The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 1: Brooklyn Breaks, Boston’s Startling Ascent, Kyrie’s Bizarre Career, and Saving Denver Basketball With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

In Part 1 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Celtics pulling away to a 3-0 lead in their Round 1 series with the Nets, the Brooklyn blame game, the Celtics' midseason turnaround, the Nuggets avoiding a sweep in their Game 4 win vs. the Warriors, Raptors-76ers, some Round 1 injuries, and more! Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where you can find the rewatchables. We have a new one coming Monday night. Mallory Rubin and I did one of the great sports movies of the last 35 years, if not all time. A League of Their Own. Just an ageless, rewatchable classic. Did Dottie drop the ball on purpose? We're going to be breaking that down like it's a Zapruder film. Get ready, Monday night, League of Their Own, the rewatchables. Me, Mallory. So there you go.

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Draft. This is one of the great sports weeks we have. I'm super pumped. Also super pumped about this two-part podcast. Me, Russillo. It's super pumped. Also super pumped about this two-part podcast. Me, Russillo. It's all next. First, our friendscellus here. It is a little after 3.30 Pacific time.

Just watch the Warriors lose to the Nuggets. But it was a really enjoyable game. It got me thinking just how much I'm enjoying basketball right now. And I know this is a thing we do every once in a while where we make these lists of, I love this, I love that. But I just love the place we're in right now.

When you think like this, LeBron, Durant generation's getting older. Like even the Warriors, having them back to where they're an actual title contender, it's just really fun. I didn't know if we were going to get that again with this Curry generation, right?

This young Celtics team. Giannis, Joker and Joel Embiid, Booker and CP, Luka, all the rookies we had this year. Edwards, Ja, Trey. It just keeps going and going. Even though this hasn't been like the most dramatic first round ever, I've really enjoyed it. And I think from an entertainment standpoint,

the league is out of control right now. What do you see? I just think the top end. Yeah, I agree with you. There's no disagreement at all. There's some top end stuff that'll happen where you're just like, wait, you know, Giannis had 33 and 18 and seven. Right.

And was dominant defensively again. Right. And he could just do whatever he wants. So I just, I think it echoes something that we've been talking about through much of the season. The top end, whatever that top group is and however deep it goes. And that's why, you know, we kind of joke around about how many top five guys could you name potentially

when we really know it's more of a tier than it is just a strong number that stops after five. But it's why you'll have conversations. You'll hear people talking about somebody from a certain night, like thinking about what Tatum is doing and where Tatum lives. And when we first started talking about that, it was kind of like, wait, Tatum, is he like definitively top 10? Now it seems absurd to suggest that he isn't. And that's the immediacy of the playoffs. Maybe it's a little recency bias and all that kind of stuff. But it's just every night when you'll hear about a different guy

and where he is in his top neighborhood, it's just because there's so many options and so many of these guys putting up insane numbers. Well, we even did this last week with Tatum, right? After that incredible game one of the Nets series. And we're like, wait a second, was that his application

into that final group? Because we just watched him go toe-to-toe with Durant and defend him at this crazy, crazy level. Of course, after the Celtics go up 3-0, because I guess this is what we do now with sports discourse, it just immediately goes to Durant and people piling on Durant and the Nets and what a disaster this was.

I don't feel like this series was necessarily a disaster for them. They were in all three games. Durant is still, in my opinion, one of the 10 best players ever, and he's going against this defense that I know we're going to get into it a little bit. This Celtics defense has a chance to be an all-timer. I think it's in play.

And even if you see what they've done to Durant to take him out, he's never had a stretch like this in his career, but they're more than willing to give up all the other stuff to the little guys, right? And they're making the Nets to score. They have to play these weird lineups that then the Celtics are torching

on the other end. It was just weird to see some of the discourse after Game 2 and Game 3. I think people were missing how difficult it is to play the Celtics team right now with the smart Jalen Tatum interchangeability on defense that you can't hunt anyone on the Celtics. There's no hunting.

They have lineups out there where it's like, all right, what are you going to do? You're just going to go ISO and that's it. Well, great. We stop ISOs. That's awesome. You're going to end up with some three near the end of the shot clock.

But for the most part, you're playing into our hands with everything you do. If anything, the Celtics offensively have been slow to get going in these games, which I think is why they've been closer. But 3-0 feels like the right result. What do you see after three games? All right. Let me just back up, though, because we're doing this now.

We're going to go. Yeah, let's do it now. Okay. All right. Because you sent out a tweet and then you sent it to me and you said that this series is an IQ test for basketball. So why don't you stay on that? Unless you don't want to do it now. Okay, all right. Because you sent out a tweet, and then you sent it to me, and you said that this series is an IQ test for basketball. So why don't you stay on that? Unless you don't want to do it now.

I mean, I'm not sure what the plan is. Let's do it now. I don't understand how people can watch those first three games and their immediate reaction isn't, wait a second, this Celtics defense is unbelievable. What is the ceiling of this defense? How good is this? Wilbon mentioned the 2004 Pistons.

You know, it's not a long list if you're talking about teams that won the title that really kicked ass defensively if you're just going back 35 years. Like we had the 89 Pistons. We had the 91 Bulls, which I want to get into in a second. We had the 99 Spurs, which was the lockout season, but had Robinson and Duncan together. And those guys just wiped out everybody.

04 Pistons, 08 Celtics, mostly the stats back it up. But the irony of that team was when they really needed points, they would actually sacrifice defense to go with that small ball lineup. And then really since then, I think the Celtics team defensively has a chance to be the best since that 08 team. You could point to like, oh, what about the Tibbs Bulls teams? Well, those teams never made the finals. You know, what about the Pacers? Well, they didn't make the finals either.

What about those Miami teams? Like, especially like peak Miami when LeBron looked like Kawhi and Pippen. Well, the stats don't really back it up. They were never like first or second in all these different categories. And you go on down the line, the Warriors, I think in 2015, when they could throw out Iggy and Klay and Draymond together,

they were pretty good. But even then, the stats don't 100% align with some of the stuff we saw in 89-91. Anyway, my point is, I think the Celtics team has a chance to get there during these playoffs. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm not predicting it, but I think there's a world in which

we look back the same way we did in 91 after the Bulls beat the shit out of everybody and then we're like, holy shit, that team was really good. But I bet on the Lakers in game three of the finals thinking like, ah, Bulls. And it's just all

of a sudden the season was over and I think there's the potential here for that with this team all right we've spent so much time talking about the Celtics on a shocker anybody listen to the podcast and there was

kind of that that rock bottom point I think last year so yeah even when they were below 500 this year we were just kind of like whatever I seriously went through a stretch was like they're not winning if

there was a tie and then somebody else in the seven o'clock eastern window i'd be like i already know what it is i don't need to watch it and this turnaround has been one of the all-timers for a team a team's personality we can talk about josh richardson not being there and shrewd or not being there which i think helps but it's still the main guys and the personality seems to be different i'd suggest too that there were times despite smart winning defensive player of the year, I thought defensively he was still kind of inconsistent in other seasons. Me too.

Where it almost reminded me a bit of the Tony Allen thing. Like Tony Allen, all team first defense. There was a stretch when Tony Allen was in Boston. I wouldn't exactly call him a locked up guy. And I don't know what that was. Even Doc Rivers had said it at some point, right? Yeah. So I think at times when you're closer to it, like we would be, you can be worse.

Because going into the series, it's by all the numbers. Because of the numbers and how absurd this turnaround has been, I think there was still a small lingering part of me going, what if Durant just does what he did against Milwaukee? What we're realizing too is that Milwaukee was not as smart defensively as the Celtics are. And as you point out, the Celtics have, other than Pritchard having these little spells, but he's not missing any shots, even if you think you want to hunt him. Although shots are wide open. It's not like he's heat checking.

He's just taking wide open shots and making them. But there have been possessions. I think they are doing it. I know we'll get to the Durant thing in a bigger chunk of what we're doing here. But there was a time where Kyrie wanted to run pick and roll with Durant to get Durant switched. And he had Grant Williams, and they switched him into Jalen. And I thought, wait, that doesn't make any sense. But then again, at the same time, I'm like, well, Grant's still really good.

