The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: Suns in Trouble, the Lowry Game, and What Do We Do Now? With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss concerns about the Suns, Knicks-Heat Game 1, and a look ahead to the Celtics-76ers series (1:09). They then play a game of What Do We Do Now? involving the Grizzlies, Cavaliers, and Hawks (51:07). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, part two of the Sunday Sports Extravaganza with Russillo. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sportsbook is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think

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new Prestige TV podcast is up now. Me and Joanne Robinson and Sean Fennessey covered episode six of Succession. You can listen to it right after you listen to this. Sean also covered the latest Barry episode with Bill Hader. That is also on the Prestige feed. If you missed part one of my podcast with Priscilla, we did it right after Warriors, Kings, game seven, the Steph party. We had a little Steph party of our own. This is part two.

We're talking about the rest of the playoff series and we're going to play a game called What Do You Do Now? with some of the teams that got knocked out.'s all next once again our friends from pro champ All right, we're taping part two. It is now 4.20 Pacific time on Sunday. If you missed part one, we talked Curry. We talked Golden State Kings. We talked a little Curry versus LeBron.

We did some first take segments. It was great. Part two, Phoenix, Denver. Let's start there with Sillow. I'm worried about Phoenix for you. I don't like this matchup at all. I didn't like it before the series. Denver was plus 100 on FanDuel, which I couldn't believe.

I couldn't believe they were underdogs when they had the game seven. I think at home, I think people have been sleeping on them all season. The fact that there's a lot of continuity with that team. They've been, the main guys have been together a while now. Murray Jokic had been together for years and I didn't understand why Phoenix was favored. Then you watch game one and Denver was basically doing whatever they wanted offensively. Murray was great. You have a lot at stake with the Chris Paul thing as Chris Paul's number one believer. How concerned are you right now? Very. And I was concerned at halftime and I don't know if this is going to be one of those things where we get the lesson earlier,

like, hey, that Clipper series was all you guys needed to know. Think about what they were at the end of that. And then Booker goes off towards the end and it's still kind of oddly a game, even though sometimes the score, you can see a team let up a little bit. That was a game. That was like the courts had the ball and was it tied or

were they down two with five minutes left? They never actually... I don't think they ever had the lead, right? So they never... No. It was either tied or... I'm, I'm watching them in that series going, what happened to all the things I thought they were going to be really good at? And, you know, look, they're, they're top four.

And I know we'll get to Aiton. Their top four should be good enough to hang with anybody. They really should be. I mean, that's what I think of Booker. And that's what I think of Durant. I think it's very clear that I have a reduced emphasis for what I think Chris Paul is capable of every night of the playoffs. I think it's very clear that I have a reduced emphasis for what I think Chris Paul is capable of every night of the playoffs. I think there are certain nights.

I mean, he was incredible after having an awful earlier game against the Clippers the next when he comes back. He was the guy in the fourth quarter. So I still think that can be in there, but he's not going to carry a team. But when I watched that first half, I saw 15 more field goal attempts. I'm a big field goal attempts guy. I think a lot of times that'll tell a story because you're watching it going, you're not shooting it well. You you're not shooting threes they had five three-point attempts in the

first half which is not what they do but they're now in the playoffs averaging 23 and a half attempts per um from three which is last of all the playoff teams which is like almost 10 less than they averaged in the regular season where they were kind of like middle of the pack with philadelphia 16 17 so i know the three-point mid-range thing I want to get to there, but you can't get your ass kicked on the boards and turn it over and have Murray shoot. You're just not going to beat them. You're not going to beat them at their place.

But as I've said throughout all this, sometimes game one, everybody would get totally freaked out because it's the only evidence that we have, right? It's the only evidence we have of how a series is going to go. I would remind everybody, like you, as much as I like Denver, they're 19 and 22 on the road this season. So even as a one seat, it's like, if you're an awesome team, you're not 19 and 22 on the road. You're just not. So I am phased, but maybe not shaken. Maybe that's the same thing. I don't know. Uh, but I, yeah, game one was bad.

Game one was bad for a million different reasons, which I know we'll get into. Is that reasonable? All reasonable. I would only add this. Katie and Booker had 56 combined, which is kind of where if I said to you game to game, what are you looking for from those guys?

You'd say between 55 and 60 seems reasonable, right? And maybe one of them goes off, you get to like 65. They got to 56. Phoenix shot 51%. So the offense was, you can't ask for much more except for the threes, which we'll talk about in a second. But Denver won handily and the game was never in doubt, really. So if I'm Phoenix, what's my move?

He'd be like, oh, cool. All right, we need more from, can Booker and Durant get to 70? Cool. They were seven for 33 from three, which you mentioned. But this is like, Raheem Palmer was the first one

who I heard point this out and it got me thinking about it, where he was just like, I don't think Phoenix makes enough threes. Like they're spotting the other team. They're minus eight. They're minus 10 every game in the three categories. So you really have to shoot the twos, you know, at like a crazy rate to catch up with this stuff.

So that was a fear for me. And then I just, it's like roulette with those roll guys. I don't really like any of them. And, you know, I was telling Eddie Johnson, I was on, you've been on that show too, Eddie and Termini. I really, I like those guys. And I was busting Eddie's balls about like the roll guys.

I was like, I don't trust any of these dudes going down the line. Like, do you trust this guy? Do you trust this guy? Do you trust them in the game that we just watched that Kings gold state game, a game seven, when now it's not crunch time. Now there's like this different weight that comes into it.

Who are the five? And then that's before we get into the eight and part. So if I'm Phoenix, I'm just like, how much do I need from Durant and Booker to win this series? And to me, it's like that 55 to 60 has to turn in a 65 to 70. I need those guys to be around 65 minimum, I think. Right? That's part of it.

You know, you're going to need one guy to go nuclear here, but that waiting around for that, although it's likely that one of the two guys are going to have a really big night multiple times in this series because those two dudes are that good. Durant got off to a great start, was super aggressive. I love the way Booker's played in the playoffs here. You want to talk about aggressive, that guy is unrelenting.

But they've got not only the bench problems. There was a group of five other guys, and they didn't even total 10 points. And Torrey Craig, I do like, I do trust, but he's the fifth guy. We know he went off in a couple of the Clippers games. I think he holds up defensively, but there's all sorts. I'll just go through the list. When Schammett came in and had to defend Murray, no chance. Schammett hit a shot, though.

That was fun. They also have to figure out what they're going to do on the Murray-Jokic pick and roll because even though they run it for so long, they're really stocked in Malone now with this thing of those two guys. They're totally comfortable changing roles, figuring out different ways they want to do it. But there's a couple of plays that jump out to me, so I'm not saying it was the entire night. When Murray's ball handling, and he's shooting like he is, so now you're kind of like playing with extra urgency towards him, and Jokic is free, the guy on the other side has to come in

and meet Jokic. There was a play where Jokic rolled and Booker stayed kind of hesitant on it while Aaron Gordon's in the corner. You're going to have to give up Aaron Gordon looks. You might not want to do it with Michael Porter Jr. You might have to do it with Bruce Brown. Whoever the guys are off the corner on the Jokic side of the roll, there has to be more of an urgency to just clog him up a little bit. Now you could argue and say, well, as soon as he catches, he's just going to throw that guy in a corner. Good because Jokic three feet away from the hoop is not what I want.

And there were too many times it felt like Jokic was totally free to do whatever he wanted to. And then the last part that's with Jokic, at least for me is the concern we had about Denver as a real title contender. Could they do it? I don't think, you know, I don't think anybody was saying they can't, but it was, what is it like when Jokic is anchoring you defensively are you going to have moments where he gets exposed chris paul in the sons and four series like that's what they did and i'm not

saying i want chris paul having every single possession when booker and duran are watching because they actually did that in the clipper series what i didn't love a ton but i didn't feel like there was any of that stuff against Jokic where they were trying to get him caught up in what they were doing. So when you're down 15 shot attempts in the first half because of turnovers, offensive rebounds, and Denver's hitting everything, I mean, they're lucky they didn't lose by 50. I thought they're in – I mean, Murray was awesome, so you always want to take a breath.

But one of the reasons I like Denver to make the finals is I felt the safest with the thing that they did best over anybody else, which is just running stuff through Jokic and shit happens, right? It's just, he's a fucking cheat code. And this was the case in the Minnesota. Remember that game when they were down 12

with like two minutes left and it was like, all right, Jokic is just going to score in every possession here or create an assist or whatever. Just seems like their offense never breaks down. Even the Warriors as great as Curry is, they'll have sections where their offense just breaks down. You don't really see it with Denver. And I wonder like, and this was the case for voting for them for MVP for voting for him for MVP,

which I ultimately decided not to do and probably regret for the rest of my life. I just don't think they ever break down with him. When he's on the court, they're going to get a good shot. He didn't even really play. He didn't shoot that well in game one. And he was still awesome. He was, other than Murray,

the most impactful guy in the game. And I don't know how Phoenix is going to stop that. I haven't seen anybody really effectively shut down Denver's offense at home yet. Right. You've seen like they fuck around and whatever, but man, I, you know, and then on top of it with Murray really looking like Murray again, this is what they haven't had for two years, you know? And then you think you go backwards. You think like, man, could this all happen sooner for Denver if he just doesn't get hurt on that drive two Aprils ago? You know, and I really felt like people underrated how important he was, especially last year with the MVP for Jokic when it was like,

really, we have to vote for this guy again? It's like, yeah, his team fucking sucks. You have to vote for him again. He doesn't have the second best player on his team. And then you watch Murray against Phoenix. It's like, yeah, that's why Yoko should have won the second MVP because he didn't have that guy last year. So I think it's lined up for them really nicely. And I still comment on the new guy energy that you saw with Phoenix. I still feel like there's some new guy stuff with them where there's moments and times and stretches where you can feel Durant just trying to feel out who he's playing with.

