The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 1: The Brunson Game, a Kyrie-Harden Slugfest, and OKC’s Ceiling With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

In Part 1 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Clippers surviving the Mavericks to even up the series at 2-2 (1:45), Jalen Brunson's 47-point performance in the Knicks' win over the 76ers and where Brunson ranks among the best free agent signings of the 21st century (26:57), the Lakers avoiding a sweep by winning Game 4 against the Nuggets (56:52), Cavaliers-Magic, Celtics-Heat, Thunder-Pelicans, and more (1:01:48) Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, a two-part NBA playoff extravaganza with Priscilla is next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day.

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all of our football pods. We did a lot of draft stuff. I thought our draft coverage was phenomenal this year. And I also love the draft. I can't tell you how many Drake May stories I read over the weekend. Same girlfriend since seventh grade. Comes to New England the day after the draft

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Coming up, Rocio and I are going to talk about all of the stuff that happened over the weekend from a basketball standpoint, except for the last two games on Sunday, but obviously Dallas Clippers, Philly, New York today,

just two incredible playoff games. We're going to talk about that and a lot more next. First, our friends from ProJet. Pro-Jab! All right, we're taping part one. It's 3.30 Pacific time. Just watched two awesome basketball games in a row. And the Clippers-Mavericks game turned into, I don't know what the hell was going on. At some points, it seemed like a sports documentary. At some points, it seemed like

a greatest hits of all the terrible Clippers playoff losses for over the years. At one point, there was a holy shit. Kyrie and Harden were on the same team less than two years ago, and now they're going head-to-head in this awesome offensive matchup. Paul George left his body a couple times.

The Clippers staved off going down 3-1. I don't even know where to start, Rasula, but that game was awesome. If you're a Mavs fan, would you rather just have been blown out? You know, heading into the fourth quarter, I was thinking, who is this going to be a worse loss for? And I think the answer would have been the Clippers, right?

Because you would have made playoff history. But for the Mavs to claw all the way back and then still lose, really rough. Yeah, I think you probably would have rather just lost by 20. I'll admit, I mean, when you watch the first quarter, you're going, oh my God, you know, Clippers are on fire here. Like, they can't possibly keep this up, and then went to another level. So, you're looking at it going, okay, so the Mavs

haven't made a three. Luka has two fouls. It's 39-16. Clippers are 8-11 from three. You're like, okay, well, this is just crazy. But it wasn't. It was 55-26. Yeah, it yeah it got worse so as i'm watching the first quarter i'm like all right weird first quarter a lot of work to do boys and then it gets even worse kairi saved dallas two separate times that big run in the second quarter where

he scored 12 and 14 and then the other two were an assist from him to lively but the the headline for me of this game is that this is why gms will always take guys on like this that have lived in this neighborhood because i mean you and i've had plenty to say about all these players but paul george having seven points in three, and then he has 26 in the first half. You're like, yeah, this is why everybody would still sign Paul George this summer. This is why Dallas, you know, granted it was a little different for the Kyrie market, but this is why there'd still be a trade partner. And this is why the Clippers are like, hey, you guys have questions about adding Harden? We'll take him, even though it wasn't like some haul that Philly got for him.

I think it was just a lesson reminder, and especially for me, that this is why GMs will be like, yeah, in. There's a flip side of that where there's 10 trades where it goes the other way, right, that we don't ever talk about again. Like when Orlando's like, yeah, maybe we can resurrect Gilbert Arenas. Maybe that'll happen. I don't resurrect Gilbert Arenas maybe maybe that'll happen I don't know I don't know that Arenas is these guys though no I know I know I'm just a lot of times this doesn't work out but it was crazy to watch Kyrie and Harden just playing at the highest possible offensive level in the in the second half that like the Mavs had just no answers for Harden at all although I guess one of the answers might have been maybe put in one of your shot blockers

and put them near the rim so they can challenge some of the shots. It was just the same floater over and over and over again. Why not try to put somebody else in? Hey, I'm so glad you said it because this Mavs resurgence has been about the size option. Yeah. And Kleba was the one that was in as the five man. It was almost like they wanted him

for the spacing on offense, but were willing to throw away the defensive part. Dallas started doing something that I always wonder, you know, Harden over and over was trying to get Luka in a switch. And then at one point there

with like four minutes left, P.J. Washington would run over and do the quick swap with Luka to get back on him. That usually works. Teams never do that. They're always afraid to like leave somebody open for two seconds

to have the guy run out. It's like, oh, you got the switch you want, but watch this. We're going to send a guy flying out to switch our guy back. And then Harden was still torching it. It didn't matter. I think with Harden,

you can get away with it because Harden's not going to go into anything quickly right because i've seen other teams right like every now and then when a team will try to do it be like oh we got into a bad switch let's just get back to it then it's just get torched so i think that's why we don't see it happen a lot um but harden was you know i'll admit like there was a moment where harden had a drive and it looked like he had a layup on the left side and he threw it to westbrook for a three and he bricks it and And I'm like, wait, what is that? Is this going

to happen again here down the stretch? And it didn't. He was phenomenal. And even though Paul George's third quarter, I was like, wait, is this going to happen again? He hits that three in the corner and he wasn't great in the second half, but it's just this elite level of shot making like i feel bad for kairi that that layup there is a still shot that will exist but it's not going to exist in history anymore when he hits that layup to go up 105 104 where there's three the ten tuple clutch layup that he made there was three guys all with their arms up and he kind of if you took a screen grab of it before he gets a shot off you're just going no way and again that's why he's the best small finisher in the history of the game so i don't know what what does it mean though what does it mean to you right now well kairi makes

that shot the crowd's ballistic i mean that's a top five crowd i was at all those 2011 finals games when it was dallas miami and the crowd should have gotten a top five crowd. I was at all those 2011 finals games when it was Dallas, Miami, and the crowd should have gotten a ring. The crowd was like that good and that impactful. And when the crowd gets like that, it's super loud, it's really intense, and you really feel it. And it felt like the Clippers were feeling it. And Harden was the one who calmed them down,

who is one of the worst playoff performers of any great player, of any of the top 50 guys. He has one of the worst playoff resumes, right? And this was one of his best playoff games ever. Kyrie, we knew, we know he has it in him. We haven't seen it as much in the last few years, but we know he has it in him. Paul George is like a cat. He'll jump, he'll jump on your lap every once in a while. He's super lovable. Other times you're like, where's Paul George? Oh, he's in the garage. He, he was kind of all of those things in the same game today. But that shot he hit in the corner coming after the Kyrie thing, JJ, I was glad. I thought JJ and Doris and Breen were good today. I was really glad JJ went back to it. Like, hey, I just

got to go back to that shot Paul George made because Derrick Jones Jr. was perfect defensively, did every single thing right. And the guy had to make a 25 footer over the backboard, but he misses that. I think Dallas wins. I think that would have been it. So that's one thing that, and then the other thing is that Luca was the fourth best guy in this game, which, um, I didn't think he looked right the whole game and he hurt his knee. He did something. He just looked gimpy. And there was multiple moments in this game where it seemed like he was going to go on a Luca run when they had momentum and then he would just miss a shot. The one time he hit a three, he tied one

in the fourth quarter. It was like, Oh, with five minutes left, it was like, Oh, there he is. This is, this is what he's, you know, this is why he's one of the three best players in the league. But I thought for the most part, at one point I looked up, he was like seven for 21, seven for 22, but I just didn't think he was, I know he finished with a 29, 10 and 10, but I don't think he was like seven for 21 seven for 22 but i just didn't think he was i know he finished with a 29 10 and 10 but i don't think he was nearly as impactful as the other three guys do you no and with him whenever he's a little gimpy there's no secret to it it's very demonstrative you know there's times with him in games where i'll go uh-oh you know what's going on with him then over the course of a few years you just kind of realize like that's that's part of

it that he's struggling and he was adjusting the brace he was grimacing and you're watching it all and i don't know if it was because it was that or you know some of these terrence man numbers against him are incredible like i couldn't believe it when they showed that graphic and i don't have the final tally from all of it but the numbers against man just shocking like like I never think anybody can do that to Luca and I wouldn't think it was I saw that in person game one I was like man man I don't think anybody guards Luca great but he's pretty comfortable guarding Luca about as comfortable as you're gonna be right it's not like anybody's like oh awesome I get to guard Luca but yeah there's some randomness in in the field goal attempts and made and everything but like man's man's up for it and so

you know there was also a possession there late where but i've seen this in the regular season with luca when kairi's going where luca's like hey go like go do your thing and the funny thing is they had they had a possession where they actually doubled Kyrie off of Luka and then went back to Luka with single coverage because they were so worried about Kyrie in that moment. I think I don't have a – I never get like really worked up like, oh, you should have done this. Like could Josh Green have had a better chance athletically with Harden on some of those drives than P.J. Washington? Maybe. You know, maybe Kidd doesn't trust Josh Green to be out in the game in that spot. He didn't want to play in the beginning of the playoffs. And just because it didn't happen doesn't mean

it was a solution. But the shot making from Harden down the stretch where I thought they were going to fall apart. I thought the Clippers were going to be like, hey, even up 10, I'm like, home crowd, Dallas, way more at stake. You know, no Kawhi. Westbrook's out there for two straight games. I don't know what his, like, I don't know what he's telling himself in the mirror before these games. Game three was far more egregious than it was game four. It's just there's nothing offensively there for him.