He holds up. And by the way, he makes all of his shots. But I'd still think you'd maybe want Grant further away from the hoop to try to get Durant to be able to create and go side to side on him. This defense is so good, Bill. You're going to love this. It's going to be your favorite thing I've ever said. Do you remember what it was like in the early years of learning about Belichick, where if the Pats were down 14-10 or something at the half, you just go, whatever, Belichick's just going to figure out and make adjustments. It was the craziest thing to watch that every Sunday in the beginning and go, oh, that's right, I'm not even worried. I'm not remotely worried. They'll get a stop when they need it. They'll figure it out.

And it happened all the time. Even with some of the bad offensive stretches from Boston, this level that they're at defensively, if you're a big, big-time Celtics fan, you're almost calm in a scenario where you normally wouldn't be calm because there's this bankable thing that you have with how good they are defensively. And the big thing that's flipped, I mean, Smart went to another level about four months ago. But the big thing that flipped, especially in this series, is what Tatum's doing at Durant. And if you leave game three and you just start piling on the Durant, I'm going to sound like a Durant apologist, but I don't think people fully realize how hard Durant is being made to score when he's 25 feet from the basket being dumped the ball. He's just got these shooters

around him. And for the most part, he's at Tatum. Chris Forsberg had a stat. Tatum's defended Durant on 121 possessions in these three games. Durant scored 10 points when he's been one-on-one with him. Two for 15 field goal, 0 for 3, 0 for 4, 3 point, 10 turnovers, two shooting fouls. The level that Tatum has gone to defensively has been the most shocking thing in the playoffs to me. I mean, honestly, he's looking like edging on like this Pippen Kawhi level. Every play, play after play, he's like a maniac, but still has time to have some offense.

I never thought he could do this. Did you? I never saw this level of defense from him in my life. But I think this is where the Durant part of it kicks in, where I agree with you. It's been really hard for him. And now this team is absurd with the long twos. They took the most long twos in any game.

They've taken, they took the most in game two, and then they broke that record in game three. And they took a ton in game one. It was, it was the theme out of game one. So they're, they're not hitting threes.

Excuse me. They're actually making their second most. They're just not taking them. They're not taking them the way they are, even though they're hitting them. The rebounding rate is atrocious in the playoffs so far. The Durant-Kyrie pairing that's pretty locked in, 500-plus minutes in the regular season at 123 per 100 positions

is down to 110, 111 i think so um i i the problem is that i know it's just it's what it is though like if durant's that guy who i've suggested is when he's right still better than everybody else you can't have a game like yesterday where he has three shots and bruce brown has 12 um well's the problem. But don't you think... Now, this is both a defense and a criticism. I think what the Celtics are doing have actually knocked him out of a rhythm

in a crazy way. It reminds me a little bit of the Pats against Peyton Manning in the 2003-2004 range where he seems... Thank you. He seems discombobulated. John Schumann had a piece. He did like top five takeaways from game three

and he had some clips of just decisions Durant made that looks like he's, you know, like a Pac-12 freshman who's the best guy in the team who's never, you know, is going against 40 minutes of hell or whatever and just making these dumb decisions. They're really weird.

Game three are atrocious. I mean, they're awful. He's passing to people that aren't even there. Kyrie and Durant combined for 32 points. The Celts scored 37 alone just on the turnovers. So they're terrible. You know, this is going to be funny because I remember this. Remember when Rick Buecher was, well, he was a Kobe guy, so he wasn't a LeBron guy.

He came on the show. He said, LeBron's more of a glue guy. He's not a star. We lost our shit on him. The other take that Buecher used to have was always the Westbrook's actually the guy, and Durant doesn't work hard enough. And you're like, yeah, I'm not sure if that's. But it was funny because it always felt like he had whatever the pairings were, there'd

be somebody he liked, and then he was a was like, he was a Westbrook guy, he wasn't a Durant guy. There were times, I think maybe going back to some of those series, even with Memphis, where you'd be looking at Durant going, hey, you've got to work a little bit harder to get the basketball. I know Westbrook's not a joy, and we still hadn't really fully understood or discovered what it was to be Westbrook all the time, as we were talking.

I mean, we're talking years prior, right? Before they- Well, no, that was the big criticism for him was he didn't go get the ball and try to figure out just how to create. Exactly. I think there's some of that in this. You're right.

It's totally thrown him off. He needs to be better. But I don't know that they do a great, look, the entry pass is an endangered species. Okay? Like when you see one, you're like, holy shit, kids, come into the living room. I'm going to rewind it. This is an entry pass is an endangered species. Okay? Like when you see one, you're like, holy shit. Kids, come into the living room.

I'm going to rewind it. This is an entry pass. And it's really good. They have three guards out there. None of them can get him the ball when he's 10 feet from the basket. Did you see the stat where he only has six points in the paint in three games? Yeah. So all of it's bad. And I do think that even though your take of how amazing this Boston offense,

that's just not going to fly. Those aren't the rules. It's not what we've all signed up for. The Boston defense, yeah. If Durant is... Look, it's been a really weird three games here. And they're not even close. They're not winning this series.

Boston is this good defensively. But that's what the talk shows are going to do. And I think some of it still is fair because you just need to figure it out. Right? You need it. If LeBron had those kinds of games where he was that passive taking three shots, he'd get killed. So this whole playoffs, by the way, this whole playoffs, I feel like no matter if you've

been down on almost any single guy, you can point to a game, which I want to do with you later. You can point to somebody being like, ah, I knew this guy wasn't any good. Look how bad he was in game three. Like 10 guys have had games like that already. And we're not through the first round. When we did this a week ago and I just come back from the game and I was telling you, I couldn't believe what they were doing at Durant, how physical they were with them. And I think in a lot of ways, physicality has been the kryptonite for him over the course of his career, right? The teams that were able to really knock him around,

they could at least get a little bit of advantage. Sometimes it's a bad matchup. And I think this Celtics team is just a bad matchup for Brooklyn. Like you think about, everybody's had a bad series. LeBron, 2011 finals, 18-7-7.

That was his average? Yeah. 48-32-60% splits. That's Westbrook's average now. Kobe, 04 finals. 23-3-4. 38% shooting. Took a ton of shots.

Curry, 2016. Finals. 23-5-4. Durant, in this series, 22-5-5, 37%. It's the turnovers that have been the weird thing, though. His kind of inability to solve it. And I thought,

I actually thought Stan Van Gundy on Twitter made a really good point where he said, the NBA playoffs are not pickup games. You can't just throw a team out there. Teams must grow, build chemistry, trust, mental toughness over 82 games. I do think that's a big part of this.

You know, you had this team. It was basically thrown together. You have Dragic, who wasn't even on the team until eight weeks ago, who's now out there in big moments. And same thing for Curry. And Kyrie's only played 20 games with this group in the regular season anyway, or 25, whatever it ended up being. And to me, they just seem like a

team that's been thrown together. When they brought in Blake Griffin in game three, I was amazed. I was like, wow, we're at this stage already? The Blake Griffin, cross your fingers, hope Blake makes a couple of plays, which he made a couple of threes, got killed on defense. I just don't think they have any answers. You look at their numbers. Curry's playing 31.7 minutes a game. Brown's 38.3. Dragic and Mills are 36.3

combined. Kyrie's at 42. It's KD and a bunch of short guys in either Drummond or Claxton. And against this Celtics team, that's a bad matchup. It is. Yeah, but these are the rules. So, KD, you're not allowed to be like that. You're not allowed to have a game three if you're Kevin Durant.

It doesn't matter about what the defense is. You know what I mean? You're not Jimmy Butler. You're not DeMar DeRozan. You're fucking Kevin Durant. So, you know the deal, even if you're right, Bill. And I'm telling you, there's some special stuff. I agree with you what's going on with defensive.

But the conversations, this is not how it works for Durant. Well, where's Kyrie in this whole conversation? Now I sound like a Durant apologist, but Kyrie just... Game two, game three, Kyrie was out to lunch. I mean, classic. Had that same look on his face that he had in 2019 against Milwaukee. No. And his quotes after, you just start going like,

are you the least aware person ever? Where he's like, well, they've been rolling. They know who they are. We're still trying to figure out. We haven't had the same luxuries as Boston playing together. We're like, no shit. No way. I wonder whose fault that was.

