The Bill Simmons Podcast - Playoff Jamal, Playoff Harden, Farewell Giannis, and a Draymond Deep Dive With Kirk Goldsberry and Zach Lowe

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kirk Goldsberry to react to Tuesday's NBA playoff games, discuss Giannis’s future, and more (3:28). Then, Bill chats with Zach Lowe about Draymond Green and his unique career with the Warriors (53:03). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Zach Lowe and Kirk Goldsberry Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Conor Nevins This episode is brought to you by Degree Deodorant. Grab the original Cool Rush at Walmart or Target today. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I put up a new rewatchables last night. We did Someone to Watch Over Me. It is a movie with Tom Beringer, Mimi Rogers, and Lorraine Bracco from 1987 directed by Ridley Scott. It is an absolute cable classic. It was a one for us for me and Chris Ryan. I broke down during this pod about as hard as I've ever laughed during a podcast. It gets super goofy. And after we do one for us,

we always like to do a giant movie. So a giant movie is coming next week. Stay tuned for that. Hope you're checking out theRinger.com. Hope you're checking about all of our Ringer podcast stuff. The Bill Simmons YouTube channel, which we go live on Sundays with Rosilla. We kind of staggered it.

We did a late live and an early one with Rosilla and Ben on Sunday. That was super fun. Fandl, by the way, I've been working with them. We're going to start this new gimmick on Wednesday with Lakers, Tim World's Game Five. You can tell or fade my pick. Each week I'm going to pick a player prop. I'm going to go in, I'm going to say what I think is going to happen. You can either believe me or not believe me. I just hit on a, on Sunday, I hit a plus nine 21 four leg parley. It was pretty impressive. I gotta say, um, let's see if I can keep the momentum going.

So I have LeBron over nine and a half rebounds. I think it's going to be the one you can either back me or you can go against me. But if you do it, Fandl is offering you an opportunity to have a 50% boost either way. So you win if you like what I thought or you wanna go against what I thought. Anyway, check out Fandl's sports book on Wednesday to see what boost I'm betting, what bet I'm boosting.

I just told you what it was. And then you can apply that profit boost. I love when the customers ride with me. I've been decent. So there you go. Coming up on this podcast, Kurt Goldsberry and I, we watched four basketball games. I was watching some hockey too, and we're reacting right afterwards to everything we saw. And then a little bit later, Zach Lowe, he came on last week on a Tuesday and we banged something fun. We did it again this week. We want to talk about Draymond Green and we want to look forward to Timberwolves Lakers. So that is the podcast today. First,

our friends from Pearl Jam. Recording this part of the podcast, 9.45 Pacific time, I thought the Quippers-Denver game was going to be a lot better. I thought Kirk Goldsberry and I would be talking about all these unbelievable narratives. Instead all the narratives came in the first game of the day and the second game of the day, and then the games got worse as they went along. But Denver kind of put it on the Quippers tonight, Kirk. I did not see this coming. I thought Denver was lucky to be 2-2.

I thought the Clippers were a better team. And Jamal Murray became playoff Jamal Murray again tonight. Harden was invisible. Where do you wanna start? What jumped out to you tonight? You gotta start with Jamal Murray. I mean, that was the game they needed from him in this series, in this exact moment.

It was his best playoff game since the bubble. Uh, the Clippers look tired though. The Clippers looked, I don't know if it was elevation or they just hadn't had enough rest, but they looked like they were slower to the basketball. They looked old and you sort of alluded to a bill James Harden did not look very good. Um, I think the headlines got to be Jamal Murray, but there was a little bit of an underwhelming current from these Los Angeles Clippers to me.

Well, if you said before the game, Jamal Murray's gonna have his best game of the playoffs and his best game in a while. And also Russell Westbrook's gonna come off the bench and score 21 points in 23 minutes, I would have said, oh, the Clippers are in trouble. But I'm with you. They look slow to the ball. There was a moment in the fourth quarter for about four or five minutes where they looked like they did earlier in the series. But other than that, uh, I, the hardened thing is just dumbfounding.

I can't, you know, he's, he's now in his mid thirties. He was in the 2008 draft, 2009 draft. I can't even remember. And it's just been such a huge part of his, uh, his resume, his career, how we're going to remember him 30 years from now is like this amazing player. And just over and over again, it wasn't quite there in the playoffs. They really needed a big James Harden game. Either last game or this game. One of those two.

Does he have it in him anymore? Maybe we're, are we expecting too much? Cause I voted for him for 13 mile NBA this year. I thought maybe, you know, one of the first five games he could, he could own. I guess not. Yeah. Three of nine tonight. I mean, players that shot more than him, Zubac had 15 shots, Kawhi had 15 shots, Norman Powell had 12 shots,

Bogdanovich had 11 shots, three of nine, Bill. And then, okay, maybe he's getting it done with the Dimes. No, barely had five assists. A lot of those were later in the game. I was just, no, I'm ready to say if it's a big game, like a game five and big series like this, I just, I'm almost more expectant of this kind of performance for me at this point, which is a sad. So I don't think we're ever going to see it. Now, maybe he,

we get another chance here in game six or game seven. And he tells me I'm wrong with the performance that just turns back the clock, but this was just a complete no show from a guy who's had a bunch of no shows over the last 10 years and big moments like this. Yeah, I did a, I did a rare tweet. I tweeted that they had him guarding Yoke-age in the second half. So we could remember that he was in the game because it was too hard to tell. They're built so that they could survive kind of an offensive no show game from

Hardin. Yeah. The problem for them was Denver, Denver went up a notch. They kind of stayed the same. Denver got Westbrook back, which was huge for them because that was just 23 extra minutes from a bench guy. They played Jordan a little bit more. I'm with you, maybe the elevation,

going against an older team helped a tiny bit. But then, you know, I started thinking about some of the stuff I used to write about back when my fingers worked. And this is a Quippers team that has just been snake bitten really since they moved to Southern California. And that loss they had, game four, where they fought all the way back

and then they lose on an alley-oop where the ball seemed like it was touching the tip of Aaron Gordon's fingers and it ends up counting because they couldn't overrule it. And that loss was so devastating. I'm watching the game tonight. I'm like, man, maybe that, maybe that beat the fight out of them a little bit. I don't know. This is a team that was supposed to be one of the best defenses in the playoffs.

One of the best defensive rebounding teams in the playoffs. The stat that I kept going back to is I think they ranked first in defensive rebounding percentage all year long. And then in this playoffs, they ranked 15 out of 16 in that category. Some of that is, is because of Jokic. Um, but this is also a defense when Jamal Murray gets going, you'd think Kawhi Leonard or Chris Dunn or some combination of Tai-Liu schemes could do it and they just didn't have the fight tonight at all.

And I don't know what, how many points did that Clippers end up with? 131 Bill Simmons. The Nuggets. Yeah, sorry. The Nuggets ended up with 131 Bill. And that's just, to me, that's a dumb guy stat, but that's what you need to know. You're not going to win a lot of playoff games if you give up 131 points. So this is a proud defense that just laid an egg tonight.

Yeah, and you think like big picture with the Clippers. It's never easy with them in a playoff series. In the history of their franchise since they moved to Southern California, they've never won a playoff series in four or five games, ever. Like think about how impossible that is. That's crazy. They had the 2021 where Koli is averaging 30 a game and looking like the one of the

best guys in the league. He gets hurt. They ended up losing the Western finals. Only time they ever made it. They blew the three one lead to Denver in 2020. They blew that 19 point lead to the Rockets in 2015 when they had a chance to close and go to the West Finals. They blew that OKC series in 2014 when Chris Paul, the point god, just completely fell apart in game,

game five when they could have had a lead coming back to Kuipers. They had that 2006 against the Suns when they put in Daniel Ewing and he fouled Roger Bell on a three and the Suns ended up winning an OT. This is just the legacy of this team. And if you talk to any of their fans, they, it's almost a little like junior Red Sox itch before 2004. They build the hopes up. They convince themselves this is the year

and then they get kicked in the nuts. I still think they can win game six. What's a little scary is that Jokic didn't put a lot of miles on himself tonight. Murray carried everything, Westbrook carried some, they were able to arrest him, and he could just snap his fingers in game six and dominate them like he did in game four.

It's looking bleak for the Clippers. I might have been wrong in this serious, Kirk, I'm bummed. I was wrong too, I remember, but I was like very scared coming into the playoffs because I was like looking at this Clippers team. They have that history you just mentioned, but then they have James Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Ben Simmons, who by the way. Yeah, enough. What a beautiful shot tonight. He had, he got to the, just inside the paint. He rises up for that little half hook and he almost hit the rim. God bless him.

It was to the left of the basket. He shot it at 1030 at night on a clock. It just was diagonal to the left. It was rough. On Verno's podcast like three weeks ago, when all the trends that I look at throughout the year are pointing to the Clippers are the best analytic team closing the season. And I said to Burnham. Except they're the Clippers. Except they're the Clippers. And I was like, I'm not going to know what to do.

I picked them to win this series in seven games too. I wish I could switch it. They just haven't been there. And I think they could win game six, but I just didn't, unless they completely reinvent themselves for a game seven, what we saw in Denver tonight, it's not going to get it done. Obviously. Yeah. But I mean, the counter is they have been there.

Kawhi has been the finals MVP in two different cities. Harden's been in the playoffs for his entire career. Derek Jones was in the finals last year. Norm Pals has been in big playoff games. Tai Liu coached in the finals a bunch of times. Van Gundy was in big games. Derek Jones was in the finals last year. Norm Pals has been in big playoff games. Ty Lue coached in the finals a bunch of times. Van Gundy was in big games. Derek Jones was in the finals last year. Yeah. This is about as experienced of a random team as you're going to get. They don't have the best part in the series, which is a problem. And they're just trying everything possible to mess with them. But I think the best thing that

happened to the Nuggets in this series, other than Jamal Murray seems to be getting better as it's going along. Christian Brown's doing, it really seems like he's in Harden's head a little bit. He just, he's low to the ground and seems to have a sense of that herky jerky style that Harden has. And he's kinda,

he's doing the defensive herky jerky version of it and he's moving back and forth with it. And I think Harden's just having a lot of trouble going by him. In game four, in the fourth quarter, I think because Brown was tired, Harden started going by him in the fourth quarter, but I think it might have been tired legs more than anything,

but Brown seems really confident against him. Yeah, I think if we say there's Harden, Leonard in one corner, and then you have Jokic, or any other corner, the second tier guys, the Brown and Aaron Gordon obviously have been great. Guy number three and guy number four, those have been the Nuggets guys that have gone. Christian Brown hit that huge three, I thought, to end the third quarter in this game, which really set the tone. He's really an emotional leader. That's sort of

a big thing for him. And you mentioned earlier, Russell Westbrook, getting a performance like that too, is just a huge gift. And another reason they put him over the top tonight. Did Denver watching them these last five games and especially game four, game five, did it change your opinion at all about whether they could actually throw some haymakers at okay. See, the defense is still a big red flag to me. The defense is, I don't know if they're going to keep up with the Oklahoma city thunder, if they play them in the next round. So I still think that's their Achilles heel.