But this is, to think we got these two games back-to-back today is incredible after the first weekend start. Did you feel like if the Clippers lost that game, what happened? It's a pretty good what if. What happens to that team? Because you have Kawhi, who comes back for two and three, doesn't look right. Game three, even playing him seemed like a huge mistake. As we're watching it, we're like, what the hell are they doing? Like he's not even 60%. When we do percentages, I saw a 59%. I saw 60% throw it out.

And I was thinking to myself, I'm like 60 would be awesome right now. 57? Yeah. But it was, it was, it really, and the way Westbrook behaves in that game and just their general demeanor, it felt like this was going south.

So they scratched Kawhi today, and I think we all had the same reaction. Like, well, they didn't have them in game one. They look great. Maybe this is the right move. Then they come out like gangbusters. They look awesome. Then they blow it.

And then after Kyrie makes the 10-tuple clutch shot, just seemed like that's it. Holy shit. This is going to be a wrap. Dallas is going to beat them in five. And now I don't know what to think with this series. Because both teams have matchups against the other team that they really like.

And if you're at least Dallas, you could go, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't add Kaliba down the stretch there. Maybe we should play our bigs. There's probably some other stuff we can do with Harden. Maybe we need to push the ball into the hands of other people. If you're the Clippers, you're going, well, Kyrie was just out of control,

but Luka really wasn't that effective. What happens if he gets going? So I think there's more fear of the unknown if you're the Clippers than you're the Mavs. I also don't, do you think we see Kawhi again in this series? Who knows? I never know what to expect with him ever. It was right before game one. It's like, no, he's not going to go. Then there's game two. Then you're right. Game three was so bad. It was funny.

It's not funny, but SportsCenter, the Instagram feed or the Twitter feed had Kaawai hanging on the rim because he got that baseline dunk and you were like okay but sometimes when you're hurt and you know where you're going and you're going straight line and there's nothing that's unpredictable your movement you can kind of mask it a little bit and so he gets that baseline dunk and then when they threw him the alley-oop i was like should you even do that with him but it's all instinctive you're not thinking like okay i shouldn't do this but then he hung on the rim so long and then the sports center feed was like crying laughing face emoji like look at kawaii just

i was like yeah that's not what this is no he doesn't want to come down he's he's worried about how he's going to land after the play is dead not even in traffic he's just's just hanging. And then I'm like, okay, well, he must be toast. But I think you brought up a good point. It's that, you know, one of the things we've really liked about this Clippers team beyond the three guys is like, they spent all this money. They've been smart with the power transaction. They've developed man, coffee, as I've said a couple of times, like, I just think there's well, you know, there's worse options for the fifth guy to have the ball in his hands

at the end of the shot clock than a mere coffee. And then the big rotation is worked out here with both those guys being healthy. So the version we saw Kawhi, right, in game three is not worth it. Like, why is four going to look that much better when they actually have probably more perimeter options than other teams would have if a max guy is down. Yeah, we've seen this over the course of NBA history. We're trying to shoehorn the semi-injured superstar into something that might be working better without him. And it almost just makes it clumsier for 17 different reasons. But I really like the Paul George matchups in this series for them too. 2-2 feels like the right score for the series. With that said,

I would have put the odds of James Harden doing that in a playoff series from what we have seen from him the last couple of years at like four to one or five to one. I thought that guy was gone and he's, you know, he's not, he's not breathtakingly quick like he used to be to the rim. And, you know,

it's a little slower. It's a little more herky-jerky-ish, but he was getting to the spots he wanted to get to today. And you're right. Neither of us liked that trade. I hated it. I have a YouTube clip out there that the headline is the Clippers are dumb because I thought they were dumb. I thought it was fool's gold. It's the kind of thing you do and you're just spending money and you have no plan. But it's turned out better than I think in my wildest dreams I ever would have thought it would have turned out for them. So you have that piece, but then you also have the piece of, we mentioned the history of the team. All the Clipper fans watching that game as that lead starting to go down, your mind goes back to

that Rockets game. Now that game was in LA, but the Smith Corey Brewer game same kind of vibe like oh they're up 31 the game's done and then it's like uh Mavs oh Kyrie's got now it's 22 oh now it's 20 oh now it's under 20 at halftime why is the crowd Breen saying how the

crowd's like so loud he's never heard a crowd louder than 20 and it just felt like the game wasn't over. And I do feel like the DNA of a franchise matters with that. This team has not had a lot of happy memories with games like this. So just to pull that out and win it is atypical of the history of this team. Then you throw in Harden's playoff history. Pretty unusual win, just in general.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing for Harden historically is when you look at the elimination games and you feel like you can see it immediately. And that's why that Westbrook kickout bothered me so much when it happened because I go, uh-oh, is there still some time to play in the game? And I'm thinking, is this what's going to happen? Because post-All-Star break, the numbers weren't very good. But from this series on, I mean, he's been incredible. He's over 50% from the floor. He's at 50% from three. He's getting to the free throw line a little bit more than he was in the second half of the season with the officiating and he's averaging 26 and they need it. And that's why Ty Lue was telling people, like we told James, Hey, you need to be a scorer. And his, his drives

in the middle and those floaters, I think the number was six floaters in the fourth quarter. Yeah, six floaters in the fourth quarter that he made. Yeah. Right. But when he was so deadly with Houston for a bunch of different reasons, that Capella lob, he just had it down better than anybody in the league. I think Trey Young's probably the best dribble lob threat there is in the league now today. But Harden, it reminded me a bit of that Capella thing because

you're so screwed as the defender so we're watching Cleba retreat to the baseline yeah try to just provide some resistance to Zoo and you're like you know all right so the primary defender is already on his hip now he's past him who knows what he's going to do you always still have to worry about the foul shit and I think as soon as you take a step towards him, the ball's over your head and you're just stuck. Well, there was a great replay that they had from the camera under the other basket of Kleba in that exact situation that you're laying out where Harden's coming toward him and he's like, I should go out, but Subhash is right here. And he was just kind of frozen. And that's where I think live, I think kid's going to get killed on wherever the Mavs fan,

like the Twitter, Reddit, all that whole universe. But then also whoever the critical media people are, I think kid's going to get killed for not playing the big guys down the stretch. When Harden's just doing the same thing over and over and over again. With all that said, I don't know who wins. So we got game five isn't until Wednesday. Then game six is Friday. Game seven is Sunday.

So three and five nights. Three days for Kawhi. I just don't know how you play Kawhi in game five after they played so well without him in game one and game four.

But if he's ready to go for game five, are you going to be surprised? Well, that's the thing. What happens if he comes in and he's like, I'm feeling great. You'd be like, ah, maybe take, maybe you should take two more days. You got to kind of play him, right? He's making $50 million a year.

If he wants to play, you can't talk him out of it. If he wants to play, it's a pretty good show. Like if normally, like that's the crazy thing about game three. If that's how we felt, I don't expect that guy to go, yeah, I'm good. I'm good to go. If anything, we felt like historically, if he's not feeling like himself, it's not going to happen.