I think this is a really hard thing to ask in a playoff series to just hear your new teammates. Well, first of all, you want to talk about not having your number two guy. They didn't even have the number three guy last year. I mean, for Jokic starts, Jokic started 74 games. The other big starters were Aaron Gordon. Montyic started 74 games. The other big starters were Aaron Gordon. Monty Morris started 74 games. Will Barton started 71. Jeff Green started 63. Austin

Rivers, shout out to his podcast with Pasha. 18 starts for him. Michael Porter Jr. started 19. Will Barton's out of the league. Will Barton is now no longer on his team. He's not. He was with Toronto. He's not. He was with Toronto. He's not going to be on a team next year.

Well, the point is we're still making the same point, so I'm not going to turn to a Will Barton's future argument here. I am despite the Chris Paul stuff and liking him being a talent snob. You're absolutely right about the new guy energy. And I wish Monte Williams...

I don't know if it's because Durant comes in and then he's gone. And then they come in and they win all these games. And the stretch of eight games they won in the regular season, when you look at the schedule, they beat Denver twice, but Jokic isn't playing either game, so that's irrelevant. So that's not really even a win.

I totally agree on the new guy smell on this one, where it's just, hey, am I going or you going? And then you could see Durant, when it was starting to get away from him, was like, well, I better be KD right now. Like, I better start doing this stuff. And the beauty of this group together

is that they're all compatible. That Booker has had to both defer and be a point guard and be a two guard. But he's not going to take a ton of threes. You know, Durant is the most plug and play star that I've ever seen. I mean, other than Curry, which is the irony of them playing together. And then, you know, you still felt like Aiton gave you enough, at least a little bit of size, but everybody's kind of soured on him for good reason because he's just, he's just not there. And then Chris Paul could like play off of other guys.

He wasn't going to have to drive all the time. He was going to have open looks. So it all made a lot of sense basketball wise going, I know the bench sucks, but that should be enough. So there's a rooting interest of their outcome. But I think on the other side of it, like I'm, I almost want Jokic to have his moment because I can't fathom whether it's watching him in game one, watching him in the Minnesota game where they came back and lost and seeing him and going, hey, is it okay to admit, if you're a bit of a hater about this guy, that you're just wrong? Because he's fucking filthy. And he finds a way, he makes almost every possession a valuable possession.

He's capable of, even towards the end, when you think it's over, and it's going to be a shot clock violation, then out of nowhere, one extra up fake and a no look and there are it's a finding somebody that nobody else is looking for i wouldn't mind him going on a big run so that even the people that were most down on him which again felt a little in beatish i mean i think it's like certain philly bloggers that probably pay amazon gifts to girls on instagram so i don't know how much i put into that but i I wouldn't mind Jokic having like his absolute F you moment to everybody that's ever kind of doubted him, which I would admit, like, I think I'm not going to admit it, but I think someone would have to

admit me like, maybe I didn't really watch this guy that closely. And I just dumped on him all the time because I was rooting for somebody else to get an award. I watched him incredibly closely because I watched the nuggetsuggets all the time. And he's one of the most additive players I've ever watched in my life. That's the best way I put it. He just makes everybody who is playing with him is better because they're playing with him. Look at Aaron Gordon's number. He's two different people.

Right. Even like you can hear Bruce Brown has talked about it and Bruce Brown's played with some great players. Right. And he's just like anyone who plays with the guy, you have to trust the quotes at least a little bit. And you can read the bullshit between the quotes. Right. You can tell when it's like, I don't know, one of the Packers talking about Aaron Rodgers. I, Aaron's a great player. Or it's like somebody when like the people that talk about Curry or the people that talk about Jokic or like the Lakers talking about LeBron this year, there's a different level of almost like evangelism touting. Like you don't understand how fucking great this guy is that we get to play and hear all the things he does and the coaches, the way they talk about him. This is why this is the part with the Duncan era. That's probably going to get lost is the way everyone talked about Duncan when they like Popovich and all his teammates in the way, like they just Duncan could have had 28 and 15 every night, but that's not what he was about. He just wanted

everybody to succeed. And he was like a connector and that's what Jokic is. All these guys are better because they play with him. Now it sounds like we're having a double Jokic chasm, but I do feel like he's underrated and I don't really fully understand it. I think it's only us. No, I really do think it's specific to the axis of all the bullshit hatred towards him from the Embiid camp. That's it. Because I saw a ton of it.

It was all directed at you and I because we both had votes. We both know how personal and weird it got last year for you and I that we don't really talk about with people hitting us up and like some of those things that were said to me where I'm like, wait, you think I'm like people in the league and say, yeah, yeah. And you're going like, you think I'm an idiot

because I think Jokic is good? Like, right. And so, you know, you and I have talked about it and I'm not going to go too deep into it, but it's just, it's insulting to anybody that like, it's just insulting to Jokic's game. Like, it's okay okay both guys can be able to be really really good and i know we spent way too much time on this already and now it's

turning into a yokich and b thing which is entirely my fault but i can't imagine watching him at certain moments when he is at his best and he's in complete control of the game everything that's happening in the game is because of him and yes defensively he doesn't hold up the way some other guys do but i'm talking just like possession to possession. You feel like you always have an amazing chance because of the way he sees the game. And just point me to a player that's not better off when they're on his team would be the other thing. So then

from a Phoenix standpoint, Nurkic. By the way, Jokic in the playoffs this year is 26, 13 and a half rebounds, 8.3 assists. Oh, only shooting 47.5%. I don't know. The Durant piece of this with Phoenix, if they go down to nothing with the amount of assets that they gave to him.

I get it. Like you got to get to ramp. Oh no. Are you? No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do what you think I did. We'll do like 20, 20, 28 pod retradables. Are we sure Phoenix one? Now here's my question for you. If the sunset,

we'll put in bridges but we get to keep Cam Johnson and you'll get all the other picks that we're giving you plus the Crowder thing are they not saying no to that? are they like oh no

Cam's gotta be in or this is a deal breaker for us are they really saying no? like I guess is there a way the Suns could have just kept Cam Johnson and gotten Durant?

That's my question for you. I'd like to think, I like where you're going with this because you think, what else were you going to do? And remember, go back to the huge profile after the trade happened.

It was like Durant didn't want to turn into a betting war, which as much as I love Durant, I didn't love that part because i'm like wait so you want out after you sign a four-year extension you want all of us fired and then you come back and then you tell us again after your little buddy freaks out that you want out but you don't want us to actually get bids for you to compete against each other we yeah want it. Keep this under the radar, please. Can just trade me to the one team and whatever the deal is the deal.

And that's what I demand of you. I mean, that's a pretty... I just think Bridges, Crowder, throwing another contract to make it work. Maybe they don't get TJ Warren back. And four first rounders in a swap is a fucking lot for a 34-year-old guy coming off two injuries during this season. It seems like a lot. And I think if they kept Cam Johnson, I would feel differently about the sons. I don't trust their wings. And I think the fact that they're, that, you know,

the Raheem corollary of they're minus nine in every game because they don't hit threes. And then the, how frustrating the Aiton experience is. So maybe they didn't care. Maybe they made this trade thinking this is a three, four year window. But at the same time, like it's kind of not because I don't know how many years Chris Paul has left, right? And maybe you can trade Aiton this summer, but what are you trading him for?

You still need a rim protector. Like if they went to Cleveland and said, we'll take Jared Allen, we'll give you Aiton and throw another contract call today. I don't know if they're in a different spot you know so i just don't get eight and i don't get i don't understand how you could be around this long and not care when you get your ass kicked i don't get it i don't get him not but i mean you look not everybody's wired the same just because they're pro athletes it doesn't mean that they have the thing inside of them where it's like are you upset with yourself enough to compete harder

and if you're not ever upset with yourself he's an awesome guy though oh no i'm not talking about being a good guy or a bad guy i'm talking about maybe he's just like a really nice guy yeah he's too nice then he's too nice the three-point thing and i become a big raheem palmer fan because he's pointed out some stuff where at times i'll be like oh wait i wonder you know like if i should dig into that or whatever. But remember, there's a playing of the results of this, which can get a little weird because when they went on the run of the finals two years ago, what was it we all like? They're like, hey, man, they're zagging on the entire league. Yeah.

All that area. Everybody's running people off the three-point line. They're contesting at the rim. So if you have the best mid-range guys and Paul and Booker, look how great this formula is because they were middle of the pack in three-point attempts this year. They were middle of the pack in three-point attempts two years ago

when they went on the finals run. And honestly, that could have gone the other way for them. And we'd be talking about this mid-range by design. But when you get smoked like you do, and it looks like there's some unsolvable problems in this matchup for you, and I think your newness thing is very true. I'd love to see Monty kind of figure this thing out on the fly a little bit better.