I don't think they'll be able to hold up on that end of the court against that young, ferocious, deep team with so much rest and so much energy coming into that series. So they've won me over with this starting five, the Murray Jokic Porter, who has come around in this series. He came after a game one no-show. Yeah. And getting called out kind of, I mean, uh, by, by the Joker, but that, that starting group I think can hang where I have trouble bill is below that line

where the thunder are just, they almost have a second starting five and this team has, uh, you know, Russell Westbrook and Deandre Jordan. Okay. C versus Denver, if that's what we end up with. It's an MVP battle too, which is always fun. Oh, that's great. And it's a big, big Hartenstein test. That's why they got that guy. Well, and also Denver got rid of Hartenstein.

Yeah. James Harden, man. I don't know. I had a couple of people in my life who were like, why are you so high on the quippers? They have James Harden. I'm like, no, James Harden was man. I don't know. I had a couple of people in my life. They're like, why are you so high on the Quippers? They have James Harden. I'm like, no, James Harden was good this year. It's different this time, Dad. Yeah, he's James Harden.

Yeah. It's different, dude. It's like, no, no, no. I swear this time it's different. I'm the one for Kim Kardashian. She told me. This is it. It's going to work out this time for her. She's going to live happily ever after. We'll see what happens Thursday night.

I'm going, the crowd will be great. We're due for, if you had to pick a seven game series out of the available choices, which are probably this one, Golden State Houston, even though Golden State's up three, one, Minnesota and the Lakers, which will be three, two after tomorrow and when the Lakers shoot 68 free throws or Detroit versus the Knicks, who would you go for a seven gamer? Cause we're getting one.

That's just the rule. I, I feel like Detroit needs, they need to win one of these games. They had a tough weekend back home in Michigan. I think they're going to win game six, uh, back at little Caesar's. You want to talk about that game? Yeah, I thought it was a great game. You know, New York is fortunate that there wasn't a late foul call at the end of Sunday's game.

Yes, they were. But they've been playing with fire in this series and they've been getting away with it. I think, you know, they had a poorly timed injury here at the end of this game, but you know, the Pistons have been Bill, in every fourth quarter of the series. I think in game one, they weren't ready for the smoke of the moment. But since then, these games all could have gone either way to an extent. And I think tonight, Cade Cunningham, they played better pick and roll offense than the

New York Knicks. And they took it to them. And I'm not shocked, but I was impressed. LWK 25-10 and 10 for Cade. Seven turnovers. It's been an extra three turnovers a game for him because he has the ball so much. But the stat that jumped out to me, Detroit 7 for 29 from three and they went on the road. That's really hard to do. Yeah. The Knicks 15 for 33 from three. So they were plus eight on threes. Right. And they were plus eight on threes.

Right. And they lost at home. But the key to this game, so Detroit, they shoot eight for 29 from three, no surprise. They've not exactly, Beasley's not going, not exactly like an awesome three point team. But the Knicks, nine for 25 from three, right? So red flag number one.

Red flag number two, Brunson four for 16. And it's hard to tell how hurt he is. Sometimes you can do like he got hurt in game four and he came back and you get the adrenaline 20 minutes before your ankle starts to feel even worse than it did. He definitely looked hobbled around. He goes out at some point, probably like what three, four minutes left in the fourth quarter, then Tibbs has a chance to put him and Hart back in and doesn't use his last time out. And those guys are just standing there for a minute and a half. One of many bizarre Tibbs coaching decisions.

But what you said before about the quarters, this series has been even for a week and a half. And Detroit, they take the leads early in these games or they're close, they hold, they're never having really swoons. Their defense and their rebounding's always been able to keep them around. And Cade's been the most consistently good player

in the series. I don't, if I'm a Knicks fan now, I'm just putting miles, even if I get through the series, I'm just putting miles on my guys who already seem worn down with the Celtics just getting rest and waiting. But do you think they, like who do you think wins a game six

between these two teams based on what you've seen? I think it's gonna be a hard task for the Knicks. I thought Detroit played better basketball tonight. You know, I think the play that sealed it for Detroit in my mind, one of the most beautiful passes of the playoffs, but Detroit just picked apart the Knicks in the pick and roll game. Yeah. Jaylen Dern has grown up in front of us.

This kid, he's a monster in person. If you haven't seen him, it's just like one of these guys. It's just a different size than everybody else. One of the great rebounders in these playoffs, but I think like there was a pick and roll near the end. Uh, you know, the, the Nick sent two towards Kate who ended up with the right elbow and who was it who snuck into the dumps, a star Thompson who also played a great game, sneaks, yeah, cat falls asleep and Kate throws that pass a rocket pass right into the dunker and, and officer finishes it.

And it was, it wasn't quite curtains because the Knicks made some shots, but that was just a, I think really emblematic of a bread and butter play where the, the Cade Cunningham pick and roll with Durin. Um, it's sometimes it was Paul Reed, uh, is just basic basketball and it looks better, especially with a holl with a hobbled Brunson than what the Knicks are able to counter with. So I think the Pistons have a very good defense. They're very young and motivated to win this game six at home and the fundamental basketball they're playing right now. And one other thing is

like you talk a lot about tips coaching I know that. Can we post up Carl Towns on Tobias Harris, please? He just dominates him when they do it. It's like they're afraid he's going to get offensive fouls or something. I can't think of another reason. I have no idea, but every time they do it, it's like there's no answer. Tobias Harris has no chance. You know my rule, Kurt Goldsberry. If you do something and the defense completely overreacts and doubles it because they don't have an answer for it, maybe do it again. Give it a whirl. That might be a sign that it's something to do.

Particularly if Jalen Brunson is playing on one foot. I don't know what his injury is. I'm not speaking out of turn here, but if your star is hurt, you have this other guy, this other bread and butter action you could increase. And if it's going to be Tobias Harris defending Carl Towns on the block, dude, make them pay for that. Go old school. Yeah. You know, and I haven't seen enough of that, those adjustments from Tibbs.

I thought the Knicks were going to win in five. It seemed like they were going to win in five tonight. And then Detroit had other ideas. I just continue to be underwhelmed by the Knicks. And I know now people could say, no, Brunson's hurt. Like, well, everybody on that team plays huge minutes. The more minutes you play, the odds are going to increase that you're going to have an injury. It's just the way it goes.

But in general, like, I don't know. Like, I'm not afraid of them. I said this before the playoffs. I'll say it again. I was way more afraid of playing Indiana than the Knicks. I think Indiana knows who they are. I think they have an identity. The Knicks, not sure what their identity is.

It's a lot of brunson. It's a lot of standing around. They can have these little spurts. Towns can get hot every once in a while. Sometimes their wings look awesome. Other times I forget they're out there. Um, for all the quote unquote awesome defense that their wings were supposed to, to bring like over and over again, you see guys get the kind of shots and plays they want like Cade.

You would think like with Bridges, Nandenove, it's like, we should be able to shut down Cade or limit him or whatever. And you know, I don't think that's happened. And a lot of it has to do with C.J. able to get the switch to C1. I get it. But I just don't, the balance of the team

just doesn't seem right to me. And I felt that way for a while. Yeah, there's two things. The interior defense with Towns, when they made the Towns deal, that was always the red flag to me. Are we really gonna see a playoff defense anchored with Carl Anthony Towns? And as I said, this key moment, you know, it's not his fault, but that's who you're relying on to be your rim

protector. He's not always great at that. And then the other thing is sometimes the offense looks like crap. And there's multiple possessions and big moments where it's just Brunson pounding the air out of the ball and everybody else standing around. And there's either going to be a foul or some kind of fade away and nobody else is going to touch the basketball. And I hate that. I hate watching it. And I'm sure the players playing alongside. It's just not... I don't think the fans like it either. You can feel like there's a weird energy from these Knicks games. The crowds were way better last year, I think. This year there's a nervous energy and you can feel like there's a weird energy from these Knicks games. The crowds were way better last year, I think. This year there's a nervous energy and you can feel the frustration.

It's coming through the TV. Yeah, the pick and roll game too. It's like they only scored 27 points in the pick and roll game. And the Pistons doubled them up in that category. Again, Cade Cunningham. It's a lot of people's introduction to him. But, you know, there's a danger. Because if they do win in Detroit, look out, look out bill. If the Pistons win, if the Pistons win in Detroit, look out.

Well, so that game is going to be when is that a Thursday game? That is, yeah, I don't know. I feel like that's not great for the Knicks, right? That's, that's a two games later and Brunson's hobbling around and a heart got hurt at the end of that game and they have no bench to begin with. And the Pistons are young. That's such an underrated part of this. Like Cleveland getting out in four games and OKC get, yeah.

The Celts getting out of there today. The Celts punted on holiday for the series and kept their fingers crossed that he could get healed and they got out of it. Yeah, and they just need all the treatment, some cold plunges, you know. All that rest, and these other teams are gonna be flying back and forth, put more miles on their bodies,

twisting ankles. It's such an underrated part of this. So it was good that Boston emerged relatively unscathed from that Orlando series. Well, I want to talk about that. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk Boston Orlando. Hey, it's NBA playoff time. Get in on the action with Fandel Sportsbook, our friends, America's number one sportsbook. You think you know it's going to go down?

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especially we're about to hit the summer. It's getting sweaty in the summers. The original degree, cool rush is back, and it smells like victory for all of us. So Boston, Orlando, I was expecting a little bit more of a slugfest. It was a weird game. It was close, it was close, it was close.

Palo got in foul trouble. And then the Celts went on one of those runs that they had a lot last year. They've had them intermittently this year, but more on the road than at home, weirdly, but, uh, they'll just have these third quarters or second quarters, whatever, where they'll just go on these like 28 to five runs and guys are hitting threes and they just put the game away in five minutes, which is what happened. I will say, um, and I know I talk about Tatum a lot on this podcast,

and people are probably tired of it, but he's just, Tatum's just been awesome. And there's an edge to him that he just didn't have last year. And I think a lot of it comes from Missoula. I think Missoula spends a lot of time talking to him, talking in his ear, motivating him, pushing him, pushing him to be bully, pushing him to be tougher. Even that play when he got knocked down, when he got hurt in game two or game one. And Mazula was like, get up, get up. Like he's just, he's just constantly trying to make him a beast. And you see it in these games.

Like he's carrying himself down. He's got this little half sneer he does sometimes. Yeah. Uh, I just think he's been awesome in this game. Is the new wrist thing that he's doing related to the injury? Is it like a celebration of overcoming the wrist injury? Is that what he's doing? Yeah, it feels like you tried to break my wrist,

but it's still here, like one of those type of things. But that's new, I like that too. Yeah. But the thing is Orlando can't shoot. And, you know, they were the over under for them winning a game in this series was probably 0.5. They won their game, but they just cannot. They can't shoot.

