The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: The Anthony Edwards Thing, 'Sota's Upset Potential, and Two Sides of Rudy Gobert With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss Chris Paul and the Suns dismantling the Pelicans, hope for the Warriors, the Timberwolves’ Game 1 upset over the Grizzlies, the joy of watching Anthony Edwards, the Mavericks’ loss to the Jazz, Hawks-Heat, and more! Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's available on all platforms like this one is. Coming up, me, Ryan Rosillo. Part two, first, Pearl Jam. All right. It is part two of our Sunday night podcast with Ryan Rosillo. It is about 1145 East Coast time. Rosillo, this is humans work by me. I'm staying up this late. I feel like I have some energy and a little ice cream. I had a ginger ale. I was trying to stay up on the East Coast time, but I'm in Boston. When you're talking about the old guys coming through, we just watched Chris Paul

lay it to the Pelicans. I actually looked this up on Basketball Reference. So he had like 30 points, nine assists. Only Kareem, Steve Nash, and Sam Cassell,

36 years old and up, 30 points, nine assists in a game, in a playoff game. There you go. Not even LeBron. I'm going to open up to you a little bit. You know, there's a lot of times where I think about my life and I'll go, do you have to watch this much basketball? You know, I told Van Pelt, I saw dad buying his kid a plastic shovel at the general store

here in town the other day. Something happened to me on my insides when I was watching it. I was just watching a dad buy a shovel for his kid. They were headed to the beach to make castles and stuff. I was like, you don't have that in your life. Then I think back to maybe just a hungover Sunday in West Hartford, just living alone and stopping at the kiosk at the West farms mall and grabbing Rosetta stone and thinking, Hey, if I learn Italian, that would probably improve my life.

And so I have these moments. And yet then Chris Paul does what he did tonight and validates my entire existence. This is why you watch. I mean, it was a good weekend overall. It was unbelievable. Probably an A-. We had some really good games and even if the games weren't that good, we had

performances like the CP3 thing. I mean, was it a newsflash to know that wasn't a great matchup for the Pelicans? You know, a lot of wings to be thrown at CJ and Ingram and Chris just looked like he was in everybody's kind of forgetting us a lot of wings to be thrown at CJ and Ingram. And Chris just looked like he was in everybody's kind of forgetting of mode

a little bit. Just a little tad of a little hop and a step. That's how I felt. What I love about Phoenix, too, is they guard the first thing really well, then they guard the second thing. The number of times tonight, and granted, that game, I think New Orleans almost didn't get to 30 points for the

half by the way yeah uh and and they put together a little bit of a run there to get over 30 at the half and they had a good third quarter but you know we could talk about energy and maybe they found some things i mean that's that's what they were talking about on the broadcast i think phoenix is so good and i think this happens in really good teams where they go and you know really not all that threatened by you all that much so we're not going to worry about it. But what they do, yeah, that's right, New Orleans at 34, and that was with a little bit of a run to close out the first half. They guard the first thing, and then if it's like, okay, we dribbled into your kind of two guys facing us,

but now there's a back cut coming off of that, all right, he'll have a nice look or an advantage. And you're like, no, that's gone too. So when they're locked in, both Miami and Phoenix put on shows today defensively against inferior teams, but there's just a level with these teams that are so connected defensively that it can get really

scary. It's a lot of fun to watch. I think it's a good sign when somebody shows up at home and lays the smackdown against an inferior team in game one. On the Phoenix thing, they still were basically dead even odds to make the finals. Did you see anything this

weekend that made you think if they stay healthy, nobody's touching them? There was a whiff of Golden State for you? There was a whiff. They played line-up of death 2.0 and they had Poole and Clay and Wiggins and Draymond who really looks like Draymond again.

Did that get you get your juices flowing at all? It did. Now I don't think Denver is a very good playoff team. I just don't. And I think that becomes obvious. And they did a couple of different things with Jokic. And I think by Jokic's standards, that necessarily wasn't a great game for him.

But Gordon, I mean, relying on Gordon and Will Barton and Morris and Rivers in these kinds of games and to have Jordan Poole go off. I mean, Steph can always impact a game positively just by stepping on the floor. But he didn't shoot it well at all. But I thought he looked all right. He looked basketball out of shape, punches a little off and that kind of stuff.

But Klay looked like he's, you know, whenever Clay's having fun is when it's a bad sign for people. And I thought the Draymond part of it was terrific. I still don't love the lack of depth and it was Denver.

But yeah, I think there's always going to be a part of me, I think, that fears what a version of Golden State could be. Is that, are you with on that at all?

Or no? Am I crazy? I had, Curry seems a little far away to me on the shooting or is it a month just the way he's moving he seemed like i i don't think he's 100 and i think they would probably admit that yeah i just wish the guy the level that he had gotten to the first two months with the way he was just navigating and he almost seemed like a ballet dancer the way he was just going. And he almost seemed like a ballet dancer,

the way he was just going through and prancing around doing whatever he wanted. And I didn't feel like he's there yet, but he'll be able to shake the rust off. I think if we were doing 24-7 sports talk shows on one of the cable channels, it would be coming up. Is Steph Curry the third most important warrior right now?

That's next. Because you and I have been on pool all year. I think you might be the only person I know who likes him more than I do. I do see a scenario where he just rips off a month straight of games like the one we saw yesterday. I don't like, to me, he's beyond a heat check guy. He just might be really good.

I mean, they're, they're in trouble with the extension piece with him. They could just roll it over like Phoenix did with Aiton. Their luxury tax bill is ridiculous, but, um, I voted for him for most improved player of the year. I don't know if I told you that. I just felt like the leap that he made from complete also ran, who was kind of fun in a couple of games to where he is now. And the shot selection and the, just the stuff he's doing is so high level that I, is somebody going to offer in the max? If he got in the market,

I don't know if it would be the max, but it would be in the a hundred million range. I think it would be in the McHale bridges for, for a hundred territory. Yeah. That's how good I think he is. It reminds me a little bit of our Maxi conversation earlier because you're constantly thinking for all these teams that are pretty good, but the big three thing's been watered down a bit

because he's had some moving pieces, and it's not like we had. I mean, with Golden State and Cleveland, we're talking about all-time arms races there. But instead of, oh, can Golden State package this, this, and a pick about like all time arms races there, but instead of, Oh, can golden state package this, this, and a pick for like deal. And you go, I'd just rather a pool. Yeah. Why am I trading him and Kaminga or him and Wiseman for the, for the other thing? I mean, unless it's, it's absurd, you know, unless it's another guy, like, you know, it's never going to be Durant is prime again, but you get my point but i think i would not

trade pool or cominga i think they're off the table from the warriors you're looking at improving your center spot and that's it i would not mess with the perimeter yeah that's that's what i mean though like when pool comes in the way he did or a maxi comes in the way like oh hey it's a nice little piece or oh we got a rotation guy oh he can score a little bit you're like no actually he shoots the shit out of the ball no one can stay in front of him and his life is a little bit easier with Steph let's not get ourselves here but there's it's almost like reminding yourself to change your perception of some of these players and I voted her most improved as well I know there was a jaw push but I almost feel like it's insulting to vote for somebody like jaw stature as most improved

because I hated the argument. I didn't get it. I expected him to be better in year three. We thought he had a chance to be way up there. I mean, he exceeded expectations, but when you talk about him versus somebody like Poole or somebody like Darius Garland, I just think there's a different level of improvement. I didn't really get that.