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So the Kyrie piece of it, and I know this is, we always do the regular season versus the playoffs thing. Regular season, people are looking for storylines and we talk about how incredible Kyrie is. And there was a lot of stuff about, are these the two most gifted offensive players who have been on the same team and stuff like that. I'm swinging the other way. I think Kyrie now, we have a pretty big body of work that he is just not reliable to pay a max contract to. There's way more evidence that if you're trusting this guy,

if you're really counting on him, you probably can't. And we saw in game two and game three, when KD, this series is a bad matchup for him. You probably can't. And we saw in game two and game three, um, when Katie, this is, this series is a bad matchup for him, whether we're saying he's underachieving or whether he's a guy who's in his 15th year of the league. And maybe the Celtics are a little too young and too athletic for him at this

stage of his career. And this is a bigger sign of kind of where Katie is at this point in his career. Maybe, but the Kyrie piece, he's Kyrie. Where is he? The whole Kyrie thing was he's supposed to be able to score against anybody. Nobody can guard Kyrie.

Most naturally gifted offensive guard we've had. Where's he been? And does he want to be there? And would you pay him? He's got this contract coming up. Stephen A. did this whole thing on Countdown today about how he should only be paid year by year. I think I agree.

Maybe every two years, would you give Kyrie a max from what we've seen the last five years? I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to, but as I remind all of us all the time, what are your options? And it's hard to get these guys. And the other part of Kyrie, how does Durant feel about it? If Durant wants you to pay him, then you're going to pay him. And then you're going to talk yourself into it. You're going to say, oh, we have Ben Simmons coming back.

And it's the same thing as the Harden thing. You think I want to pay him $60 plus million in 2027? Of course not. But I also don't want to then say no to that and pretend I'm going to be able to pull something else off in the next two or three years. So I agree with you on the surface, but the market will dictate that Kyrie's going to do better than that. Hell, right before this series, Bill, or even after game one, because remember when it was, there's no market for him. Nobody would want him once they realized he wasn't going to be playing home games. That was totally gone after game one. Right. So however bad this ends up being, they get swept. He has a couple more quotes that don't make any sense and whatever.

Like they're probably still going to say, what are our options? What actually is better for us in this? Well, if I'm trying to salvage this, we don't know how game four is going to go, but I think we have a decent idea considering the body language and the way the Nets, I thought, kind of rolled over down the stretch that made the half hard to come back later. It was too late. But if you just look at it objectively, game one, they're

up 5, 107-102 with 422 left. Game two, they're up 92-85 with 10 minutes left. Game three, there's less than eight minutes left. Celts are up four. It's not like if I'm Chicago and I'm coming out of that Milwaukee series,

I'm way more stressed out about what is the future of our team. I know Caruso got hurt. I know you don't have Lonzo, but just in general, how do we beat Giannis? I would come out of that series and be like, Jesus, what's our strategy? Because we just got our ass kicked. If you're Brooklyn, general, like, how do we beat Giannis? I would come out of that series and be like, Jesus, what's our strategy? Because we just got our ass kicked.

If you're Brooklyn, you're like, well, if we get Simmons back, COVID's over, Kyrie gets to play a full season, maybe we have a better chance against Boston. You could talk yourself into it, right? And then all of a sudden you're re-signing Kyrie for three years, $150 million. Yeah, that's probably what will happen.

Maybe it's a different coach. I don't know. I think what Nash has had to put up with through this hasn't been a blast. That was another thing that was on yesterday about Steve Nash. Is this it for him? Is he going to get bounced? It bounced. Who had a tougher

last two years of coaching things thrown at him than Steve Nash? Would you want to coach this team? What would your plan be with the players he has? If I were Steve Nash and made $150 million in my career, I would find better. You'd move on? Yeah, I would do like that. You think he's jealous of like J.J.

Redick on countdown and first take? He's like, man, that looks so much easier than what I'm going through dealing with these guys. When it's left to like, oh, I can't believe they put blake out there they're trying to figure out anything they're trying to do anything to get spacing and blake actually was making threes the problem is he can't move on the other end it was like oh hey blake's out here all right torching this because they they played a group in game three that had never played a game together like they'd never had minutes together ever and

yeah some of the spacing stuff worked in game two with brown and dragoch going for 30 combined in the first half but if you're boston you go that's probably not happening in the second half or maybe even at any other stretch of this playoff series so we'll live with that and then the other great adjustment like boston's made adjustments but boston's had better options for adjustments you know it's funny how people get mad about adjustments. Well, putting Blake in was an adjustment. It just didn't really do much for you on the defensive end

because you usually have somebody there that you can attack if you're Boston on the Brooklyn side of it. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen because if you look at Kyrie and the Durant part of it, they clearly didn't like the Kenny Atkinson vibe. I also think that when you're a certain stature as a player,

if you're just not that guy, it's kind of like when everybody was saying, get rid of Spolster and have Riley coach again. People just have a hard time with other people that don't have the resumes. Yeah, so Atkinson falls into that category. He gets bounced. And I think Nash was like,

you guys can kind of do your own thing. And now it's on them. They've been kind of allowed to be isolation players because it's worked. The offensive numbers were really good when those two played together. Yeah, but you're the one who hates that.

You're the one who talks about when we get to the playoffs, there's that certain style that becomes a lot harder to pull off. And I think even though it's two guys instead of one with the Nets, same thing, right? It's somebody dribbling. Yeah, but it's either one of them just dribbling

as the shot clock's winding down, trying to create a shot. There's not a lot of ball movement. Their assists were, I think, what were they? Like 18, 19 assists lower than the Celtics for these three games. But just in general, fourth quarter, especially when Boston would ratchet up the defense, it became the one-on-one stuff. And I don't know.

I'm always going to like my chances against that if I have a good defense. I think that you need really great isolation players still to advance in the playoffs because things break down and everybody becomes more predictable. But you've got to throw some other actions out there. There has to be something that makes me think of you differently defensively

instead of five sets of eyeballs all on Durant as he's at the break, you know, looking at all of these guys. And you're like, hey, figure it out. It also kind of speaks to how crazy the Milwaukee thing was last year because this was not what Milwaukee did with him. And it still almost worked. Well, I wonder, so Durant's year 15, 939 regular season games, 154 playoff games.

It's over 40,000 minutes. He's had two major injuries, got injured this year too. 37.2 minutes a game this year. He's averaging 42 in the playoffs, which in my opinion is ludicrous. Like you would, you would ultimately in the ideal situation, you want him around 33, 34.

Maybe we shouldn't be shocked that he's entering a different stage of his career. I think LeBron, one of the things I was wondering is like, has LeBron just ruined our brains ability to process that NBA players are supposed to get old and right around year 15, year 16, year 17, you're supposed to start moving in a different phase of your career? When LeBron was in year 15, what year was that? He came in the league in 03. So that was his 2018.

That was when he was like the one-man show against, you know, taking the Cavs to the finals. And he had his big 51-point game in game one, all that stuff. Maybe he and him, and I guess Chris Potter or a lesser degree, maybe we just assume that these guys can't start to get old. Because the Durant in the three games we saw, to me, seemed a little bit old.

It wasn't just like the Celtics were discombobulating his head. It was like he had somebody, Tatum, who's just at the peak athletic whatever he's ever going to be in his entire career. You watch Giannis against the Bulls, that guy's at the peak

athletic apex that he's ever going to be at. Peak athletic apex. I think peak and apex are the same thing. Sorry about that. We get the point though because there's a lot of emphasis. You know what I mean? You're in your mid-20s. It's just different. Durant, in 2012, going against LeBron, is

probably going to be able to play 45 minutes a game in the finals and feel fine at the end of the five games. This Durant will not. He's had some work done. Broken foot. Major knee thing. He's had two different MCL things. He's seven feet tall.

And the Celtics are just beating the shit out of him. To me, he looks like a guy who's starting to look like his peak, his apex. The last tail end of it might have been last year. It's a hard argument to go against right now after these three games. You know, Schott got blocked a couple times too. We were like, what the hell is that? And Tatum even said like, oh, I think

I got lucky. He was almost suggesting like, don't say anything here that could motivate him. But I would I think we all, after the Achilles though, saw him and going, this guy's nuts. He was the MVP for a little bit of a stretch. I saw something about the Nets going, oh, here we go again with these

seven, eight seeds because the Lakers last year. And it's somebody I like, so I forget who said it. And I'm like, yeah, but when Durant went down, Brooklyn was a one seed. So it wasn't like they were the seven seed coasting with these guys playing 70-something games, their main dudes. They were a one seed basically because of him. And so that was all this year. Put a lot of miles on him.