He kind of bails, yeah. Right. But see, you asked a good question, though, that I think we still haven't really answered about Dallas and L.A., but is there a long-term concern you have about the loser of this series or is it the same for both i mean does it matter then we still haven't even mentioned which we will get to at some point today but like the other three teams staring down the winner of this like it's just so stacked at the top and how awesome these teams are but like if you're cuban and you don't get through this series

or if you get eliminated and you've got the Paul George question, you've got the Harden question, I just wonder if there's an outcome that changes anything about how these two teams think of themselves or if it doesn't really matter. I think it's worse for Dallas if they can't get through this series because they mortgaged a lot of capital to get to the spot they're in right now, right?

I mean, 27 through 30, either they don't have their first or they have the worst swap. They gave up their first, I think, this year or next year. 24 this year goes to the Przingis deal, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then somebody gets, there's another pick out of the Gafford deal, or maybe that was the one they did the OKC swap. Yeah, yeah.

So they have, I think they have one first round pick left for this. They're kind of all in on this team. If you're the Clippers, you can at least blame the Kawhi injury. Although I don't know how many years in a row you can be like, oh man, if Kawhi had just been healthy. We just weren't healthy this year. Oh man, it's year 19 of Kawhi just not being totally healthy. So at least you can talk yourself into that.

If you're Dallas, you're like, man, we, what, what? So the next thing would be like, man, Derek Lively next year, get a full, full off season with him and Josh Green. Maybe our young guys will step up or you say, you know what? You all saw Luca. He, he was banged up and he needs to get in better shape. And there's another level he can go to in the playoffs which i think we would all agree with right there's one last level for luca i don't

feel like he's i don't feel like it's like an imbeed situation which we're going to talk about the next break where it's like this this might be who imbeed is you know luca i feel like there's another level for him to get to that he just hasn't gotten to yet. Yeah, it might not be in numbers, though. It just might be. I don't know how much more dominant can he be offensively. Yeah, I'm talking more impact than numbers. Like today was a game when you're the best player in the league and Kyrie does everything he did in the second and third quarters,

then you're like, okay, thank you, Kyrie. I'll take it from here. And he just didn't. If you're comparing him to Jokic and SGA, those are guys that over and over again down the stretch in games like this just took over the game and finished it. And he just didn't do it in this game today.

But also, he doesn't seem 100% healthy. He kept looking at his knee. He kept adjusting his knee. Didn't look great. The Kyrie piece, he's so fucking fun to watch. I know we did this. We did this segment

like four or five weeks ago. Let's do it again. Let's be positive about it. He deserves it. He's just really fun to watch. I'm just glad whatever he had to figure out in his life

to get to this point where he's a really fun, impactful playoff player. I kind of thought the ship had sailed the last time i remember him playing like this was game one of the celtics nets series when he was really good and then kind of blew the game in the last minute and then went sideways the rest of that series and then we never really saw him again on this stage like that. The guy today was, this was the full package.

This is one of the most gifted offensive guards in the history of the league. Just doing it. Just performing. It was awesome. What I really liked about it too was how much he sensed, okay, they need me now.

Like as great as Luke is, and Luke's final stat line is still 29 10 and 10 it's just you know one eight from three didn't hit that one until late and i would agree there was there was some in between moments passed up some weird shots i thought there was a couple times when he just passed up shots he always takes i just always expect him to be able to drive at will whenever he wants to yeah and i don't know if that's a defensive thing or if it's a physical thing but i just always assume okay you really need to here he's going to find a way to get there that the best angle the best angle guy best driver in the league but i thought kairi's second quarter when he was like okay i'm just gonna

i'm gonna go crazy here i'm gonna do you can. And he pulls up three in transition. I just love teams pushing the ball to see if there's something there before the half court is set. And Kyrie got into some stuff early. It's a Celtics issue. I like when the Celtics do that. They don't always remember to do it. I'll never understand why teams don't look for that.

If I were, granted, I don't know nearly enough to ever be a high school coach, but I just think like, hey, off of misses, get the ball up the court, get it out. Always have our guys outlet to the half court, push the ball, and if it's not there, pull it back out and reset. We've got plenty of time to do this. And some of the point guards, some of the real dominant ball people are just,

I should say ball dominant people, are just so infatuated with controlling everything. Like Rondo would not want any of this to ever happen. He wanted every single defensive rebound immediately into his hands. And look, he was a great point guard. But here's Jokic, the best player in the world, and all

he wants to do is get the ball up. That should tell everybody everything. All the great passers are like that. FYI, if you were ever a high school coach, well, first of all, I'd vote starting ninth grade JV. But if you're coaching ninth grade Maricosta, it would be one of the highlights of my year. I would probably go to half the games.

Be amazing to see. I do think you would go to a lot of games. I would go. I'm like, oh my God, Versalas coach at ninth grade. I got to go down. Like, all right, see this play here. Clay sets the screen and then Steph sets the screen for him. And then Clay curls and the kid's like, my shoes aren't tied like oh i interviewed kids like my mom my mom's bringing my inhaler i can't practice for five more minutes you're like what i interviewed for a junior higher coaching job in vermont and i nailed it i absolutely nailed the interview and the guy hit me up and goes you were going to be my hire i was so excited about this he goes nobody's had the perspective and i was talking about like life lessons, man. I wasn't even talking about X's and O's.

He's like, well, the teacher's union, like the social studies guy was like, I'll coach it. He's like, so I have to give it to him. So who knows? Who knows? I might not even be doing this pod right now. Someday. Maybe the two of us together. I was thinking about this when, like if you're a student, I don't know that we could do thinking about this when, like, if you're Cuban. That would be so much fun. No, I don't know that we could do that. Like, who's the defensive coordinator? Like, I don't know. Like, when I was thinking about Cuban today, when he was miserable right on the baseline.

Yeah. And going, like, to the point we were just talking about. Like, they really went all in. And we still don't even know if they're better than the three other teams in the West. So even if they get through this series, which I still think is more likely with the Kawhi part of it, what does it really mean on the next one if you really like the matchup? But I mean, I have moments where I

watch OKC. I'm like, what if OKC is just better than everybody? I'm at that point, right? Yeah. I want to talk about that in segment three. But I was thinking about this. Who would be a better owner of a team, you or me? I'll answer that question after the 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.

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host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound

procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions. And that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. All right, better owner, you or me? I don't have an answer, but I think you would be the owner that worked out the players. And I would have a little more distance. You'd be like, we're still working out with Derek Lively, working on legs. It's a little unusual. You're saying I have a little Jim Ursa in me? Yeah, Cuban went and worked out with them. I think I'd probably be a little Jim Ursae in me. Yeah, Cuban went and worked out with them. I think I'd probably be a little more impetuous than you

with moves. And you would probably wait a tiny bit too long sometimes. Totally fair. I think you would let your front office run the draft board the first year. And if they screwed up, you'd show up the next year with your own board

and wheel it in and be like look just just watch you guys and take a look well this year like if I own the Pats they would have been like hey the Giants called up they're offering next year's first and six for three and I'm like yeah of course they are because Drake

Mays really good let's just fucking take them tell the Giants to fuck off. Knicks Sixers. Good transition. Jalen Brunson had 47 points, which is the most playoff points in the history of the Knicks. He officially moved into 1984 Bernard territory, which is ha hollowed ground, especially for the Knicks fans over age like 46.

Cause 1984 Bernard, if you go back and you look at the greatest Knicks playoff performances ever points wise, he had six of the top 13. He had, he won all three home games against the 84 Celtics and put up 40 plus every game against McHale and Maxwell and Robert Parrish and Bird and just single-handedly dragged that team to the seventh game. So when you say hallowed ground, this is really hallowed ground. And Brunson was 18 for 34. It looked like he got hurt a couple times. They're throwing everything at him. I think every guy in the Sixers guarded him at some point. And he just literally wouldn't let the Knicks lose. He scores 47.

They score 97 for the entire game. Bogdanovich gets hurt. He plays one minute. Mitchell Robinson, scratch for the game. Hartenstein. Fifth foul, maybe near the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter. Never seen again.

And this team had no scoring other than OG made a couple. Josh Hart was 0 for 7, but had 17 rebounds. The Knicks were 7 for 27 from 3. And they somehow win the game, and this becomes the Brunson game. And yet, Russillo, I wonder if it's a little bit of the Embiid game too. It's definitely going to be another piece of the Embiid game, but I think you have to start with Brunson

because it wasn't a great start the first two games. Clearly, Philly was smart in selling out on him defensively. It looked like length bothered him. Oubre, who I did not think I would ever be talking about, playoff defensive stopper, he's playing his ass off. For the most part, Oubre has been a revelation for this team. I mean, imagine if they didn't have him at the beginning of the year. You're like, all right, cool.