So where are you on Golden State? Would you put him second? Would you put him ahead of Memphis or is that too much reaction to game one of what happened against Minnesota? I want to watch a couple more Curry games. I don't think he's 100%. I think he's going to ease back in and they just seem in this situation where they've never been

able to just have all their guys healthy at the same time. They played 11 minutes this year. Yeah. So when we get to, let's say it's game two and round two and all of a sudden all those guys are humming at the same time, then we have to recalibrate. But I just kind of want to see it. Let's talk Minnesota, Memphis. And we can save Anthony Edwards for after the break. So there's a couple kinds of game one upset wins, quote unquote upset wins, right? Where you have the Phoenix, San Antonio 2003, Marbury Stoudemire winning against San Antonio in game one.

And it's like, oh, this is a moment. And it turned out to be the highlight of the series for them. We see that sometimes, the upset win. And it turns out it doesn't amount to anything. And then there's times like that Memphis-Minnesota game. I didn't really feel like it was an upset. I didn't even think Minnesota necessarily was lights out. Edwards was certainly great.

Towns was really good. But you look at some of the stuff from that game. Memphis had a 43-27 free throw advantage. Minnesota had 17 turnovers. Russell was two for 11. So they had two guys play really well. They got some good bench stuff. But I felt like it was replicable.

That was my takeaway. I actually thought talent-wise, these teams felt very similar. Now, the flip would be, listen, Jackson was in foul trouble. The counter to that would be, Jackson's in foul trouble a lot. This is in a seven-game series.

He might be in foul trouble three times. My point is this. I don't think there was anything fluky about it. I think Minnesota can win the series. I thought the series had a chance to go to seven. Now I would say seven seems pretty likely, and I think Minnesota has a legitimate chance to win. What was your take?

I felt more positive about Minnesota winning than I did negative about Memphis losing. And that is this. Like Minnesota going into this, if they got their asses kicked, you'd be like, oh, wait a minute. You know what? It's Memphis. It's their place. This guy's been waiting a week. This team's been really good all season long.

Maybe it's been a wake-up call for like, hey, nice story, Minnesota. But this isn't the Clippers. good all season long maybe it's a bit of wake-up call for like hey nice story minnesota yeah but this isn't the clippers and then i see them win this game and i go let me go back and look at some of the numbers d'angelo russell who did not play well in game one but had a big shot late his numbers in the regular season are absurd but then so are answers the numbers across the board for minnesota against memphis for whatever reason and all their guys played in all four games and by the way job played all four four games for Memphis in these. But Russ averaged 31-4-7 on 56-46% shooting splits.

So he's 46% in the regular season on threes, on 10 a game against them. Ants 21-3-4, 43-44%, Cats 23-9-3, 52-3. The team shoots 39% from three in the regular season uh against memphis i don't know why that is uh jaws numbers are actually terrible shooting wise against minnesota in four games against them he was 34 and 15 from three so i don't know if it's if it's a thing it seems like the adams problem is a problem, but then what do you do with the Jackson fouling situation? I thought Memphis played like shit.

Credit to Minnesota. I'm not really worried, though. If I'm Memphis, I'm not walking around for two days going, oh my God, what the hell happened here? I do think they have to figure out some stuff, but at least they have the depth and pieces. They can do some stuff. They took out Russell.

That seemed to be part of their game plan, hoping the other two guys wouldn't kill them, which they did. Beasley came off the bench, did some stuff. That was big. Great point on Beasley. Because sometimes he's one of those guys who just, I'm like, oh, he played 25 minutes tonight? Right.

Yeah, he's like, were you out there? I was here the whole time. I do think Adams, this is not the series for him. I think we could see some Tillman in this series. This is where Memphis, the fact that they go 15 deep is actually an advantage because I think for somebody like Towns,

who's weirdly more like lumbering and slow than I think you would think he is considering he's only what, 25 years old? Yeah, totally. Adams is kind of a nice matchup for him. Adams isn't going to torch him, you know, on the other end and speed wise,

it's just, I think a pretty good matchup. Whereas like if they played Tillman and Tillman can spread the, the floor stuff like that. So I went, I went back, I tried to figure out like, all right,

how many times have we had a two seven or a one eight upset? Since we've-8 upset since we've gone to eight seeds? How many times do you think it's happened? 2-7? 2-7 or 1-8? An eight seed or a seven seed winning in round one since we went to 18 in each conference in 1984. Is it 3-1-8s and then give me six two-sevens? So it's happened 10 times. Combined?

Yeah. Okay. Three of them I'm crossing off. The 2012 Bulls, that was when D. Rose got hurt at the end of game one. I just think they're winning that series 10 out of 10 times. He just got hurt in the first game. Flipped the series. The Sixers won.

The 99 Heat was the lockout. That was a stupid season. The teams were all separated by like five, six games. They lost to the Knicks. That was 99. The lockout. And then 98, that was when

they threw out everybody in the fights and that was all weird too. And the Knicks ended up beating the Heat. So I'm just throwing those out. So we'll go with seven. And then four of those were best of fives. The 94 Nuggets, they beat Seattle in five. They beat 91 Warriors. They beat San Antonio in four, David Robinson.

89 Warriors. I should have called this Bill's History Lesson. Could have had like fun little, it's Bill's History Lesson. 89 Warriors. They swept Utah. And then the 87 Sonics beat the Mavs in four. So really, the three

modern examples we have of best of seven. The 07 Warriors against Dirk. We believe. 2010 Spurs against Dallas. I don't even remember that one. And then, and this is my favorite kind of doppelganger,

the 2011 Grizzlies who won in six. And if you go through all of it, the head-to-head that year in 2011 was two to two. 2010 Spurs, the head-to-head, it was 1-3 they had. 2007 Warriors, the head-to-head, was 3-0, them beating Dallas. So I was thinking like... Wait, so the Warriors team that was an 8 seed, the We Believe team,

that takes out an awesome regular season Dallas team. Yes. They were 3-0 against Dallas. They were 42-40 that year. Dallas was 67-15. And they beat them 3 in the season, 4 out of 6. against Dallas. They were 42 and 40 that year. Dallas was 67 and 15. And they beat them three in the season, four out of six.

So the Grizzlies were 46 and 36 in 2011. The Spurs were 61 and 21. Split the series. Memphis wins game one. Memphis won every home game. This was the Memphis team that had Mike Conley,

who was four years in the league, Rudy Gay, Zeebo, Gasol, O.J. Mayo, Shane Battier, Tony Allen. All of them are in their 20s except for Battier. All high lottery picks, for the most part, are top 10 picks. So there's like some pedigree. That's the part that reminds me of this Minnesota team,

where they have Towns Edwards to number one, overall picks. The angel Russell was picked second, right? Just pedigree guys. And then a bunch of role players. And then Beverly in that, like that Shane baddie spot.

So when I think about that compared to that Spurs team, that Spurs team won 61 and basically went on the run in 12, 13, 14 with the same group of guys that you had Kawhi to that, but it was basically the same nucleus. It was a really good team. Memphis was just really good that year. I wonder if that's in play with Minnesota, which is why I bring all of this up.

Is that, are we going to be looking at this list 10 years and be like, blah, blah, blah in the 2011 Grizz and then the 2022 Timberwolves, you know, they were nine games worse than Memphis during the regular season, but in the playoffs, they won in six. I could see it. I see the roadmap. I hope they don't blow it. I hope they do the honest effort,

and they didn't peak in game one, but I think it's sitting there for them. Yeah, because it wasn't, even though I don't think Memphis played well, it wasn't some fluky thing. I mean, the free throw numbers are pretty extreme on that. So some of these outcomes, we spend way too much time talking about them. And you're just like, hey, what did they shoot from three?

