I also hate the Lakers. Sports hate, not real hate. But I think they're going to go into this and they're just going to go, all right, who's guarding Harden on your team? Every single person you're going to throw at him, he's going to be able to score on. So you're going to have to

double him and it's just going to come down to these dudes hitting open threes, which they've been hitting. I would be very concerned if I'm the Lakers. I don't know what's going to happen in this series. I hesitate to make a prediction because they could spot Davis 40 points a game

and still win this series. Yeah, the rest of the guys we went over that beginning group and maybe the closing group is different there because of this, but I have have two quick things though there's never been an easier system for jeff green so i think everything you're saying is right like you're making the deep programming joke but i don't think it's really like that far off memento yeah because you just have to go look here's your action on this but for the most part like hit those corner threes and he can still always handle enough that he did get stuck on a catch on a closeout

where he can dribble a little bit and maybe make another play. And it's never been about that talent. But we've said this constantly. If Ben McLemore looks like a guy who's going to get another contract, then Houston is the reason. I mean, Houston's system is the reason. And so maybe Jeff has to think about less things. But this has to be the time against the Lakers

where in Houston's defense has been terrific. And again, Oklahoma still has to be closed out. But I mean, that game five thing leaves such a bad taste in your mouth. But again, if the Thunder come back and win game six, are we going to be shocked? You could have some. I will actually be shocked. You'll be shocked now.

Okay. If they do the same thing they deserve, like they should work. I just think that I think Houston's coaching and their adjustments and the stuff have just been better, but... This has to be the series, though, going up against the Lakers where the Davis thing makes them pay a little bit more.

So, yes, I'm worried about the rest of the wings, the drop-off that we've seen. Can you play the centers, though? If you're the Lakers, can you play Howard and McGee 35 minutes a game in this series? Because I don't feel like you can. But it is... It's very much that game- game to game thing where Dort looks like the most valuable guy in a sense,

the first few games of that thunder Houston series. It looks unplayable in game five. My favorite example of this is Tristan Thompson and some of the finals games against the Warriors. It was like, get him out of here. He can't help on any of this stuff. And then in 16, when they had the comeback, the Warriors couldn't box him out. So some of these players are very much game to game. So I can imagine a game where it looks terrible when the Lakers have two bigs trying to chase, like Davis can chase anybody,

but Dwight and JaVale, are they going to do it? Although JaVale's been pretty good. I think there'll be nights where it looks like it's to their advantage. And I think there'll be other nights because of the way a game flows, where it looks like the Lakers are going to have to size down because the two bigs look bad.

So I don't think it's a, for the next seven games, LA can't ever get away with doing some of these things. I think that's one of the things I've definitely learned. Legacy wise, you know, I love to bring up legacy from time to time. What an amazing moment for James Harden right now, where he's going into this series.

He's going against one of the three best players ever. He's going against a team that is two of the top eight. He goes into this. And if he's a one-man wrecking crew with this supporting cast, the guys in threes, Westbrook crashing the boards, doing his stuff. But ultimately it's a, nobody can guard me. I'm James Harden. I'm sending you home series. We'll think of him completely differently. If he, if he basically cuts the throat of this Lakers team that has a pretty short window here, this is three years, max. Plus you have Davis as a free agent this summer. I I'm sure you've heard the same thing. There are teams out there who think they have a chance at Davis this summer. It's like, they're like, yeah, if the Lakers thing goes badly this year, who the fuck knows?

I don't think anybody thinks it is a 100% slam dunk that he's a Laker next year. It's maybe 95%. It's not 100%. I've told you that people had clutch clients in to work out where I was like, what are you doing here? And they go, Anthony Davis. And I was like, what? I go, you really?

And then it was, I don't know that even I, maybe you understand it better than I do, but I think there are times where I know I'm naive about like, wait a minute. Why do you think Giannis' brothers are on teams? Right. Okay. You know, and there are little, little things. Now, sometimes they're really stupid, like Glenn Davis going to Orlando because Dwight Howard liked him. That didn't matter.

I think Jarrett Jack ended up with the Pelicans once because they were like, oh, Chris Paul loves Jarrett Jack. Like teams will do some of this stuff and it's exactly to your point that there are teams that are going we're never going to concede that there couldn't be some bad ending here and act like we're not in play for Anthony Davis so you're and we've also seen it we've seen this the last five years you can never say anybody is a slam dunk tattoo the logo of the team on their shoulder for the next five years and I just honestly think, though, he would leave LeBron. No. Considering the family deal there.