You might be right, but you're so early on the short call here. I don't know if you'll be able to cover the premiums. Right. I've been guilty of the Durant when you really think about offensive things and options that you have versus what Giannis has. I still would rather have the Durant package. I'm about offensive things and options that you have versus what Giannis have.

Like, I still would rather have the Durant package. I'm not going to make that argument anymore. I may think it. I'm not going to make it out loud. I'm just not going to make it out loud anymore because I might just. I felt really good about it for a long time. And this is not the week to be doing it. Well, I think that's maybe the biggest takeaway from round one.

If we're talking like whatever group you want to have with that top tier is that it would, I had Giannis one, a Durant one B, but I just know next round, they're not going to be able to do this to Giannis. So the argument kind of naturally solved himself when it's Celtics, Milwaukee,

Giannis is going to figure out how to, a way to affect that game on, on both sides of the court, no matter what defense the Celtics are throwing at him. He's also seven years younger than Durant, eight years younger than Durant, so this is the phase of his career where he should be able to figure that. Same way Durant in 2017

was 35 a game against the Cavs in the finals. It's the peak of his powers. I think Giannis is at the peak of his powers right now. How bad is this Brooklyn decision looking for Durant? So I'm glad you brought that up. I actually feel bad, even though this was all his fault. I feel bad for him. It's like having a friend who has the bad quickie marriage where you're

just like, you're trying to be supportive, but deep down you kind of know how it's like having a friend who has the bad quickie marriage where you're trying to be supportive, but deep down you kind of know how it's going to turn out. I think with Durant, the Kyrie thing, there were all of these red flags. I mean, red flags galore. People in Boston, that was so funny about Durant when he was talking about Kyrie with the Boston fans and he was saying how,

you know, when you've loved someone, you know, you still feel that pain when they leave or whatever the hell he said. It was like, people wanted Kyrie to leave.

Nobody wanted him to stay. And the same thing with Cleveland. Like, I don't think there were tears shed when he left the Cavs. And Durant just couldn't resist him. And then he's like, let me bring my buddy James Harden into this.

And then, you know, we'll never know what happened in October, November. Somebody will write a great book about it, right? Where from all the intel I have, which I think is pretty good, it's Harden like, what the fuck? Kyrie's not going to play? What the fuck did you get me into?

And then KD being mad that Harden wasn't in shape and just things start splintering all of a sudden and four months later, Harden's on Philly. I think that's what happened. Seems reasonable. He deserves all the criticism. Didn't you, by the way, and I don't want to give it away here,

but I remember when it was, like we were hearing it was going to happen and I knew at the time, I don't know if you're, I don't feel as if you're as close with the Rance camp as you were at one point. Is that fair to say? Yeah. That seems like everything. Right. So, okay.

Because I think you and I were talking about it. So, set me straight here and go as deep into it as you need to go into it. But we knew what was going to happen. And then you and I are talking. And I was like, hey, you're close to the camp. Do they do they believe you when you say you probably don't want to hit your wagon? Kyrie, or do they think you're just Boston guy who is making it up? I think that's what I think that camp thought. Oh, no, this is just Boston trying to disparage him.

Not just me me but just in general like i would say you could have make it here and kairi wasn't and that just went apart but i think kairi and katie are really close i think they wanted to play together i think they're buddies yeah yeah and they were just like we'll figure this out yeah i think that's very clear that's very clear the hardened part sucks though because then that doesn't come through and then you're thinking all right well maybe you have something different with simmons who in a role with those two guys should actually be able, in a good version of it, provide you something real here. Well, let's talk about that, though.

The Ben Simmons piece of this. Which part? Long term or right now? You and I were very suspicious as that trade was going down. And people were like, man, when need to throw Ben Simmons in here. Oh my God, he's really the natural third guy. And I think anybody who watches this stuff was going, wait a second. You mean Ben Simmons,

the guy who just disappeared for the last eight months? Do we sure he loves basketball? Should we hold his playoff performance against him? I kind of feel like we should. What are the reasons he wants to leave Philly? What did they do exactly? Just a lot of skepticism. And once they made the trade,

everybody's like, well, when they get Simmons in, watch out. And now, you know, we started making fun of this a couple of weeks ago. The Ben Simmons is targeting the latter half of the Boston series. Ben Simmons is targeting game five or game six. Ben Simmons is targeting game four. game six Ben Simmons is targeting game four

and I was on this podcast going I'm targeting you know having some winning stock picks tomorrow that'll make a lot of money what does the word target even mean now they fall down three nothing all of a sudden his back hurts he's not playing so we won't see him again this year I am not surprised you can't you

couldn't have been surprised when you heard the news no never surprised about that part. I think he likes going to the games, though. He seems to be having a blast going. Yeah, I got to see him rebound in game one during the halftime layup line. But I'm definitely guilty of something that I guess you don't connect with at all. I thought with him, in a best-case scenario with Brooklyn, was a lot better for him. Because in Philadelphia, when Embiid's getting doubled and people are running at him like crazy,

you're expecting the other star to get you out of that, to fix some things offensively. He had no interest in ever developing anything that would allow him to create. Everything had to be off of somebody else or in transition and that kind of stuff because he wasn't going to hit any shots. With Brooklyn, he would never, you would have

thought in a perfect world, best case scenario, KD and Kyrie, that wow, Simmons can do some of this Claxton stuff. He can bring the ball up. He can initiate. Maybe he's better with the entry passes because he can get in, even though I don't know that I saw a ton of that in Philadelphia anyway. Yeah.

But I'm going to say something, though, about KD because this was really interesting. I had two 14-year-olds stay with me for the last week. So we can do a little non-parent parent corner later if you want to. I've known one of the kids this whole life and then his buddy came along. Right. So huge NBA obsessed, obsessed. Just all we did just constantly pepper each other questions the whole time.

And I'm like, all right, who are your guys? And they're telling me who they liked and who they didn't like. You know, it's these guys play basketball. It's hilarious. It's fun to talk about. And we got to KD and they were like, nah. And I went, wow. I go, so what?

Because the Golden State thing? He's like, yeah, man, cupcake. And I was like, wow. Yeah, I do think. So weird that he gets that and nobody else does. So having said that, when you look at the Brooklyn scenario and you go, why would you have done this

it's because he did what he did in golden state and more people still were pissed at him and hated him yeah we felt like he actually was doing his own thing so 100% why so yeah and he wanted his own place he wanted to be the best guy on a title team in a situation that he created advantageously to him i mean we've been over all this stuff, so I don't want to belabor it, but just, I mean, did you actually think

you were going to go to that Golden State team after what they did in 15 and 16? And everyone's going to be like, yeah, this is awesome. Yeah,

but you got to go back to where he was in 16, what his options were, which were basically Boston, a Knicks dumpster fire, a Lakers dumpster fire, or Golden State.

And the chance, I think he just, he wanted to get A Knicks dumpster fire, a Lakers dumpster fire, or Golden State. And the chance, I think he just wanted to get so badly away from Westbrook and just try a new city and try a new version of whatever life he wanted. I think he wanted to go to the Bay Area. They had a whole business stuff they were trying to figure out. It made sense. I don't think he ever intended to be there more than three or four years. I think what changed with him was after that first year when he went toe-to-toe with LeBron, he won the finals MVP and then was still Curry's team. And I think once that happened, the breadcrumbs were being

laid to, I have to leave and I have to go somewhere else. But I still feel like this is one of the great what-ifs. I remember I did my what-ifs chapter in 2009 in my book, and I did like the 33 biggest what-ifs in history. I think this is now like a top 10 what-if for me in the history of the league. What if Draymond doesn't get suspended before game five? There's just so many directions that we go in because of that one thing.

Because I think the Warriors go back and watch game four on YouTube. That series was done. They won in Cleveland. They're going to win in game five. The momentum of it flipped. Bogut gets hurt. All these different things happen.

Kyrie and LeBron go off. But if he doesn't get suspended, they win game five. He can't go there. And if he can't go there, either he just wants, he re-ups with OKC for one more year, or he maybe goes to Boston, whatever, that's a huge what if, then Kyrie never makes that shot. And Kyrie's been dining on that shot now for six years.

It's like those three games that he had, and that big shot he's made, makes him a little bit immune to criticism. It's like, well, he hit the game-winning shot in the finals over Steph Curry in 45 in game five. So people point to that, and it becomes much harder to kind of point out all the stuff you would point out

if you're trying to criticize Kyrie. But you have that side. You have the whole, what do the Warriors look like the rest of the decade, and on and on. There's just, I think, so many ramifications just from that one suspension that we'll be looking back at it 20 years

and be like, holy shit, look at all these things that happened from that. I will never be convinced, and I know he said it himself, that once they blew the 3-1 lead, that he was talking, was it Rich, where he was like, hey, we can do this. Like, we could actually potentially do this.