There was that as it was slippery in the third quarter, Franz took a three and it went like over the backboard and hit the over the rim and hit the other side of the backboard. It was one of those bricks and it was just like, that's it. That's the highlight. You need to know. Eight of 38 from three for the Orlando Magic. There's a couple of teams in the playoffs, like Houston, I think we would fairly characterize as they're going to have trouble scoring the ball. But Orlando is going to definitely have trouble shooting the basketball. And then the other thing I like is Orlando does play phenomenal defense. And for a long time,

the Celtics, I think had no threes deep into the second quarter in this game. They didn't have a three in the first half. Yeah. I was trying to go back between these two games and it was pretty incredible. So shout out to them. They do some good stuff and they force you into these isolation modes. And that's where Tatum really shined, I thought.

And I know sometimes the Celtics are at their worst in those isolation moments. Um, but Tatum can get buckets in those moments. And they actually, if you look at the advanced stuff tonight, they really dominated in that isolation category and duh, that's Jason Tatum, but. You know, it was 59, 58 to your point, with six minutes left in the third quarter. And then I don't know what the final score was. I guess it ends up being 120 to 89. So.

They were 36 to 13 in the third quarter. Hey, you know, I think the Celtics organization has been really impressed with Orlando. And I think there's a sense of relief that that team wasn't healthier this year, that that team was probably the third best team in the East. If you just, you know, you think Palo goes down for a while, Frans goes down for a while,

Suggs goes down for 60, 65% of the year, but that team is really tough. They're not afraid of the Celts. They match up on the wings with Brown and Tatum, at least physically. They rebound. They had a couple of playoff guys that weren't afraid to close on you. And I think if they just had a healthy team all year, I think that team would have been really good. And looking forward, like we were joking with Sarudibai, you gotta sign Taj Rahim. Bobby Marks had a tweet where he tweeted where they were sitting going into the summer.

They've kind of paid the piper already with some of their moves. They're like over, I think, 200 million with their salaries right now. Because Palo already kicked in, Frans, they paid KCP. Going down the line, they're spending actual money now. And this is kind of the team

So their best move is going to be Ken Suggs come back be healthy and then Kenny Anthony black make a leap I think and France needs to develop the jump shot and there's been some aggression there. You mentioned this There's the hitch in the shot. It's not great But if they can get healthy Mo Wagner Jalen Suggs You know, I'm not going to put them in the class of the Celtics or the Cavs, but I liked where you have them. It could be Indiana. Three, four, they could replace Milwaukee in that three, four, five tier.

Yeah. And they, they might've been there this year if they had just been healthy. You, you alluded to it. There are three best guys all missed significant time and they ended up at the seventh spot and won a game against the champs. It's just like the rung on the ladder this organization is at right now. And I think they should expect to be

a little bit higher next year for sure. Well, the Souths definitely respected them because they brought Tatum back. They probably should have waited one more game and they felt like they couldn't. And then they tried to roll the dice with, with not playing drew and hoping he could be healthy for the next series. Now he gets more time. But, uh, with the way the Knicks look,

that second round series might not be as maybe grueling as, as you thought the team you wouldn't want to play as Indiana. You're confident. You're confident. I mean the way the Knicks look at that, the way the Celtics have looked for the last almost two years, like they have to be like pretty heavy favorites to advance to round three. Indiana had an incredible comeback against Milwaukee

that I wasn't surprised by even when they were down seven with 45 seconds left. I had India in the money line in a bet, and I was like, I'm not giving up. I feel like they might make a three. I didn't expect them to win. I thought maybe they had a chance to force the other overtime.

But Halliburton, and I'm texting, I have a friend who is a big Halliburton person and I was texting, maybe I threw the fourth quarter, I'm like, typical fucking Halliburton. It's like, God forbid he takes over and does anything. And then he took over and then some like down the stretch in the fourth quarter. It's almost like he forgets sometimes that he could just go right by people.

And what was, what was interesting about the end of the fourth quarter in the OT, he went by Janis, he cooked Janis. I'm going to say three or four times. Nobody, I, you don't normally see somebody do that to Giannis. I would include him for the game winning shot. I was stunned. Were you surprised by that? Yeah. I said, I said out loud, good luck with that for the game winner.

Cause he's like, he's I sowed on the left wing against Giannis and he's like, I'm going to take this to the rack. That's crazy. He did it multiple times. Good luck. And he did it. Um, and that exact moment, I was surprised. We have to go through the seven point lead in 40 seconds.

So AJ green misses a free throw. Nemhard uses like a miles Turner screen and Yannis this is his fault. He's in drop coverage. So Nemhard just rises up and choose the 28 footer. Okay. So four foot four point game timeout. Here comes the first big blunder AJ green inbounds and Trent gets trapped, anticipates a foul didn't come and just throws a bad pass.

Nemhardt picks it off. Pacers pretty patient. Then, then we get the first big Halliburton play, the three point play that cuts it to one timeout. And then this is one of the most depressing plays in NBA history. I don't want to, I don't want to tell you what it reminded me of bill. Cause it'll trigger. Yeah.

I thought, I thought, no, don't worry. I thought I thought it as long as, as yeah. So, I mean, the dude, it had, he hadn't had 30 points all year and he hadn't had eight threes all year and he did it twice in three games. Trent, right? He literally carried them down the stretch and then had two boneheaded plays

that cost them the season basically. Yeah, I did a rare tweet myself. I said, you know, overtime score, Indiana eight, Gary Trent 12. Cause it looked like with one minute left in this, in this game, Gary Trent had just saved the buck season. I feel like we were going to be. 25 shots Kirk.

Yeah. He became the second biggest player in Milwaukee after, you know, after the day injury and, and he felt, yeah, he made huge three after huge three. Uh, and then these two mammoth turnovers, just a cruel, cruel end to their season and potentially bill. Wow. The Yonis onto to Kumpo era. And then these two mammoth turnovers, just a cruel, cruel end to their season and potentially build the Yonisanta to Kumpo era. There's a lot of interesting stuff both from watching the game and the box score.

Yeah. Brooke Lopez, seven minutes, Kyle Kuzma, 12. So Doc basically bailed on Kuzma, who was somebody they traded Middleton for beloved buck to get under the salary cap. They gave up AJ Johnson, who's some NBA people kind of like, and there's some swap, I think in 28 that, uh, that they gave up as well. And it took Doc Rivers about four games to get tired of Kyle Kuzma.

is about four games to get tired of Calcusma. Giannis leaves a 30-20-13 on the court, including 18 defensive rebounds. And the game ends with him getting burned by Hal Burton and then taunted by Hal Burton's dad, who just looked deranged. I didn't understand what was happening, and I can't believe Giannis had the restraint, but then Giannis is saying good game to Ben Mathurin.

And now he's like doing the Fredo Michael Corleone cup for the head. Like, and just look, that he was going to, everyone was talking about this hundred guys against a gorilla. It seemed like it was going to be a hundred Pacers versus Yanis at one point. The art test may lay too. Um, what happened with them? Yeah, I have no idea where to start with what happened after the game from, from the Halliburton dad incident to the

Matheran hug that turns into a shove and I've never seen. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was very strange. I think Yanis was so mad at it. And you know, Yanis does a good job in the press conferences of being like, you know, I try to be humble and blah, blah, blah, but yeah, this is a fucking bad ass man. He gets mad. He, like the switch can go off with him.

And I was, I really felt like there was going to be a massive melee at the end, which would have been bizarre. There's some troubling end of game stuff where he's, he's a very competitive guy and he's lost the school. Do you remember early in his career, he tackled Mike Dunleavy. Right. Remember that other time when he went, tackled Mike Dunleavy. Right. Remember that other time when he went and grabbed the ball? Was it Mike Dunleavy? Yeah, it was Mike Dunleavy Jr.

That other time when he grabbed the ball from Indiana that served this whole, yeah, so he gets a little feisty. And I was worried. And it also evokes and sort of gives the Pacers a little bit of credit and some shine here. It evokes like these incredible Reggie Miller moments from that franchise's history where they have, Oh my God, what? So they just got another one of these, like, what was, you did the 30 for 30. Was it eight points and nine seconds?

What? I was one. Yeah. He had a bunch of them. No, but the seven, seven point comeback, eight O run in 34 seconds is just unbelievable from the Pacers perspective too. Also in that building, which I know you've probably been there for a game, right? It's that and the Clippers arena are the two best arenas. And just cool that that happened right there.

I thought Neesmith, you know, you look at the minutes and it's not really an accident. Halbert and Siakam, Nemhard, Neesmith and Turner, just all playing huge minutes. Four of those guys were over 40. Matheran, he switched the rotational a little. So Matheran and McConnell basically just come in for these little eight, nine minute stretches. That's it. Some topping, not that much. But I think when we go to this next round and I continue to think that they have a real chance against Cleveland to at least take it six or seven and throw some punches at them. But this Halburn piece, when he realizes he can get to the rim, who's stopping him on

Cleveland? Like, this is a good matchup for him. They don't really have like a good defender to throw at him. I don't know. I just think they can hang in this series. They're going to score points. I think the front line of the Cavs will have something to say between Mobley and Allen. And I like Deandre Hunter. I like, uh, you know, uh, Ty Jerome obviously deserves some credit, but I think, can we do a little bit more on Milwaukee? Like you look at this. Yeah, let's do it.

Let's wait. Can we do one more thing on Indiana and then let's do more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. What do you think the line is for Indiana Cleveland? Indiana Cleveland, Cleveland minus 200.

Yeah. Cleveland minus 480. Oh, Cleveland minus 200. Yeah, Cleveland minus 480. Oh, dang. Yeah, I'm telling you, nobody's respecting the Pacers. All right, let's move to Milwaukee because that did feel like, sometimes you have a feeling when it's a guy's last game for a team. I remember LeBron in 2010. Yeah.

Leaving Boston in a very strange last game in general by him, but then taking off his jersey right at the end. And there's something, some, he just felt like, oh man, this is probably not ending well. The honest thing ended a little differently and almost ended with a melee, but I find it hard to believe he's going to be a buck next year. I don't see it.

And I was listening to Rob Mahoney and Zach, who were great the other day. And I'll stack on their point. Can you blame him? Look at what's happened around him at this franchise since they won it all. They've sort of taken the car apart piece by piece. And he's really all that's left. Like Lopez is there. Portis is there, but Middleton and Holliday are gone.

Um, you know, Bud is obviously gone. And what we see there is, you know, Chris Middleton for Kyle Kuzma, are you kidding me? And Kuzma is not even playing in these games, but 13 minutes was two, five. Lopez? I did the Was Mahoney trade deadline pot and I was on the record adamantly.

I did not see the Kuzma thing at all. Cause he hadn't played a meaningful basketball minute or a good basketball minute for like a year. Right. Since he was at Disney World in the pandemic. But yeah, I think, can you blame him? I think that's what Mahoney, but yeah, I think. Can you blame him? I think it's what Mahoney was saying. And I think it's fair.