What I do think is that if this goes horribly, everything's at the table. That's it. And I do think if I'm James Harden and I get to potentially knock out LeBron and Davis and the Lakers in a playoff series, this is a fork in the road moment Lakers in a playoff series. This is a fork in the road moment for him in a lot of ways. I just can't fathom a guy

goes to clutch nuclear options his way out of the Pelicans and then is going to blow off LeBron because they lose to the Rockets in the second round. I don't. You're I'm a Laker fan. So 18 out of 20 times. I think you're right. Who the fuck does I my only point is there. 18 out of 20 times I think you're right. Who the fuck knows?

My only point is there are teams out there who think that Davis could be in play if something bad happens. Absolutely. Quickly, Miami-Milwaukee. I picked Miami in this series. I bet on Miami to make the finals and play the Clippers. And I love this matchup for them.

I like their team. I think they have an awesome coach. I don't trust playoff, but I think that they're sophisticated enough on both ends to do some of the stuff you need to do against the bucks, build the wall against Giannis, um, shoot the threes,

try to make the game more random. I just liked the matchup. I liked their team. And ironically, I thought Duncan Robinson was going to be the key guy for them in the playoffs for making a leap. The guy in round one,

and I watched way too much basketball the last three weeks, the guy in round one who I was just stunned by was Hero. Playing fourth quarters and deciding what to do on key possessions and stuff like that, where they're going through him over the other guys on the team. I think Miami's really good.

I really do. I think they're a really good team. I'd be really nervous if I was Milwaukee. What do you think? The part I loved about Hero is his handle and that it's not just... I mean, even Duncan has a little bit more shake to him than you would think. And we start to project some of these guys that are shooters and we're like, oh, you know, stick him in the corner. It keeps you honest. I think both of those guys are way better than that. Yeah. If Fred Van Vliet's going to get 20 million, why wouldn't, I mean, Duncan Robinson's in a different situation because of his contract. But I was kind of kidding when i tweeted out in a poll would you trade this year's number one pick for duncan robinson because you just have to like hope that your pick has the ceiling that can be like a real star but duncan robinson would

probably get north of 20 million a year if he were just a straight up free agent well remember we did the 25 25 most intriguing guys in the playoffs you were kind of you were kind of half into it well i didn't i don't want to say you mailed it in you say you know you said some pics um it was your list and i didn't know until you unveiled it on the podcast but i had robinson like 11th i didn't i didn't i didn't have hero i didn't have hero in the top 100 i didn't i didn't think we'd be hearing from him in the playoffs in a significant way. And then you're watching the Indiana series and they're calling like he's Jimmy Chitwood

with four minutes left. Like, clear effort. Clear for Harrow. Set him a pick. Let him cook. I always wanted to do something where everybody kind of was in on the joke, but you would just do bad interviews

with NBA players and you just sit down like in a one-on-one with Tyler Hero and be like, are you doing this for Nick Stauskas? See what motivates you every day to become the player that you are? Because a lot of people thought Nick had a chance. Nick had a chance to be what you are now. And I don't think it's a mistake to say that you are now. And I don't think it's a mistake to say that you're probably carrying on his name. Can I complain about last year's coin flip one more time? I want to hear more about that podcast, your top 25. I mean, once you did the Wade Boggs story, I was like, oh, okay. You checked out. Celts pick 14 because they lost the coin flip

to Miami at 13. And if you go back and you look at that draft on basketball reference, it's a drop-off because it's PJ Washington, 12 hero 13. And then it's like, ah, all right now, now I'm in the talk myself into guys portion of the draft. And you think like, if you put hair on the Celtics team with the team they have now, you literally couldn't pick a rookie from with the team they have now, he, he literally couldn't pick a rookie from this draft who would be the more perfect, like eighth man for this team. Right. And instead he goes to Miami and it's gotten to the point where he's stealing minutes from dudes who are probably like, what the fuck that dude's 20. He's playing in crunch time. How is this happening? So I don't know. I just think, I think people who haven't watched closely are going to be surprised by how

Miami does against this Bucks team. Well, the regular season should give you some indication. But some people would argue it was so long ago. It doesn't really matter. But Miami was, was terrific against my Milwaukee's minus 600 in the series. I just think that's too high.