He'll make some threes. But he's been really steady, and he's been super engaged throughout it all. But you just figure Brunson, with his style, his footwork, with his herky-jerkiness, slow, fast, stop, quick, all these different things that he throws at you that maybe you would figure out. I thought they did a really good job. I thought he was more prepared for it in game three, and I thought they did a really good job of getting Oubre off of him

where it felt like there was way more. It looked like Harris was the primary matchup that he wanted more. He got Maxey a few times. I think Batoum's had some good moments against him defensively. But Hart didn't want to shoot threes today. DiVincenzo struggled here, even though he got a couple back-to-back there in that spurt. But you could just see it's so hard for what Brunson has to do, where even when they get all these offensive rebounds,

they're just waiting to give the ball back to Brunson. Do you know how hard that is when you're big? And here's this guy that may not even be six feet. And you're like, hey, go figure it out. The shot clock, the one he hit against Embiid where he had it late and it looked like three seconds left on the shot clock like he had. And then he goes left to right. He went left to right and took, it seemed like he took eight steps, but he didn't.

It was actually in control. I just kept waiting. I was like, when is he going to get the shot up? When is he going to get the shot up? Of course, he's got the shot clock in front of him, so he knows when to shoot it. That shot was absurd. I had said this week that I think Paolo has the toughest job

of any number one scoring option of any of the teams in the playoffs. Because they don't have a number two or number three scoring option? Well, Franz can be a two. And Franz was great. At home, if he's feeling it. Yeah, he was great in game four. Right, he's great. But you could just, like,

they're dominating the offensive glass. They're getting offensive rebounds on 40% of their misses, all right? They were to do that for the playoffs to be the highest offensive rebound rate of any team in the playoffs in 10 years. And that's what they're doing to the Sixers right now. There's a couple reasons why it's happening.

They're plus 25 for the series in offensive rebounds. But as soon as they get it, they're looking for it. Like, Precious can't make a layup to save his life. I mean, it's starting to get a little ugly. Hart grabs—I mean, Hart, every team should want Josh Hart. Every team should want him. Because even if he's not making shots, he's just flying all over the place and keeping these possessions alive.

But it's just filtered right back to him. OG had a few moments today that were terrific offensively. We'll get to his defense a little bit later. But Brunson continues to destroy any – I don't know who has limitations on him anymore. Even if I think against a really good team, I'll probably talk myself back into like, is it going to be even harder for him if a team is defending him?

Yeah, it would seem like it would be like a team like the Celtics that just could throw guards combined with six, eight, six, nine guys. And it's just a steady diet of that would be the answer to slow him down. But you know, Philly was trying a version of that today. It wouldn't work. What you're laying out reminded me of when there's like that awesome high school basketball team that has the one great guy. And it could be a woman's team or a men's team, but they have one person and then a bunch of people setting picks and just that one person trying to get shots off.

And you're like, man, it's amazing. What a burden. And now this is happening at the NBA level. Like he had, usually DiVincenzo sometimes can help out a little bit and kind of, but even, I don't even think he was out there on crunch time for them. The big picture thing with him though,

like I went back and I looked at all his Dallas games. How many 30 pointpoint regular season games do you think he had in four years in Dallas where he scored 30 points? Four years, four seasons in Dallas. Five of them? Three. And then he had three in the 2022 playoffs

where he had that 41-point game against Utah. I think we did a pot after that. And then he had two 31-pointers, and that's it. So he scored, when he was at Dallas, he scored 30-plus points six times total, including the playoffs. And now he's turned into Bernard King. And I remember you and I both really liked the signing

when it happened, and we thought it was a good price. I don't know that we liked it. I'm going to speak for myself i was like i i always liked it though we thought he could be like the third i didn't think he was gonna be second best guy and a really good playoff team yeah i there's never a moment where i thought it would be anything approaching hell even a lesser version of this i didn't think this was what he was going to be. What was the evidence that there was no evidence that this could ever happen? And I still liked him. But I remember when you looked at his game from like there was the first postseason where he just wasn't very good.

It was the year before his last Dallas year. Yeah, he had a bad. I think that was why he didn't get the extension. And so there's just a lot of young players that they'll have this bad opening. You're always good on this, but you go back and look at some of the really good players. Not all of them, but you just go, oh, my God, what happened in that series? Or the guy doesn't look like he's comfortable or anything. And then it kind of becomes who they are for another year.

So I was past that. But if you're telling me when they signed him, I remember specifically saying, hey, it's a lot of money. You guys put up some numbers. But, you know, I don't know that he's going to be your one option in leading your team. And with the Knicks and the fan base and then not getting in that superstar where their expectations would be too high and then they're going to be disappointed. Well, guess what? All of it's wrong because he's insane.

Right. Well, now he has been saddled by what Perk said after the game when Perk called it the greatest playoff performance in Knicks history. And five minutes later, Clyde Frazier was found dead. I'm kidding. Oh, I was going to say, I don't want to say anything if he's really dead.

Perk didn't know about Game 7 1970 Finals, one of the three greatest playoff performances in the history of the league, which happened when Clyde was wearing a Knicks uniform. I'd love to see Perk on CNBC. Just throwing stuff out? Yeah. He'd be like, man, although look,

it's not that far off from other people that have had it. Yeah, true. Yeah, I think we are seeing Perk on CNBC. So OG played 47 minutes. You mentioned him. Put up a 16 and 14 and really defended Embiid. I thought that was the best they did against him. Now, Embiid has all of these numbers.

He was 0 for 5 in the fourth quarter. In their three losses, he's 2 for 16 field goals fourth quarter. Unfortunately for them, they're minus 37 when he sits. So Nick Nurse was like, I'm just going to play him the whole second half. Huge mistake. Big mistake. And this goes back to the joke I made to you a week ago. Maybe just play Embiid in the second half might be the answer to all of this.

But Embiid was bad. He passed up that 17 footer with like 25 seconds left, so he could kind of just barrel to the rim and throw it off the backboard. And in general has just been over and over again, really sub par in these playoff games. And this is

now, he's now replaced, I think James Harden actually gave him the trophy of most disappointing playoff performer. I think Embiid is now wearing the trophy of most disappointing playoff performer. I think Embiid is now wearing the crown. Not sure I'm there yet. It was a little like recency bias. Recency like the last six years of playoff games?

I'm not telling you he's been the guy, but it was the first thing I was looking at. Because when you looked at the start of the fourth quarter and you knew Brunson was going to be out and so we're looking at a 77 76 New York game here and I thought Tibbs also did a great job of calling a time out there early to give Brunson extra time extra real time yep so he brought Brunson in at 9 35 and I don't know I didn't hear Nick's press conference because I watched the next game I'm just trying to think of what they were thinking of, and he might have thought, hey, if I can keep Embiid in now and get up five points with Brunson out,

which is kind of what the math had shown with the on-off of both of those guys and for their teams, like maybe he's thinking that's the most important, you know, it's like the seventh inning is actually the most important with two guys on as opposed to a clean nine. Oh, he went modern bullpen analytics.

I like it. I think it was insane. I thought it was the dumbest thing any coach did all series. You think it's that bad? There's just an incredible track record of him getting worse as playoff games go along, culminating in him stinking in fourth quarters. And Nick Nurse is like, I wonder if I could flip this by just never taking him out. Maybe he'll seem more exhausted and that will make him actually play well. But it was really bad.

And then after the game, Embiid was complaining about the fans and how there are so many Knicks fans at the game. And it's like, they definitely don't do that. It's just, this is 10 years. Mike Lombardi does a great job of talking about this, but this is 10 years of a team that has had no organizational accountability. It's like losses don't matter. Just let's throw away seasons, try to get draft picks. Let's make excuses for everybody. Let's blame this person. Let's blame that person. And then today it was the fans because you had too many New York fans there. That's why you guys lost. Why are you even bringing that up? Like just fall on the sword every once in a while and say, you know what?