Like, oh, they shot 28%. They shot 48%. Like, all right. That's pretty much all it was. Yeah, but I'll say that with those two teams, it was in character. Because Minnesota was 16 for 43. Memphis was 7 for 27. But Memphis doesn't shoot threes. And Minnesota shoots a ton of threes. Yeah. I'm not even saying that specific to this

one. I think it's just the other games where you're like, what do they have from three? Right. There you go. There's your answer. Yeah. Look, like I said, I thought Memphis didn't play that well. I think they have opportunities there to try some different stuff. That building's going to be absolutely crazy for a game too. But this kind of gets back to our Anthony Edwards part of it. I mean, this entire concept of this two-parter here

and as I've closed the season of like updated ceilings. Like we were joking about that being a segment. Let's take a break. Let's set this up properly. Okay. Let's do it now.

It's time. We're going to take a break. And then we're still in Niagara and talk about Anthony Edwards for at least 20 solid minutes. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

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that would be kind of generational. It wouldn't just be like, oh man, remember that one? This would be something different would be going on. There's a chance that this guy is truly special. You go. Yeah, that's kind of what it is. Like, wait, what if he really is this guy? Because he had this weird lull towards the end of the regular season which i still i'm just going to admit it there are times where i feel like the d'angelo russell

combo with him although this has been a better version of d'angelo russell like my thing with d'angelo russell is this he does the hard things well and he he does the really easy things poorly and so it can still fuck you when he's going great and scoring and dishing and his skill but then it's like why can't you do these other little things are a lot easier that can lead to losses so i've always felt like that's even though i want a couple scoring options from the wing i wondered if that ever got in the way of anthony edwards and when edwards is like all right you know what i just think i'm going to take over here for a little while and then he started doing it again at the end of the regular season.

And then what he did in game one, this is not to, this is sort of more getting absurd here, but like, could we be on the cusp of that? All right. I don't even want to say this out loud because I feel like it's stupid, but my favorite example of like, oh, okay. So this is real. It's when LeBron got to that awful Cavs team to the NBA finals,

they beat Detroit, they get swept by the Spurs. That team was not good. I always joke that LeBron deserves a that awful Cavs team to the NBA Finals. They beat Detroit. They get swept by the Spurs. That team was not good. I always joke that LeBron deserves a half a ring for that one. And then it's like, all right, well, this is what now it took. The rest of it took a little bit longer than we thought.

And I'm not saying Edwards now is going to carry the Timberwolves to the NBA Finals. But if this is as real as you and I think it could potentially be, then maybe this is what it's going to be. He's that special that I'd at least allow myself to have this thought where other seven seeds, I'd be like,

whatever, you got the first one. Memphis is too good. They're going to figure this out. It turns 21 on August 5th. That's right. Same birthday. It's early. I don't want to jinx it.

He had some knee issues already in March. He wasn't, all of a sudden he was just shooting threes. But I've been there for a few of these now where you can see some of the signs. Like Kobe was a good example in the late nineties when, you know, and sometimes they're trying to force feed the next MJ thing. MJ was retiring. People really wanted the next MJ. And it wasn't really until that 2000 playoffs and the comeback against Portland in game seven. But then when Shaq fouled out of that finals game in game four,

when there was a serenity and a confidence to Kobe, where we all kind of looked at each other and we said, oh, he's got it. This guy has it. You know, you go back to to Jordan against the 86 Celtics when he's just going toe-to-toe against what I think is still the best or the second best team of all time. And he's just completely fearless and just 100% confident

and just carrying himself differently. And beyond unafraid of the moment, kind of relishing it and soaking it in. So you think of that, the Edwards that we saw in the playing game in the game yesterday, it was, it was, it was beyond alpha doggy. He, there was a swagger to him. That's just really, really rare and really special when you combine it with a ton of talent and then this this athleticism that's pretty ridiculous. So look, super early. I don't want to jinx it, but if you're just talking about, are you just hitting these little baby steps?

He's hit a lot of the baby steps. All right. So fair question. Do you think Anthony Edwards has surpassed LeBron in the LeBron MJ conversation? Should it be MJ Anthony Edwards? Is that a fair, is that, or is it too early for that? How about this? Look, he does. There is something about the way he carries himself that feels like, oh,

this is what he's supposed to be doing. He's supposed to be taking over these games. And then just to listen to him afterwards where he's so comfortable. He's man. I love playing here. Like the kids tell you, you suck and whatever. Like he, there's a,

there's a there's a calmness or there's it and maybe calmness no calmness is the right yeah that's the right noun there's something more almost like yeah this is what i'm supposed to be doing what the fuck you guys think why are you surprised like no this is what i do like this is what i'm gonna do so i'm amazed this is that hasn't happened sooner like that is getting mad at us what do you think all right i feel like i'm a little late with this whole thing this is better than yours saquon barkley's the best running back of all time thing which was like was it august before his second season i forget because i don't like i would rather be late than early because i think the misses are when you're too early on the stuff

but you and i had both had a moment earlier in this regular season where we're texting each other being like, I have the Timberwolves like as a featured event at the house because of this kid. And they were just better. They had a toughness to them. They're figuring things out. Finch has done a really good job. You know, I think, you know, we mentioned that kind of carry over from last year. But this is this is the kind of

stuff where you go wait did we get one of these guys did we get one of these guys which is different that's a that's this is really important that's the key point of this it was this weekend was the first time where we all wondered that where we wondered like wait is this gonna is edwards gonna be like a guy like's just like a really fun guy. Like Ja, we did this earlier in the year, but it was more the sense of this guy's so freaking exciting. Did we get another one of these like mid eighties Dominique, you know, Jordan type of just super fun athletes

where every game there's three things. The Edwards thing's different. Cause he, I think he really thinks he's the best player in the league. Like we always start with that stuff. Like like if you asked him if you were like you did the thing where you what do you have to drug the person what's the thing you did truth serum what's the real life version of truth serum I don't know

JMO side course Kyle probably knows if we gave him that, I think deep down in the deep recesses of soul, he thinks he's the best player of the league. And, you know, we saw... Which is a super dangerous thing for a lot of players, by the way.

Well, that was what was interesting about yesterday. He never felt... And Kyle May made this point in the ring R&B shot. I thought it was a good point. It never seemed like he was going, I'm hot, give me more made this point in the ring RBA shot. That was a good point. It never seemed like he was going, I'm hot. Give me more. Cause sometimes in the past Edwards would,

if he's feeling it, he would always take that one jumper too many. There was always that three off to the side where you're like, yeah, couldn't resist. Right. Yeah. Yesterday was not like that.

Yesterday was a guy who was just in control who every time they needed a bucket or a play, he made it. And, um, I just, I don't, considering that he's not 21 yet, I don't quite know what to make of this. And if I was a Timberwolves fan,

I would be losing my fucking mind. Because Tatum had moments like this in his rookie season, right? In that playoff run where he would go toe-to-toe with that Cavs team for like a quarter. Be like, oh my God, you see when he went toe-to-toe for a quarter? team for a quarter. You'd be like, oh my god. You see when he went toe-to-toe for a quarter? Tatum took this team that was the two-seed and was the best

guy on the floor. It wasn't close, by the way. He was the best guy in that game and it was like, if you'd never watched a basketball game before that, those are where your eyes would have gone to him. That means something, I think. Alright, question for you. Who would you rather have, Tatum or Edwards?