Yeah. I think those conversations, the tea leaves, the stuff that's happening since the very beginning of the year. And then remember, Woj even had the report on it

I think in February that year. He did. I will never be convinced that he only went there because they blew the 3-1 lead. And I know all the evidence and what he said publicly. That which team, though?

OKC blew the 3-1 or Golden State? Because you needed both of those things, right? You the 3-1 or Golden State? Because you needed both of those things, right? You needed the Clay Thompson game first. And then you needed the finals. I'm talking about Golden State.

Yeah. I'm talking about Golden State. And I know there's very little evidence that suggests that I'd be right about this. Because it's what happened. It's everything you just said. And then I've seen...

Where was he? He was in some panel somewhere and he brought it up. And he was like was like oh as soon as it happened i started realizing like oh maybe i can do this because if they've won i'd not been able to go uh i don't know there's part of me that still thinks maybe he would have gone even if they hit pete's calves at 16. yeah like i'm joining a dynasty this is the logical next move this isn't just a basketball move it's a business move yeah i, maybe. Tech. I love Silicon Valley on HBO. Great show.

Really funny. A lot of laughs. Yeah, I think part of the thing with Duran in 2016 was he didn't have really any great options. Because the Knicks and the Lakers

and the Nets, the two big cities we have, were in such a train wreck of a basketball situation. The Clippers didn't have the cap space for him. And it was just kind of, you know, all of a sudden it's like, ah, Draymond's texting him. Curry's texting him. I just think what five, six years later, you don't even need to do it. You take the max from OKC, you don't cost yourself a dollar,

and then you lose in 17 with Westbrook somewhere. And then you go, hey, guess what? Now I want out. I think that's how badly he wanted out. Well, then the other thing is he did a five-year extension instead of four with OKC. And really, he should have been a free agent in 2015. I think they were better. If you go back, I think there were better options in 2015. And the cap spiking and all that, which is the only reason they were able to do it. Cap spikes really helped the whole thing.

A couple more Celtics-Nets thing. Couple more Celtics Nets thing. Actually, let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember.

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A couple more Nets Celtics notes. You know, there's been, there's been a lot of Tatum taking the torch from Durant kind of stuff, including, I think we talked about it last week on this pod. I guess my question is, is he taking the torch more from Kawhi as the best two-way traditional forward we have in the league?

Because to me, the defense is such a big part of the Tatum story. I mean, nobody's going to be... the defense is such a big part of the Tatum story. I mean, nobody's going to be there. Duran is the best scoring offensive forward that I think we're going to have in my lifetime. Tatum will never reach those sites, but I think he'd be a better defender than Duran. I think he's as competitive as Duran was. I'm convinced that he could be the number one best guy in a championship team. And he's really more like Kawhi. What he's doing in these games is more in that Kawhi 2019, maybe somewhere between what might've happened if he hadn't gotten hurt that one San Antonio year,

but really that Toronto year and what some of the stuff he showed with the Clippers before he got hurt. But that's the torch. What do you think of that theory? I like it. I wonder if you're being dismissive of peak defensive Kevin Durant or if we feel like Tatum just holds up better.

I don't like comparing anyone to Durant. I think he's one of the all-time unicorns we've had. I don't think you can compare anyone to the 7-foot dude that could just score from all over the place for 15 years and easily could have 55 points in game four, for all we know. It's almost like an opposite trajectory, though, of Kawhi, where Tatum was offense first,

and then it was super offense with this defense. Yes. Where Kawhi was defense first, and then you're like, how good is this guy going to get? You're like, oh, wait, he can just dribble to the elbow, go really slow.

Bizarre version of that. You're right. And then he can just make everything. And then there was probably, to be fair, there was a nice little stretch of Kawhi living off of the rep where you started paying closer attention to some stuff. Is he really Mr. Two-Way still? But then he was making every single shot.

So, yeah, that's a good one. I think Tatum has more of an offensive thing. I think there's a wider variety of buffet options on offense than Kawhi offensively. Slightly better offense. Kawhi's the best defensive perimeter guy. It's him and Pippen. Yeah, P. Kawhi.

Yeah, P. Kawhi is still higher. But to me, Tatum was the story from those first three games, the way he defended Durant. I did not know he had it in him. And I would be watching him every game. I didn't know he could get to that level. And even the defense he played on that, the miracle stop right before the Tatum layup

when the Kyrie thing breaks down. But KD still had the ball with four seconds, five seconds left. And Tatum read like each movie had and was in and didn't foul him. I don't know. I just think there's some Kawhi... As you said, a little bizarre version of the Kawhi thing.

Another note, the smart thing. I don't know if we fully talked about it. How funny it is that they tested all these point guards and then the guy who was the point guard was the guy who was on the team the entire time we were on this podcast talking about, you know, what I would make the case where you can't break up Brown and Tatum,

please don't do that. I just want to see him with a real point guard. I was saying this in like December, what ha what would happen if they had been able to trade for Chris Paul, somebody like that, who could, you know, some sort that, who could,

you know, some sort of leader that could get it. And then he was on the team. Smart. He was there. And they, they were just constantly either playing them off the ball or he was the backup point guard or they didn't, whatever.

And now he's emerged as, I don't know, man. I mean, certainly the best he's ever played, but I did not. this is another thing. I watch this team all the time, did not see this coming. No, I can't believe that part.

That's probably the craziest part about the whole thing, you know, because I always felt like Smart, and this is, I would say, a slightly informed take, that Smart kind of carried himself and saw himself as like, you know what, I'm probably as good as anybody else in this team. And it's just never been the case offensively. And then I went through those numbers because I always felt like, how come the games where he just fires up,

does it look like they have no chance? And he definitely became a better three-point shooter. But there were still games where you're like, why are you the one taking that shot? You have to be kidding me. And he would do it all the time. And then over a seven-season thing that I looked at, splits kidding me yeah and he would do it all the time and then over seven uh seven season thing that i looked at splits wins and losses it was unbelievable that i think six

it was emphatically more shots with a like when his shot attempts went up winning percentage went down and then the inverse was true as well and there was one year where it was sort of flat so i'm like so this actually is backed up over the course of his entire career. There were real conversations about trying to figure out what the trade market was for him. And I know this blows Celtics fans mind, but it wasn't super awesome. They valued him way more than anyone else valued him. Right. One interesting thing, because they would talk, the organization, you know, they talk to everybody. And one thing is like the old Celtics

all fucking love smart. Like KG and Pearson, those guys, they were like, that's the guy. He could have easily played for our 08 Celtics team. So there was always this, no, no, no, this guy is great. But it was always a question of, well, if he's your two guard,

what does that mean? I think what's changed is now that he's the point guard, that's what's unlocked this whole defensive thing where there's just no one to hunt. There's no Kemba Walker, you know, that entire Miami series. Remember that? They were just, they, they were at the fucking gun range throwing, throwing ducks up and shooting them with Kemba. Oh wait, where is he? Here, you got him. You can't do that with the Celtics team. That's why I go back to what we talked about at the beginning.

The defense of the Celtics team, I think should be the story of this series and not what happened to Kevin Durant and oh my God. I just think we're talking about potentially, and we'll see, we'll know more next round when they go against Milwaukee, but potentially they could ride this defense for four rounds.

I did not think this team could, I thought they could make the finals. I didn't think they could beat Phoenix, but the way they're playing, how hard they're playing, how competitive they are, how much they trust each other. I think it's on the table now. And the Vegas agrees. They have, I think the number two best odds of Vegas now. Yeah. And all those projections that I thought were crazy,

and I still thought it was insane to have Boston with a better projection of winning the finals than Phoenix, which was still happening right before the... Big win for the nerds. I was just like, this is nuts. Yeah, the nerds do. By the way, with the Phoenix part of this and the uncertainty around Booker,

and Phoenix isn't even playing that well, by the way, in this series. There's some other numbers. They're not shooting the ball at all. Their Phoenix isn't even playing that well, by the way, in this series. There's some other numbers. They're not shooting the ball at all. Their defense is below its standard as well. But Chris Paul and Aiton are just, you know, they were terrific in game three. So I don't know how much we're going to do in this

because I know we have another one coming here tonight. But with the Booker part of this and what Golden State looks like when it's rolling, I don't think we should just be saying Phoenix blindly all the time. I just don't.