Like he got them a title. Damien, can I blame them a little bit for leaving? For one to leave? You can't, I mean, can we blame them a little because they did that drew holiday trade for Dame Lillard because they were feeling some pressure with him to do something because they weren't sure if you want to stay or not. And that was, I thought it was a panic trade when it happened. I was in the minority, but they gave up swaps in 20 and 30.

They gave up their 29 first. They gave up Grayson Allen, who was, had some, you know, at least it was a bigger contract they could put in a deal. And when you think about it, they kind of shot their asset wide with Damon Yannis that I just never believed that made them like a favorite in the East. I thought it was a little bit of a Hail Mary and were they, would they have been better off keeping Drew

maybe using those picks with Grace now and Chris Middleton, whoever, and trying to add another piece to the foundation. I mean, in retrospect, yes. I'll always remember I was at the Grant Williams game in Boston, I don't know if you were there. I was. Zach was talking about it the other day.

It's like a sliding doors moment, right? Because I remember talking to everybody and being like, man, it feels like we're gonna be watching these two teams play for this Eastern Conference Championship for a long time. For a decade, yeah. And then this team is just, and that's why I think it's an interesting match macroscopic study. Like you can talk about this collapse in the last 34 seconds here, but really this is a

collapse that's three or four years long. And just goes to speak to the importance of ownership, transactions, roster building. But dude, yeah, I thought that Yanis and Milwaukee were going to be a big time factor for a huge part of the 2020s. And they simply haven't been since that Grant Williams game. Well, it starts with the original Drew Holiday Trade, which helped win them the title.

Right. But also included their 24 and 26 first and swaps and 25 at 27 plus the George Hill bloodsail contracts that they kind of were trying to get off of as part of the trade, but they're playing catch up, they're playing asset catch up after that. Yeah. And they've not made any good draft picks bill during this, this crucial time where even if you get somebody like Dalton Connect or Corey Joseph,

like when the Spurs were picking at the Adaric White, we would always pick well at the end of the DeJante Murray. You got to get those picks to keep the momentum going, to add role players, and they just haven't been able to find anybody in the draft. They have AJ Johnson, Tyler Smith, Chris Livingston, Beauchamp, Isaiah Todd, RJ Hampton, Jordan Awara, like nothing. That's their 2020s draft history. So it's just they haven't been able to build from the draft either, and that's a huge reason

why this roster's so thin too. Well, the red flag was when Lazare, the co-owner, he finished his managing partner thing and then he's like, I'm outta here. And he sold this steak to the Browns owner. And he was like, ah, that's curious. And it was like, you know, he was like 2008, the big short. He knew it was coming.

Where do you want Giannis to go? Oh, well, if San Antonio's an option. Just as a basketball fan, where do you want him to go? I mean, I will, again, hand up, I'm very biased, like you are with the Celtics. I will say the San Antonio Spurs. I think it would be a really perfect pairing evoking the great Duncan, Tim Robinson era,

or David Robinson, Tim Duncan era. Tim Robinson, Netflix comedian, Tim Robinson? Dude, I saw his new A 24 movie. What is that called? Uh, but anyway, I think, um, that's what, what about you? San Antonio is the high upside. Holy shit. Like galaxy brain explosion and they have the assets right to do it. Yeah. Um, but that's, that would be the one that I think made everybody go, oh no, what's that gonna look like?

I think that's a pretty weird fit in some ways offensively, but in other ways, the fact that Wemby wants to be 25 feet from the basket, and Giannis should probably be playing closer to the basket, maybe that fits, but defensively that sounds like an all time nightmare from how are you gonna attack the room against those two guys. You might as well just go to Jack Three's.

It's just like David Robinson and Tim Duncan 20 years ago. Yeah, that's why I love it. It's a fantasy of mine. Realistically, I don't know if that's a possibility. Have you thought about other destinations? Yeah, I mean, Russo and I talked about it a little on Sunday, just like the obvious ones Houston, because they have, the problem for Milwaukee is they don't really have their picks.

So it's not like they'd, you know, it's not like it makes sense for them to tank because what are they tanking for? They don't have their picks to tank for. So what makes more sense is like them doing a two for one and a three for one and getting a couple of assets back with that. So that's, that's the rockets basically. Um, that's one. And I think you're probably trying to get some sort of big piece.

The Knicks are the other one that I think would be mildly intriguing. If it was a town's bridges, Yannis going back with a contract and, you know, you start doing that. But. There's been smoke around Miami and Giannis for years. He's in the same spot there that he's in with Milwaukee. Miami sucks. I agree.

They just got absolutely annihilated in the Cleveland series. They had their whole team. It's not like somebody was missing. Again, when Ernie Johnson at halftime is like, this is the worst basketball game I've ever seen. Yeah, we're not showing highlights. He's saying that on air, by the way.

He's not saying that at the water cooler before they go to the segment. He's saying that on air. That's how bad it was. Yeah. Yeah, well, we'll see. I don't think he's there next year, though. It did feel like there was some sort of a finality to it.

But you never know with these guys. Like, the key to me is he already won the title. Yeah. So when you've already won, it's like, ah, I don't know, I like it here. But there's always been some Brooklyn buzz. The problem with a team like Brooklyn is can you give the assets back that actually makes sense for Milwaukee who can't tank?

What's the point of Milwaukee going 20 and 62 next year if their pick is going somewhere else? They might not have a choice. We've seen that one before too, but. What do you mean about Wemby, by the way? Anything? I think he's on schedule to return for next season. I haven't heard anything specific medically,

but he was caught playing soccer in Costa Rica on video. I don't know if you saw that, Bill. It was a very interesting video. It was like- Yeah, I missed that video. That sounds great. Hey, you gotta be deep onto the Spurs message boards to see these great videos of Wemby playing soccer.

Do they rig the draft for a Cooper flag for the Spurs like they did with Tim Duncan in 1997 or now? Well, they just got two rookie of the years in a row. So why not go for three? I mean, shout out to Stephen Castle for getting the rookie of the year. Not a great class, but I thought he was deserving. I don't think they're going to rig the draft for the Spurs to get Cooper flag. But dude, Cooper I thought he was deserving. I don't think they're going to rig the draft for, for the Spurs to get Cooper flag, but dude, I'm gonna say, no, this guy's going to change the fate of wherever he gets. This is another one of the biggest lotteries of the century.

Whoever gets that number one. Well, the good thing is there's other good guys. Like even if you get the third or fourth pick in this draft, you're going to get somebody who's like, even edge comb is like a real guy. Like if he, the Spurs got him and put him with Castle and all their wings, like that's an amazing outcome. Yeah. The Spurs have two picks they're pretty excited about.

I think most likely outcome is right. Eight and 14, something like that. Uh, and, and they could combine those and try to move up or they've drafted pretty well In the past or they send both of them to Milwaukee in the honest trade Or I said Wembe I mean talk about an international basketball team. That's like the league's wet dream I know honest is the greatest international story they've ever had other than Hakim and And Wembe is going to be the true galaxy face of the league.

They're hoping four or five years from now, unless Anthony Edwards takes that too. Who do you have in Minnesota Lakers? You have to take Minnesota at this point. Uh, JJ Reddick, I think. You know, there's two reasons, depth and defense. The Lakers don't have much either. And I think the stat was that nobody has ever played all five dudes for the last 24 minutes of a playoff game.

And JJ just did that. That tells you something. Yeah, but Denver did the same thing on Saturday and it worked. And now we don't have to hear about it anymore because they won the game. JJ did it. I'm not defending JJ. I don't understand why he would have paid Gabe Vinson for five minutes. He was, I feel okay with Gabe Vinson out there.

I didn't get that. You'd like to think Jackson Hayes can do something. Um, but I think Minnesota just deserves credit. And the other thing is the defense. Los Angeles defense is not good enough. Jade McDaniels is exposing them on drives. Um, and no disrespect to Jayden McDaniels. He's helping Minnesota win this series.

Uh, but that goes to show that this is, this is not the thunder defense, dude. This is not the rocket defense. This is the Lakers defense. It's been a red flag for me for a while. Um, no rim protection, no rim runner. Yeah. The rim just not really involved. And, and Luca like has not been great on defense.

Um, and again, the Western conference is unforgiving. You want to call it a weak link era of NBA basketball. Fine. We're hunting matchups, whatever you want to say. Anthony Edwards is just the best offensive player in the series right now. Um, and on top of that, I think Minnesota has a better defense and more depth. Uh, so I'm taking Minnesota bill. I agree.

I think there might be a free throw discrepancy tomorrow. Is it tomorrow? I'm guessing tomorrow. I'm going tomorrow and I'm just going to be laughing all the time. You're going to games back to back, huh? Oh yeah. Sports, basketball, playoff, basketball, no, it's the best. Sadly, it's going to be over soon.

Have you seen anything that makes you think it's not going to be Boston OKC? I think Cleveland deserves a little more respect and the Drew holiday hamstring injury, Bill Simmons. Not happy about it. injury, Bill Simmons. Not happy about it. Yeah, not great. So look, Cleveland, I think if Boston is limited somehow, Cleveland is a very dangerous team.

So Drew Holliday and Street Close is my answer to that question. Have I seen anything that makes me think Boston might not get there? If he comes back, I love that dude. If Porzingis is healthy, if Tatum is playing like this, Jalen Brown, Derek White, Peyton Pritchard, Joe Mazzula. I think they deserve to be favorites coming out of the East, but Cleveland is

shooting the shit out of the basketball. Uh, they've been a great team all year. They've won in Boston, if I'm not mistaken. No, Mitchell, Mitchell always does well, good Celtics Celtics. They're always good games. So it'll be a good series. I'm picking Boston, but I will not be shocked whether it's because Drew Holliday's limited, somebody else goes down, that Cleveland wins the Eastern Conference. So I think that's, that's the case on the Western side. OKC again, clear favorite. I don't see anybody in their class right now on the Western side, OKC, again, clear favorite.

I don't see anybody in their class right now on the Western Conference side. I don't either, but who knows with this Minnesota piece. And who knows with Golden State? Because Golden State's love playing OKC forever. And you know, I'm not going to, I'm just, I would, if I had to bet, I would stick with my preseason OKC Boston. But I think Minnesota and Golden State and then the way Denver played tonight, who knows?

All right, Kurt Goldsberry, writing for theringer.com, popping on our podcast. Always good to see you. Thank you, Bill. Good to see you. This episode is brought to you by Coho. Coho makes managing money easy with the top rated financial app

that helps your money grow every single day. Earn cash back, get instant cash advances. Build your credit history. Stop wishing money management was simple because with Coho it already is. Sign up today with code SimmonsCoho for two months free of the everything plan. Once again, that's SimmonsCoho. Get one of Canada's best interest rates, 2% cash back on groceries, transit and dining, no foreign transaction fees and more. Download the app today.