Well, that's why we're having this conversation. You would take Tatum because there's more of a body of work, the whole thing. The Edwards upside, I don't know where to put it. Tatum, you always knew. It was like, okay, I see where this could go. I see what the ceiling is, and it's super high, and I'm delighted. Edwards, I honestly don't know what the ceiling is.

Right, but Tatum had that weird dip stretch, too, where you go, wait, is this guy not going to be as good as we thought he was going to be? We're watching what he's doing in 2018. And maybe Edwards will have that, too. He's 20. Because Edwards is a different profile, too. When you drafted LeBron, you knew. And look, we're not comparing Anthony Edwards to LeBron. Alright, so I almost felt dumb about doing the Spurs analogy, but

I was just trying to think of something. No, I think it's fair. What if there's a playoff run here? But yeah, it's not Duncan getting drafted. Hell, it's not even Anthony Davis. It's not Derrick Rose getting drafted. This was a weird draft at the top because you were like, how special are the top one guys? top one guys okay would go number one in that draft or whatever so maybe maybe the build-up around him was just more muted so now to see where he's at

now not that it feels unexpected but he just didn't have the profile as one of these generational type guys and now we're asking that question i rose I'm glad you brought up because I think this is probably the last time something like this happened when 09, Rose's rookie year, and he's going toe-to-toe with that really good Celtics team that didn't have KG anymore, but was defending the title. And they had that awesome, awesome round one series. That was the Rondo series, right? Yeah. That was the Ray Allen, the double OT game. I think I wrote a column at the end of it

wondering if it was the best first round ever and going through all the first rounds trying to prove that it was. But that was like Rose... After that series, we all agreed Rose has it. And two years later,

he wins the MVP and he became one of the guys in the league and then he got hurt. But that was his arrival. I think the difference with this series is that if Minnesota beats Memphis, it's going to be because of Edwards. And we can say, oh, Towns had that good game four

and Beasley had that one game off the bench and Russell hit. But Edwards will be the reason. It will be a best player in the series game. And I think this is also an awesome test for Ja. Because Ja got a lot of love this year. It was all deserved. They played really well without him. And when he comes back, I think sometimes they lapse into,

all right, Ja, you're our Superman. Come save us. Whereas if you watch them when they didn't have him, there was a lot more ball movement and a lot more ball sharing. On the other hand, they have kind of the same issue the Celtics have, where if he's not hitting, they don't have that one guaranteed, I can get a shot guy. The Celtics really only have Tatum, and I think for them,

it's really only Ja. So we'll see. I think it's the most fascinating series other than the Brooklyn-Boston series. You're right. And by the the way the free throw differential thing i that actually i need to clean up something i'd said earlier just in case anyone was confused but yeah the fact that they had plus 16 and lost by 13 points it's not great terrible there was yeah there was another one so i misunderstood it because jaw like you look at his line you're like all right well he wasn't the issue and he wasn't really but for whatever reason he just hasn't hit from the outside against his team but he took 20 free throws and right honestly jaw free throws are

almost all earned yeah i don't i don't have a lot of moments where i go oh i can't believe just sold that one he's on the ground getting picked up every single time. But the Adams minutes, you can't fix that. I don't think, I think as the series goes along, I think he gets phased out. Don't you think? That'd be the one thing. And then the other thing is, I don't know, coaches can get really weird and stubborn about stuff.

Like, you know, it's always not Scott Brooks. Oh, wait, no, sorry. But I'll never forget the playing the results of that Dallas Golden State series, the We Believe team. And when I had Dirk on, he's like, Don, he's like, Nelly knew all of our stuff. He's like, yes, it was like the worst. And then I remember because I just started working at ESPN and I'd be back at the hotel and I'd be watching the pre and post and all that stuff. And then there was like X players on the broadcast after Golden State wins another one.

And they're like, oh, Dallas tried to adjust and you can't adjust when you're the better team. And I'm just like, what is that? Doesn't make any fucking sense to me. Like, oh, hey, this is something we do and it's getting exposed left and right. But we won 67 games. So let's not make any adjustments whatsoever. I don't think Taylor is that way. I think Bud is kind of that way.

You know, like I would I would expect like Tillman didn't play anything. No Culver for people asking, kidding. I don't know if there's a revenge game, maybe a little revenge on the line there for Culver. He, he was quiet. I thought for the stakes,

what happened to Culver? You did that draft. How was he just not a guy at all? Like we see misses in the WNBA, but not the NBA where draft. How is he just not a guy at all? We see misses in the WNBA, but not the NBA where a six pick is just basically not playing at all. You know,

when you'd watch him, you kind of kept landing on like, boy, he's going to need to figure a ton of things out, but what a body. That makes sense. The what a it is never good alright so thinking of Edwards as the number one overall pick Rosillo if we did the number one overall pick

draft going back 30 years all the way back to C-Webb and Shaq will go 31 years let's do this together I think LeBron would be the first pick of all those guys I think LeBron would be the first pick of all of those guys.

I think Duncan's second. And I think Shaq's third. Right? We would say those are the top three. No argument at all. And really, I don't think the Shaq-Duncan one is the debate. Agree. It starts to get interesting with four. So I could give you

Chris Webber. I could give you Ann Iverson. I can give you Yao. Dwight Howard. I can give you Blake Griffin. Kyrie. Anthony Davis. Who jumps out for you?

It's crazy when you do this, how it gets thinner than you'd think. That was the whole point of the exercise. I was shocked. Yeah. I think Dwight Howard is the answer. I don't want to do it. I think he is. You don't think it's Iverson

even though I think Iverson is... Iverson, one play after him. I don't know that Dwight was captain postseason either. Fair. Fair. But the thing is,

it's like prime Dwight. Like, it's crazy because you still... Like, his biggest frustration was I'm not involved enough offensively. It's like, well, you haven't developed any of that stuff ever. You just didn't develop any of it, but you can switch on guys, you rebound, you protect the rim, where Iverson was so much fun, but I'm with you. It wasn't really winning basketball. You were kind of hostage. And then people will say, well, the teams around him stunk. You're like, yeah, but you almost had

to have all these deferring defensive players to just play alongside him and that run in the east it wasn't very good that year it's it was a bad east he barely got through it I'm a huge Iverson defender I had Iverson higher in the pyramid I guess

neither of us can we can't stand Dwight I think Iverson's 0-1 season was more important. I think Dwight's peak was better. I mean, Dwight was just putting first team OMBAs together for a while. And then he kind of had a little bit of a post

Orlando semi-Renaissance, at least with Houston for a couple years. I think if I'm just trying to win a title over the course of 12 years, Dwight probably gives me a slightly better chance because it's so much harder to find a center, but neither of us like Dwight. So we're putting Iverson ahead of him. All right. So LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, Iverson, Dwight. I would go, the next one to me is either Griffin or C-Web. Because I think C-Web's best in Sacramento.

He was toe-to-toe with Garnett and Duncan and Dirk there for a couple years. He was first team all-NBA when that position was stacked. And that team really should have won the finals in 2002. They got completely hosed. So I would say those would be my next two. I think Webber's over Blake. Me too. Yeah.

C-Web's six. Griffin, seven. What about Elton Brand, though? What about prime Elton Brand versus Blake? It's one year, though. Elton Brand was like 2006, really. That's it. And then it's like probably Kyrie I think after that right Kyrie or AD

yeah you're probably right AD now I want Davis in the 75 and not Griffin and not C-Web but I think I was projecting the rest of what Davis' career would be. Yeah, Davis is probably above those two, I think. I think Kyrie's put together some nice stretches here for about a month. You can't just rule out all the other times you're like, wait. And granted, the vaccination part of this is unique

and very specific to this season. But, I mean, how many other times has he finished the season? Like, he's had a lot of times where you're like, what's going on? And so you're basically flipping a coin between two guys that are hurt all the time. I guess I'd rather deal with AD's injury bullshit than Kyrie's injury and extra bullshit. I agree. So, basically, it's LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, and then we move into this Iverson, Dwight, C-Webb, Griffin, Anthony Davis, Kyrie group. Yeah.