There's no home court. And then the other thing with this Miami team is, you know, any game they could hit 23s and mess you up. But and I think Spoh versus Coach Bud in a playoff thing. So

you know, it'll be an interesting moment for Giannis too because there's a version of this series where Giannis just destroys Bam everybody talks about oh Bam you know the this is the kind of guy you'd want and Giannis just puts up 35 and 15 every game it's like no there's there it's Middleton it's all about Middleton because you know Middleton put up some bigger numbers against Orlando but I'm not impressed against Orlando. I'm not impressed. The team is up 20 and you start filling it up in the third quarter to put the lead to 28. You know,

those are not the minutes where you're, you know, whenever Middleton's another one of our, you know, people just don't give Middleton. No, no. Cause Middleton has moments where we correctly don't give them enough

credit. Like where you go, okay, this is why you're not talking about some of those other guys. Giannis is going to get him. They can do whatever they want with bam they're going to double the shit i mean spolster is going to try a million different things spolster's right there with nurse spolster's right there with you know one thing he's going to do all these top guys so he'll try to have olenek out there when brooke lopez is out there yeah you know he'll he'll try

to stagger matchups so that everything makes the Bucs uncomfortable. It's like, oh, you got Brooke Lopez out there? He's going to have to come 25 feet out now. And he's going to have three shooters out there at all times. And point guards just up to stuff. I think the key guy for Milwaukee is Bledsoe. And for two reasons. One, I don't trust him in a playoff series at all.

At all. Two, I'll be interested. I think they're at their best with George Hill, in my opinion. I just like what he does for them the most. I just don't want too much from my point guard if I'm Milwaukee. Just steer the ship, play some defense, hit some open threes. That's it. And this is a series where I think milwaukee is gonna have to be like hey

bledsoe if you don't have it you're out like we can't fuck around we we need we need a steady hand and uh how he navigates that bledsoe george show thing i'm more interested in that than middleton the other big thing and i have a message board if i can plug it here it's hoops talk but it's with a z um we have a thread going right now olinic yannis draft is this it's this playoff series put that one to bed it's fair traffic yeah how how well does olinic have to play in that series to make up for going right in front of yannis 140 and 12 so who are you picking in this series Milwaukee I'm gonna go ahead and take Milwaukee then because I I was probably more willing to just for the sake of the pod I felt like when I was

kind of leaning Miami but I might be too much stock into the early regular season games because then in the seeding games walk he took it to him pretty good but I guess wait a minute I'd have to double check but I'm pretty sure Miami wasn't playing anybody. Can I ask you who you think the Celtics would rather play? I think the Celtics would rather play Milwaukee. I think they would, too. I think Miami is their kryptonite team. I don't think they feel that way, though. No, I don't know, though.

I don't know. Can I just tell you, I feel that way. Okay, because I don't think the Celtics feel that way. Here are all the guys who kill them on that way. Okay, because I don't think the Celtics feel that way. Here are all the guys who kill them on that team. Olenek, Dragic, forever. Because it's personal. It's personal for Kelly. Yeah, definitely.

They gave up on him. Dragic. Because he was like, are they anti-Canadian? They switched me out for Hayward because he's from the States. A lot of people don't know that. Hero is exactly the type of guy who kills the Celtics. These little crafty scoring guys. I don't think Hero's bright enough for Boston, though.

Like, when I saw Hero, he's just not... Like, when I saw him introduced on draft night with the chain and his whole setup, I was like... Too cool? I thought, no. When I saw him drafted and the way he was handling himself and the way he was dressed, I was like,

he should go sixth. Just on appearance alone. I'm like, look at the way he's like, no way this kid's going to crush it. What was he like in college? Cause as you know, I barely watched college basketball. Were there signs of this or no?

Shooting? Yes. And he reminded me in, I have it on my scattering report. I was like the poorest of poorest man's clay where he would reset himself. That's what I love the most about Hero is that it's a really simple thing to do but reset yourself from a shooting position because the

defenders always lose track of you especially in college but i don't think we saw the playmaking ability um as consistent but i'm you know i'm not going to sit here and say i watched 30 plus kentucky games i would watch my hero stuff and i really liked him i did do you really do you think boston was taking him if they had won the coin toss? A hundred thousand, a hundred thousand percent sources, a hundred thousand percent. Okay.

I like your, I like your confidence. Harrow played 129 minutes in those four games in the Pacer series. It's like 30, 32 minutes a game. He's literally 20 years old. It's not like he's like this dude who was like the four year college guy who came in his age, 23.