Riding a bike in the ride to conquer cancer is like being part of humanity's greatest. The money you raise, the time you spend, the energy that you give is helping people live, is giving people hope, and that's just so beautiful. Care of the fire for cancer research. Join the ride at ridetoconquer.ca. All right, our friend Zach Lois here.

We're taping this before the four Tuesday games, but also before the two Wednesday games. And it's an awesome doubleheader of Golden State Houston, Lakers, T-Wolves. I covered it on my pod on Sunday. You covered it on the Zach Lowe show on, uh, on Monday, but we're here to talk about Draymond Green. And then we can talk about those games at the tail end. Last week we did Kawhi. We deep dove.

This week, we're going toi. We deep dove this week. We're going to do Draymond and we're going to deep dive. You wrote about him. I think two years ago, maybe right after the pool incident. Many, many times, but yes, including, including, uh, taking that moment as a, Hey, wait a second, let's take stock of this guy's warrior's career, which felt a little, a little like it was on shaky ground as the Warriors were approaching,

you know, the do we pay all of these guys, the young guys, the old guys, everybody, can we do that and if not, who's the casualty? It's felt, one of the things I was thinking about as we go into this, it's felt a couple times over the last three years that we might be at the end of the road with Draymond and the Warriors. Right.

And the pool punch was the first time. The second time was when are they going to be able to figure out his contract or not? And then even this year when it didn't really seem like they had any moves and the question became, well, I mean, maybe would Draymond be somebody that they bench be trying to flip? Um, he's feels, I don't want to say thin ice, but it's felt a little rocky. And now I feel the best about it that I felt probably since the, uh, the 22 finals, but even the 22 finals, he was getting yanked around.

I don't think he looked particularly great. He looks great now. And this Curry Draymond thing is now officially over a decade. And there's something really unique and special about it. Um, that just continues to persevere and you could feel it in that Houston game. Um, it felt like the punch changed his standing within the Warriors. They've all, they've all acknowledged that. Like that, that, that was very hard for the team to get over.

It was very hard for Jordan Poole to get over. And then you follow it up with the suspensions, right? Like last season we get suspended for, I don't know how many games, it was indefinitely after the Go Bear incident and then the Nerketsch incident. And then there was like the flirtation with Memphis in free agency that I think was at least semi real, um, you know, I'd, or the potential of it anyway. Yeah. I mean, it's, but, but I always wrote, I mean,

you know, who's sad listening to this is the guy who signed with Dallas and free agency to play with Luca and make some spot up threes. And I always wrote that those three guys were, it was magic. Like it's why you play basketball to get that kind of level of feel and chemistry. And just, you can do it with your eyes closed. You know, where everyone's going to be at all time, that those three guys were meant to play together and should have played together forever. And at least two of them look like they are going to play together forever in their NBA lives.

It's the hardest thing to find in professional basketball now with the way guys move around. With the way now we have this first, second apron, you know, I'm always thinking like we had the last episode of Celtic city and it's built around Brown and Tatum. And it's just like, I don't even know if it's sustainable to have two guys making a max once it gets into the sixties, seventies anymore. They would Brown and Tatum have, I don't think remotely approaches the Draymond Curry thing, because those guys actually had figured out how to

elevate each other, which I think is the last level when you're talking teammates. Clay was in there too, but really, Draymond, you can feel when Draymond wasn't in the game, what it meant to Curry, all the little pick and pops and handoffs and just that ESP that they had for each other. I can't think of like this,

when I was growing up, they always talked about how the 70s Knicks had that. Right. I think bird and McHale kind of got there. I think Jordan and Pippen almost like defensively as athletes became so attuned. Like they almost seemed like a pair after a while. It's really hard to get to. Um, and with Draymond, I feel I've always felt like there's gonna be a shelf life and it was going to flame out and he was just being more and more erratic as his career went on.

He had the podcast. He's becoming unlikable in a lot of ways too. And then you watch like last night and it's like, would you rather- I was gonna say he almost got, he's almost ejected from like every third game. Yeah, you're just teetering on this balance beam with him. And you know, he gets that first technical

and then you instantly get the flashbacks to 2016 Game Four. I'll always think LeBron knew what he was doing. I think it was a smart play. He tried to bait Draymond into retaliating, knowing that one more anything, and Draymond was suspended for the next game. And by the way, if you're right, and there's never, maybe one day,

LeBron will talk about this, and try to make himself the protagonist of that one step ahead thing is Draymond has also tried to make himself the protagonist of like almost everything good that's happened for the Warriors, including you mentioned the 2022 finals, the turning point for him was getting in Jalen Brown's head. That was like being physical with Jalen Brown getting in his head. They all, my God, I knew we had him at that moment. I mean, he said that, but, um, if, if, if you turn out to be right about this LeBron

thing, what a tribute to Draymond Green's greatness actually, that LeBron thought it was worth, it was worth getting him out of the series for a game, right? That he, that he respected him that much. But you mentioned all these prior teammate combinations. Um, and what's super interesting about this one is that we've seen like Tatum and Brown, you went Tatum and Brown and backwards to some of the historical ones. We've seen the game has been ruled by big men. Like you mentioned, Mikhail, low post guys, Shaq and Kobe, we can go on and on.

And big wings. These guys are neither of those things and they're both totally unusual superstars or stars whatever you want to call Draymond in NBA history and almost archetypal players that are specifically archetypal to this era of three point shooting, which Steph revolutionized and accelerated the development was going to happen anyway. And Draymond as the ultimate switch defender, when more defenses were like, we just got to try and switch everything because this shooting is so massively important and swing so many games. And Draymond may not have a good sort of analog in the history of the NBA.

Steph obviously has no analog in the history of the NBA and, and Steph, Steph is, is one of one. Draymond became this weird archetype where for about four or five years, people searched the draft for, we gotta find someone like Draymond. Can we find our Draymond? Could Grant Williams be our kind of Draymond Green? Grant Williams is the funniest one.

Yeah, and it was, it's just so interesting that you go through those pairs of superstars, and these two guys are just strange in terms of body type skill set and not only just strange but strange and meant to play in this era and meant to play together in this era. Yeah like I remember he started playing when we were working together at Grantland and it was the early days of the five band lineups and the plus minus stuff really early, like primitive. Like people are carving it out in stone, the numbers, trying to figure it out. We don't-

Websites that are dead, that are gone. You get like a virus if you download it in the websites. But there was some stuff with David Lee and it was one of the first times. Cause I remember that there was that grizzly season and I was on TV that year with Memphis where the Rudy Gay lineups versus the non Rudy gay lineups to dark, to dark time, the Rudy, the Rudy gay discourse.

But remember they trade him and everyone went nuts and the people who were actually like kind of studying this shit were like, ah, they might not miss him. And then he, they make the Western finals, but there was a similar thing going on with David Lee who had good stats, good counting stats, hustled was the type of guy that in the old school way, be like, like that guy, good jump hook. Like he does some good stuff. And he was a, you know, a good starter, but dream on was in there and the lineups took off always the foil in this story. David Lee, a very good NBA player who could do a lot of good NBA things, including, you know, remember that finals

when they started to go small against the Cavaliers and it was like a garbage time of a game they were losing and David Lee was like heavily involved. Yeah, Draymond, you know, was picked 35th in his draft. Warriors picked him after they picked Festus Azuli in the same draft. So it's kind of like the old, you know, when I, when I used to wax poetic to the Spurs about, you know, Manu Janobli is the greatest draft pick in the history of the NBA, you guys were such geniuses picking him at 50, whatever. And they would always tell me, well, if we were such geniuses, why did we pick Gordon Gierosek like 25 spots higher in the same draft?

Right. That's the Tom Brady. They passed on him every round until the sixth round. Same thing. And it's the same with Azili and Draymond, but maybe Draymond is the only one that expected anything even 50% as great as the career and impact he ended up having on a team that ended up being

the absolute perfect place for him. Well, he always had the confidence, right? So he won in high school and he won in college. And then he came to the pros. He wasn't playing that much. And I remember I was on a, I was on countdown. I might've been the 2013 season. We were talking about the Warriors and the playoff 2013 or 14.

And we were talking about how nobody could shoot on the Warriors other than staff and clay or I forget what it was. And I made some joke about, you don't want Draymond throwing up bricks or something like that. And he came at me on Twitter and I was like, look at this guy. I kind of like the face of this. It was like, all right, that's cool. But he always kind of carried himself. Like you guys don't realize how good I am yet.

And then 2015, once Lee gets hurt and the rest is history. But that's, I always think about luck with this stuff where you think, you know, it just became a story again recently about Bogut talking about the thing that I thought everybody knew that Milwaukee had the choice between Ellis and Curry in that trade and Curry's ankles were so, yeah, are you, you're dubious of that one? Or are you? No, I mean, it's been, it's been whispered about for so long. Um, I, I, can we ever really confirm it? I mean, like who has anyone in the room in a public setting come out and confront it?

I always heard they gave them the choice. I don't think Laker whoever admitted that was Laker even there at that point. He was right. Whoever the owners were. Yeah. Cause I think there was this real feeling that Curry's ankles were always going to be an issue, you know, that, that this was never going to be a thing that healed. So you get luck with that. You keep curry, you get, how about, how about you get the discount on his first contract, four years, 44 million or something like that. That allows you to do all this other stuff.

That's luck number two. Luck number three is the Kevin Love trade, which is one of the most polarizing organizational should we do this or not sagas probably ever to the point that they're asking people like us, what do you think? Would you do this? Would you put in that? Wouldn't that have been ultimately, would that been David Lee with Clay and maybe even Draymond in that trade too?

I don't remember exactly what it was except that Clay was in it. I think I remember iterations being discussed with Clay and Harrison Barnes both in it. I don't remember exactly what it would have been other than it was a clear like Clay was in the trade. It was like Splash Brothers or no Splash Brothers. And I think Kerr was one of those who was like, I think the shooting that we have is like really special. Jerry West was ready to throw himself

in front of the train tracks on that. It's like, we're not doing this. This is a bad move. Do you think he had like a winning time tantrum? Like the guy in winning time, did he throw a chair through the glass window? No, he always, he hated his portrayal in winning time and RIP to the logo, one of the best, one of the best ever.

Well, now we have the half court logo, Ben Simmons. He gets to the half court logo and he stops dribbling. But then the other luck thing was the cap spike in 16 and all of these things come together. And really the only unlucky break, I mean, until 2019, the only unlucky break was that dream on, uh, you know, punching LeBron in the balls. Have you watched that clip recently? I have not. It is the most dubious. I forgot how awful it was.

I, it might be number one for me for the league stepping in and trying to push a narrative. It is awful. It comes up, he kind of swing, because LeBron's standing over him. Like they get caught up and he's just standing over him like a little, almost baiting him and Trey Monk gets up and he kind of waves his hand. And, uh, I just still can't believe that happened because if you remember from what's the score in that bucks game.