I think that's the number two thing that's changed for me during this round is so suspicious of, all right, what is Curry going to look like? And I know they lost today, but Curry looks like Curry again. He's beating everybody off the dribble and he's hopping around

and he's doing his thing. It's weird. I don't love their defense as much as I want to because the big thing is I think Clay has just slipped a little on that end. I know offensively he's really good today, but there was a play in the fourth quarter. He had Bones.

Bones was on the side, kind of isolated on him. He just went right by Clay. There's no way that happens in 2016, 17, 18, pick a year of the 2010s. He's still good. He's still obviously smart. But I think they're going to miss that in one of these rounds of like, all right, Chris, let's say they're playing Phoenix. Chris Paul's going off.

Which guy in our team is going to guard Chris Paul right now? And I'm not positive they have that guy anymore. Well, you probably have to sacrifice something with Gary Payton, but how can you put the other three guys out there and then have it be around Draymond? That would take Wiggins off. Maybe they put Wiggins on just to try to put some size on him. It doesn't matter.

If they play Phoenix, I think you're right. I think Payton plays more minutes than I think Wiggins plays. Wiggins today was an iconic Wiggins game. He makes that dunk. It's a sweep, probably. To follow up alley-oop that he somehow misses. And then, for whatever reason,

they run that weird alley-oop for him. But I thought they should have swept him. With that said, I was impressed by Denver because that was a nice rollover spot. That team's shown a lot of fight. I actually had a Denver question for you. You have a Denver take? Yeah, I actually do have a Denver take.

You ready? Is Denver the NBA's most misused asset? They have this game today and it's like, what? 50% Warriors fans? This team's been around since the ABA. That was crazy. What the fuck?

Denver's an awesome place to live. I love Colorado. There's great state tax stuff. It's not much different than Florida. It could be a free agent destination. Tax rate, you say? Tax rate. People are just chill there.

Everything's legal there. Gambling's legal there. Drugs are legal there. It's legal there. Gambling's legal there. Drugs are legal there. It's a great place to live. Wait, they can't get 15,000 fans at a basketball game? What the fuck? Have you been to Denver lately? Have you talked to friends who live in Denver?

Because first of all, they're telling you that it's all California people now. Yeah, everyone moved there to escape the taxes. I don't think it's that the Nuggets don't have an awesome fan base, because they do. I think't think it's that the Nuggets don't have an awesome fan base, because they do. I think that it has way more to do with the transient population that we're looking at.

Interesting. Well, so why didn't that bother the Warriors? Now you're making excuses for Denver, like I was making excuses for KD a half hour ago. I am a KD apologist, I guess. I'm sorry. No, I don't think your KD points are wrong, but do you think that I'm... I guess I'm just saying... I think you're aD apologist, I guess. I'm sorry. No, I don't think your KD points are wrong, but do you think that I'm...

I guess I'm just saying like... I think you're a Denver apologist. I cannot defend 6th Street. Sell out your fucking arena. You're trying to avoid a sweep. Where are all these Warriors fans coming from? I think they probably just bought them on the secondary market.

No, you know, I went to game one with my dad. The two guys next to him... Oh, yeah. Cerruti points out the local TV market. They, you know, I went to game one with my dad. The two guys next to him, oh yeah, Cerruti points out the local TV market, they can't even like see the games. That's not great. Is that the altitude thing?

Some weird TV deal? I'm just telling you, a lot of people are moving to Colorado and they have been for years. Check the home prices right now. It's out of control. And Denver has been building

on itself for a decade plus where the point was like, how do they keep building all of this stuff? Like there can't be enough jobs to support all this housing this is ridiculous and yet it just keeps going up and up and up and I think a good chunk of that was reflected with people with the money that goes screw it I'm going to live in Denver outside of Denver Cherry Creek shout out uh and now they're buying up tickets going to those games I mean look do you see Brooklyn yesterday I heard it was about 35% Celtic fans yesterday from multiple accounts. That was the word in the street, Rossella.

Probably like a little more than one third. It was loud. It was loud in there. And they were loud and they were real fans and they were ready to rock and roll. I just like Denver. I think the Broncos are going to go for some crazy price, right? When the Broncos, whatever the final version of that is. I feel the same way about the Nuggets that I did about the Suns and the Warriors,

where you have this half-century legacy of basketball. You're in good cities. You have fans that have had some memories. They've had some really good players. And when people bought the Warriors in 2012, when it was Lake up in that group, people thought they overpaid. It was like, why'd they overpay? They, they're going to be able to,

you know, they're going to be these courtside, all the Silicon Valley money. Like that thing's going to be a money machine if they can get the team right. And what you're saying about Denver, I agree with, like with all the people moving there, maybe Denver could be the next golden state. This is not good enough to be a social breakout

on the ringer, but I do think like, I just feel like, just feel like there's some upside with the Nuggets. I was bummed out that they had so many Warrior fans there. I love Denver, and you're right. Anybody that's ever played, a couple guys that I knew that played for the Rockies, one Bronco,

a couple guys in the Avs, and they all love it. They all love it. Some of them maybe weren't even sure, and they're like, this city is awesome, and it was set up really well. I mean, anybody that's been in attendance,

I even thought about, the no ocean thing is a deal breaker for me, but we'll do real estate speculation maybe more on part two. So I'm going to stop myself and talk about Denver. Maybe spin off. I mean, we spun off. There's F1 now on the ringer. Maybe we do real estate speculation.

Rosillo? Weekly? Rosillo. Do you like Denver more next year than Golden State, Phoenix, or Memphis if their guys are back in 100%? Because I still have them slotted into the fourth spot.

They don't defend well enough. It continues to be a thing with them. And you could say, well, look, if they had Murray and Michael Porter Jr. I don't defend well enough. It continues to be a thing with them. And you could say, well, look, if they had Murray and Michael Porter Jr. I don't know if Michael Porter Jr. screams defensive lockdown, although certainly better than the disasters beginning to it. How about when they pulled Jokic for the offense-defense?

I was like, oh my God, here we go. Twitter, just yeah. MVP's offense-defense, what? Do you realize what he did he said from his seat if you go back and watch that play before they inbounded he goes it's a lob it's a lob yeah they showed him yeah so actually it proves his value

baskets yeah I'd still have them fourth right fourth yeah what about Minnesota wait what if Minnesota I'm saying like ceiling four. I still have those other three ahead of them unless Phoenix gets stupid with eight in the summer.

Who the fuck knows what they have. Before we go, because I guess this is the Eastern Conference podcast. We're headed toward Boston, Milwaukee. Seems like we're headed toward Philly, Miami. We'll know more. We're taping right now. It's 1919 Miami, Atlanta.

We'll know. We'll be able to cover that more in part two. but I would assume Miami is going to win this series, but I'm looking at Kyle Lowry in a sweatshirt right now. And the moment he went out of that game, I felt like the series, you could feel it shift a little bit. Philly, Toronto. So Embiid has this thumb injury. It's the same injury that Jalen Brown had last year that Jalen Brown said, fuck it. And the Celtics were like, yes, fuck it. We need you healthy for next season.

He just had the surgery. He didn't play. Embiid is going to gut it out. It's a shooting hand. It's a real thing. I didn't think he looked the same yesterday. He didn't look, it wasn't like noticeably crippled. Wasn't terrible.

But he did not look the same. The zone that he was in where he's just beating the shit out of everybody did not seem like that same Embiid anymore. I think they've caught a lot of breaks in this series considering Scotty Barnes gets hurt in a blowout in game one and he was like a

shell of himself in game four. And then weirdly Van Vliet has just been terrible. And I thought Van Vliet, I thought they could have won game three if Van Vliet had hit one shot. He just couldn't hit a shot down the stretch. Toronto's lingering. There's not a chance we're going back to Toronto for

game six, is there? Unless the Embiid thumb thing gets worse. I'm with you. Van Vliet never really looked right. Then he only played 15 minutes in game four anyway. Yeah. This was going to have to be Toronto getting out and running, burning Philadelphia in transition.

But Philadelphia is not missing any shots. You know? They're lighting it up right now. And Tobias Harris. Except for Harden. Yeah. Oh. It's 38%.