Like he's, he's probably one of the youngest guys in the playoffs. He was in a rotation. He carries himself. Like he's, he's DMing the, the Kardashian and Jenner crew being like, what? Get on the hero train now. And I have always, always, always always liked dragic i even liked when they traded the two unprotected first for him i was all in i've always been in on dragic i think when i watch him i just think like how fucking annoying it would be to guard him

hey did you did you see that thing on tnt where they were talking about being hazed and barkley was saying like andrew t Tony made him bring him a warm glass of milk in the hotel. This is unbelievable. This was so good. So Barkley, they started talking about being hazed as rookies for some reason. And Barkley goes, yeah, he's like, I got hazed left and right. They're like, well, what happened? He goes, well, he goes, Andrew Tony used to call me in the middle of the night to get him a warm glass of milk. And they're like, well, where, how would you get it? He goes, I'd have to walk down to room service like Charles Barkley, six, five to whatever, you know, Charles Barkley going

to room service being like, Hey, I need to come down and pick up a glass, warm glass of milk and then hand deliver it to another guy. And Dr. J would make him get, um, a newspaper. He's like, I need a newspaper outside of my hotel room every morning every time we're on the road and shack's like scott skiles was like hey rook grab my bags and shack said to skiles i'm the franchise i don't do that because that was the last time anybody tried that's an hazing dad right but then shack mentioned that he goes i tried to haze he goes I hazed everybody he goes but the one guy who just wouldn't take any shit was Dragic and because I really Dragic was like

hey where I'm from like you don't get it like you'd say whatever but like I'm not afraid of you I'm not like you're not going to treat me this way and Shaq was like I think they said they went at it in a practice even once and Shaq was just like after that like I had so much respect for that guy that I was just like oh okay badass that's remember that remember the Vujicic feud that one playoff series when him

and Vujicic were and they had a whole like background I think there was some girl involved from way back when but they were like going at it every I think he's a neighbor now I haven't I haven't run into him yet. I'm in a drag. Hey, um, I have some good news. CarMax is back on Sunday nights here on the BS podcast.

It's America's number one used car retailer. You might remember last year they hooked up nephew Kyle. They gave him, they gave him great treatment. He ended up buying a car from CarMax. Kyle, is that car still running beautifully? Fast as ever. Street legal? Always. Come on. Would you name

that car, Kyle? It's Maxine. You know when you, during the COVID pandemic era, when you watch the guys in the convertibles, you know, some people have a mask on in their car, and then there's some people who are like, fuck it, I'm in a convertible. I don't a mask on in their car and then there's some people who are like, fuck it, I'm in a convertible. I don't care. I'm living life. That's Nephew Kyle right there. Thanks to CarMax. Whether you're buying or selling, our friends at CarMax are on your side.

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All right, you don't have kids, so I get to hog parent corner. I'm going to tell a story about one of your favorite people, Ben Simmons, the other Ben Simmons, young Ben Simmons. The reliable Ben Simmons. the other Ben Simmons, young Ben Simmons, the reliable Ben Simmons, reliable, good shooter. Uh, all right. So he's, he turns 13 in November. Yes. He's been in the same room his entire life. We were born. He was born in 2007. We were already in the house where, and he said the same room the whole time. It was a baby room. Then five years ago at bunk

beds. And it's just, he has all this stuff. One day, about two weeks ago, he, after he was still nursing his latest broken foot, um, he said to us, I'm changing rooms. And we're like,

what do you mean? He's like, I'm changing rooms and started bringing his stuff from his room to the guest room. And we're like, okay. So he was the guest room furnished already. Guest room had a bed in there and a desk. And it was just kind of like, if like my parents

stayed here or something, they would send the guest room. He's like, I'm now taking the guest room. Like, all right. So on one foot, he starts moving stuff. And then finally we feel bad, end up decorating this whole room. I had some music posters. He wanted to have some music and sports posters from my old office that God knows when I'll be back in there. So he got the Nirvana poster, the big blue one. He got the Metallica poster, the NWA poster. So decorates this whole room, but he has all this Amazon money. He's got probably like $200 in gift certificates from grandparents gifts like that. So he tells us, hey,

I bought some stuff for my room. We're like, cool. What'd you get? Here are the two things my son bought. First thing he bought was a Saturdays are for the boys poster. Which is a barstool thing. So now he's barstool ben so save him save him a seat

save him apparently i'll talk to the guys he wants he wants to intern there next year he actually could probably hang at 13 that's how that's how intense like i'll get i would get texts from like big cat being like hey we went to bed early but ben ben stayed out ben's that's still up he did he didn't know where it came from. He's in the big boys stage right now with his friends at the boys. They had a sleepover the other night. The boys were all going to sleep.