No, no, I'm actually, I want to, I'm trying to remember in my head the sequence of events from that series. So I'm looking up the game logs. I'm going I want to I'm trying to remember in my head the sequence of events from that series So I'm looking up the game logs. I'm gonna talk about so I want to talk about that game really quick is game four When Draymond gets kicked out or gets the flagrant at the end or whatever it was They go into Cleveland. They're up to one in the series It's probably one of my favorite five warriors games from that whole career Because they lay the smack down. Like Cleveland, they're toe to toe.

They pulled away down the stretch. Pulled away down the stretch and we're leaving that game going, they definitely have the best team. This is gonna be the greatest season in the history of the NBA. And then the suspension happens in it. So I was at the game

and I have this memory of doing something after the game with Jay Adande. Maybe, um, I don't know why that would make sense. And, you know, when you're at these games, sometimes you're not looking at the video, the video feed, like, um, in detail and none of us realized at the time exactly what had happened and put together what was possible. And now this is why I was looking back at it. So that was June 10th, 108.97 Warriors win.

There were two days off until the next game in the Bay, June 13th. And I remember they took a while to rule on it because I went out to dinner on June, what would be June 11th, I guess, with a couple of Warriors people. And they were like, I mean, the level of tension, it was not that fun of a dinner because they- Boaget was already out and Curry was, Curry had the, what was his ankle injury?

So they were kind of limping to the finish line as it was. But it was not a fun dinner because they didn't know still what was gonna happen with Draymond. They were fuming about what they viewed as lobbying by the Cavaliers for a suspension. They were fuming because they thought the league was gonna quote, I mean, teams see everything through the lens of their own bias

and what is good or bad for them. And they viewed it like the league's gonna scapegoat Draymond, we could see this coming, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was not a fun dinner. And then it was another full day until they announced the suspension. Then he goes and watches it from the A's, well, didn't he go to the A's game or so?

He was in a luxury box somewhere with Bob Myers, I remember. That was indefensible. The suspension, so you think the suspension was it, but it was a flagrant points thing. It was, he had accumulated all the points, right? You can't decide a finals like that. And it was bogus. I feel like it was bogus, the Robert Horishev,

when he shoved Kerr into the scores table and a couple of Nash into the scores table and a couple of Nash's teammates responded because you're gonna move toward your guy who just got decked in the scores table and a couple of Nash's teammates responded because you're going to move toward your guy who just got decked in the scores table. I thought that and I thought the Miami New York thing in the late 90s was, those were the three that really stayed out to me. I'm reading it now. This is Kiki Vandewee.

Kiki Vandewee involved. I remember they were waiting to hear from Kiki. The cumulative points system is designed to deter flagrant fouls in our game. Kiki Van De Wey said, while Draymond Green's actions in game four do not merit a suspension as a standalone act, the number of flagrant points he has earned triggers a suspension for game five. And I remember he had a couple of really dumb ones in the early in that series. There was one he like throws Michael.

I think Michael Beasley is involved. He plays for the Rockets at that time and he throws them to the ground and like almost garbage time of like a decided game You're like, what do you what are you doing man? And there was that's the Steven Adams This way it's a man Still going at it right now Stephen Adams and Drmond Green. The other thing is he comes back, calves blow them away in game five, game six, but Draymond comes back from game seven and plays the best game of his career. And I think he's single-handedly keeps him in the game because Curry is running on fumes of his fumes of his fumes. At that point, that game got super tense.

The last five minutes is an all time rock fight after LeBron hits the two threes over Azili because the words are a guy short and, um, and that Draymond game's wasted and he's, I don't want to say he's the reason they didn't win the title that year, but that incident, I think they went in five. I just think they go back to Golden State and finish it. It felt, it felt like a, we've seen this series a hundred times, a million times before road T road favorite wins game four, kind of a tough gutsy win on the road goes up three, one finishes the job at home.

Like we've all seen this split. We're taping this on Tuesday at six 45. There's like three series are zooming tonight that feel exactly like that in the current first round. So you wrote, when you wrote about Draymond, you used a word that I thought was a great word and I wanted to put it in the context of, uh, of history. So I always talk about glue guys, right? He's better than a glue guy.

Oh, no question. You, he's not obviously not like a star role player. That seems too low too. But in the piece you wrote, you used the noun amplifier, how he amplified Steph and all these different ways. And I was thinking like, that's the right word amplifier. So I was going through like my favorite amplifiers because I think that feels like it's more status, right?

It's that you're not a role player. You're not a glue guy. You're like, I am, I am actually better than a role guy. And not only that, but if you put me next to an awesome guy, I'm going to make that guy better. So Rodman I think is an all time amplifier. I think Ben Wallace got there in the, in the mid two thousands, Oh three to Oh seven. Horry is a classic example, seven titles, but you could kind of fit him in.

He didn't need the ball. He could guard whoever he could guard different positions. You could always count on him come through and it mattered. Um, Michael Cooper, Bobby Jones, Paul Silas, Casey Jones was the famous one from the Russell Celtics. And then there's some, there's two old, I put older in front of these guys names, older Andre Guadala. Okay.

So we're like around 15 range, right? Double amplification for the Warriors. He could have been the best guy on a 45 win team in his prime, but older version. And then I think older drew holiday too. Uh, kind of the bucks Celtics era. And then the only other two I have, and I, there may be from here, Derek Fisher and Bruce Bowen. Draymond's on another level from those guys. That's how I feel too.

I wanted to, I wanted to mark them down. Um, but I think of all those guys, I think Draymond might've been the best amplifier. I think he might be the number one amplifier. Well, let's, let's, let's keep, let's be simple about it. You know, people do this thing with Draymond where like, well, what would he be if the, if he got drafted by the Pistons and he doesn't have Steph and how many, even ex players have sort of derided Draymond like this? He has Steph and Clay and all he has to do is throw handoffs to them.

Wow. Big whoop Draymond Green. He's not the same player without Steph Curry. Almost nobody would be. If you're ranking the reasons why the Warriors have four championships in the last whatever years, it's Steph Curry up here at number one, and then a giant gap between whatever you think number one and number two, what number two is.

And that's fine and fair. Um, Draymond has two things that I think are indisputable about. I think he's a Hall of Famer. Uh, he's, I think he should be a Hall of Famer. No question. Michael Cooper made the Hall of Fame. I mean, even whatever. He's the greatest defender of his generation, which I would define as sort

of like the post KG Duncan generation of players, he might be the most versatile defender in modern NBA history. He is like, there's this alternate reality where, okay, so imagine the Warriors without Draymond Green, but they have Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and Harrison Barnes and whatever else. They're still awesome. They still might be a championship team. You could, you could replace Draymond Green, but they have Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and Harrison Barnes and whatever else. They're still awesome. They still might be a championship team. You could, you could replace Draymond with, I use Clint Capella as my, like

stand in, screen and dive, spread pick and roll center, blah, blah, blah. But Draymond, Draymond's ability to place center on defense and switch across every position is completely unique. Almost completely unique in modern NBA history. And he's also while at center, one of the greatest passers on the move in the history of the NBA. And both of those things allow the Warriors to play a style that is completely unusual and unique to them.

And he's a big part of that. And he lifts up, Curry is better because of all the stuff Draymond can do when you give them four on threes, when you play a handoff back and forth with him, when you are, when you can take certain risks defensively because you can play this super small ball lineup because he's a six, six guy, you can play center. The defense and the passing, this is a guy he's led the team in assists like many times. It's not that's what separates him from like your glue guy role players. Like those dudes aren't dishing seven, eight, nine, 10 assists approaching tri you can triple singles. He gets

made fun of a lot for that, but those are almost triple doubles. Um, he's a totally unusual player and, and made the Warriors both unusual and better. Those four and threes you mentioned, he's got to be in the running for the best one in that situation. Can you, we see it all the time now, right? Like even the Nuggets Clippers series, the Nuggets are trying to put Zubots in that situation. He's been doing really well. Those guys are really good at it.

Hartenstein, you know, they'll try to put him Horford as somebody that gets in that situation. But through the league, when teams are trying to take out somebody, oh, let's do four and three, and the guy at the foul line will make the bad decision. The thing with Draymond is the Warriors just know how to cut. It's like, it was amazing to watch Butler immediately fit into that, right?

It took him like 10 seconds to be like, oh, if they're gonna do that, I'm just gonna cut, I'll get layups. Horford is a great name because he's still good at it now. And in his prime, when he was more athletic and faster, he was really, really close in sort of speed and decision-making to what prime Draymond is or was. But he wasn't as, Draymond is, I mean, in the stupidest sense is just so fast. He moves really fast compared to the average big guy who's going to set a screen and roll to the rim.

And then he makes his decisions faster and more intelligently than almost everybody else in the league in that situation. It's a really hard, it's not a hard combination to find. It's like a borderline impossible combination to find because there has been no next to Draymond green and you know, you can do the counterfactuals of like, well, does he even get those four on threes? If he's playing with whatever anonymous Eastern conference guards in Charlotte or Detroit or whatever.

And the answer is he doesn't get them in the same way with the same amount of space in the same frequency. But I changed how I played, I think. I do, I do think he would have been a very good player, a great player anywhere, because the defense and the passing are translatable skills to any setting. It was hard to recognize in the moment

for a little while, because we were so used to these 6'6 undersized guys getting drafted, going 15 picks too late. There was that whole Brandon Bass generation of NBA player in the 2000s, where it was like, they couldn't shoot threes. They were bangers. They were second round picks or low value guys. They were all missing something, right? They were either three inches too short, or they couldn't really rebound or they, you know,

David West was probably the best version of all of them. Um, and Draymond just seemed like, Oh, he's going to be in that bucket. And then to watch the player that he became, and then we need to mention like the competitiveness and that. I don't think anybody has ever been more of an alpha who probably, um, has a worst basketball reference page. Right. If, if like, we can't look this up, has a worst basketball reference page. Right. If, if like, we can't look this up on stat head on basketball reference, but

it's like, who, who has the lowest points per game who carries himself like an alpha, he might be in the running. Well, look, he's 35 years old. It's 20, 25. And in the first round of the playoffs, he stood up the Houston Rockets best player who has a massive height and weight advantage on him in the most important possession of maybe the entire series. Stood him up, played impeccable defense, forced a miss, let everyone know about it and let

everyone know like, Hey, I'm 35, I'm old now. Don't come at me like that. Go somewhere else on your crunch time possessions. He may have doke. I do was like, he's been sensational. I'm old now. Don't come at me like that. Go somewhere else on your crunch time possessions. He made a dog I do was like he's been sensational for the funny if he made doka was like Have you seen the other guys of my team? Where else was that gonna go? Was it gonna be the Fred Van Vleet step back? Like what were my other options?