And then after that, we could argue until we get to the- Yao needs a mention here soon. the reason I'm bringing this up is it wouldn't be that hard for, I think Cade and Edwards to quickly go down, you know, where they're moving up that ladder, I think a little faster than maybe I was prepared for, especially Cade. You were on Cade way before I was. He did,

he did some stuff on a pretty, pretty sketchy Detroit team, sketchy from a talent and experience standpoint that was pretty unbelievable against good teams. I mean, five, six times during that season where it was just basically Cade against a good team trading possession. So I think Cade and Edwards have a chance to go down

higher on that list than I was expecting. Just to go over them real quick though, like Anthony Bennett's the worst number one pick in 30 plus. I don't even know how much further back you can go. You can probably tell us that better if you keep going back. Yeah, Bennett's worse than Oluwakandi. Bennett's won Oluwakandi and Fultz are probably right there. And Fultz still has a chance to salvage it at least a little bit.

Sorry, Cerruti. Yeah, Wiggins, Wall, Oden. Oden were healthy. He was going to be a really good player. I will argue that with anybody. Bargnani. Bargnani was 20 a game a couple times. Yeah. I thought he was kind of like

big stat. Kwame's in there, but Kwame was still able to play for like 11, 12 years. Remember there was that Kwame? Hey, Joe Smith was another one. He played for a long time and was on some decent teams. Remember there was that one run with Kwame? Hey, Jeff Smith was another one. He played for a long time and was on some decent teams. Remember there was that one run with Kwame when the defensive

first wave of defensive metrics were saying that he was better. It was like, is Kwame Brown underrated? That was when I was like, we need to figure out these defensive metrics just a tiny bit more. That's back when it was like 238? Yeah.

It was just 53. They didn't have the eight yet um all right so tldr and edwards other than boston brooklyn we please monitor this edwards thing in this memphis series because there's a chance something magical is happening and i don't want to jinx it but we're just we're putting a little spotlight and just tilting it toward the series. Right. Okay. The original exercise I believe was that we were supposed to figure out where Edwards is now in those number one picks. More like what his ceiling is. Oh, what Edwards is now just period. No, but I'm just saying like, did you do this where you've, I thought you were going to say something so ridiculous where you're gonna go i have it lebron duncan shack and edwards well from the ceiling standpoint

so i don't know he's not far off all right we're gonna take a break and uh we have some other it. All right. So Dallas, Utah, most disappointing series. Kind of just tired of watching Utah. I don't like watching Dallas without Luca as much as I respect Brunson and some of these other guys. Luca now hitting this moment where it's year four for him. He's played in 13 playoff games, 33-9 and 10. And if you go and you look at every great perimeter guy,

with the exception of Curry, but Jordan, Kobe, Oscar, Wes, LeBron, Wade, Doc, KD, Isaiah, Elgin, Koozie. By year four, they've had a moment in the playoffs. He had bad luck. He strains his calf. Game 82. It's like, it's fine. He might miss game one.

Now it's like, now he might actually miss one and two. They had those games at home. If he comes back, he's not going to be 100%. And it feels like a lost Dallas year for a team that I think would have beaten Utah. Should I give up on Dallas? Are you expecting a Luka Lazarus return? What do you think? I think that injury is nasty, man. But he doesn't go fast, right? If there's somebody that has a chance, he's so big, he gets you on his ass he just works you

he knows every angle you just can't do anything with him once he dribbles i mean that's that's what's so crazy about it i i picked utah and i think i was leaning maybe doing a zag on everybody by going utah because i felt like you know dallas still didn't finish off with the greatest profile and then i kept thinking about wait a minute what if, what if Dallas goes small and it turns into a Gobert thing? Yet then in game one, Dallas was trying a couple different things and Gobert dominates this game. I mean, Gobert was unbelievable

what he was doing defensively, where he'd show on a perimeter guy or he'd jab towards the roll man, but then still close out on somebody. I mean, Vigundi was losing his mind throughout of it but I still want to talk about the Gobert defensive thing because I think there are camps here I feel like I'm in the smaller

camp I don't know if you were in it with me but I I just don't how am I supposed to pick Dallas until I can see what happens with Luca but I think if somebody can play with that kind of thing he can because he doesn't have to go fast these teams that aren't as good as the series, the game we watched today, Brooklyn Celtics, that have true weak links, but they actually have to play.

There was two Berton stretches. And the second time, Utah was just like, let's work Bertons in every single decision we make. Who's he on? Let's go to that guy. And it's like the Luka thing tilted Dallas to the point where now there's guys playing that probably shouldn't be playing, have significant contributions. I know Bertans was playing down the stretch a little bit, but he was actually having to take shots in the fourth quarter and stuff. I talked myself into Dallas,

throwing a couple punches and maybe stealing game one. But man, the fact that Mitchell didn't play well and Utah still won is alarming if I'm a Dallas fan. Plus, you lose the first two at home and it's so hard. Now there's going to be three games in Utah.

So it feels like Utah caught a break, finally, with this series. And yet, I'm still, they leave me lukewarm. And they would have Phoenix next round. I love what we got from Bogdanovich in the first half. And then I thought Mitchell got off to kind of like that. You'll just see this. You'll see it a lot with the Stars, where the other team's sole focus is them. Right?

So then, you're a quarter and a half into the game. You're like, all right, the best player hasn't even scored yet and yeah like all right but either he's forcing it because if the defense is so isolated on him or he knows all right i'm you know my time's going to come but i'll get the ball moving here i'll start zipping around a little bit uh mitchell took 29 shots but i thought the way he finished and there's always going to be a couple with him that you're like all right i know you're sort of doing the hero thing a little bit but at least he's capable of making some of these ridiculous shots so i'm okay with it sometimes and then i also think that like when you look at the josh green minutes as

soon as that happened for dallas utah that's another one yeah fuck this guy like we don't care and as good as finney smith is defensively i mean bullock played 44 minutes brunson played for so they they played their guys and some of the guys that I like. It wasn't the best game from Dinwiddie, so their main guys didn't shoot it all that well. But I don't know how Dallas wins this without Luka, right? I mean, there's no point

even because I don't even think Utah necessarily played all that great. Yeah, it's if he's going to miss the first two, that's pretty insurmountable. But who knows? I mean, we've seen Utah choke away series before. Tomorrow, we have Toronto in Philly. There's seven out-of-point favorites now. Usually, in the second game, it swings toward the team that's down 1-0, not in that series. Dallas is a five-point favorite on FanDuel, and then the Nuggets are plus seven. And history says one of those three teams will come through, but I don't see it out of the three. Dallas a five-point favorite?

I'm sorry, five-point underdog at home against Utah. And then Denver's seven-point underdog, and I don't know which one of those wins. And I got to say, I'm not like super pumped about any of those games. So it seems like the, all the games, Atlanta,

Miami, you know, Atlanta will bring it in that game. And that will feel a little different. Minnesota, Memphis is going to be incredible. New Orleans, Phoenix,

San maybe Brooklyn, Boston. That's Wednesday. And then Chicago, Boston. That's Wednesday. And then Chicago, Milwaukee. Let's talk about that one. No, hold on. I want to say in the Utah thing, because I saw you arguing with Rallabob and KOC.