I consider myself the best player in the league. I didn't play well enough today and I got outplayed by the other guy on the other team and I got to do better. But I've never heard Embiid say anything like that. No, but he's had, whether it's Maury or other people close to him, we've brought this up before. I don't know if they've convinced him that everyone's out to get him, you know, whether it was the MVP stuff in the past.

And then, of course, you know, Embiid's leading the playoffs in free throw attempts. He's like five, six more than any other player in the playoffs going into today's games. And in the unofficial count of, I can't believe he got this call. I think he's leading in that category too. He gets fouled all the time because he's so gifted and it's so hard to deal with. And Hartenstein, on two of the fouls, you're like, hey, that's on you, man.

Stop letting your arms get in there. Right. Don't touch him. But for them to then point to the officiating again, which felt like Houston 2018 redo, when you're like, hey, make a fucking three. All right. When I was doing my MB tracker, which I know you love, because there was that moment there like around when Brunson comes back in, I just kept track of all the MB possessions, you know, and MB jumper miss, then an air ball.

And then they didn't Then an air ball. And then they didn't do him any favors, but in this position, he was in that hardened off the ball while Chris Paul dribbles. Houston 2018 again, where he just was taking himself entirely out of the play, and he still ended up with the ball, which I don't even think that was on him. And then he's going to shoot some grenade three.

Under a minute left, he gets a desperation free throws then you mentioned him passing up the open jumper in the drive you know at that point the game was probably over but i thought the most important two things that were happening okay were that they were fronting him with og once they decided to stay kartenstein out and you're watching that going so the knicks are going to go small here but they don't want precious on because pressure is going to foul him 20 times yeah and og worked his ass off on just preventing the easy entry passes i also don't like with mb where they try to set him up on the sides i think that's one of the best things that doc did with him is they get him to the middle and let him work from the middle because they're not yeah right you're not overloaded where it feels like half the court is cut off from

you and you can operate in two different ways. So they got away from that. And then that double that I always want to see teams do to MB, because I've seen him have a problem with it through his whole playoff career. And I'm wondering what is going to happen. And obviously Tibbs, you're going,

he's, this guy's brilliant. Like where's, how come he's not doubling a little bit more? How come he's not doubling a little bit more than Gundy even talked not doubling a little bit more? Van Gundy even talked about it. Stan, which I completely agree with, he goes, with Embiid and the doubles, you've got to be smart about it because if you double to him early, you get it to him too early. He's such a great passer.

He's going to burn you. You've got to let him make some kind of, you've got to let him maybe even dribble, double on the dribble. All the stuff that Stan was talking about, it's like Tibbs saved it for this moment and was like, I didn't expect to be stuck with OG, but since we are now, let's double him the way we've seen him struggle with it in the past. And the funny thing is they doubled off of Maxie three times and twice Maxie had wide open looks because then you're like, all right, Maxie has to stay on the same side of the court with him to try to take advantage of this double. And then Maxie misses

those two shots, which is not Embiid's fault. The problem is the total fourth quarter, whether you look at the numbers or watch the actual game part of it, you're like, here we are again. Do you think the three minutes of rest or four minutes of rest, like the second half thing you've said is funny? I don't know. It might be about keeping him it might play be playing him 30 minutes

because on top of that they can't get a defensive rebound well so that you did a great job of breaking down all the offensive stuff and all the stuff

Tibbs did the other piece of this is the rebounding and the fact that this is the biggest guy in the game by far when Hartenstein's out by far

he's six inches taller than everyone else in the game. And they over and over again got offensive rebounds and were able to attack the rim, attack the rim, attack the rim,

and just kind of made him look like kind of Dikembe Mutombo near the end when he was like going against Shaq that year when he was still tall and still had size but just seemed a step slow for everybody. This was always the piece with Embiid that I think that people were never critical enough

when they always talked about what an incredible defensive player he is. And I do, there's that piece and a lot of the tall guys have it. The fear when you're going into the paint around, you know, you're seeing him, you're thinking about him. But to me, rebounding is part of defense. And if you can't protect the defensive boards, that's part of your job, especially when you're seeing them, you're thinking about them. But to me, rebounding is part of defense. And if you can't protect the defensive boards, that's part of your job, especially when you're the tallest guy by seven inches. That was the reason they lost this game. They lost the game because they couldn't get rebounds. And the Knicks kept getting these second chances over and over

and over again. And that's how they steal a game on the road that they had no business winning. Even with the Brunson game, they shouldn't have won this game. The other piece that the Sixers need to figure out is Maxie, most improved player, even though I feel like he's 95% what he was last year. How do you unleash him at the end of games? They were doing such a good job, and we wrote about in The Ringer about hunting Brunson and trying to put him, trying to make him defend. One of the best ways to stop him on offense is to make him work on defense. They kind of stopped doing that too.

I just thought it was a genuinely bad Nick Durst game. I didn't understand a lot of the stuff they were doing. And if you're getting out rebounded and you're getting beat by the same play over and over again, maybe try to fix it. Brunson was 18 for 34. That's fucking nuts. He was the only guy on the team who was trying to score.

Yeah, I thought some of the trapping stuff they did was really good and then Hart made a bunch of shots. I mean, Hart was hitting four plus threes or at least four threes in each of the first three games. So I don't know if they went back because after game one, I went, you know what? You're not

going to like the result, but I liked some of the stuff they did. They were extending kind of the zone trap on him. They were getting the ball out of his hands, but Hart hits three, including that ridiculous one. OG, I think had one late. And if you're the Sixer staff, you're like, everything we wanted to have happen, happen. It's just, they made every single shot. But Maxie is probably better with a little bit more freedom. And I think this game gets slowed down so much in these intense moments. And I think it's the second slowest pace series of any of the playoff series. Which is what the Knicks want. This is how they played all year.

They go super slow. Other than Maxie missing those shots off the double team, I don't really have any Maxie critiques. Because I just think when I watch him. My only critique is maybe they need him more than they're letting on in these series. Because if Embiid is just going to disappear in every fourth quarter, maybe you got to figure out something for the fourth quarter

that's not relying on Embiid to come through. Because now we have a pretty good body of evidence here. Can I read you a text from a frustrated anonymous Philly friend of mine? Not going to name him. Okay. I asked him, I texted him just a shockingly low amount of Sixers texts from you this spring about this round. You sent that to him today, huh? I sent him after the game. I was like, I'm just surprised. Usually you vent to me about the Sixers. And he said, really? Just read the text from Boston last year versus Heat the year before versus Atlanta year before that. Same shit. I prefer to text with people

who are as miserable as I am, as opposed to people who have a good team with a legit shot. I think we have pretty near unanimity now in my sphere to blow it up. Nurse had no answers. Embiid had no energy. Maxie looked like a deer in headlights. And Toby might be the least productive performer per dollar in the history of the league. This is Waterloo. I cry, uncle. Let's see what we can get for the big guy and make him someone else's problem. Just a friend of mine. Will it be different? Will it be a different tone? Did you know Tobias Harris played in that game? He was in the game today. Yeah, they just got him.

He played off four quarters, apparently. I was excited about aggressive Tobias Harris before. I can't understand. Somebody just needs to go, do you realize how big an athletic you are? Because he had a couple drives in the first half where I went, whoa. He had one drive where I'm thinking, this is what it's supposed to be like.

You're almost as big as Luka, for Christ's sakes. You have handles. You have quickness. But what are we asking? We're asking for this to continue. They bring in D'Anthony Melton. Heald is on the shelf now

with this whole thing. I can nitpick anything you want there with Maxie, but when Embiid is that shot at the end, whether it's the knee, whether it's the Bell's palsy, it's a lit litany of things he's dealing with there was that play where brunson hit the layup late when they were trying to run a little clock and mb had him and then just like kind of reset yeah and then mb ran to the baseline to close out on fucking precious achua and then

brunson just like i had to rewatch, wait, how did he just get so open? And then I'm like, well, that's a tire. That's a tire decision. That's an exhausted person making the decision going, all right, let me just make sure I cover the baseline here. And you're like, no, the guy with 40 is now wide open in the paint. Well, if there had just been like 4,000 more Philly fans at the game, maybe he makes the right play. It is loud in there paint. Well, if there had just been like 4,000 more Philly fans at the game, maybe he makes the right play. It is loud in there. It is pretty alarming,

especially for a place like Philly. That's not supposed to happen in Philly. It's close. It's less than two hours from New York. Okay, but it's still Philly. And your secondary market? Oh, my God. Well, but it's secondary market.