But I think even go back to that Clippers series. To me, that game one loss was inexplicable, that they did what they did at the end of the third quarter by playing Booker with four bench guys. So the fact that Monty even had that in him for his coaching resume for the playoffs here, it's like, well, that tells me you still haven't figured this out yet. That's kind of the job, even if it's really challenging with all the new pieces the bruins are down to nothing no way my cousin brian who's the biggest bruins fan i know was super pessimistic this morning and i thought that was a bad sign for them because he's usually

an optimistic guy uh swayman's in goal too, right? Yeah, because Linus was hurt. Today's episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's no instructional manual when it comes to life or any of the other stressful tasks adulthood throws your way. So many of us lay awake at night going through a list of what ifs. What if our home floods? What if I get into an accident? But State Farm is there for all of your what ifs. What if our home floods? What if I get into an accident? But State Farm is there for all of your what ifs. You're a homeowner, Rossello. What are some of the what ifs you have

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You can file a claim on the State Farm mobile app. Or if you prefer to talk to a real person, including your agent, you can call anytime. It's what they do. Most importantly, they're with your guy, Chris Paul. Like if there's ever a trusted brand that you would ever want to have, it's like the, the, the brand that has Chris Paul. I'm sensing something in your tone right now that I don't appreciate. No, that was a positive. It was a positive thing.

Maybe I'm just defensive. Really defensive about the sense these days. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. You can call or go to statefarm.com for a quote today. Let's go to Miami, New York. I thought the Knicks were going to win this series. Yep.

I wasn't expecting the Kyle Lowry Renaissance. Kyle Lowry in the second half of that game, he had four blocks for Sillow in the second half. In the second half, he had a steal. He had 12 points. He kind of took over the game from an emotional, physical, psychological standpoint. And it swung everything. The Knicks, you know, they were seven

for 34 from three. Wasn't a great Knicks game. They had no Randall. All the Knicks fans and the New York fans are like, oh, if only if we could just get rid of Randall, it'd be great. Like this was a game you actually needed Randall because your offense was falling apart. They're throwing a wall at Brunson, trying to get him to give up the ball. But to me, this was the Lowry game. Jimmy gets hurt in the last five minutes, sprains his ankle, and is basically a corpse for the last five minutes. New York doesn't put him in any pick and rolls or anything like that. But Lowry is the piece I'll remember from this game.

What about you? The start, going, okay, enough of this. Miami, who was the worst offense in some categories in the entire NBA, the worst offense clearly going into the playoffs, and then was somehow the best offense, missing their best shooter. So when it's 32-21 after the first quarter, and Miami is 26% from the floor, 23.5 from three, I'm like, hey, we're back to normal.

And then that's not what happened. So I'm looking at New York. We're on the phone. We're kind of going over like, what do you want to talk about on the show tonight? And I was like, okay. And as we're on the phone, like all of my thoughts about where these two teams were,

it starts going the other way. I think defensively, New York, especially the transition stuff like figure out who's getting back i know kevin love's incredible with these outlet passes it was nice to kind of see that again after him making uh tons of highlights even going all the way back to minnesota he's like one of the best we've ever seen at it yeah right but you know this is this is elementary school shit like figure out figure out who the deepest guy is. And there's one time where Toppin actually was behind Butler

and Butler still beat him down the floor. But then Butler turns his ankle and I'm thinking, okay, now everything's different. He stays in. So now I don't know what to do with this series because Butler couldn't move. He was a decoy the rest of the game and Tibbs, who was a great coach.

And it was also kind of funny to watch the start of this game going like, okay, these are two coaches that already have designs, they're already figuring out what they want to do. But I counted it as 12 possessions that the Knicks had the basketball after Butler stayed in with an ankle where clearly he couldn't move. They attacked him zero times. The most egregious being that when R.J. Barrett had Butler on him, he called for a screen and switched into Lowry.

And so Lowry on these drives, they were not even like, they were sort of hybrid steel blocks where he's sweeping down on people. I can't believe everybody was on the same page of this going, why don't you just attack Butler once? And they didn't.

That entire stretch, they don't score. Brunson scored at 94. It took them 10 possessions, 12 possessions to get another point before they scored again. I think Tibbs is a good coach, too. Today was a 10-8 round for Spolstra.

I scored a knockdown in the second half. I scored that a knockdown. Miami comes out. They shoot a bunch of threes. I think they shot 21 threes in the first 20 minutes. Weren't really making all of them, but it was like, oh, here's a game plan. Then they switched to like this weird Lowry crazy defense game plan. Then Jimmy felt like he was starting to take over.

Then he got hurt and it didn't matter. The thing that's interesting, you know, and they'll do this from game to game where Bam's not involved at all. And Bam's a borderline, borderline Tobias Harris all-star where it's like, is Bam out there? Oh, he is. But then they'll have the next game. And it's like, they've clearly decided, Bam, today's your game where you're going to attack Mitchell Robinson at the foul line. We're going to give you space. And they still have that in their hip pocket for game two,

which worries me if I'm a Knicks fan. They didn't really use the ban. They don't like to do it seven games in a series, but two or three. And I think ban pulling Robinson out and doing the foul line stuff with him is going to work. So now Butler's hurt. It's a different story. But I thought Knicks were going to win this series.

Now I'm a little worried for them because Miami can also punt on game two and just send Jimmy back to Miami to rest his ankle if they wanted to, right? We got the game we wanted. But I feel like they have more moves. And on the flip side, the Knicks, man, all of a sudden those threes stop going in.

Josh Hart's like throwing up air balls. He must have had like six air balls in that game. Quickly, who people thought was the sixth man of the year, he just hasn't looked that good in these playoff games. He looks like a really young player who doesn't know who he is yet. So I guess my thing if I'm the Knicks is like, if Randall's not a hundred percent and they're going to do guard Brunson, how they're guarding them. Who's my second guy? Who's it going to be? Who's my guy who can potentially have like 28 to 30 in a game two? Maybe RJ? Well, it looked like it was going to be RJ,

but then RJ gets a little frustrated. Like, I think that's the part of him where you need that next step of going, hey, if somebody's shutting you down, you can't Jordan Poole this. You know, I don't expect jordan pool to ever change i still hope that rj can and this has been fun to see him kind of go you know this is why i went three this is why i was the number one high school guy this is why like i actually still would have trade value around the league despite you know something that i've pointed out in the past like the grimes rj stuff at the end of games not at the beginning of games the

end of games and now randall's gone, so it opens things up. And Mitchell and Hardenstein are good enough. That's a really nice center rotation because I know Mitchell is kind of an up-and-down series of dramatic things that are annoying from a guy on a team. It's like, well, look, sorry, dude. We're not running plays for you. But what that guy did in Cleveland to close them out,

or against Cleveland, I should say, you end up really appreciating what he brings. And they're like, well, if Tibbs trusts him at the end of games, then he has to be doing something right. Because I think Hardenstein does some really nice things as well. So I think RJ forces the issue a little too much. He did it today. Lowry knew.

Lowry was so good at it. And there's this just... Just an epic Lowry game. Really like an old school throwback Larry game. It's just a weird thing with Miami where if it's not Jimmy, it'll be like, oh, Lowry stepped up tonight. Lowry had one of those games in the first round. And there's other games he looks unplayable.

I love Caleb Martin. I love Caleb Martin's defense. And Gabe Vincent got it going in the first half. And then there'll be a Struis game where you're like, wait, what that Struis isn't going to miss tonight. He's got 20 at the half. So I't love the roster we're over this and i would hold back on the bam harris comps only because i know bam at least is in the defensive movement almost all the time how they use them offensively yeah it's like he's just not involved in the offense

for an hour yeah yeah no i'm i'm with you there and what i liked about new york which what we saw against cleveland where cleveland too many times it's like you only have like two guys that can No, I'm with you there. And what I liked about New York, which is what we saw against Cleveland, where Cleveland too many times, it's like you only have like two guys that can score, and then you have these big guys, and now they're getting their ass kicked on the glass. So what the hell's – what's the point of what's going on here? And New York had always four dudes who felt like they were comfortable with a ball in their hands. But Quigley's been bad now for six games.

I mean, maybe people will say the closing game against Cleveland was pretty good because the totals were there. I'm with you. I'm shocked because the thing I liked about him in the regular season is he actually felt like he could handle the moment when he was needed, when Brunson was out. That's why I ended up voting him because I was going,

dude, that guy had to do some things on certain nights where he had to carry them offensively. Do you have a little PVSD? You know, you can get pills for that over the counter. I do have a little PVSD because i know the numbers for brogdon were better but quickly it's been terrible brogdon's a better player that is why i voted for brogdon he's a better player he just is but um the thing that surprised me about quickly is he looks frantic he kind of always does though

don't you think he's even when it's going right? I'm saying playoff quickly is just like fucking spaz. Do you think Bones is texting him, you keep doing you, young king? Bones Howitt's the only one who thinks he's play wise. I love what Quick was doing. There are a couple of things that pop up if I'm a Knicks fan that I was just worried about in the deep recesses of my brain one is like is this quickly thing real

two is the Mitchell Robinson free throw shooting like there's all these things Cleveland never explored in the J.B. Bickerstaff debacle that was round one that somehow he's got his GM coming out be like no we're fine. We won 51 games,

the regular season, that strategy coaching was apocalypse. Um, one of the things they didn't explore was just like maybe foul Robinson every once in a while and see if he could make a free throw, like try to get in his head. The guy's walking around like he's will Chamberlain, like do something to mess with his confidence a little bit.