So KOC tweeted that Gobert is the best defensive player in any sport ever. No, he didn't. He said he's one of the greatest defensive players we've had in any sport, something like that. I think it was part theater. I didn't take it. I took it with a grain of salt. Deep down in his recesses of his soul, I'm not sure he believes that. I guess I kept coming back to the Gobert

conundrum. Because I do think it's more complicated than some people make it out to be. Now, some people are listening to this right now being like, you're a fucking idiot. Stop talking. That's fine. I've probably done that some other times when I've talked because we know what Gobert brings to a team over the course of a regular season. And when you start adding up all the numbers, they're nuts. But a lot of the same numbers that are nuts for him, there's other players. And they dipped a bit this year by his standard. I wouldn't say there's a lot of the same numbers that are nuts for him, there's other players. And they dipped a bit this year by his standard. I wouldn't say there's a lot of good defensive players around him. Maybe Royce.

I don't think Conley's really that guy anymore. And Mitchell's a bit, I don't know, just a bit of a freelancer at times. So it's not like he's surrounded by all this perimeter stuff. And when they play the regular season game, when they lost at home against Milwaukee, it's just some of the shit he was doing. As Giannis is going off, the fact that he's fighting and competing and positioning himself, I was going, even if this isn't working, he's not winning the possession. This is incredible, the stuff that he can do. Because I just don't know how many guys can show and then also retreat.

But then, because I watch it enough, I go, oh, hey, here's what Phoenix is going to do at the end of the game. Chris Paul is going to bring Gobert over and go, let's fucking go. Golden State worked him for an entire fourth quarter in that game where Klay finally felt like himself towards the end of the game. Chris Paul is going to bring Gobert over and go, let's fucking go. Golden State worked him for an entire fourth quarter in that game where Clay finally felt like himself towards the end of the regular season. And if Ja gets a hold of Utah, I don't know if it's going to play out that way, but if Ja were to get

Utah, I know exactly what's going to happen. Is it okay for me to ask in specific matchups, because I know some people have defended him as if anyone suggesting there's any deficiency for Gobert whatsoever is just an idiot. I'd rather have Bam give up the size to the big guys and be able to show and defend Trey Young like he did today, as opposed to I think Gobert gets exposed in some of this stuff.

So then I went back and looked at it. I go, well, let me look at the regular season versus postseason. Utah's defensive efficiency has gotten worse in five straight postseasons and three times off the charts alarmingly bad. You could argue small sample.

You could argue, hey, that was a specific matchup that didn't work out. But that's kind of my point. So I'm not saying Gobert isn't terrific at defense, but I think there's

a different value that he brings in regular season stuff versus playoff stuff. And again, I'm not saying any of these numbers are perfect,

but I think it's a little bit of a thing. If I go, wait, so five straight post seasons, it went from 107 to 121. It went from 109 to 117, 105 to 108, 103 to 106, 104 to 110. It's gotten worse in five straight. I don't know if there's any value in that whatsoever, but I'm just telling you when I watch it at times, I go, so wait,

the guy that everybody says is the guy and you're an idiot for questioning it is the guy that some of the better teams decide. Let's attack him. Weren't we here with Mutombo like 20 plus years ago? Uh, well, Mutombo didn't have to deal with the shit that these guys have to deal with now.

Yeah, but I mean, but remember the same thing oh my god and then Shaq completely destroyed him in the finals but I think we've had impactful defensive guys every generation

at that position I'm with you I would much rather have the Bam, Jaron Jackson Draymond type of center versus the Gobert thing because it really does seem like the smartest teams have figured out a way to at least attack him in small stretches, Gobert. But when you're just talking day-to-day,

he's almost like an NHL defenseman. Like when Chara was playing like 35 minutes a game, you know, where he can just skate around and impact every game pretty consistently in a pretty unique to him way. But I'm with you. I still feel like there's ways to attack him. And we've seen it happen too many times with them where teams went small and they needed to catch up and they just did it. And then the defenders are like, no, no.

What about the times when they went small and they didn't catch up? We never see the clips of those. I get it. And I know he hates this one because he and I have argued about it before. But I saw somebody else saying, like, look at this point for possession, defensive thing on all pick and rolls. And this is why Gobert, like, never, you know, it's the term that we use. He plays himself off the court. He doesn't. He stays on the court. But I would just ask anybody that thinks that this is a ridiculous premise to watch how some of the better teams and better perimeter guys decide, hey, let's start picking on him. I don't know.

If they get Phoenix next round, that'll be the proof of what we're talking about because they'll attack him in all the smartest possible ways. And by the way, you can still get a great look miss and then that counts as a win for Gobert. So that's the times too statistically when I'll watch his stuff and go, well, that was still a really good look, but that'll count as a win for him because they didn't score. I'm making my throwback 1970s guys

starting five for the playoffs. I got Brunson. Brunson's like right out of the late 70s. Conchar. Derek Was. Conchar. Derek Waite. Wait a minute. Conchar? You didn't even get it.

I know. I still have him. And Looney. Who's your fifth on that? Where we can take the five guys and just immediately put them into a game in 1979. It would make sense. Probably just Herb Jones because of his name.

Herb Jones. That's a good one. I'll add him. Kyle Anderson? just herb jones because of his name herb jones that's a good one i'll add him kyle anderson yeah kyle's gonna be just killing people with that slow shit the rest of his life yeah i saw him swear in a game and i was thrown off he was swearing i have one more item on the agenda the uh did you seem to rant stuff about back-to-back MVPs? I thought it was really interesting. I think he continues to be the most interesting NBA player we have

with some of his observations. He said, he thought Embiid was the MVP, not Jokic. And he said, quote, if you're going to get two in a row, you can't duplicate the same thing you did before, in my opinion. You got to step up and do something way bigger than you did before. Just look at Steph. His next one, he stepped up such another level.

So he's basically saying everybody gets it once, but you're not allowed to go back to back unless you basically one up yourself. If you're just running back what you did, then it's somebody else's turn. You could argue he did step up his game from last year. So that was my first reaction. I actually thought he was better this year because his supporting cast was worse and all of his numbers got better and he kept his team alive. So I don't know if Durant... I'm not sure how focused he is on the three, four, five, six Western conference seats when he's playing an NBA season. But at the same time, I see his Curry point. Curry from in 15 versus Curry in 16 when he had one of the great MVP seasons anyone's

ever had. He did take a step. But the whole concept of, I'm of the opinion that what happened last year and the year before probably shouldn't matter that I'm just judging this year. You know, I do think of Giannis didn't have one already. He would have won this year because I think it does play into the voters. Yeah. Psychologically. I always feel like there's a bit of a playoff hangover too,

where then it just reminds me of the Heisman stuff. Like somebody wins the Heisman and then a different quarterback wins the national championship. And then people go like, Oh, that guy should have won the Heisman. Like, well the Heisman, and then a different quarterback wins the national championship, and then people go like, oh, that guy should have won the Heisman. Well, that's not what the award is. The award is let's guess who will be awesome in the college football playoff, dismissing the previous 12 to 13 games.

Yeah. So I get his point, but this isn't what it is. It's comparing everybody in that year to each other. And unfortunately, we had, unfortunately for the candidates, we had an unprecedented top tier. And by the way, I also wouldn't put it past Durant to say, well, I don't know.