He liked the Saturday for the boys. He had no idea where it was from. Now we've been calling him Barstool Ben. The other thing he bought was a giant flag of McLovin's fake ID from Superbad. I mean giant. It's like six by six so he you go or six by four so you go in his room now he didn't put the saturday he decided he didn't like

the saturdays are for the boys flag got rid of that i'll see if we get a refund big mclovin driver's id when you walk in so now he's got mclovin nirvana and then he did this weird thing with blue light with blue tracking lights. So when you go in, the room's kind of blue. Is he growing weed? And then he has in the corner, he's got his guitar and all his music stuff. And then he's got his desk and he's got the Kevin McHale six foot. I did an Instagram photo of it on my story.

He's got the Kevin McHale growth chart. One of my favorite items that I gave to him. Got the Kevin McHale growth chart. One of my favorite items that I gave to him. Six foot Kevin McHale. That's in there. Um, so it really ran in a shape and we're still trying to figure out why I switched rooms. It had its own bathroom. There may be some puberty stuff going on that I don't even want to consider. Just keep me out of it. But yeah, so now he's not sharing a bathroom with his sister, which is the big thing. That's all that is. It's just not want to share a bathroom with his sister like it's weird because you go through that phase where you know your siblings could become your biggest enemies

right no and you kind of regret it i know later on like i would do anything for any one of my siblings but from age like 10 to 13 having a a little sister, you know, you, you just kind of in your own little world. And so for him, it's his older sister. I look him not want to share a bathroom. That's the whole reason. I don't think he's throwing weed. Yeah.

That's it. Yeah. So, um, so that's, what's going on with him and he gets the cast off next week. Would there ever be a scenario where you would say no, I just, I'm not saying this is even something that you needed to say no to the guest next week. Would there ever be a scenario where you would say no? I'm not saying this is even something that you needed to say no to. The guest room thing? I'm just sensing that Ben kind of has run of the house.

No, we've said no a few times. The one who's upset is my dad. So my dad's like, where the hell am I going to sleep? And it's like, you know, you get to sleep in Ben's old room with the bunk beds. He's like, what?

How did I lose this? What happened? So we got to figure that out. Anyway, that's my parent corner. It's an emotional time at our house when my son decided he needed his old room. He'd been in the same room for 13 years. I need a bathroom.

I ordered a skateboard deck on COD, a Danny Way H Street when I was 13. It was cash. Remember cash on delivery? They deliver the thing to you when you had to have the cash ready. And I thought I was 13 and it was cash. Remember cash on delivery. They deliver the thing to you when you had to have the cash ready. And I thought I was stealing basically. Like I did the order ordered it that way. The guy showed up and my parents were like, what did you just do? And I go, I had 50 bucks and I bought a skateboard deck and they were like, what? And like now that

kids can just go, Hey, I, the Amazon stuff coming in, that's mine. Well, some people, the other one is Postmates, which we do not allow our kids to order Postmates. That is a Pandora's box where you have like a 12 year. It's like, Hey, I could use a cheeseburger and a milkshake. And then all of a sudden somebody is knocking on your door and it's a fucking Postmates guy with a $9 Postmates. I didn't even think about that. I know sometimes I'm on my own case. Cause I'll be like, don't Postmates again tonight. didn't even think about that. I know, sometimes I'm on my own case because I'll be like, don't Postmates again tonight. Like, get in the car, get out.

But especially with the games back, for us on the West Coast, like, you're up at 10 watching them and the next thing you know, it's 5 o'clock and you go, wait, you know, I actually, I can't really leave the house right now. But kids with Postmates.

So what do you do on Apple iTunes? Like, what do you do when ordering movies and all that kind of stuff? Like what do you have to be track of? I should be writing this down. Basically Ben's not allowed to do anything. He had a PlayStation thing but I ended up removing my PayPal from it

because he kept buying these packs on 2K and then telling me it would be $20. And I'm like you don't have a job. Yeah, how are you going to pay me back? So I had to shut that down. So my youngest brother is 25 years younger than me. And so when I was about, let's say 35, he was 10 and I had been at ESPN now for like five years. At that point, I'm on with Scott. And one time when I came home, I threw my credit card down on the PlayStation thing. And out of nowhere, I'm like, why do I have home, I threw my credit card down on the PlayStation thing. And out of nowhere, I'm like, why do I have like, I had a late, it was a card I never used.