Another thing was like, even the wall, you watch Miami, the stuff they were doing at Brunson. I didn't feel like Cleveland did any of that at all in the last series. So, um, if I'm a Nick fan,

the Robinson free throw shooting quickly looking frantic, that Josh Hart air ball where it's like, maybe this is why Josh Hart's been on four teams already because, um, wait, you're off of Josh Hart now. No, I'm Josh Hart.ball where it's like, maybe this is why Josh Hart's been on four teams already because... Wait, you're off of Josh Hart now? No, I'm in on Josh Hart. You can't do that to him. I'm doing Nick Spann's psyche.

Okay, all right. It's like, oh, this is why we got... Bruins just scored. This is why we got Josh Hart because he just airballed that three. Get in the game two. They got to get their shit back together. They have to lay... I think they need a decisive, big-ass

win and send it back to Miami. My bet is Butler probably doesn't play in this game. I don't know. I'm never going to tell that guy. His leg could be missing and I would be like, I don't know, probable for game two. He just wasn't going to come out. He wasn't going to come out.

It looked like an ankle turn or he'd be out for the series. But again, ankle just wasn't going to come out. He wasn't going to come out. It looked like he was going to be off. It looked like an ankle turn or he'd be off for the series. But again, ankle turns are weird. They can look horrible and you're fine. And there's also ones that, you know, don't even look as bad as the other ones.

And you're like, that wouldn't roll the right way. But what was weird was he was also kicking him to make it roll, which it almost looked like it was a combination. Rolled the ankle, probably like a foot bruise too.

So I'll be interested to see how it comes out. A little extra torque maybe? Yeah, there's something. I didn't like it. Can I give you a quickly story though real quick? I promise this is quick. Because I know you're kind of like, oh, maybe he's not the guy. There's a lesson that's on the Knicks roster right now.

Because I remember back two years ago when Jalen Brunson was with the Mavs and they lost in that Clippers series. Brunson went from playing 20 minutes a game to almost unplayable. And he had, what, six, four games. He had a two-point game, a two-point game, a seven-point game, and a seven-point game. And remember, it was a little bit like, oh, man. He's kind of like, you know, whatever.

He's a nice player, but he's not really that guy or whatever. I just don't like writing people off that I think have shown me over six months that they're pretty talented. But it hasn't been good. I'm with you. I mean, I personally witnessed him light up the Celtics twice

where he looked like the best guy on the court. That's what they really needed from them was they quickly would have these random, he looks like the best guy on the court for an hour games and we just haven't seen him. That's kind of his superpower. We haven't seen him. You would have thought there was like one 28er in there

out of these six games. Yeah, like where he just punches above his weight for an hour. You're like, whoa, quickly. I have a couple other topics from this. Was this last Aaron Rodgers' fault? Everything was great until he showed up. The vibes in New York were awesome. Now he's courtside.

Now they're falling apart again. I don't know. Do you know how the courtside thing works? I know you have some courtside thing works i know you have some courtside experience how does it work do you just call and there's a certain level of fame that you have where it's understand that'll be comp and then i wonder if like it's a business expense where we go we give celebrities tickets and then we can write off the value what's that wait i don't know i was just doing like you're like you throw those things at me

every once in a while i was trying to dig back um that was good it's two ways i just threw me off because i was like trying to do the court side math i'm like have you been there's two ways there's two two ways one is the team has a bunch of court sides right they probably control i would say half of the courtides at any given game. The Knicks do. So the home arena team. Home arena team. They have a bunch of courtsides. They're not all sold. They keep them for themselves and they either give them out as comps or when they want to have

celebrities or a playoff game like this, they're going to know like, all right, we have 20 seats. Who's going to get the 20? Now that becomes like a big, you know, you got the seat chart. And it's like, oh, Rogers wants to come. But Ben Stower's already there. And then we, and you just got to, there becomes this little hierarchy that happens. So you have that. And then the other is ticket brokers. Where it's just the ticket brokers control at least a bunch of them.

And you have some people sitting courtside who are like, whoa, I can pay for my tickets for the next three years with three next playoff games if I play this right. You're going to see it with Lakers-Warriors. Lakers-Warriors on both ends is going to be crazy because you're going to have Warriors fans trying to get to the Laker games and paying whatever to be courtside or somewhere near the court. And then flip side, Laker fans in Golden State, you know, whatever. Either way, that's going to be the all-time courtside killing non-finals series, I think, Lakers-Warriors. So it's Rodgers. Rodgers calls in. That means somebody gets both, though.

Well, yeah, Rodgers doesn't call. Somebody from the Jets calls. That means Rodgers is sitting in somebody's seat if that's a new york knit control ticket so maybe the jets call they're like hey man rogers he's already a fucking problem he wants to sit courtside if you pull this off you know he's already a quid pro quo quid pro quo opening opening day we'll take care of you guys with whatever. It's all deals. I'll do this, and then you'll do this for me. All right, except you're going,

hey, does Julius Randall want to come to a Jets game? So go ahead. You probably get more. The court side is probably not worth as much as the two suite tickets or whatever. So maybe it's an entire suite. We'll give you a suite suite for, uh, the second Jets home game. You give us the Rogers court side, something like that. But yeah, I mean, where it gets interesting and this is a story that will

never be written, but when you have, let's say 20 seats, each one is a plus one. So that's 10 celebrities, but there's 15 awesome celebrities that want the 10 seats and now you're talking about it's like a fucking game show or it's like you're basically ranking celebrities pyramid style you're like alright Ben Stiller I mean he's gotta be he's

level one he's on there and you just go oh Denzel wants him well Denzel he trumps Ben Stiller he's more famous and you're doing it that, Denzel wants him? Well, Denzel, he trumps Ben Stiller. He's more famous. And you're doing it that way. You pyramid it. That's what I want to know more about. And I don't know that I've ever seen, like,

because I always think when, you know, when you watch enough Celtics games, like when the Pats will have, like, a new guy on the scene. Like, he's not a first-round pick. He's like a fourth-round guy. And then he wants to go to the Celtics game and it's like, okay, maybe he'll have a couple courtside for him, but he also might be three rows

back. It's like, hey, great seven catches against the Colts on Sunday, but you're not courtside yet. Well, and that's when it really gets tough is when they've already mapped out who's sitting where. And then the three extra guy, like, Brady wants to come. i'm thinking like you

know 2018 celtics it's like we already have everybody in their spot oh shit brady wants to come he's plus two and if brady's there you have to put him courtside right no that's not really the way i think belichick respects him just being in loge if belichick were really all about it he'd be up in the 300s do your job another one belichick would respect him just being in Loge. If Belichick were really all about it, he'd be up in the 300s. Do your job. Belichick's another one. Belichick has to be courtside if he's there. Kraft, courtside.

But I think the picture way. Donnie Wahlberg, fucking courtside. What if Donnie and Mark both request in with separate parties? They go, Donnie, look. Blue Bloods has been great. I have one more Miami Knicks thing for you it's a point I brought up this will I think be the sixth time

really Cleveland had to just buy up Kevin Love really still trying to figure that out four months later I've been on the record the whole time I never understood it it wasn't like Cleveland had the deepest roster they had no backup big men I think Kevin Love's good. He's been in a bunch of big games. He had

like a bad three weeks. They stopped playing him. He bounced out of the rotation. He's like, buy me out. They're like, okay, Kevin Love, you've done a lot for us. And now he's on Miami and he's still in the playoffs. What the fuck was that? I would be so mad if I was a Cleveland fan. I have no intel on this, zero, but he does have a pretty powerful agent. And I wonder if it's one of those deals where everyone's like, how did that happen? And it's the agent, the GM having a great relationship and saying, Hey, you're not really even using my guy, do him a solid. And then, you know, that's the part of the job that I just don't think enough of us talk about. I'm not saying I know that's what happens, but I know that his agent is one

of the most powerful in the NBA. And I wonder if it's just kind of one of those deals where business is done. See, we've talked about this before. I just think these agents don't remember favors like that. They don't care. I don't. I think it's easy for us to say it on the outside. I've told it a couple of times, but I'll just do it again quick. There was a time where there was a player that was available and Chris Wallace was with the Celtics at the time. And I was like, why didn't you do that instead?

He's like, you know, when you make the promise to the agent, especially around the draft, like you gotta, you gotta stay true to your word. And I was like, you know,

again, I was kind of younger being like, well, that's fucking stupid. Just draft the guy you want. It's like, well, no,

it's just not, it's not the way you do business. So I don't know. Nick's heat. Nick's now minus 140. I'm sorry. The Heat are minus 146 on FanDuel right now. So they are legitimately favored.

Heat were minus 160. Knicks were minus 160 heading into game one. So even with the Butler injury, it swung that much the other way after game one. Yeah. Wonder what they know. I wonder if they already have good word on his ankle So even with the Butler injury, it swung that much the other way after game one. Yeah. Wonder what they know. I wonder if they already have good word, good word on his ankle for that number to be at that already. Celtics line was around minus 280, minus 300 range before the unbeat stuff started coming

out, which we should probably talk about quickly. I didn't, you know, it's tough to speculate, but I have pretty good authority. He's not playing the first two games. That's what I'm hearing. I don't know. Maybe they'll flip that, but it seems like he's probably out. He's definitely out for game one, but I don't think he's going to be in game two either. And that's one of the reasons the line has shifted.

Now in FanDuel, Celtics are minus 560 for that series. This was a good matchup for them anyway. Right? Them versus Philly. Brian Barrett had a good tweet today about how bad Philly's transition defense is, which has been the key every time Boston's played. They've just gone a little smaller, pushed the pace, and Philly can't keep up with it.