Fred was rolling and Jalen Green was on the bench. So I was watching him on, I was actually watching Jalen Green on the bench because I was doing the body language doctor thing of like, is he engaged? He was engaged. He was engaged. He was engaged. Eme with four seconds left at no timeouts,

leaving Adams and Shungun out there for the scramble three situation was incredible. I don't know if he just passed out. I would have dusted off Reed shepherd and just been like, can you just do a Peyton Pritchard impersonation? I know you haven't played all series. I gotta say, I don't want to plant bad seeds in your head or make this about the Celtics Peyton Pritchard's on a little cold streak on a half court to he's like, Oh, for his last 60.

Well, the other 30 to 60 footers aren't falling anymore. Like they were less, less playoffs. When it became like the other, for his last 60. Well, the other 30 to 60 footers aren't falling anymore. Like there were less, less playoffs when it became like, the other team knows it's coming. Um, going back to the amplifier thing and what you said about how unique Dreymond is, if you take all the other best amplifiers, I don't think any of them work as well as he works with the words because of the passing and the four and three stuff, like if you just put Ben Wallace on the warriors, let's take that five year Ben

Wallace around and make it 10 years. And they would have been better, you know, from a rebounding standpoint. Defense. I don't, I'm not sure he would have been able to guard, you know, as many types of guys that Dreymon guard, but he was an incredible defensive player there. Um, and you don't really get anything else and you get terrible foul shooting and you, you know, you start listing like, oh, well you also get this and like that doesn't work. I can't even think of anybody else I would put in.

Can you? It's almost like Kartenstein, but a more play makey version of him, but for 10 years. The passing is, is what makes it sing on offense. And just like, you know, you go back and watch prime Draymond Green defend James Harden as like sometimes the primary assignment often on switch you're like, Oh, is he the best guy on the Warriors at defending this guy? And also the best guy on the Warriors years later at defending Jokic. Like that's, that's a, that's a unicorn.

Like the 17 warriors, which I think have a real case, especially as the years passed for best team, I don't know if I'd vote for them, but I think they have a case and one of the cases is when you're putting out Draymond and Ngu Dala and Clay, who was a really, really good defender in the mid 2000s. Um, you have those three guys out there at the same time with Curry and then Durant as the six foot 11 Spider-Man can protect the rim and do all these different things. That was, that might be the best five man lineup I've seen in person. Even the Bulls always had somebody who was a little bit iffy on the movie poster, you know, Steph, Clay, Iguodala, Draymond, Durant.

Um, I don't know if we're doing better than that. Well, I mean, I remember being at a, in Denver at a nuggets warriors game pretty early that season. Might've been the season. I don't know. Some, it was sometime in that 17 or and or 17, 18. And they did the thing where they were all on the floor together in the third quarter of the game.

And it was just, you didn't even understand what it was. It was just like a tidal wave and you, it was like you lost consciousness watching the game and it just became this blur of noise and sound and like blue jerseys flying around and all of a sudden it was they had put up like a 22 to 2 run in two and a half minutes. I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you just, it felt like watching the cyclone and good teams. The nuggets were a good team. We're just looking around like, I don't even understand what's happening to us. Like, what are we supposed to do? Where's the ball?

That guy is that guy. It was like unbelievable. Well, they broke talent, which everybody knew when they got him. It was like, okay, well, this is a wrap for a couple of years. They broke the 2017 calves. And now as the years pass, it seems like the calves were like the underdog in the relationship. Meanwhile, they won the lottery three out of four years.

They had Kyrie Irving. They traded a number one pick for Kevin Love. They had all these expensive role players like Tristan Thompson. I think they had what one of the five biggest payrolls in the league and they had LeBron James still in his prime. Like that was not that was not Hickory High trying to trying to make it through the tournament in Indiana in 1954. The 2017 Cavs are the best Cavs team of LeBron's two times in Cleveland. The team that lost in the finals that year, in my opinion, that was the best team.

What's the best LeBron team to you? Tangent. We're still talking about Draymond, but Tangent. I think 13 Heat are going to be tough to beat. That was the Heat team that had the 20 something game winning streak. And they, they ran into some issues in the playoffs that I thought were a little bit frankly beneath them. I thought they should have an easier time in the East playoffs. And then they beat the Spurs.

I think, I mean, 17 Cavs didn't win 16 Cavs will always be. Another measuring stick team. I'd have to, I'm going blind. I haven't looked back at the numbers of what that six, some of those teams, this Cleveland 2.0 teams, as you know, as an Eastern Conference basketball fan, kind of just cruise through parts of the regular season. Conference was terrible. I think the first maybe two thirds of that 2013 Miami season

is the answer. But when they got to the playoffs, it wasn't just like that it got a little rocky with them. Uh, I thought Wade, that was when he really started to break down a little bit and he just didn't feel like Dwayne Wade and the same way that year. And he was like, I just don't feel like this Pacers team should be taking these guys to seven. I do think the streak, which was just great.

I think the streak, uh, had a little do that. I think it took a lot out of those guys, but I would say 2013. I also think hard to say with COVID, um, what happens in that 20 season. But if you look back at the guys on that team, it's pretty good team. You know, we have LeBron, you have Davis who's in his late twenties. You got Caruso in there. You have Caldwell Pope. You have Kuzma before he kind of went off the rails.

And by the way, Howard protected the rim. That team was talented. Relevant to this discussion. Uh, where are the warriors at that time? The 20, well, that was the year that was the Durant clay combo injury, Durant leaves and clay, which is why. combo injury, three in leaves and clay. Which is why, you know, and they get three shots in the lottery during their sort of down period.

You know, Kaminga, Wiseman, Moody, the payoff has not been substantial. I like Moody. I'll buy your Moody stock right now. No, no, I like Moody a lot. I've been on the- It seems like you want them to put it for sale. No, no, no, I'm just, they, I think,

obviously the Wiseman thing is a huge bust. Well, but that was also COVID draft. Like, I gotta defend them a tiny bit on that. That draft, you go back in that draft, that draft is bonkers. I don't even care. Kaminga is less defensible. I don't even care.

And Kaminga they got in a masterstroke trade, selling as high as possible on D'Angelo Russell. But that should have been Franz. How did they not know to take the IQ six foot nine for a guy? My point is this. That's why, you know it when you see it. Certain NBA championships just mean more

than other NBA championships. Sometimes it's because of a star player finally winning one in his home city like Dirk in 2011. Sometimes it's because of a star player finally winning one in his home city, like Dirk in 2011. Sometimes it's everything magical comes together for some unexpected team. Sometimes, sometimes it's a team sort of, uh, stamping itself like a prior champion, sort of proving like that. Yeah. The first one was legit.

The 2022 Warriors championship is one of those more special than a lot of other championship championships, because a lot of time had passed since the last Durant one. It didn't feel all that likely that they would get back to the mountain top. If you look back, like it's a strange roster of dudes, many of whom are not there anymore, Clay, Poole, Wiggins. Well, also Clay and Draymond at weird points of their career where we weren't even sure if they were elite guys anymore or not.

And they are taking advantage of this like interregnum in the West where like the Nuggets are in a waiting period for their guys like Murray and Porter to get back healthy. The Clippers are never healthy and now they are healthy. But they were like, that was a legit awesome Warriors team that leaned back into the style of basketball that Steve Kerr wants to play the beautiful game, the ball movement, and had enough to squeeze out four series against teams that just kind of weren't ready for all of it. Yeah, and the game four, I'm with you.

Like that one meant so much to the kind of Steph career resume, all that stuff. But also it seemed like they were never going to be in that situation again. You didn't even mention the sons. That was another one for the sons coming off the finals. They were, what were they like 50 and six at one point, just seeming like they're heading back and then just falling apart against a Dallas game. Said game seven, no, but now we're really off track, but game seven, Dallas Phoenix, and game seven, Boston, Milwaukee,

were the same day that year. Oh my God, you're right. And I was traveling to Chicago for the combine and my flight was like so poorly timed. Like it took off in the middle of the third quarter of Celtics bucks, and then it was gonna land and Sun's Mavs would already be first quarter, second quarter. I was like, I'm gonna miss so much.

And I land and it's like Celtics win by a lot. Grant Williams makes a million threes. And then I get to my hotel and I load up the Sun's Mavs game, I'm like, what? And it's over. I don't even have to watch this thing? This is crazy, what the hell is going on? And that Warriors win the title,

Andre Amand is really good. End of story. Let's take a quick break. From early morning workouts that need a boost to late night drives that need vibes, a good playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending,

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that I want to talk quickly about Golden State Houston. The generational defensive belt, which I'm not gonna subject you to all the names since Bill Russell. I did make a list. Okay. But I think Draymond versus Rudy, basically for the post-Kawai era, which is about the moment he steps on Zaza's foot all the way through is the argument for the

last eight years, I would say Draymond. There's some nerds out there that would, that would be resolute about Gobert and the Gobert rim protection stats. Gobert has more defensive player of the years. Um, I think he's had more season to season probably success, but that's the argument for the last eight years. Dray, if you're going to pick one guy who has the belt, it's those two, I think. He's going to be the Shaq.

The Shaq is the MVPs, what Draymond is to defense a player of the year or like on a larger scale, even Jordan to MVPs. Like we're all going to look back at the career and be like, he only won one and these other guys won more than that. Like he's a, it's sometimes it's like it's a regular season award. He misses time, he gets whatever like he gets injured The team is so good. It doesn't even matter go bear is playing 82 game, but we all know It goes back to something Draymond himself said 62 82 game player or 16 game player

He's a better 16 game player on defense alone. You're just taking him in any postseason Yeah, oh, he's taking he's a better 16 game defender than Rudy Gobert. 16 game, four series, four different kinds of opponents. He's better. And unfortunately for him, the belt is now going to be in San Antonio for a very long time. So Steve Kerr said Draemon was the single best

defensive player he's ever seen after game four. And he's been touting Draemon's defense a lot. He actually lobbied for him for defensive player of the year, which he doesn't, he's not a big award lobbier that Steve Kerr, but he played with Scottie Pippen and he played with Dennis Rodman. And Tim Duncan. And I was just surprised. And Tim Duncan. But I mean Pippen, that's a tough one. I would love to put like three drinks in the Steve Kerr 10 years from now and he's not

coaching Draymond anymore and actually get the actual answer for is Draymond actually the best defensive player you've ever seen? It's all a matter of, I mean, defense is still statistically sort of harder to parse than offense, right? So sometimes when you're at this level, it becomes a matter of taste. Like Garnett should be in the conversation, Olajuwon, you know, whoever, you, we can go through all the greatest defenders in NBA history. He's in the conversation.

That's where Draymond Green is, whether you think he's the best, the fifth best, the fourth best, the third bet, whatever he, that's where he lives in this conversation. Are you taunting me to do my belt lineage? No, but sure. It feels like you are. Sure. I'll go through it quick. It was Draymond versus Rudy. So we'reunting me to do my belt lineage? No, but sure. Feels like you are. All right, I'll go through it quick.