Anyone can get tickets. Okay, but if you were at a Celts game, I'd fucking be out of my mind. I'd be so upset. Do you think it'll happen? What? Oh, well, if it's the conference finals. Yeah.

I mean, it's still a lot of work to do. Still a lot of work to do. That's the other thing for Philly that's so frustrating about this. And maybe Embiid just wasn't going to be right throughout these entire playoffs. But to your point, it looks a little bit too much like the other ones.

But when you look at the rest of the East, other than Boston, and for all the PTSD everybody had about Boston and Miami after game two, but with this Milwaukee thing falling apart, this is cool from the pace to just show some life. But defensively,

nobody's going to be afraid of them. This is the part where Philly's like, if we had just been whole, but then I don't think you'd worry. How do you explain Embiid scoring 50 points in game three? Like, I just don't know when we turn the excuse button on or off for this one. Because if I'm a Philly fan, I'm like, well, Embiid's not healthy. It's like, but he had 50 points in game three. So he has to be like pretty healthy. It's one of those three throws help. Yeah, like, well, Embiid's not healthy. But he had 50 points in Game 3, so he has to be pretty healthy.

Because that was... Yeah, no, I get it. You know what, though? I can't say you're wrong. I don't present that to you like, hey, you're wrong. No, I'm not mad at you. I'm just saying in general, you have to pick and choose. Yeah, this wasn't Kawhi Game 3.

No. Either Embiid's healthy or he's not. He was certainly really healthy in game three. He talked a bunch of shit after game two. And then in game four, he completely disappeared. I thought he was. And that's just the reality of the situation. Yeah. Like I don't, I don't have a problem with not being tossed with Mitchell Robinson thing.

It just sucks that his ankle was turned. But then he decided to just knee the hell out of Hardenstein, and I thought they missed it on the broadcast. The OG screen where he sticked his ass out and knocked him down, that doesn't bother me at all. They didn't catch it, so whatever. But he was certainly worked up. And then he got into it with Brunson today, where that was so silly because then he and

Brunson had to have a conference about it. It just kept going on and on and on. Well of shot at him though yeah but that one i don't have any issue with because it's a little guy what are the old guys tell us all the time little guy wants to come in there and mess around i'm going to remind you that you're not supposed to be down here and it was a really good forearm shiver so i'm sure you don't love it if you're a brunson fan i didn't have an issue with it yeah but when but when Embiid was going, like, what are you talking about? They were talking to the free throw line.

They talked to the other stoppage. They talked at midcourt while the free throws were happening, and I'm watching it, and I'm going, I wonder if Embiid actually doesn't know what happened on that one. The other ones, I think he knew what he was doing, but this one, I was like,

he may have just been like somebody coming through the lane. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this. Incredible heel turn by him. Knicks fans hate him. All the Knicks fans in my life are like, I fucking hate this guy.

Shoot him to the sun. There's not a Knicks fan in the earth who likes Joe Embiid anymore. It'd be funny if they traded for him this summer and they'd be like, no, I always liked him. Uh, but he's really kind of leaned into his, his inner villain. I have a, I have a free agent thing I want to do,

but we got to take one more break. All right, coming back. I didn't prep you for this, but I just want to throw this at you quickly. I was thinking about the best free agent signings in the 21st century. Okay. And you think, you think, oh, every team, they, everyone's trying to keep their cap space open all year. There must've been a million awesome free agent signings. It's like the opposite. It's like

kind of stunning how few there were, but if I was going to do a pyramid for this and LeBron go to Miami is number one, right? That's the best free agent signing of this century. It led to two titles, the third three game winning streak. Uh, they were able to steal the best player in the league who had just won two

MVPs. They signed it right in his prime. That's number one. The next level would be Durant going to the Warriors in 2016 and LeBron going back to the Cavs in 2014. So LeBron has two of the top three spots. Then we dropped down to the next level. I have Nash going to Phoenix in 2005 or 2004, sorry. Billups going to Detroit in 03, because that led to a title. And then Bosch going to Miami in 2011. So those are the top six.

The whole reason I did this was I was like, I wonder how high Brunson is. I'm just going to like write down all my favorites and see where he is. I have Brunson seventh already as the best free agent signing of the 21st century. I have him seventh, Jimmy Butler, 2019 Miami eighth.

I put Ray Allen, Miami 2012, ninth, because he hits the shot. They actually win a title because of it. I think once you start doing degrees of, did this win me a title? I think that's got to be in there. And then Kawhi to the Clippers in 2019, just because it also brought them Paul George, made them relevant. And then the last level, this is where it gets fun. This is really for you. This is your kind of content. Number 11, Carlos Boozer to Utah. Number 12, David West to Indiana.

Number 13, Tracy McGrady to Orlando. Number 14, Gilbert Arenas to Washington. And number 15, Dwight to Orlando. Number 14, Gilbert Arenas to Washington. And number 15, Dwight to Houston. Those are the, by my calculations, and I'm sure I missed somebody. I'm sure they'll be, I can't believe you missed this. But those are the 15 best ever. Are you shocked that Dwight to Houston made number 15? That's how few good free agent signings we have. I'm not shocked by the limited number at all all because I think we've talked about it a ton of times. Waiting around to use something you're not

sure you're even going to get unless you are just really dialed in as a front office. Brunson ahead of Jimmy Butler. That seems wrong. Okay. I'll move Butler seventh. I just remembered one as I was talking. Iguodala was a free agent signing, right?

That was a three-way trade. That wasn't a signing. Didn't they use money? Yeah, because wasn't that part of the... Wasn't that part of the... Yeah, you're right. Yeah, because they traded like B. Adrians and Richard Jefferson were in there. I'm going to look it up, though.

I could be screwing that up. No, I think you're right. I just remember they had a weird situation where they had... had wait it might have been a free agent thing because they spent the money on him to use into the castings before they had to pay everybody else oh you're right it was a free agency because they traded be adrian's and jefferson to create the cap space all right so iguodala yeah he was free age in 2007 all right so he's seven then all right so i'm gonna do this so he's ahead of jimmy but Yeah, because they won titles with him. Yeah. 100%. No. He has to be ahead of him. Is it because Butler

talks shit and ponytail after the Celtics went up 30 in game 3? I care about titles. LeBron 2011, Durant 16, LeBron 14, Nash 05, Phillips, Bosh, Iguodala, Butler 8th, Brunson 9th, Rayon 10th. That's the top 10.

That's what I have. And I'm sure I forgot two other people, but that's what I did. Anyway, Brunson, significant. Nash to Phoenix is an underrated, just awesome free agent signing that even when it happened, we were like, five years, 60 million for Nash? He just got crushed by Mike Bibby. What are they doing? Fucking panic signing. If Cuban didn't have the 2011 ring,

if he didn't have it, I think it haunts him still. Yeah, because they signed Eric Dampier with the Nash money. I'm sure it haunts him anyway. All right, quickly, we got to hit,

we have, because we want to watch Indiana-Milwaukee, we got to hit very quickly a couple other plots before, we'll save some stuff

for part two. Biggest thing that happened over the weekend, sneaky story, Jamal Murray calf strain, questionable for game five. The Lakers were done. I don't even know if there was a line on the Nuggets-Lakers series. The Lakers were done. I don't even know if there was a line

on the Nuggets-Lakers series. The Lakers come back. There's some weirdness about how the Nuggets didn't have any of their stuff to warm up. Do you follow that story? Yeah. The bus, they didn't have their sneakers. They couldn't do,

they had to warm up in like slides. Anytime anything like that happens, the team loses. And then LeBron closed in the fourth quarter or whatever. Lakers showed some pride. Russell played better. But it was going to go back to Denver and Denver was going to win. Now, Jamal Murray, if he doesn't play, it's at least a puncher's chance. Like the way Davis is

playing, I don't know. It's a puncher's chance they could hang in that Denver game. This whole series and this win streak by Denver, and I remember last year when you said it, you were like, LA's the second best team in the league. And I was like, really? Are they? Because it felt like, is it because, are they? It felt like, is it because the rest of the West

is completely messed up though? Yeah. Memphis had fallen apart. New Orleans had fallen apart. The West got oddly, like really weak, late last year. So despite all these different versions of it,

you're like, wait a minute, who's actually still good? And when you said it, I thought you were overreacting a little bit. But then when I watched this series play out, and of course you can look at the minutes led, it's ridiculous. It's like three to one Lakers leading total time in this to Denver.