And now you're taking a beat out of it. Harden definitely doesn't look 100%. Well, what do you mean by 100%? I think it's just he's not who he used to be and that's kind of normal for him. Do you think he's actually hurt? I didn't

like some of the stuff in the Brooklyn series around the rim with him, which has come and gone during the season, but I think before he hurt his leg in March, I thought he was finishing a little better than what I saw in the Nets series. He just looked a little grounded in the Nets series

in a way that I wasn't 100% comfortable with. By the way, I can't believe he'd ever be that bad again at the rim in another series, even if something's lingering. He was missing everything. But I also think he gets freaked out when he doesn't get free throws anymore.

So when he doesn't get calls and he's kind of going in to drive to miss for the call and then when he doesn't get the call it's like oh wait i used to like actually go with the rim with the intent of making the shot yeah and it i've noticed it messes him up sometimes because he's kind of waiting for that whistle and it's like the refs don't respect him the way they used to respect him or they gave him that whistle all the time. And they there'll be games and whether it's a series or not, where it can happen. I know your answer to this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. If you're giving me a bead on a on an injured knee playing not 100 percent in the rest of this Philly roster. Is that a better roster than Atlanta's? Just talent-wise?

Because I was actually, and you've been on this the whole season, to your credit. You'd like the Atlanta roster. I do. I thought in that Celtics series, I thought Atlanta played well, had some really good quarters and some really good stretches

and were pretty deep. Like Okongwu just comes in. He looks like he's the best center of the series for six minutes. You know, Hunter had a couple of good games. DeJounte Murray had quarters where he just was doing whatever he wanted. Collins looked pretty good, especially in game six. Bogdanovich comes in and he's carrying them for six, seven minutes. I thought they were pretty hard

to play. And if anything, if Trey in game six, when he just completely fell apart, he goes one for 13, but that might have been a winnable game for them too. So I just felt like that was a really nice kind of primer for the Celts. And now you get to play the Sixers team that has their best player

might be out first too. It might not be a hundred% and Harden. Maybe Atlanta's better than Philly. Wait. I'm saying right now. This moment. I'm not saying whatever. I'm just saying if you're giving me a beat at 70% and Harden

coming off an injury and the rest of this Philly team versus from a talent standpoint, Atlanta, a lot of talent. All right. Well, I feel somewhat validated by you saying because I felt like no one agreed with me every time I would talk about their roster ago. It's actually good,

but this is three years of being 500, and I would say three years of kind of being I can't say disappointed when they make the East Conference Finals two years ago, but overall record wise, like there's been a 500 team now. And granted, there's some different pieces,

but as much as I was impressed, um, with, with what they did in that Celtics series, cause I do think Boston is a better team and they, you know, they, they show some real fight,

you know, I'll give Atlanta that. I don't know that I'm ready to go that far with it. Cause I feel like the maxi part of it is, is such a big element for Boston. And in that fourth game that they lost the regular season, I don't know that they really cared about how many Embiid was going to get. Especially when they did some of the defensive rotational stuff. But it was good for Embiid and for the MVP push to have that kind of game against Boston and finally get a win against them.

You're asking me to speculate on what diminished Philly would look like, and I would just say, well, I think Philly's better than Atlanta. I think they're better than Atlanta in a weird way now with Boston struggles and how Phoenix has looked and Golden State having to go to seven and the ups and downs, the Lakers and Memphis. A week ago, I was going, hey, I know Philly's swept, but some of that scares me I actually now think we should give them more credit for taking care of their business and beating an

inferior team not screwing around closing out all the games and being like just get out of the way so uh with it just so just so the Philly bloggers don't try to take this out of context and do their stupid things not that anyone reads blogs anymore I'm saying Embiid with a knee brace on missing the first two games and then limping through the rest of the series. To me, you're not a 54 win team anymore because I don't know, from a talent standpoint, Embiid was the guy who made that team special. I like Maxie too. I think he's a really good player. Picard is a really good player. I was ready to vote for him for All-NBA.

But after that, it drops off. I don't know how many of these dudes I trust in a big series, especially if they have to carry a bigger load if Embiid's hurt. The transition stuff is absolutely real. I mean, Harden doesn't treat the playoffs any differently. You want me to run back all night? I'm not doing that. He won't do it in a playoff series either. It's insane to me. I would

say there's also some stuff defensively that their perimeter guys do. It's like, why are you closing out here and why are you not closing out against this guy? What's the confusion on understanding your scouting report, which you think will improve multiple games against the same team against the playoffs? It already was kind of a tough matchup for Philly.

Not impossible, but I mean, how am I supposed to project any of this stuff when doc rivers is telling us, I mean, did you see the video footage of him beat practicing? He wasn't really doing anything. He was just shooting.

It wasn't like he was really going through a ton of movement. I heard he's not practicing at all. He was getting shots up and he was in. Yeah, but he's not. Yeah. at all. He was getting shots up and he was in. Yeah, but he's not. P.J. Tucker averaged 26 and a half minutes a game against the Nets

and he scored 12 points total and shot 20%. I don't care. I don't care because I think he brings something to them they actually need. Yeah, if you have a healthy Joel Embiid on your team. Paul Reed, who I think we both really like, I don't know if he's ready to play like 38 minutes

in a playoff game. I don't think he can stay on the court. He's just going to get fouls. It's a great spot for the Celtics. And the reason I bring this up is they have to lay the smack down these first two games. This is a fucking gift. Whether Embiid looks like he's not going to play, even if he does play, he's going to be compromised. You got to run this team off the court. You're home. You already have these huge transition defense advantages on them.

You have more talent. Like just, just blow this team off the court. Don't fuck around. And the problem, the reason I bring this up is the Celtics history is in game one, they'll go up 61 to 32 in the second quarter. And then you'll look up a half hour later and it'll be 89, 83. You'd be like, what happened? We're up 30. What's going on? I want to see this team go for the kill, and I don't know if they have it in them. This would be a nice test because they should not lose these first two games. How about this for a greeny tease?

Yeah. Why no Embiid is actually a win for Philly fans. That's next. Yeah. If Embiid doesn't play as a compromise and Philly loses, then you can't really say that your team lost and that Embiid isn't the MVP for failing in the playoffs because he was

hurt. So he gets to do this all again next year. Fair. Let's take a break because we have a game we want to call... What do we do now? Yeah. What do we do now 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.

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We're going to play a game called What Do We Do Now? Ursula has been frothing at the mouth for days to properly lay into this Memphis team, which brings a lot of things to the table that you and I just don't like. brings a lot of things to the table that you and I just don't like. Talking a lot of shit, not backing it up, carrying yourself like you've won something when you've won nothing. No accountability at all after the fact. I talked on my podcast about the Brooks thing, like him punching LeBron the balls. I just thought it was one of the

weak sauce moments of the last 10 years. Not just that it LeBron in the balls, I just thought was one of the weak sauce moments of the last 10 years. Not just that it was a punch in the balls, but it's fucking LeBron. He's a generational icon. And at some point you have to have respect when people at a certain level, like Curry and LeBron going backwards, Jordan and Russell and whoever.

It's not a long list and show those guys a little respect talk shit to them, stand up to them show them you're not afraid of them but don't fucking, you can't punch LeBron in the balls, I'm so out on Brooks to me it's like, that guy can go to China, I don't care

if we ever see him again, not apologetic just such a loser, the whole way about it. Like just a fucking loser about it. And to me, it's like a cultural thing where people don't act like this in a vacuum. It's not like, whoa, can't believe that these guys have been acting like this for two years. Something obviously needs to change. And I wonder what's going to change. You have the floor. Well said. Well said. I don't know that there's been a team in recent memory that I went from enjoying their personality to despising it this quickly.

It'd be like finding out that Caprio's best friend is Skip Bayless. And I'd be like, wait, what? Skip Bayless? That's just like, yeah, they really like him. Yeah, they work out together. Yeah, he thinks he's really good. You're like, what? They're the same hair guy.

Do I need to go back and watch Catch Me If You Can? Did I miss some things? So you said something, though, that I might slightly disagree with. When they, in the regular season, were're going at it with the Lakers. You know, when you're winning, we like that stuff. You know,

one of my favorite playoff series ever is the young thunder going up against Kobe and the Lakers where it was immediately apparent where they're like, we're actually not afraid of you at all. I love that. We both love that. Right. And, or Oh nine bowls against the Celtics.

Like we've seen young teams that are like, no, actually we're here and we're going to go at you. And that's what it felt like with Memphis. I think there's a specific thing to that city that all of us really like. Even if you've been on the fence, to me, Memphis

is a neutral city in all of our fandoms for a lot of us. Nobody's like, I fucking hate Memphis. Right, right, right. You appreciate it. Going back to the grit and grind of Tony Allen and Randolph and all this kind of stuff, you were like, man, I know they didn't really ever win, but that's a fun team. That's like a real

identity, and they're doing it a little different than some of those other things, so I've always appreciated it. And it's just kind of like grit and grind 2.0, and Jaws is much fun as almost anybody in the league. Jaren came along this year, but even last year, there were warning signs in that Warrior Series.