Maybe because then he could have said Giannis too, but it's easier for him to dismiss Jokic in the Western Conference than it would be maybe to say. Yeah, maybe. Maybe he didn't have anything to do with it because that also, you know, he could have said, Hey, Yana should have won this thing too,

but maybe he just likes Joel better. I don't know. I, I, I'm so sick of the fucking and beat Jokic stuff, but it's still happening. My fan duel. I called up fan duel to get a petty drew Hanlon tweet after Jokic lost the

first game. And they were like, it's off the board. It's such a block. We were trying to guess LeBron tweets. lebron's had to sit out this whole post season he had two kairi tweets in a row today yeah his is he's that it's it's going to be incredible that's what fan duel should do is guess lebron tweets for each series you know right and how he interjects himself in a way that we kind of remember that he's still around.

He's got to be going nuts, I would imagine. I was thinking about it today because I was looking at career playoff games. Guess how many career playoff games LeBron has been in. What's your guess? Up top of your head. What do you think it is? Let me see. 285? Oh, that was good. It's 266. Iguodala is next at 170 for active players. Holy shit.

Green is at 154. So LeBron has 112 more than the third highest most active guy. Durant's 152. Haslam, 147. Ibaka, 147. Hill, 140. Hard Harden 138, Kawhi 135. Then you go playoff points. LeBron 76, 51 or 31. Durant 44, 54 plus whatever he had today. He's 10th on the all-time list. Harden 3205, he's 21st. Curry's 2984, 27th. LeBron's basically has,

he's doubled the other two guys and he's 80% doubled Durant. I do think we're going to, 50 years from now, I just wonder if anyone's going to have some of the numbers he has. If he's able to get back there for a couple more years.

That is why I wish they had made it in the playing game. I wish that we had Suns Lakers. If we had Suns Lakers right now, it would have been fun to watch it from a national perspective. Wait, what is going on here with this team? Not that it was not talked about

for six to eight months. I think there is probably plenty of lakers content out there but yeah bored lebron tweeting and it has to be positive too like that's the deal is that it's incredibly positive it's it's basically minor recruitment here or there there'll be some there'll be some minor stuff like there'll be something that pops up and you'll go whatever and then ESPN as soon as LeBron tweets they lose their shit anyway so I'm excited for I shouldn't have had that second bottle of wine tonight LeBron basketball tweets I hope we get those

where he's doing Kyrie it's like Kyrie never should have left me and then it's like 10 minutes later delete get this out of here because the guys now know though like as soon as he compliments Kyrie, there's a bunch of comments being like, didn't you trade him for Paul George?

Right. Like, were you ready to trade this guy? And that's why I've always said that part of the Kyrie thing. I, I side with Kyrie on that one. That is true. All right.

What do you have for playoff predictions the rest of the way? Hmm. Anything changed for you from last week, fundamentally, other than Toronto-Philly? Where do you see the Celtics series going, if you had to guess? I picked Boston because I didn't want to root for Brooklyn. I usually root to be right, but that one was a really tough one for me to pick.

I think you may see Brooklyn go smaller, just abandon some of the traditional big minutes with them and maybe that swings it back their way we didn't do anything on Miami we have to do a little on Miami because what they did to Trey Young at the beginning of this game today was so damn

impressive all five starters I think at some point checked Trey Young within the first three possessions of the game and then you know Atlanta runs some pretty basic stuff because Trey has within the first three possessions of the game. And then, you know, Atlanta runs some pretty basic stuff because Trey has the ball the entire time. And to see Trey like switch and then it's like, okay, I switched off a Lowry into Jimmy Butler. Oh, I switched off a Lowry into PJ Tucker.

And granted, he's going to be able to go by PJ Tucker most, but PJ is going to care. PJ is going to send him the help. PJ is going to like take pride in it. And then he'd switch in a bam and he's most, but P.J.'s going to care. P.J.'s going to send him the help. P.J.'s going to take pride in it. And then he'd switch into Bam, and he's like, oh, shit. We can talk schedule, and Atlanta getting screwed on it,

and Trey saved their ass against Cleveland. It was the reminder of the Trey that's built for those moments. But I thought it was very revealing when Nate McMillan, after the first quarter, was a disaster. He goes, we do one thing and then we don't do anything. And he was talking directly about Trey. And I know the Trey Truthers get really upset about this stuff.

But there is a different level in the playoffs when everybody's geared up for you that you have to find a way to be productive while getting other people involved. And I know what his assist numbers are. I know how good his lobs are and all this stuff. And Trey's going to have like 45 in one of these games probably too and the hawks just aren't as good as miami but that was like textbook how do we get everybody to be showing it almost looked like a zone bill it was it was fucking nuts what miami did and you could tell the mcmillan whether it was during the game interview one of the mic'd up parts in his post game, because I went to go see what he said in the post, and he

was very specific, and it's about Trey. And Hawks fans just don't ever want to believe that it's real. It's like, hey, we can't do one thing and then stop. We're one option, and then we stop. And he's talking about one guy in particular there. I have the list of Celtics

playoff buzzer beaters all on the road. JoJo White, 1977. I remember that one. Game one. On YouTube, you can find it. It's actually pretty great. Dennis Johnson, 1985,

Game 4, Lakers. Bird to DJ. Glenn Big Baby Davis, 2009, Orlando. Paul Pierce, 2010, Miami. Glenn Big Baby Davis, good friends with Dwight Howard. Yep. Remember the Brandon Bass trade and then didn't quite work out. Go ahead.

And that's it. Pierce 2010, Miami Tatum, 2022 Brooklyn. Five buzzer beaters in the history. Five buzzer beaters in the history of the Celtics franchise in the playoffs. Makes no sense. I would have said the over-under was like 12. They've had a lot of like one seconds. Like Sam Jones had a famous one, game four, 1969 finals, but there's a second left on the clock. The bird to DJ, the steal, 87, game five, second left on the clock.

So they've had some of those. Are the Celtics not clutch? My book. Well, I wonder if I'm a Lakers fan and you're doing that whole back and forth trying to prove your franchise is better. Buzzer Beaters has come up at some point. You got to throw that one out there.

The other thing that happened, there was... Do you? We didn't hit this in part one. There was a huge Kyrie, the middle fingers to the crowd, and that's going to be the whole storyline tomorrow about whether Kyrie has the right to go back at the fans and everybody's going to be splitting two sides on that.

I just, I'm in the camp of, I've never seen a guy multiple times in a game hold middle fingers to the crowd. In the old days, like in the David Stern era, that's like a $100,000 fine. I couldn't believe he kept doing it. Like when they did it the first time and then they showed it and I would go, wait, we're showing that now?

They used to blur that out back in the day. And is there any part of me that was bothered by it? No. Me neither. Him? I mean, to say like, oh, it bothered him and then he torched him all day and he was fucking incredible. So then you're like, okay, well, did it get to him yeah it didn't did it inspire him what i'll what i'll never vibe with what i'll never vibe with is just when he when he gets up there

post game and just tries to tell us how it all really is and none of us are smart enough to fucking understand his level of understanding and that that's when I just go, yeah, whatever, dude. I'm not interested in any of this. Because none of it, it's never consistent. It doesn't make any sense. He acts like he's the most tortured soul sometimes in the league. And you go, you know, people actually really want to like you. Imagine how much more popular you would be

and how your approval rating would be through the roof. And I don't even care that he left Boston. I couldn't stand watching that team anyway when he was there in the end. It has nothing to do with it. By the way, how about this though? I've already answered my own question on his popularity. Do you know how bad it could have been for Boston if they had done

the Anthony Davis trade? Because there was a chance that could have happened and the motivation would have been to show Kyrie, look what we just did. We added Anthony Davis to this. Now, once Anthony Davis was clutch, as you knew, and you said it immediately, you joked,

you were like, just which number is he going to wear for the Lakers? There was no version of that scenario where clutch was going to help Boston out. And so Davis would have left and Kyrie would have left, which would have meant you would have lost all the assets in a Davis trade. But this isn't like some fluky what if. I think there was real discussions about what could be given up.