They played every first quarter by 10 in all four, right? I think there's two. Well, wait, was it last year where they had two 10 point plus leads and then they obviously lost those games because they got swept but I still thought they were going to lose game four like I thought Denver was playing really hard it was still under

two minutes and I go wait you know another stop here in a bucket this could get even weirder so I think LA does deserve a lot of credit for probably just generally being better than maybe I think LA does deserve a lot of credit for probably just generally being better than maybe I think because I know they can't hang with this team

that's the best closing team in the league. But the no Murray part of it, I mean, unless Jokic just decides to take 30 shots, which I think he could. It makes them vulnerable because they had

seven guys to begin with. Now they have six. Now you're relying on Reggie Jackson. And if he has like the two for 13 Reggie Jackson game. Now I need Michael Porter. Yeah, some Christian Brown point

guard mixed in there. It opens the door and then if you're the Lakers, it turns into the Kevin Millar-Shaughnessy situation. Don't let us get two! Don't let us get three! I don't know. I just think they're a different team without Murray.

It's not rocket science, but you really feel it. They just feel beatable at the end. It's not the same execution at the end of games because now everything has to run through Jokic and it's a little easier to stop. Not that it's easy to stop Jokic. Porter Jr. has been so good though in this series. I thought Bob Myers

was really good on him last night. It was the shooting, but it wasn't anything else. I don't think he's ever going to be confusing. I was going to be confused with him with Jason Kidd, but the rebounding's been better. He made a play where he dived on the ground.

I really like this part of Bob Myers doing this broadcast because he's sharing what his evaluations were of some of these players that were watching. He goes, man, I never would have thought that would be part of his game, diving on the floor for a loose ball. And Porter kept him in one of the Denver games, completely kept him in it

because he was the only one scoring in the first half. So when I'm watching all these teams play in the Westville, even with Murray healthy, I'm not sure I'm picking him against Minnesota, which I never thought I would get to, considering I usually just default to the team that we've already seen do it. I'm still taking Denver. Wait, so for this series or for everything? I still think it's Denver's

title to lose. I agree with that. The Murray thing is concerning. It didn't affect the line that much. They're still favored by 7.5 against the Lakers in Game 5. If you're the Lakers, I had Kyle Mann on for my Thursday podcast after the

draft and we were talking about it just felt like the end of the Lakers and it's like, now, what does LeBron do? And I still feel like that's a pretty key storyline heading into the summer. Like, does he want to win a title or not? But at least the team showed some fight. I think if it's two sweeps in a row to Denver, it's a little bit of a different conversation. I also think like Davis had 23 rebounds last night. He's just been awesome. And he's certainly been more impactful than Embiid.

A couple other quick storylines and then we'll run off because we got to watch some basketball. Cavs magic. The Cavs don't look right to me. And I don't know if this is just the way the playoffs should go where the home team's supposed to win. Cavs won the first two.

We go to Orlando. Orlando, the crowd gets into it. Orlando starts hitting shots that it hit in the first two games. But in general, like they haven't shot threes while the whole series, right? I think Garland and Mobley look worse than ever. I thought Garland and Mobley yesterday had just ever. I thought Garland and Mobley yesterday had just had some really, really bad Mobley.

Mobley was missing shots around the rim. Garland, who you and I, I think, have the most Garland stock. I haven't looked at the SVP 500, but I think we're way up there in stockholders. Yeah. And I feel like Garland's going backwards. And then now it's to the point where they're like, oh man, we I feel like Garland's going backwards. I don't...

And then now it's to the point where they're like, oh man, we got to get Garland some plays. You could tell the coaching staff's huddling. We got to get top of the second quarter. We got to run some Garland plays to keep them involved. And he's just a mess. They're shooting. Did you ever think they'd miss Dean Wade?

Because they do. Strews hasn't done anything. And on the other side, like, Franz got going. Orlando started hitting some shots. And then Palo coming off that game three. Like, I actually think Orlando's going to win the series. They're plus 140, I think, on Fandle right now. But I think they're a better team.

I don't think that means they're going to win the series. But I think they have a better team. And I don't like what I'm seeing from Cleveland. So what are you seeing? I see that when Cleveland is rolling, it looks like Orlando has no chance, and when it's the other way around, I feel like Cleveland has no chance.

And I think that's perfect. This series is 2-2, because within game four, when Mitchell was super aggressive in the beginning, and it looked like Cleveland was going to get, you know, look, the start of the game, whatever, still a lot of time to go, but I'm watching Mitchell.

I'm like, okay, well, this is the difference. As Mitchell is more ready for this moment than anybody else that's out there. I'd rather have Powell moving forward than any single player that's playing in this series. But Mitchell's still the most ready. But the shooting numbers are just abysmal for Cleveland. So they should probably be happy. They're at 2-2 here because Mitchell's at 25%. Levert's at 23. Struess is at 18% from three, Niang, our guys, 9% from deep, and Garland, the shooting numbers aren't bad. He's just not taking any shots because I think Mitchell is pushing a little bit more. But it looked like they had, when it's working, it's like, okay, so the Isaac part has been changed because Isaac's coming in defensively to wreck stuff now as opposed to just starting on Jared Allen, where you can't really roam off of Allen because you have to be, you know, you got to keep it honest with Allen. You can't just completely ignore him, even though you're not chasing around all that much. I don't think they just want to put him on guards because then they would just switch him off. And then when it was bad for Orlando, it's like, okay, so even if you're running some kind of switch for Paolo, you can't really run it

with a big setting the screen for you because then you're screening into Allen or Mogul. And so that's... But they made the big... The big tweak they made, though, is Paolo's off the ball now instead of with the ball.

But he comes back to the ball. And it feels like that unleashed him a little bit. No, I know, but at least they took that responsibility a little bit. And it feels like that unleashed him a little bit. No, I know, but at least they took that responsibility a little bit and it seems like it got Franz a little more engaged. They just felt a little more cohesive. Franz was awesome in game four. The other part that I love from game four was that their second unit, Orlando just threw five guys out there and got them

back into that game. So within the game in the beginning, I'm kind of leaning towards the, Hey, this is who Mitchell has been. He's really aggressive here. And then it just kind of goes away. And when it's, when it's nice, it's like Garland can hit shots off of him. Mitchell can hit shots off, off Garland. And then it just feels like it's totally redundant. And then it looks like they want to split up the bigs and try to get more shooting out there. I think this thing just goes seven and I'm not going to really know who's dramatically better than the other team. But the second unit for Orlando, I thought Cole was good on drive and

kind of like driving kick and some penetration stuff. How about that donkey tried to do in traffic? I want to show. There should be a show. Holy shit. If you were still at ESPN and it were the late 90s, say, the Bill Simmons missed dunk show. just like a half

half hour of almost the greatest dunks of all time um body language bill body language doctor came in I really like the Orlando prognosis I like the vibe of Orlando's team I think that team's tight I think they all like each other I think they all pull for each other. And Cleveland, it seems fine when they're up 15. And when they're down and they show the bench or they show the guys just interacting or there's little stoppages and pats, it just doesn't seem like that connected of a team.

It's a weird vibe to them. I could see Orlando going in there and winning a rock fight. Haven't you felt, though, like the vibe has been completely changed, though, in other moments of the series? I could see Orlando going in there and winning a rock fight. Haven't you felt, though, like the vibe has been completely changed, though, in other moments of the series? I think when they're up. I think Cleveland's one of those when we're up 15, everybody's super happy. But when there's adversity, I don't like how they look.

I don't like how they play. It just seems like Mitchell's like, just get out of my way. Let me do this. I still want to know the team that has great vibes down 15. I don't think I've ever seen that. Who's the team? Dallas. You're just simply

nuggets. Golden State. Prime Golden State. Yeah, Prime Golden State was unaffected by it. I think they're evenly matched. Here's the thing. Orlando's offense could very easily in game five

revert back to some of those awful stretches in game two. So that's the thing. Orlando could shoot two for 35 from three, and that would be it. Who do you want to play more? Ironically, I talked about this recently with a member of my family. I'd rather play Cleveland. I think Orlando has a gear defensively that actually scares me.