There really were. Like Jaws, you know, code break bullshit where it wasn't even a foul that was like anything intentional to be dirty. And then he's tweeting, and then he's immediately on social media with it. And then when Memphis beat them and they're playing whoop that trick

and then Draymond's going back and forth. This is the first time where I even said it on the podcast. I go, I kind of want Golden State to kick their ass. I kind of want Golden State just to kick their ass a little bit being like, I like the bravado and this isn't really even fair, right? Because there's, where's the line where I love your bravado

and now I don't like it? Well, I don't know when it happened. I don't know. I can't tell you definitively when that line happened, but to see this group and look, I'll just say it like the job picture thing. I didn happened, I can't tell you definitively when that line happened. But to see this group, and look, I'll just say it, like the job picture thing, I wasn't like, oh, my God, I have to reassess how I feel about John Morant. I'll admit, like, all right, it was stupid, but I don't really care. Like, I didn't. I don't know if that speaks poorly of me. And then he goes away for nine days.

And I was listening to the Jalen Rose. I don't know how it happened again, but I caught the interview and it was so classic. Like, Hey, go away, come back, apologize, say, I need to do this. I need to do that. All the stuff that's at stake. He gets a shoe. Nike's promoting it during the games. Cause it's like, man, we're still kind of all in on this guy gave me a signature shoe, um, to see those like, they are the ultimate front runners, like jaw dancing around when they're up 20. And then when they're down. Down 3-1 in a series. Right, right.

And then to see those guys go back to the bus and laughing about it and everything. They didn't have Adams. They didn't have Clark. They lose Kennard in the last game. So there could be an overreaction about, hey, if they get everybody back, they're probably going to be a top-four team next year, and maybe they grow from this. But I would say currently right now, I don't know that I've ever 180 this quickly on just the personality of a basketball team as much

as I have with them. And I remember seeing them in summer league and I did a whole segment about how much I love seeing those guys in the weight room and how nice then granted they weren't really nice to everybody and professional and all that kind of stuff. So I'm not saying like that didn't happen, but the way they carried themselves and all the bullshit, not talking to the media afterwards and just the immaturity of it all. I really didn't like it. There you go. Small city, biggest game in town, treated like heroes. The whole thing where sometimes it's almost like a college, like a college team, right?

Where there's a lack of accountability with the behavior. Um, it bummed me out for a variety of reasons, but I think this was kind of the underrated one where they didn't, this was last year on a rookie deal, right? Next year it kicks in. He's making like 33 him and, uh, him and triple J next year is 60 million combined. So they actually had some salary cap some salary cap kind of advantages this year. A little along the lines of the rookie quarterback thing in football.

And they didn't go for it. They had Zaire Williams they could have traded. They had all their first round picks. They didn't really do anything other than get Luke Kennard. And now as I look at this in mid-april i wonder like should that have been more of a red flag that memphis the team the organization didn't want to go all in on this team it's almost like they knew it's like nah this isn't the year to like trade three firsts for og and an OB or whatever else was on the table.

They didn't really do anything. So I think there's deeper issues here because if they really felt like this was a contender and Bane and Triple J and Ja was the nucleus that could take them four rounds, they probably would have gone in a little harder and they didn't. And that was before all the Ja stuff happened at the end of February. So I think all this stuff's related. Brooks clearly isn't coming back. I'd be shocked, right? Wouldn't you be shocked if they were just like, hey, good news, we've signed Dylan Brooks for

three for 60. I don't see it. To me, a sign-in trade's way more realistic. Well, he's not going to China. I mean, I know everybody likes making that joke, but he's still good enough. I mean, he's going to play in the nba let's not lose lose sight of no i went wrestling heel he didn't know how to do it he wasn't good enough he went at the top guy and then when it was time to answer for it he didn't want to do it either time and that's really really lame like he he built this castle of bullshit for himself and then he couldn't get out of it and

then there'll be some interview this summer where he'll actually say nobody understood it was all misconstrued it was fucking media's fault so that one's coming you know job will do the job 2.0 point whatever again he'll do another one of those sits down so do it with somebody where he knows he's not going to get asked questions that are too tough and it'll all be organized ahead of time and they're all going to say and look they're going to be healthy so they'll probably be pretty good i'm there's there's also part of me that looks like the whole memphis thing where like they let kyle anderson go but they wanted to kind of reinvent the depth around them with laravia and some of the maneuvering i actually appreciated that i thought they were trying to like make the current surrounding pieces better it's the ceiling yeah yeah and and so yeah i

thought it was bold and i was okay with it then i I was, I was, I would say, I don't know. I was complimented them when they did it. So I'm not going to run back and say, hey, because I think that's the biggest mistake we can make in these days, right after somebody is eliminated and acting like they're going to be all different rosters. And usually they're not because you're like, hey, we're still going to be pretty good and whatever.

And it's that challenging. We both like the Jha, Triple J, Bane. It's like you're, if that's your rock, you're in pretty good shape if Jha's head's on straight. Those are your top three. I think that's a winnable foundation to win multiple rounds in a playoff series.

Now they got to figure out the rest of it. The Brooks thing was so detrimental. I never liked his impact on that team. I always thought my two least favorite types of players are like the type of player Brooks became last year and this year thinking he was better than he is. And then the Dinwiddie type who just dribbles

for 20 seconds. Like if you put Dinwiddie and Brooks on the same team next year, I promise you, I won't watch one minute of them on league pass. I'm just, just sign me up for zero minutes on that combo as a backcourt. But this is kind of a miss for them. I know, cool, we hit some draft picks. We have a couple of stars, but with how wide open the West was the last couple of years, with how vulnerable Golden State seemed last year, and then to lose to the Lakers in six, you know, and you get out of round one,

they were the two seed. And that series wasn't close. Like we talked about in part one, like I didn't think they had any chance of winning that series after game four, like zero. So it's hard for me to say you can't do anything

or like just ride it out for one more year. I, at the very least, they have to figure out, bring in another adult. Maybe you have to part ways with Brooks or sign and trade him, but you can't run it back with the nucleus they have,

I don't think. There's also something else you could ask where you go, do we all love Joss so much in the beginning? And even if you're off of him now, and I'm not off of him because again all the stuff that happened I'm off of him because the guy that I watched in this series and I'm like wait you're going to do this

shit when you're down 3-1 you're going to do this all night long he's too reckless and we've talked about that for three years but I don't think it's sustainable the way he plays he's got to figure out a plan B for some of this stuff like he was doing in this Lakers series i watched it in person in game four there's two or three plays where he's just like i'm going to the rim and if i break my neck i don't care this is

who i am it's like i don't know if you can be that way i don't think it's sustainable but i'm i'm not gonna say i don't love it because when it works it's great everyone loves it but he's gonna fucking get hurt like it's not the only person we've ever seen play like that and not get hurt is Westbrook, who's an alien. Yeah, Westbrook had a broken bone in the side of his head. You could see the dent in the side of his head in the Portland game. And he was like,

all right, check ball. Maybe we'll call 22nd time out. Dude, he had dent in his head. He was like like we're good we're good man so they have the brooks signing trade they have all their firsts and they have all their young guys and could clearly do something i just don't know what that is no because they may have a core three where you go that's really good and i would agree with you but the other danger sometimes is like hey our three are pretty good but they're not as good as the three big contract guys on these other teams yeah and i i like this step that i

saw from jackson this year offensively i did i did me too i think jackson and bane i really like those guys yeah so they're they're fine it's just i also think they need to do some sort of something that signifies, we actually understand that this wasn't great. So we'll see. Next team, Cleveland. They got Garland and Mitchell at 67 million. They have Jared Allen making 20, 20, and 20 next three years. That feels like a lot this week.

It feels like a lot. They have 19 million next year for Wade, Rubio, and Osman, who barely played in that Knicks series, did nothing that I can remember. Levert's a free agent. He defended Brunson for a little while. Utah gets their 25, 27, and 29 firsts

and pick swaps in 26 and 28. It's not great. What do you think? No, the other thing, well, Mitchell's player options two years from now, so that's fine. Can we

at least be on what do they make? It goes from DEF CON 5 to DEF CON 1? 5 is the worst. Is 5 the worst? I thought 1 was the worst. 5 is the worst. Yeah, I think it's actually the other way.

And that's why people get confused. Like two podcast hosts right now. What's the lowest one? The least amount of concern or the most? The least amount of concern. But you're still in the DEF CON chart. That's one. I think five is the worst.

Kyle, definitely use this for the breakout. Whatever the least amount of concern. DEF CON one is the worst. Okay. Oh, it is? Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to put this on DEF CON five.

I've just alerted everyone in the security to just keep an eye on this. Just the Mitchell quotes for the next six weeks, whether he loved this Cleveland experience or not. Just want to, I just, just looking out for it. If he's a quiet summer,

so be it. But I'm still on DEFCON 5 for it. Because he couldn't have been like psyched how the playoff series went. Plus like just going forward, like does he make sense with Garland? because he couldn't have been psyched how the playoff series went. Plus, just going forward, does he make sense with Garland? The coaching piece of it, who knows?

And the fact that this is kind of their team now? Why are you laughing? Just how bad the DEFCON thing was because I ended up screwing it up. I don't know my DEFCONs. I love this and the audience loved it. It just makes us more human and more normal and relatable. Yeah, because I didn't even really realize as I'm looking at it now. I don't know my Def Con. I love this, and the audience loved it. It just makes us more human and more normal and relatable. Yeah, because I didn't even really realize,

because I'm looking at it now, I stopped listening two minutes ago, why does Def Con 5 even exist? Why does it even exist? It means exercise term, fade out, lowest state of readiness. Like, we might be above Def Con 5 now, and we could be at a 4 and not even know.

5 sounds like things are really good. I did the opposite when I did the Pantheon in my book. I made level 5 was the highest because that just seemed to make sense. Like as you climb numbers, the levels would go up. But the government apparently went the other way. Anyway, I'm on DEFCON 5 with the Mitchell Watch.