His field goal percentage is worse than his three-point percentage, which is always fascinating when that happens. Right. 38%, 39%. He had a play in game four where he went to the rim, and he just went up. He was like, let's see if this works. He had no chance.

And then he tried to run that iso three-pointer on the right side, where the whole time all he was doing was, I'm just getting this shot up, and I'm falling into you, seeing if I can get the call. Yeah, it's like he's got this lurch. It's a little like when quarterbacks are just trying to get past interferences on third and 14. I'm just going to chuck it down, hope my guy makes a play,

or I go to flag. Yeah, that's pretty much what it felt like from him, but he's still going to have assists because he's really good at passing and he has basketball as much as he had. But Tobias Harris being 18, 10, and 3 3 and he's 57 and 53 percent and his defense there was a couple plays i think at the end of game three where they were trying to get it into siakam because you know i'm always trying to figure out like what is their thing that they want to do and there's still a lot of times they actually want to switch in and be because he's big and they want

to make him just try to get away from the rim so that's really part of it where when you're attacking yokich you know you're actually just dribbling right past him um which again speaks to how fucked up the defensive metrics can be when you're telling me yokich is like the guy this year and all these defensive metrics and watching what golden state's been doing to him it's like i mean again they had to sit him down for that one last possession there because it was getting so bad but there was two plays where they were trying to get at Siakam. Siakam couldn't even get free from Harris off the ball. And then there was another time where he did,

and Siakam just gave it back to Van Vliet because this is game three. And I'm like, man, look at that. Siakam bounced back in the next game, but with a big, I think he had 34 in game four. By the way, everything you're saying right now is going to be when they're trying to trade Tobias Harris two months from now, they're going to actually run the clip of what you just said. When they did the package, when they mail like the PDF with some audio clips, they'll be like, Ryan Russillo, April 24th, The Ringer.

And it's just a minute long Tobias Harris thing. He loved Tobias Harris for eight days. Yeah. So even Russillo noted Tobias Harris, a detractor, huge fan. Well, people finally figure it out after two years when I would just randomly tweet on a Tuesday night. Like, wait, the Sixers have Tobias Harris? And I would just tweet. I couldn't help myself.

He's on that all-star team with Wiggins. Wait, Wiggins is on this team? Or Towns? Hey, Towns is on this team? I don't know that you could say that about Towns anymore. Well, not after he reclaimed his NBA manhood after Game 4.

We'll talk about the West in Part 2. The Harden thing. It's funny. If you're the Sixers, I mean, if you're the Nets, do you regret that trade? Do you regret not just playing it out, knowing that the Harden-Simmons trade is probably sitting there in the offseason? Or do you feel like trade do you regret not just playing it out knowing that the hard and simmons trade is probably sitting there in the offseason or do you feel like you had to just get

rid of them no you had to get rid of them this is a this is the part of the the nets thing that i will defend the nets on because i've seen a few people again when i say this i mean like other people that are opinion people going hey you know what would have been nice on this team is james hard not the fucking sacramento kings game james harden yeah true so what are you right he made it it's a great point he made it untenable you are in the building with this guy every day you know how much worse it even is than us watching league pass and he decides i'm out and even if you're like on the fence of is he really doing this yeah he is because we just saw it 13 months ago when he was in Houston. So you can't make that argument by acting like the Nets screwed up the trade

because whatever, even a diminished version of Harden, which is who he is now, still provides somebody you have to defend a threat. It's going to make good plays because it still hasn't been great with it. It's just completely unfair to Brooklyn because you're not being fair about what it was towards the end of that run.

I think he would have helped the Nets defense. Oh no, he would have somehow made it even worse. The Nets defense, Jesus. I feel the worst I feel for anybody involved even in the collateral damage of all this is Sepp Curry. Where he was just in the...

So rarely as an NBA player do you just end up in the right spot. You're in the right team. You're being used correctly. They're using all the best pieces of you. And now all of a sudden you're in Brooklyn on this team that has no wings at all.

You have to guard these bigger guys. Nobody runs anything for you. Or if they do, it's just you getting tossed the ball or you're in the corner. And it's just a bummer to watch because I like Seth Curry. I like Seth Curry too.

That's my Seth Curry take. Yeah. Before we go, I have some NBA nerd stuff for you. And then we're, this is it. We're really wrapping.

I went through it. I actually went through the 89 Pistons, 91 Bulls, 99 Spurs, 04 Pistons, 08 Celtics. Try to figure out like,

were there some nerd stuff that were good signs? So points per game in the playoffs, all those teams were best with like opponents points per game. All of them were first, except for the 08 Celtics who were second. All of them were either first or second in opposing field goal percentage. The rebounding of the opposing team, Pistons were second, Bulls first, Spurs sixth,

which was weird, Pistons fourth, O.A. Celtics first. The reason I bring this up is like, all right, a good defense isn't just your field goal percentage is down, points are down, but you're also protecting the boards. Well, another thing is pace. For pace, Pistons first, points are down, but you're also protecting the boards. Well, another thing is pace. For pace, Pistons first, Bulls first, Spurs seventh,

Pistons second, Celtics fifth. The pace is good because that means you're not giving up transition, you're slowing it down, you're in control or whatever. Defensive rating, all of them were first except for the 08 Celtics who were second. If you're talking about elite players, Rodman and Dumar are in 89 Pistons. MJ, Grant, Pippen, I'm talking about defenders.

99 Spurs, Robinson, and Duncan. 04 Pistons, Wallace, Prince, Billups, and the other Wallace, they had four. And then the 08 Celtics, Garnett, and Pierce. And then if you're thinking about the last piece of like a great defense and this is why I don't think the Celtics are there yet

and the stats aren't there yet, but they have a chance, is like, is there some sort of identity? Like, we both love basketball. You look back at these teams. I think like that 89 Pistons team is like,

man, that team, what a fucking bitch that team was. Super physical. Rodman could guard anybody. Dumars was the best defensive guard in the league. Like, whatever style you had,

they had five guys that could stop you. 91 Bulls, Jordan, Pip, and Grant. Just like, very similar in a lot of ways

to what the Celtics have now with the Tatum Browns. Smart thing. We're just like, interchangeable, awesome, fast, incredible athletes. Just a pain in the assum-Brown smart thing, which is like interchangeable, awesome, fast, incredible athletes, just a pain in the ass

to play. 99 Spurs had the Robinson-Duncan thing, just two long dudes who were just crazy athletes. 04 Pistons, I mentioned them, the four elite things. Do the Celtics have an identity? I think they do, which I think is a good sign for this

discussion if they can get there. They're 13 wins away from winning the finals I think is a good sign for this discussion if they can get there they're 13 wins away from winning the finals which is a fucking two months you could have injuries all these different things what I saw in those

first three games was an identity forming in a real way that wasn't a regular season identity this was like this is now a recipe

that works in the playoffs that we've seen a bunch of times over the years and it feels like they're tapping into this and they understand that this is happening if you read all the quotes it's like something's happening here anyway that's that's that's my nerd rant what do you think it's it's just so funny to think that like this is all happening after it wasn't for the longest time right you know like

to sit and watch the Celtics game be like oh I trust that they're going to respond to the challenge the physical and mental challenge here I trust that they will now respond after not trusting it for about 200 games I trust that they're going to be tough right and the only thing I could think of whether it's Brown kind of understanding that you're going to have to be the two, you know, is that that felt like that was a struggle. You're going to have to understand that, like, even though you're the best, you have to figure out a way to both get get 30, but not force it and know when to when to get somebody else involved. So we're going to need you to guard the best forward on the other team. And that's how we're going to win. Right. Smart.

You're going to make plays, but you're not going to initiate the offense. We need the ball being zipped around and it's not going to be you driving and iso-ing and high ball screens all the time. You're going to have to really defer offensively. Oh, by the way, Al Horford, you're going to have to get back to where you're going to be able to stay

in front of guys at 35 years old. Grant, you have to now be a really good draft pick. Rob Williams, you have to be a good draft pick. Pritchard, you have to be a good, after being buried the first half of the season. So then it's the other thing is that Ainge sucked. Ainge sucked. It's like, oh, look at that Nets trade.

He didn't get anything. And you're like, well, first of all, he got Tatum out of it and Jalen Brown. So that was one of the, you know what I mean? And then you add in all the other things. Like, yeah, it sucks. Sacramento ended up having a better record. Memphis had a better record.