And they have this Franz piece that he's been so up and down. But I also think he's talented enough that if he got it going, it could maybe stay going for two weeks. And now they'd have two scores. And then they have like this Cole Anthony wildcard thing. And they have Isaac who like what he did in the second, what was second or third quarter, one of the quarters yesterday, he just wrecked the game for like three and a half minutes. It was just, he was just everywhere sitting threes he's just like i mean yeah that's it's like he has scary scary scary three minute sequences and sugs you know is the most unafraid defender in the league but i just i don't like the mo wagner is like a perfect guy to go against the celtics or just a lot of energy and stupid

garbage plays that the kind of guy that succeeds against them. So I think I'd rather see Cleveland because I don't think they really know who they are. I think they've lost the Garland-Mobley narrative completely. I don't think they know what they're getting from those guys anymore. The Bickerstaff piece of it, I don't see it at all with the coaching on that team. There's been some coaching in the playoffs this year. I'm like, ugh. And I think at Orlando, at least there's an upside with

them that I'm not sure Cleveland has. The Celtics are beating either of those teams, just for the record. As a historian, it's hard to identify the starting point of a revolution. But I can't help but think that usually this isn't what happens.

Everybody's just like, I don't want to trade any of my guys. I drafted them. But it feels like we could have so many different weird shake-up storylines. That's going to be part two of the pod. That's part two. Celtics decided to play defense again. And that was that for Miami.

When the Celtics pressure and give a shit and switch and do all the stuff that they have the talent to do, you're not going to beat them if you don't lay up a point guard. I thought Drew, who wasn't that great offensively in the game, was so unbelievable defensively in that game. To me, that's the Drew Holiday extension. Just watch that game and watch all the shit he did. He guarded everybody in Miami. He was out of control.

He's so destructive. Even when it's not his guy with the ball, he's still figuring out a way to fuck up the team. thought he was great so they got back on track with that said I have no idea if they're just not going to show up for game four and then do you have any other Celtics things or can I move to OKC I would just say

Tyler Hero is going to try to pull off this whole thing you're going to ask Peyton Pritchard to meet you after the game in the tunnel? Well, you are. If you want to pick a fight, you can have a chance to win. I think that's probably your pick. I'd rather him

lose to someone else. I'd have more respect. OKC Pelicans will end on this. I thought this was a possible seven-game series. I thought the Pelicans will end on this I thought this was a possible seven game series I thought the Pelicans were a live dog

and game one they almost won and OKC absolutely killed them in the next two games and I thought chat went to a whole other level

in game two and game three and was just destructive and everything about OKC start I I don't want to overreact, but if you're just saying the check marks of a young team that's ready before we realized they were ready,

one of those check marks is beat the hell out of somebody in round one and get better as the series goes along, which is what they're doing. Now, go make your Zion point because the Zion point is the key point. I think the one thing that we've consistently talked about with OKC is will they have the roster flexibility to match up with some of the sides that you're likely going to run into,

whether it would be Minnesota or Denver or if it had been a 1-8 thing with the Lakers. New Orleans is really lost right now. Ingram cannot be depended on in this series at all. CJ's had some awful stretches. It ends up with Herb and Trey a lot, two players I really, really like. Watching what Willie Green has done in that first half with Valanciunas, who was just destroying OKC on the boards. They were doing a really good job running

his post stuff, but you know a team in today's game is not going to be like, hey, we're going to get like 40 post touches for Jonas Valanciunas. You're just never going to do it. And I'm not even saying it would work. But I was always kind of like looking at how he wanted to close with Nance and Willie Green clearly wants to be small because he thinks it's better for them in their switches.

The problem is that it's just playing right into like OKC is like awesome. And Chet goes off and it's not even the size thing. It's Chet's coming over on help. And he's blowing up Trey Murphy and Herb Jones at the Redman. And they have all of these options. And I'm trying not to overreact because it's a more favorable matchup than maybe four other ones that OKC will get at some point. But I can't help from just the uncertainty of those three

teams in the Westville where I'm like, I know I'm kind of defaulting to Denver, but this Minnesota thing's incredible, but what if OKC just comes out of the West? It doesn't feel remotely impossible, even though I think it's a completely different challenge for Chet and the front line against something else. Jalen Williams is coming along. I like that they want him to keep shooting the three to develop that, become a bigger weapon. That hook shot he hit was ridiculous. But you don't ever really turn off the faucet for OKC's offense. And that is really, really scary because of the different initiators that they have. there. There isn't those free three minutes that we see with some of these other teams in the playoffs. You're like, where are they going to score? I never feel that way about the Thunder, even if we both know the Pelicans are limited. Look, if Zion were playing, I still don't think the Pelicans are beating this team. Chemistry and cohesiveness off the charts with this OKC team. And I think they have a huge chip on their shoulder that they were the one seed and nobody's mentioned them.

And people think that, people like me, would think that without Zion, New Orleans could still hang with this team for two weeks because obviously they can't. We'll see. They caught a big break getting no Zion in round one. Minnesota is going to be... OK, but think about the break they're going to get now

in the second round of it. Because let's say it's Dallas, all right? Or it's the Clippers without Kawhi. I mean, it's not a break because Dallas is a four or five. Granted, they were the five and the Clippers were the four. But it just speaks to the depth of the West there. So I'm not saying, hey, it's taking it, but it's still not the thing that we've talked about. Right, and Minnesota and Denver, who are the two best teams in the conference other than OKC,

only one of them is going to be left standing in round three. Right. So for Singus Chet, you start scouting it? I really... Chet's just growing on me, man. We talked about him a little on the pod on Thursday,

but that dude, just super competitive, and you could tell people have been discounting him since he was like 13 years old because he's like, oh, you're the skinny guy on the 13 and under National AU team. I'm going to try to

go with this guy. I'm going to try to dunk at this guy. I'm going to try to attack him. And he just fends people off over and over and over again. Chet versus Paolo in the finals is going to be really magical. We'll finally know who should have been the number one pick. Who would you rather have, Chet or Paolo in the finals is going to be really magical. We'll finally know who should have been the number one pick. Who would you rather have, Chet or Hauser? You know, somebody did it again.

One of the announcers in one of the Celtic games was like, people don't realize Sam Hauser is a good defensive player. Stan said it, I think. We've been on that corner for two years. Yeah, but you mentioned the luck thing with OKC. This was Golden State in 2022, right? Sometimes all of a sudden you caught a break around one, been on that corner for two years yeah but you mentioned the luck thing with okc this was gold state in 2022 right sometimes all of a sudden you caught a break around one then you get another break around allison you're in the conference finals anything can happen i mean that phoenix

team is one of the greatest teams ever assembled just wasn't there tonight right i was going back and looking at like point differentials and records of stuff and trying to think like all right how many times we had three teams with the profile of these three teams at the top of the west like all in the same year and it's incredibly rare and then I was like oh my god look at these numbers I was like what year was that I was like oh that's when Phoenix lost to Dallas in game seven they were off the chart they were even better than they were the year before when they were in the finals up 2-0. And then, you know, God asks the greatest warriors to take on their greatest challenges.

Before we go, I'm going to give you my top three commercials that are officially driving me crazy after nine straight days of the NBA playoffs. Speaking of chat. I'm going to go number three. I'm going to go from three to one. Bronze medal. I think the Caitlin Clark State Farm ad is a good ad.

I think it's well done, but they've run it 120,000 times over the last nine days, and I can't watch it again. That's number three. Number two, the BK, have it your way. I can't hear it anymore. And then number one is the Wingstop ad with that song where it's like,

no way, no way. Oh, yeah, that song. It was good before the commercial, yeah. Yeah, I just can't hear that anymore either. I think they have to realize that for the people like us that watch basketball every night, you can't do nine straight days of the exact same ad. You got to mix it up. Have some backups.

Like maybe they did. They film an alternate Caitlin Clark State Farm commercial. It's their second one. Maybe just wanted her in the bus with a couple of her teammates. I don't know. Can we watch the Pacers? Yeah, let's watch the Pacers. We'll come back for part two

after Suns-T-Wolves. That'll be something. We'll see if the Suns are going to completely roll over or do they have a little fight in them? We'll find out when we do part two. This is produced by Steve Cerruti and Kyle Creighton. As always, you can watch videos and clips from it on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. We're still all seeing a few arms. I feel it's working On the wayside

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