Do you think the government ever revisit this? Be like, why did Brad do itON 5 with the Mitchell Watch. Do you think the government ever... Do you think they ever revisit this and be like, why did Brad do it this way? In 1868. Why did we do it this way? I don't really know what their moves are, Rusillo. Apparently, we're at DEFCON 3 right now. You think we are?

No. Oh, America's at DEFCON 3 right now. Really? Air Force ready to mobilize in 15 minutes. That would make sense. Helicopters going by my place constantly. I feel like we should have known that. DEFCON 3 seems significant.

There's some stuff that happens. Our desensitization to certain headlines is like, hey, we got aliens. Here are the secrets. Did Megan really say that to Harry's cousin? is fat like hey we got aliens here are the secrets be like okay but are you did megan really say that to harry's cousin oh my you would have loved they showed megan and harry

in the jumbotron at the laker game and the crowd made a noise i've never heard before and i've been to lots and lots of noise can you can you recreate it you know when you go into a restaurant and there's that sound of just a lot of people talking, right? It's like a crowded restaurant and you walk in and it's just like a din of voices just in conversation. They showed them on the Jumbotron. Wasn't really any booing. There was no cheering. And then the din of a restaurant kind of popped up where just everybody kind of started talking about them on the Jumbotron. So it was like 20,000 people just leaning to the person next to them going, ah,

these fucking people. And that was the noise for 10 seconds, but not a lot of booing or anything. It was not negative. I think she could have done better. That's what I took away from it. So you have no fix for Cleveland? Nothing?

I doubt they're going to do all that. I mean, I'd love for them to figure out that third guy between the Chetty, Levert, Akogi, excuse me, or Coro, Akogi's on Phoenix. I'd like that to be upgraded. Levert's a free agent,

so he might not even be there. They could sign and trade him, but I don't know who they're signing and trading him to because there's a million wings in the league. You know what their fix is? Is Mobley being somebody who offensively is somewhat of a threat. And he can do a lot of things and we all like him. But that was... It was bad.

That was bad. I'm not selling my stock, but listen i i did have a couple meetings and talk to my people about it like hey what's our position how are we feeling about our mobile stock should we get off should we should we push some of it to somebody else like there were conversations you got an e-trade just cold call from a guy you've never even talked to being like hey bill look i know you want to hang up my name's bruce. I'm over here at E-Trade. Saw all your Mobley stock. Yeah, I just was looking at it, and I just, you know, like you've got a ton of Mobley stock. There's this Jerry Schichting IRA.

I don't even know if you knew about this. So we'd like to just kind of diversify this a bit more. Got this guy Boutte on LSU. He's going to be a late-round pick for the Pats. You may want to put some there. Next one, what do we do now? You were terrible for what do we do now with Cleveland. You offered no suggestions.

Nothing. You kind of brushed them off. If I'm a Cavs fan, I'm like, really, Rosillo? It was a main one. I've said they have to upgrade that third scorer role. They have to. They have to upgrade this third scorer role. Go get somebody who can score

a little bit from the wing spot. You can't have lineups where two guys definitely don't have to be guarded. And sometimes it's a third. So this isn't new. I already think I did an episode on this in particular. I just always think back to those Thunder rosters where imagine a playoff game today where it's Westbrook and Durant and then the other three guys can't score.

And they used to have Perkins and Roberson out there at the same time. Imagine a team doing that in the playoffs. I think that started NBA Twitter. Everyone was so outraged when they would do that. I think that was when NBA Twitter was officially born. I think they'd still win games. Imagine what you would see a team do defensively because I

still think back then there was a traditional sense of like guarding your guy and you would help and you do. If that lineup rolled out in a game today in the playoffs, it would be hilarious. It would just be, hey, we're

going to guard four. We're going to guard two with four and ignore everybody else. And if Jeff Green hits a three, so be it. Let's take one more break and then we can do Atlanta and wrap up. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Superbowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too.

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Wealthsimple, built for possibilities. Visit wealthsimple.com slash possibilities. All right, last team for what do we do now? The Atlanta Hawks, who we discussed earlier. Atypically glowing terms Murray is 18 million next year expiring Collins, Capel, and Hunter

do 66 million combined Trey is on the books for 40, 43, 46, and 49 next four years and San Antonio gets their 25 and 27 first and a 26 pick swap. They also have the Okongwu contract that I think they could extend if they wanted to this summer. A lot of

pieces, a lot of talent. And the Murray thing is the big question. How do you pay Murray? Do you keep Murray and Trey together? What would you tell them? Well, because you paid Quinn all this money and you gave him this long-term deal, you have to imagine he told everybody he could fix Trey because Trey is still the darling to this ownership group, which we all know. So considering he came in towards the end of the season and yes, they fought harder.

I mean, there's still clearly an issue. So I don't know if you can ever get through to trade. Like we need you, like Quinn Snyder needs to figure out, we need to change our approach a little bit. It can't be as ball dominant. You have to remove those five to seven, hey, look at me plays that you have every game. You are the best on the dribble lob that maybe I've ever seen. I'm serious. He's so good at it. He has all these different variations of it. It's ultimately the same thing every time,

but clearly he's doing stuff different. How quick he gets off, how quick he gets passed out, he's awesome at it. They need to find something that's not your turn, my turn with DeJounte. His teammates have to feel a little bit more involved.

I don't know if it ever gets through to Trey. I don't know if it happens this year. I also wonder if Game 5 Trey means you get more of the Trey that doesn't seem to win a ton of games longer term. Do you think Trey left this series going like, hey, I need to adjust? He's probably like, I'm fucking awesome still.

You guys can adjust to me. If Quinn can get through to him to just figure it out a little bit, the size thing's never really going to be solved but I mean still when you blitz him he could turn the corner on you because he's so damn quick the defensive thing's never really going to be solved it's just an effort part of it but he might not understand like giving up a little means more for him as a team until there's a couple more years of losing games so the whole trade trade shit as bad as it could have gotten this year, you're not going to like what the market is for them.

You're probably getting somebody else's other problem that plays a different position. And if you used all these assets, you're going to have to keep Murray anyway. So I would try to get through to trade. It's just, hey, you need to figure out a way

to unlock some of the talent around you because I think as you saw against Boston, there's a little bit more talent there from what a 500 team has been the last couple of years. Are you more dramatic about this? The question for me is, if I'm going to pay Murray, which I'm going to have to do to keep him,

and CBA made it a little easier, but it's still pretty hard to get to where you actually need to go with that contract. Or do you trade Trey this summer? And if you do, what's the trade? Thank God for us. I'm the Picasso of the trade machine and I have a little three-teamer for you. Miami gets Dame Lillard. Portland gets Trey Young the 23 Miami first and Miami first in 28 and 30 and Atlanta gets Tyler Harrow

in the old depot expiring and here's why this trade will never happen but here's why I thought of it if I'm Atlanta can I turn Trey into a cheaper asset who's maybe not quite as good, but is a better fit for the roster I have, and then give the extra 10, 12, whatever million it is, push that toward Murray and make the bet on Murray instead of Trey. That's the only way it

makes sense to trade him is if you're getting an asset back and then I can take some of the Trey money and push it toward Murray. But I'd really have to think Murray is like a guy that I can build around and I'm not positive he is. The other move would be to just trade Murray this summer, which would be crazy because you gave up two firsts and a pick swap for him on top of the other stuff. Either way, I don't know how you just say... The Bruins just scored. Either way, I don't know how you just say the Bruins just scored either way. I don't know how you say things are fine. Let's roll this back because I don't think those two guys belong together.

That's my expert opinion. I have to watch them for six months. It's a backward. That doesn't make sense to me. Um, can you say again exactly what do you mean just the the outgoing

Atlanta is sending out Trey and what else so Atlanta is basically sending out Trey and that's it there's no and they're getting back

Tyler Harrow no picks and they're getting back Tyler Harrow and Oladipo Oladipo is an expiring he's hurt he's not going to play next year right Miami would be sending out Hero the Oladipo. Oladipo's an expiring. He's hurt. He's not going to play next year. Right. Miami

would be sending out Hero, the Oladipo expiring, and three firsts, which they would do if they got Dame, I feel like, every time unless they make the finals. But it's I'm just giving you the framework of a trade like this because I think that's what you have to think if you're Atlanta

is how do we get Trey? How do we get a cheaper guy back who's maybe a better fit with our roster? And the flexibility of that when Trey in three years is going to be making $49 million a year. We're getting out from under that because we've seen some things

in the last couple of years that make us think maybe this isn't a guy we can win a title with. All right, just so you're aware, we're on the air. You were worried about the Philly blogs aggregating something you said. You got to do better than Tyler Hero. Tyler Hero is 27 million bucks this year,

this upcoming year. Would you rather pay Tyler here a $27 million or Trey Young $40? I don't know what you're doing. You're thinking about the future math and you're doing something smart here. But I'm looking at Atlanta and the way they run the operation

who wanted Trey Young because of tickets more than they wanted Luca. And there's no way they're going to do anything with Trey Young because of tickets more than they wanted Luca. And there's no way they're going to do anything with Trey for something that feels like a complimentary piece in Tyler. So let's, so let's take Miami out of this. Let's just say it's Trey and some 20 to 29 and 31 firsts and maybe a con

who's in it for Dame. To me, that doesn't make sense for them either because you just did it. 29 and 31 first and maybe a Kong was in it for Dame. I, to me, that doesn't make sense for them either because you just did it. You just did the small high usage guard who shoots a ton of can. Oh, but now I'm getting the older version of somebody who has a more of a winning pedigree,

but now I've just, I've shortened that by 10 years and I'm not sure that guy can even play with Murray. If I'm trading Trey, I want to get like a, a wing shooter back so I can make Murray my point guard. You like this. There's a light in your eye right now because

I'm on to something, but I can't land the plane on it. I like what you're doing because you're thinking ahead so much on this one. I just don't know how they're going to keep Murray. I don't see a path for them keeping him where this all works out.