The other picks didn't end up being as much. Well, think about on that point for a second, Romeo Langford versus Grant Williams, and then Neesmith versus Pritchard, where the guy who was taken 12, 13 spots later ended up being the guy that they were hoping they would be getting with that 13, 14 pick, right? Absolutely. For whatever reason,

it was just a bizarre version of, but it still weirdly worked out. But then to have it all happen, granted spending time with two teenage boys this week, I think it'd be, here's a good one for you. It'd be the analogy of you've got a couple

daughters, you've got a son, and one, the guy's always breaking curfew, you know, daughter's always on her phone. The other daughter just never does her homework or whatever. And then just collectively out of nowhere, the same week, all three of them, like your son started coming home on time. Your other daughter was making sure she, and then the other one was like, you know, I want to get a flip flow. That's what the Celtics team is like. Just all the things that were pissing you off about the different pieces, they all just decided at the same time. And that's really why, you know, whether it's Yudoka or the team, it's hard to find a way to give them more credit. We'll see what happens because it's going to be Milwaukee and it's going to be a guy that physically is a little different challenge right now than anybody else in the league. And a team that is pretty well equipped to at least figure out how to solve him and not only just build in the wall, but really be physical with them and just try to see if they

can wear them down over the course of time. I was really excited for this Nets Celtics series, which seems like it might end abruptly. Bucks, Celtics. The no Middleton thing is a huge break for them. And that's another thing with this Celtics team, at least so far. You think all the breaks that went against them. They've caught some major breaks. The Harden thing just self-combusting.

It's an amazing break. No Ben Simmons. Amazing. The fact that Harden's not the same guy that he was before. The injury part of this is crazy. The Chris Middleton piece? Middleton.

You've got Embiid, which I'm never quite sure is this one of those things you actually can go ahead and play with or whatever. Whatever it is, it's going to be diminished. It's not the same guy. And if there's one knock, and the big thing about all this

Jokic social media shit is I don't really want to get in focus. I don't want to have to say anything shitty about Embiid. I don't want to have to make a point. But this is someone, even in the game, winner. Right. I do too. But Jokic gets stripped by Draymond and it's like, ah, this is your MVP.

This is your king. And you're like, you realize before MB threw in the Hail Mary, he got stripped by Precious Atchewa right before. And I think MB at times trying to force it against those doubles doesn't always hang out of the ball as well. Sixers fans know it.

And so now you're like, well, shit, how's this injury going to impact that? You've got the Booker part of it. You've got Don Chichu. We knew he was going to come back in this round. He's not somebody who's great defensively. He doesn't need to move fast on offense, but defensively he's a turnstile right now. So we already have like four or five major injuries,

and the Celtics have really only dealt with the Rob Williams thing, and he's back after being out since March 27th. Look, we'll leave on this note, and then we'll go to part two a few hours from now. But man, I said it at the time, I continue to say it, I just value having the higher seed

and I value having these home games when you really need them. You think like Milwaukee, they ducked this Brooklyn team, which seems kind of crazy now in retrospect, that they not only ducked this Brooklyn team, but were perfectly willing to potentially play a game seven in Boston. It was like they simultaneously overrated Brooklyn and underrated the Celtics.

You know? And all they did was win one game and they had game two at home. And I think they would have wiped the floor with Brooklyn. You know? I just wonder if they were spooked by last year. Maybe. Because I still think Brooklyn was kind of hard to evaluate going into it. Even if we're talking about

11 minutes between the main guys all season long, right? Harden, KD, and Kyrie, was it they played 11 minutes? No, no, no. It was 16 games. That's what it was combined the last two years.

89 Pistons, 91 Bulls, 99 Spurs, 04 Pistons. I think that's by Mount Rushmore for the last 35 years. I think the 08 Celtics are close. And I think the 15 Warriors are close. Is there anybody else you would have? Because I feel like that's everybody. The 16 Warriors... Was the 15 Warriors the best defensive team out of all of those teams because

that team was basically that was iggy at his absolute right and that was about a four-year run 19 was the year they slipped a little defensively which is usually to be expected because the same group's not going to be the same um i'll go oh four better version of bogut i've never seen anything like the oh fouristons in that all five guys could switch. Like Chauncey could hold up in the post and Ben Wallace could go out and chase guys. And then you had all these other switchable pieces. And that was, it's, I don't know. That's another team that people slept on in the moment.

The Lakers were heavily favorited with that series. People kept waiting. And it was a little similar to this Brooklyn series where it became all this ISO stuff and Kobe taking bad shots heavily favorited with that series. People kept waiting and it was a little similar to this Brooklyn series where it became all this ISO stuff and Kobe taking bad shots and the roll guys. That was Slava Medvedenko. We did a book of

basketball podcast about that series. But a little similar. Until the bitter end, people were like, and then it was like, oh, the 0-4 Pistons. They're actually whoa! And it was like, yeah, it was there the whole time. They were playing that Pacers series. Remember, it was like, oh, the all four pistons are actually, whoa. And it was like, yeah, it was there the whole time. They were playing that Pacer series. Remember, it was like 72 to 71 finals.

It was just the all-time defensive slugfest. Yeah, they don't get enough credit probably because to be in the Eastern Conference Finals as many years as they were, but it almost feels a little Ravens-esque where I still think that Ravens defense of 20 years ago is the best defense I've ever seen. I know there's other teams that have graded out better statistically. I agree.

That Ravens team looked like when you were watching them every Sunday, it felt like they had 13 guys on defense. It was unbelievable. It was my favorite Super Bowl bet I've ever made. That might be it for Detroit, where even though there's a longer run historically of success because they were in so many Eastern conference finals, um, so many years in a row when you only have the one title, you know, maybe, maybe you just don't get remembered the same way as some

of those other teams defensively. And a lot of it has to do with my age and how I was processing things. And, you know, was I really picking up how you were handling a fucking ball screen when I'm 11? No. Uh, am I going to my dad? I really liked the Lakers switch ability with, with Jamal Wilkes, you know, like, you know,

so I'm not, I just know that at that point watching that Lakers series against Detroit, even just Detroit in general, not even that finals, you were like, holy shit. Like if Chauncey, if you think like,

cause they used to do more of that stuff back then where they'd try to switch. It wasn't so much always attacking a big off the dribble. It was like, let's get a small guy in the post because you're still running so much post offense. And then somebody would get Chauncey and you'd be like, oh,

you notice that Chauncey doesn't give up any ground. Well, you know what the best case for them is? They literally changed the rules that summer because of how good that Pistons team was defensively and some of the direction the league was going. They only gave up 80.7 points a game in the playoffs that year.

Think about that. 80.7. Yeah, thank God. That stretches over. Thank God. And they had four elite guys. All right, we're wrapping this up. That's the end of part one.

We're going to come back for part two. Atlanta just took the lead over Miami. Atlanta-Miami would be fun. I hope this goes seven. I guess we'll talk the end of part one. We're going to come back for part two. Atlanta just took the lead over Miami. Atlanta-Miami would be fun. I hope this goes seven. I guess we'll talk about that in part two. Thanks to Kyle Creighton. Thanks to Steve Cerruti. Thanks to Dylan Berkey. Any predictions for tonight before we go? You want to get anything on the record?

You worried about the Pelicans against your sons? Are you kidding me? Do you know how happy I was? That was at all time all time that cp yeah we'll do some cp stuff today part one was a little boston heavy but i think it was warranted they have a chance to sweep brooklyn feels like a big story call me crazy it was a little boston heavy i think some people would agree but well that's why we got the two partners here with there's plenty you know what i predict i predict this i will have moments It was a little Boston heavy. I think some people would agree, but that's why we got the two-parters here.

There's plenty. You know what? I predict this. I will have moments where I'll go, I don't know about Trey Young, and then there'll be a moment where I go, ah. Game three was the ultimate Trey Young.

Ultimate Trey Young game. Oh, my God. Ten points with five minutes left. He was terrible. And then I'm like, you know what? Some of this regular season stuff. Then he hits the game winner. I was like, oh, here we go.

That 29 footer he took with like two minutes left. He's on this short list of guys that they could be like two for a hundred. And he takes a shot like that in that moment. And I'm still terrified if I have money on Miami or a Miami fit. All right. No Lowry thing's a big deal though because he's their best on-off guy through the first three games. Yeah. I mean, who could

have guessed Kyle Lowry would get hurt during the playoffs? We'll see you for part two in a few hours. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.