And it could have been far more devastating because clearly they've gotten over the Kyrie thing. Like, you know, people that want to make the jokes about bosses never been the same as if they were just this depressed organization walking through the hallways with their heads down because Kyrie had left a couple. I mean, that's cool to say it makes funny memes but it wasn't the reality they just weren't playing that well for a long time well the next year they made the conference finals and came within two wins of making the bubble finals you know yeah I the Kyrie Davis thing I've never believed that

Tatum was in the Davis I never ever ever ever at any point think Tatum was in that I think Tatum was untouchable pretty much immediately I do I'm always going to think that so it would have been Brown and a whole bunch of picks and probably Smart you think Tatum was in it and nobody would agree to it now here's what I would say if you ask

anybody about it now no one's going to say yeah we would have done that yeah true no one asked anybody about it now, no one's going to say, yeah, we would have done that. Yeah, true. No one would do it now. They had a Boston Globe piece about the Celtics two days ago that I enjoyed. I don't know if you saw it.

It was about how they became buyers at the trade deadline. It was pretty funny. It was a lot of people taking the victory lap on the Derek White and Daniel Dice trades, which, granted, definitely helped the season. But, you know, I think the real reason

this team became a contender was because of Time Lord and because of Tatum and because of Smart. Smart becoming an actual elite point guard and Tatum going up a level and being more fun to play with. And then Time Lord, the stuff he was doing defensively. By the way, I'm glad I mentioned Time Lord because I do think we're going to see him

pretty soon. I was watching him because we're near the bench in my dad's seats. I mean, he's moving around. He was there in street clothes, but he's, you know,

and I know he's been messing around in practice and stuff like that. So I think we're going to see him sooner than we're going to see Simmons, who I just for the life of me do not understand this Simmons story. I don't get it.

The game I watched today, this guy, well, he's, they're saying he still hasn't even played one-on-one yet. He hasn't been in any scrimmage. They keep asking Nash. Nash is like now getting mad when it's brought up.

You can see, he's just like, fuck this. I don't, no idea if this dude's going to play. Simmons, like at halftime of the game today, he stands under the basket, he's rebounding. And it's the whole thing is just very distraction-y

for reasons that remain unclear. Because I think it would be insane to throw him into the series I watched today when he's coming back from a back injury and hasn't played basketball in a year. To just be like, Hey, go in there. You're going to take some incredibly hard picks and you know, you're going to have to guard Jason Tatum. Who's one of the seven best players in the league right now. And, uh, just good luck. Try to, try to, try to figure it out. I don't see it. I'd have to know more about his conditioning.

I mean that Nick Friedel tweet that i tweeted the other day like friedel was at the practice facility for the nets and simmons like hey watch this and he dunks it i mean it looks like it's not a great dunk for a 610 guy all right i mean zion's getting 50s on his dunks where i don't play basketball simmons would even crack 40 with this one. And then he was like, make sure you get that. So Fredel's like, all right, here you go. And everybody's just looking at it going,

what is this? What is this? So if he's young enough and he's big and he's athletic, which we all know that he is, regardless of how dumb that dunk video was, he should be able to run around for 15 minutes and maybe spell the rant from having this be assigned to tatum which is a pretty standard assignment for him so something's are found they're fouling him immediately when he comes in the game i'm not telling you it's going to go

great but i would think if he's cleared it at least allows them a 15 plus minute option unless you think that whatever he's gone through I hope it happens you hope it happens I don't want to jinx it oh yeah he hasn't played in a year

he's going to get thrown into this series this is one of the best round one series we're going to have probably this century he's just going to waltz in

in game five hey guys haven't played in a year you calling right now the next 88 years take a backdrop to this one? I'm saying the last 22. Oh, wait.

78 years. My bad. Yeah, whatever. 77. I think it would be a big mistake to play him. The phrasing is very intentional to me. In all the reports where it's always like, he's targeting game five.

It's like... And the head coach seems to be refuting the targeting stuff, right? What does targeting even mean? I'm targeting a fucking roast beef sandwich tomorrow night. I don't know if it's going to happen. What does targeting mean? It's like, Russell and I are targeting a seven-hour podcast next Sunday.

Is it going to be a seven-hour podcast? No. It'll probably be about two. I have a better one. I have a better one. Because everything can suck, and I'm not a big wake-up-every-day-and-remind-everybody-the-world-sucks, but in our slight little sliver here, because I don't believe that, by the way, but our little sliver of sports world stuff, now everybody, and I'll admit it too,

sometimes the way you're talking and you're like, Hey, I'm going to throw something out there, but I want to throw a little, little shields up. We're going to get our front shields, subconscious shields. Yeah.

Yeah. And it'll be in some draft rumor. And it, it's like the Vegas most, I can get out of this. If I'm wrong presentation of the rumor, it'd be like team X is considering a potential upgrade at this position, and these are three names that you could see

potentially in play. And you're just like, alright, dude. You want to take a victory lap on this later if you get it right, but what you're really doing is I want to write a tweet that is the least penetrable. Yeah.

So that's what it feels like with the Simmons stuff. The NBA is going to expand to Vegas and Seattle. Just saying that. I'm not saying... I'm hearing that there's a possibility that the NBA might be targeting... You either know or you don't. So you say the word target. I don't think we see Ben Simmons

in this series. I'd be very, very surprised. And if we do, I think that helps the Celtics. I don't think we see Ben Simmons in this series. I'd be very, very surprised. And if we do, I think that helps the Celtics. I don't think we're going to be looking back at this series and going, you know when it swung? When Ben Simmons started playing for the first time in a year. And then Jason Tatum just had no idea what to do against this guy he hadn't played for 13 months. 12 months.

How long has it been? 10? 11? Yeah, I mean, it was, what, the second round? How long has it been? 10? 11? Yeah. I mean, it was, what, the second round? So, yeah, we're coming up on almost 12 months. All right. Rousseau, what do you got to plug? Anything?

No, not yet. I mean, just fire hits, Tuesdays and Thursdays. But we don't know yet. Fire hits. I saw, you and I might do We Own the City on Prestige TV pod.

We might do a couple 25-minute breakdowns. I saw the pilot. It's, yeah, there's good TV right now, man. I watched the first three episodes of The Offer,

the show about the making of The Godfather movie. That's really good. There's a lot of good stuff coming. Yeah, I finished up Severance. The finale of Severance is terrific. I feel like they may have said,

hey, we're going to make the landing. And no, we don't actually have to land the plane yet because we get picked up for another season. But the finale itself was enjoyable. And I've loved We Crashed so far. And Super Pumped. I think Super Pump pumped closed really strong. I heard you talk about it

and I'd read the book so I was really invested in the story and I really liked the show. There you go. I really enjoy We Crash. I like watching Hathaway and Leto. Hathaway is great. Oh yeah.

She's unbelievable in that. She's trying to raise the world's consciousness. All right. We'll see you on that one. I'll see you here next week. I think the we have a lot of answers to a lot of questions. We'll see what happens with our guy Ant. Thanks to Cop Creighton. Thanks to Steve

Cerruti. And I will see you on my feed on Tuesday.