Well, they could trade Hunter. But I don't know that with his contract, I don't know that people are in love with him, even though I still think there's some talent there. Then there's a Capella decision, which is why Okongu's there. I think there's some stuff they could do where they go, okay, well, this means if we're doing this, that we're going to be tightening up. What at one point, I thought

was kind of like a nice seven or eight-man rotation. You're also going to have to do the decision on Bay. And Jalen Johnson, who I thought was like a complete do-not-draft at Duke, saw nothing from him. Still thought at moments he was a little scared at times, but there's a high-end ceiling version of him with some moments, too, where you're like,

look at that guy. Like, whoa. So I think they may have something there, but who knows? I've been saying that that about cominga now for a year so uh i this is not what this ownership group would do they would not trade a tray at his worst is an inefficient superstar in their city okay and there's still so many people that believe in him and i think people are more emboldened from this series than they are like out on him the first two games it was starting to feel like oh here we go again because then the one that always gets thrown

around like what would the market be for him it's like would you do trey cat it's like would you do would you bring trey to anthony edwards like you wouldn't want to do that to him like hey by the way yeah hey not only do we trade all of our future assets for rudy gobert who's just in your way now you get to watch trey young shoot 26 times a game. Let me remove the Atlanta City part of it. I'm just asking you personally, would you rather have Trey Young at 40, 43, 46, and 49 for the next four years or Tyler Harrow at like 27, 29, 31, 33? No, you're right. I get what you're saying. I mean, I'm not going to take the Trey side of this because I still think that we have enough evidence over time. I just think it's too much money.

I would probably just start going after Toronto, being like, what do you guys want to do? Maybe a new coach. Oh, hey, I can fix them. This will be awesome. Pick off a couple of their assets, a little precious. Maybe you get one of the two wings. So you're saying Scotty Barnes?

Yeah. Or Van Vliet. Yeah. Van Vliet's a, he's a. I don't see Messiah trading for Trey. Would you take Jalen Green for him straight up? You just dump his salary completely and you get a rookie contract back and Houston has all this cap space and they want to make an impact.

They have Ime. You feel like, oh, we got the right coach for him. And you're Atlanta. You're just rebooting. We just saved $40 million or $35 million in salary. We got somebody who matches with Murray. And now we're in the Jalen Green business. Van Vliet's player option.

The Jalen Green one's hilarious because it's like I've been groomed for this role. Do I get to do the same shit that Trey did? Because I can do that. I'm your guy. I'm plug and play. And by the way, Trey's a lot better than Jalen Green is. So I'm not going to make that sound like I'm knocking Trey there.

I don't know what Houston's going to do. Would Shangoon immediately ask for a trade? Like, hey, are you guys serious? Can't do this again. It seems like Houston wants to get frisky this year. It does feel like Houston wants to get frisky. They want to spend some money on some guys and make a run at it. I think Fertitta is just ready to go.

I think it's crazy that he took that job over waiting to see what would happen with some of the bigger jobs. He just would have waited. Maybe he had intel that Cleveland wasn't going to do anything, which remains nuts to me. And then with Milwaukee, now we found out poor Coach buddy lost his

brother during that series i don't know if that that's going to affect whether they bring him back or not but um i don't that milwaukee's another one where i don't know what their move is either not trade five second rounders hey not trade five second rounders for jay crowder who by the way like i know the three point numbers are good did you watch him that much when he came back and played with him? He was bad. He was declining anyway. I always felt like he was a little overrated. We said that last year in the Dallas series.

It felt like he wasn't a winning player anymore. We need to footnote that in history. Who had the least amount of basketball juice that got their way were another team also and i'm going to go through it again too like of all the dudes that everybody freaked out about on the buyout market and all these guys like denver doesn't even use their buyout guys christian brown plays over their options and by the way christian brown had like three nice defensive plays against kevin durant of all people where i'm like wow he got him again He was good. I think he's been good for a couple months now.

We have, I forgot to do this one, the up 20 all-stars, the guys who when they're up 20 are unstoppable. We were talking about this when we were calling before about, it's basically D'Angelo Russell and the number of Grizzlies do you want to put on? Do you want to just put everyone in the Grizzlies? Yeah, it's D'Angelo Russell and four Grizzlies do you want to put on? You want to just put everyone in the Grizzlies? Yeah, it's D'Angelo Russell

and four Grizzlies, but go ahead. And Peyton Pritchard is the sixth man? Peyton Pritchard coming in in game 82 when no starters are out there or in a blowout looks like he's the future of the next John Stockton. I like Peyton Pritchard. I would have traded for him. If I were Dallas and my choices were get on the Kyrie rollercoaster

and give up my 29 first and Finney Smith and Dinwiddie, whatever you think of him, or plan B is just do a protective first for payton pritchard i would have done the pritchard and and not not gotten on the kairi roller coaster that's just me i would have quit i would have resigned if an owner and if an owner made me trade for kairi and then have to make a decision to give him four years of money i'd be like i'm gonna i'm gonna sit next to Mike Woodson oh I caught with you I meant yeah I meant Sam Mitchell and for some reason I typed Mike Woodson

I'm having all these old guy tweet moments now you tweeted that the Bruins scored by the way 3-2 Bruins bees bees are back can we watch the bees yeah let's watch the bees uh can we end this pod yeah we're gonna end the pod nfl draft any thoughts before we go butte was a baller two years ago man a baller so i don't know that his attitude was the best

there towards the end he was certainly frustrated there were some playmakers there was a couple guys that didn't really love the direction, new coach, everything coming in, getting on their quarterback. He will yell at Mac Jones early, which would be great. But if he's anything like the guy that I saw two years ago, I can't believe he went in the sixth round. Yeah, the buzz has to be pretty bad at that point. Yeah, I would guess.

I've been saying that sniff in the air is probably not awesome. Yeah. In some boards, he was the number one receiver in August. I've been a lot of a lot of Pat's threads

about him. People are pumped. Okay. The Ryan Rosillo podcast. You're doing two this week. Yeah, we got two boogers speaking to LSU

will join us Tuesday and we actually have Taylor Swift Thursday. But we're taping, so we'll see how it goes. Taylor Swift? Efforting. Okay. I didn't say which one.

I like knowing the threshold of what would cause you to do a 24 minute emergency podcast. It's basically the Bucks have to lose in five in round one. Like, it's like how many sports instances would have to cause you to just be like, fuck it. We got to tape. We got to get something up now. I agreed with what you did, by the way, because it was like, no, it felt like it was like that big of a moment where we just lost the,

but the bucks won one playoff game. We talked about them all year. They won one, not even one playoff series, one playoff game. I, uh, I tried to swear less than this pot. I don't know why I'm swearing so much on this one, but I swear, I swore, I should say four minutes in, uh, but I'm going to swear again. Now that was one of those games where you're just sitting around. I didn't know what to do. I needed somebody to talk to.

I needed something. And I went down to my basement. I was messing around with my inventions. And Van Pelt calls me on his way back. So it's like 3 a.m. his time. He's leaving the SportsCenter studio. Those are like the best moments. He called me, just driving home, 20 minutes. He just he just calls he goes what the fuck and i go right and we

just did a circle of like 15 to 20 minutes going and then this and then what about this and what does this mean and like what's going on here uh and then you know it still lingered because then you had the yannis quote that kept going about failure yeah and i do think it's funny that like when somebody fails and he's he's you know one of the faces of the league he's had the belt which i thought was really cool you guys on your pod talking about like is there a chance for a belt transfer here after these playoffs which i i love that and then curry took it curry took it three days later thanks yannis but you know then saruti and I talked and then Saruti's like, I feel differently about 2021.

You'd be like, that seems incredibly like illogical, but it's real. Like everybody's going to wait. Yeah. Cause the 2021 stuff, like let's go back and revisit that. Like it's a rewatchables for an NBA finals where you spend 90 minutes trying

to dissect why they actually weren't the champs and be like, wait, you want to give it to Chris Paul now? Cause that doesn't seem like what the public wants. I needed to talk. I needed to share my thoughts. And that was emergency pod status.

23 Giannis in that 21 finals. They do not beat Phoenix. That's the best way you can put it. Free throw shooting and the lack of ability to shoot a 15-footer. Chris Paul's wrist didn't need surgery and they had a backup big. Thanks to

Tyrese Halbert. Thanks to Kyle Crane for producing it, as always. Thanks to Steve Cerruti. You can hear Rosillo's pod. You can listen to me on the Prestige TV podcast Breaking Down Succession. Rosillo's Breaking Down Succession listen to me on the Prestige TV podcast, Breaking Down Succession. Rosillo's Breaking Down Succession on Tuesdays.

And we will see you on this feed maybe on Tuesday. Not positive yet. It is my daughter's birthday. I don't know. I'm 50-50 for the pod. I'm like a bead. I just have a knee brace on.

You don't know if I'm actually going to play or not. Enjoy the rest of the day.