And I got a late fee call and all this stuff. I'm like, what are all these charges? Like, how are there 200 plus dollars of the charges on this card? I never, I don't even know where the card is. And they were like, well, it's PlayStation, PlayStation, PlayStation. And I went, oh man. And so, you know, know because he was 10 and again it's not my kid so i'm going to handle it differently being my little brother and i know him and he's a sweetheart of a kid so i didn't want to be mad about it and be mean to him but i called my mother i'm like what the fuck what is going on here like he can't just did he just think that was cool she calls me back and he said he said because you were on tv he thought you were rich and you could take care of it.

Good instincts. I like it. He's a hustler. Yeah. He was like, what's he bitching about? He's on TV. There's this new video game that they're all playing. Fortnite is out.

In case you're keeping track, Fortnite is now not cool anymore. It's not even cool anymore. That ended about six weeks ago. Fortnite, for the most part, now not cool. There's this new game, and I can't remember the name of it, but it almost looks like Super Mario Brothers crossed with some futuristic world where you're trying to advance.

Kyle, do you know the name of this game? Kid Icarus? I don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know the name. Okay. Well, it's this new game, and Ben's saying it's all the rage. This is going to take over, so keep your eye out for that. I have a huge problem.

What? What bathroom do I use now? Oh, that was Kyle's bathroom. This is a huge problem. Yeah, that's tough. I'm so good. Yeah, I think you could still use it. That was where Kai used to sneak off to,

the room Ben took. Sorry. I think Ben's probably just going to lose on that transaction, Kyle, because you guys are close enough. I see how you interact with each other. I think Ben expects you to use it, even though

he's going to hate it. The other big thing with that happened for Ben was Madden came out. And they actually got delayed, though, didn't

it? No, it's out. He was but he was playing it this week. It's a little weird. First time in 20 years no Brady in the Pats. Hurts. Hurtful.

Are you going to trade for him? Put him back on? No. I'm excited for Cam. We're all excited for Matt and Cam on our team. Alright, that's it for Parent Corner. It's fun to have parent corner back. Don't forget whether you're buying or selling our friends at CarMax on your side,

check out CarMax today at CarMax.com. Any last, last thoughts, any last words? No, I think I might just make up kids though for parent corner to fit in. Are you okay with that in the future? You can,

or you could get maybe, uh, maybe emails from readers. Maybe you could take a reader's kid story, or I could just give you extra Ben stories, whatever we have to do. I love the Ben stories. I'm actually thinking of ordering stuff that you don't want in the house and

sending it to Ben. Well, the McLovin flag, like how does that even exist? Why is there a flag with the McLovin flag like how does that even exist why is there a flag with McLovin's fake ID how well do those sell did you check the reviews

on it how did he find it there's just so many questions alright so here next week just so you guys know we are going to be publishing

this podcast me and Russillo on Monday night not Sunday night so Labor Day Monday night which should be a fascinating one because that's going to be coming off Celts raps game five. And then, uh, at least whatever the good game for the West series is. So that'd be a fun one. So we're

coming back then, but you'll be doing two podcasts this week on your feed and then same schedule next week. Right. Anything else to cover? Yeah chris long will be on with me this week um we'll actually just talk some football be nice to do that and then um the funny thing is i have a couple gms scheduled but depending on how the series went i didn't want to put them in a bad spot and then have them come on and then have the the you know like hey your team just got eliminated so let's talk uh let's talk about your rotation. So we have a couple of GMs, uh, that are definitely coming on here soon, but we'll figure it out. Ryan Russo podcast. I did all my fantasy football homework this week. I held it off this weekend. I held it off as long as I possibly could, but now it really seems like the, uh, the season's coming back. So I'm excited

for that. I have a question for you. Go ahead. Is it wrong to think kyler murray is going to be the third best fantasy qb this year i gotta like everybody loves him okay when vick came on with me vick was like that's i heard that vick said that was like his like doppelganger yeah but he he was saying stuff though that i think it was real quarterbacky where he was basically saying to like us laymen that can't understand it that he was seeing stuff with ky us laymen that can't understand it that he was seeing stuff with kyler murray that was like okay and there have been other people throughout the offseason of kind of just you know talking to different people and again these are guys that played or whatever or involved with the league that murray is and i don't want to turn

this into baker mayfield too because i think that was cleveland that was a cleveland thing they won a bunch of games. Yeah. And they, they added Beckham. No, but I'm talking about like the hype for, Oh, gotcha.

The hype for Cleveland. Wasn't just Baker. It was the whole thing. It was the off season acquisitions. It was the fact they beat all those bad teams in the second half of the year that we should have paid more attention to, but this specifically the conversation around Kyler Murray has been incredibly,

uh, well, I would say people are incredibly impressed by him. Going back, looking at the tape and seeing what they saw from him. So I think the answer is yes for you. And then the other thing we should probably announce is when football does come back, Sal is going to be here on Sundays. Oh, you are? Okay.

I didn't know that. All right. Yeah. Sal Sundays. And we're moving to Thursdays. Through the basketball. I knew we were going to Thursday. Okay.

Yeah. So Sal's on Sundays and you can check out Sal if you missed him at his Extra Points podcast. But you and I are going to be on Thursdays and there could be some historic Thursdays in the mix for us

because we're going to have Thursday night football but then, you know, conference finals and finals in the NBA and then I think there's the NBA draft is going to be on Thursday too so it'll be a nice little wrinkle so then you'll stay through through in basketball

probably first week of free agency and then we'll go back to you going three a week until the next basketball season and who knows when that next basketball season is no kidding, i mean they're already pushing it back they're already basically telling us by not confirming it that they're going to want to give these guys a break because this is uh despite the accommodations and the nba looking

to try to do whatever they could like seth curry when he came on i go what was your first impression he's like the nba is loaded because the amount of stuff that they're doing for us to making sure like this is as easy as possible but silver has basically without confirming is letting us know with his comments that the six-week turnaround thing he's like we can't we can't even i don't think he wants to do that to these guys what i've heard is they're they're thinking about this three bubble thing with 20 game, 20 game kind of segments. So 10 teams go to a bubble, they play 20 games. Everybody goes home for two weeks, reset, come back, because then that gives them the flexibility that if fans can come back, then you're only confined to that bubble for these little stretches and then you can open it up. And so I, they're

thinking about all that stuff right now. And I think everything's on the table, but I don't think it happens before February. I mean, we're definitely mid-January, maybe. I don't know, but I just don't think they're gonna be able to figure it out. And they really need the fans to come back. It's a shitload of money at stake.

And if everybody's betting on, all right, vaccine by February, March range, and this feels relatively safe, like they're going to want to have the fans in. So who knows? Yeah, we had college football on Friday night. We had high school football too. I was watching some high school.

Yeah. It's funny. They cut to the stands. Some people were in masks and then some people just aren't. But then it's weird they cut to they cut to the stands some people are in mass and then some people just start but then it's weird because then i'll look in and i was you know maybe it's just the sec but i was looking at my schedule and i'm going okay am i gonna book you know i haven't missed alabama lsu since 2000 my first game was 2008 i don't i don't miss those games and uh

i was looking into it and then the LSU people were like, well, yeah, just come on down. Go. Well, what, what does that mean?

Like, again, they're not going to put me, you know, my normal setup would be, uh, uh, all access,

but I'm not, I don't deserve that now. And I'm not going to get in a glass suite. It's the bubble outside the ham radio. Se fan in the plastic bubble to get it. You're in a glass suite. It's just a bubble outside. The ham radio. SE fan in the plastic bubble. All right, Rosillo, we'll see you Monday night, eight days from now. Sounds good. Thanks.

All right. Thanks to Spotify. Don't forget to listen to your podcast on Spotify. Best podcast listening experience around. Don't forget, new rewatchables Monday night. We're doing Cocktail. It's a very special episode. The't forget new rewatchables. Monday night, we're doing Cocktail. It's a very special episode, the greatest bad movie of all time. Then Wednesday is going to be Higher Learning. And if you love The Wire, I went on way down in the hole of The Wire. That's

going to be out on Monday with Van Lathan and Jamel Hill to break down the iconic stringer. Might be his last episode episode. I don't want to spoil it, but yeah, that's what we talked about. So check out all that back on this podcast with two more later in the week. See you then. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the first I never said

I don't have a few years