It was Draymond versus Rudy, so we're both going to say Draymond. Kawhi by himself. By the way, I thought of you when I was at that Clipper game Saturday and Kawhi just took the ball from Jamal Murray. When he decided, hey, it's at half court, how about I just go take it? I'm going to take the ball now. Jamal's like, wait, you can't take the ball. I said, no, I'm going to actually take it. Thanks for participating in my exercise. I about I just go take it? I'm gonna take the ball now. Yeah, Jamal's like wait You can't take the buzz and now I'm gonna actually take it. Thanks for thanks for participating in my exercise

Yeah, I'm just gonna take every time I think you I think Dwight Howard's in there for a while By default I'd have to look back at who's contemporary with who who's old who's young but he's got certainly was there many time defense player of the year Oh wait kg. I think has the belt by himself before him, Ben Wallace. And then it's a three headed battle for a while between Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Rashid Wallace, who I think has been lost in history now, but Rashid Wallace was just an awesome defensive player when they decided to put him next to Ben Wallace. And people still seem to think that Laker series was like, whoa,

that was weird. It's like Detroit killed them in that series. Anyway, we'd have them. Then there's like a GP versus Matumbo mid to late nineties kind of argument, which I'd probably, I don't even know where I land. I'd probably default toward GP for a little bit. Some good playoff history in that one too. Yeah. Sonic Nuggets. There's a Hakeem Robinson before that.

Then we have- I won't entertain Hakeem Robinson. I won't entertain it. I would pick Hakeem, right? It's Hakeem. I'm not entertaining- But I'm just saying that Robinson won Defensive Poor of the Year a couple of times, but Hakeem-

He's very, he, Admiral was incredible. He's a dream teamer. I'm just saying that Robinson won defense of poor of the year a couple of times, but Hakeem was... He's very... Admiral was incredible. He's a dream teamer. What happened in the playoffs in 1995, the rest of it is irrelevant. Hakeem also, the block steal stuff. That was one of my book. I made up the word stocks because there was just nothing like this guy putting up basically

like seven blocks and steals a game. Pippen versus Robnans was another one. And then, then it starts getting harder after that, but I did want to shout out Bobby Jones. Um, I have another dream on thing for you really quick. So from 2015 through 2025, he did not average 10 points a game, 9.6 points a game, 7.5 rebounds and 6.6 assists. Those are cumulative for those seasons? Those are his per game averages for like 11 years. 46% field goal, 32% from three.

In the playoffs that bumps up to basically 12, nine and six. Um, but I was like, wow, that's weird. I wonder if anyone has anything remotely that looks like that. So I rig basketball reference.com who averaged nine points or less. You didn't go stat news. You didn't go stat news. No stat news. I don't try. Bricell and I hate stat news.

We know Alex Ovechkin. I don't try. Bracelet and I hate that news. We don't Alex Ovechkin. Uh huh. Under nine points. Over five assists. And then rebounds. Whatever. Everyone else is a guard.

It's like Jose Calderon. Avery Johnson. Muggsy Bogues. Dick McGuire. Nate McMillan. Eric Snow. Brevin Knight. TJ McConnell. Roy Sparrow. This is like guys who played 600 games or more. And Draymond has way more rebounds than any of them obviously. But there's like, you can't even basketball references like, I don't know what to make

of this. Like who are, I don't know. You got me. And not included in any of that search data is can defend every position on the floor, including seven foot centers, which Avery Johnson or Jose Calderon. I wonder if they should add like almost like in chess where you have in what's an ELO score for chess.

I almost wonder if basketball reference should just randomly assign ELO scores defensively for every player. Like Draymond would be like what, like a 97? Whatever the highest is. You give them a hundred. I don't know. Is that where Elo, I don't play chess. I don't feel like Bill Russell has to be a hundred.

Like can we have multiple? We can only have one hundred? Yeah. I think Russell's the only hundred. Okay. Um, yeah. So that's, that's basically all my Draymond stuff. Other than, I don't know how much longer this goes.

There's a weird, they've done a lot about this this year, next year, the contracts are aligned. This is our last dance. I don't know if I'd necessarily believe that, but what's been cool is watching Butler and Draymond and that play yesterday was like Draymond, like they're going to go to Shengu and I'm going to stop him and Jimmy's like, and I'm going to get the rebound and And then Jimmy comes flying in. He probably has what?

Like 10 pounds of Toradel shot in his ass at that point. And it's starting to wear off and he comes flying in and gets the ultimate Jimmy Butler in traffic rebound, holds the ball, protects it, gets fouled. And he's like, that was my rebound. That was my rebound. Like the combo of those two guys, they're both insane. The rebound. Well, like Draymond does what he does. That was my rebound like the combo of those two guys. They're both insane the rebound Will it dream on does what he does. He stands up Shen goon

Forces a 14-footer when it should have been a nine-footer, you know exactly he's done it a billion times. That's what he does Jimmy Butler is 35 going on 36 Injured and even when not injured is like a below-the-rim old man kind of player now and I mean that is a compliment He's smart. He cuts he hits people he knows what to but he's not a high flyer never really was but certainly is it now That rebound had the feel I watched it like five times this morning. It had the feel of it had the feel of like This is everything I have left in my body at the end of this game is This is everything I have left in my body at the end of this game is pouring in to jumping as high as I can with as much force as I can because Steven Adams is under there and I know what Steven Adams is, is an offensive rebounder.

It was one of those great athletic sports moments of like digging deep and all the cliches we talked about that rebound is like he's not jumping that high again, probably for the entire rest of the playoffs as long as Golden State goes on that was like this is everything I got If this game goes to overtime, I'm gonna feel the pain of this jump for the rest of this game But I got to get this rebound Well, I thought the Rockets were gonna win last night I wasn't expecting the Jalen Grant Jalen Green stink bomb, but they did get a crazy Van Vliet game But it came down to the fear if you're taking the Rockets in this series expecting the Jalen Green stink bomb, but they did get a crazy Van Vliet game.

Um, but it came down to the fear. If you were taking the Rockets in this series, the fear was what's going to happen late in games when both teams have to execute, how is this going to play out? And it executed, it happened the way it happened. The reason I thought the Rockets were going to win because I didn't think Steph was going to have a big game. Cause they, he put out so much on Saturday night. I was like, well, they're not getting that again. And Butler's hurt. How are they going to get to a hundred points?

I didn't realize Dylan Brooks was going to talk shit to Butler and just activate playoff Jimmy. And now it just, now it just feels like the Rockets are going sideways and we're just going to wait for the honest trade now. Trade machine summer. This is a Draymond Green segment. Should we talk about that Draymond Green was like on the verge of getting ejected? I don't say he was on the verge of getting ejected in that game, but the technical, a

flagrant and the Tarii Isen thing where he rolled over him and tried to go to his foot, hit his neck. Like, I, I'm watching that. I'm like, they could throw them out of the game for this. Like I, he's going to, it is maybe an accident. It looks like an accident. It can be plausibly explained away as an accident, but the thing about Draymond Green's accidents, and there are a lot of them, is that it never feels as if he's trying to calm the accident or restrain his limbs from moving in ways that will accelerate

and worsen the accident. It's always like, my legs are doing this, you're in the way, my legs are gonna keep doing this. I'm not gonna try to stop my legs, my legs are doing what they're doing, and if your head's in the way, your head's in the way. Right, and there's been other guys over the years like that too. Like remember when Ron Artest just elbowed James Harden the head

and basically knocked him out. And I don't think it was intentional, but I also think it was the same thing. It was like, Hey, my elbow needed to go forward and that guy's head happened to be in the way and I had to do it. Um, some guys bow and it was never an accident. I never felt like it was maybe a partial accident, but he would kick his, what was that? He kicked somebody in the face running by a three that time. Remember? I can't remember who it was. Uh, he did like,

but kicked him right in the face and they're reviewing the play and I'm like, it doesn't really, it looks mostly like an accident. It also doesn't really look good. He already has a technical. He's always seems to have a technical. And as you well know, Dreymon Green with a technical is like a superhero. He's impervious to technical number two for the most. He can do whatever he wants.

Dreymon with five fouls is the other one. Like he had five fouls yesterday, felt like for an hour and he's just doing the vertical stop at everybody. It never gets the six foul. It's pretty crazy. He's still, he's still a genius. If he had a player earlier in this series, I don't remember who he was guarding, but somebody for the Rockets had the ball at the elbow and went to pass to

somebody Draymond. He was, it was Draymond's guy. I had the ball at the elbow and he went to pass to a cutter somebody Draymond. It was Draymond's guy, I had the ball at the elbow, and he went to pass to a cutter. And Draymond did the thing where he read his mind, and it was almost as if he was ahead of the pass. He starts drifting away from his own guy, and the pass comes, and it's essentially a pass to Draymond,

because Draymond has out-anticipated the guy who's actually initiating the action, and he passes the ball, and Draymond because Draymond has anticipated out anticipated the guy who's actually initiating the action and he passes the ball and Draymond's just there and it's like, what's this? What's this? How you just like, is it's not even just in sync with the ball. He's ahead of the ball. He still makes those plays. You know who else does that?

And I noticed that every time I'm in person and Saturday was at another level. It was Sam, Sam Hauser. No, Yokeish. Oh, he, I just, like to me, the, there's so many litmus tests for how many, how much people are actually watching basketball. And one of them is if somebody tries to tell me Yocush is like a shitty defensive

player, it's like, go fucking watch him in person. Just blow up plays, just be like, are you going to do that? I'm going to dive right as you're about to do that pass. And now you're jumping in the air because you thought you had that guy. And now you're like, just kind of throwing it over your head. He, he's spooky. How he can reach it. He had a pass after, uh, the, the game three where they doubled them at the top,

the top of the key. Chris Dunn was in the corner on Christian Brown and he kind of leaked over and Yoko just faced the other way like this and Christian Brown is behind him this way. Chris Dunn comes over. He feels Chris Dunn and just whips the past of Christian Brown. Like, if you watch it, you're like, he, how does he, there's 10 seconds where you don't know he's there. How did you know he was there?

I have no idea. That might be one of his, that is one of his signature passes. And I've watched dozens of them at this point. And sometimes I go back and I rewind it and I'm like, let me try to find. How he knew? Time that he made eye contact, that his head was facing the direction of the player he ends up passing to. And sometimes you just can't find it.

Like there's a defensive rebound. He has the ball. He's looking over here and then the pass comes. You're like, I don't, I don't really, I don't know. What was crazy about that play was he didn't know it was Chris Dunn who was coming over to double him. So he had to also know instinctively Chris Dunn is coming over to double me, even though I can't see him.

And then when he does that, it's like some fucking star wars shit. When they put the helmet on Luke Skywalker and they're like, Luke, just use the force like he can do that. Well, it's fitting that we're talking about Yokocho's passing and dream on his defense in the same breath, because that's about, that's fitting that we're talking about Jokic's passing and Dreymon's defense in the same breath because that's about right. I think this has been an awesome basketball round of games and we didn't even know what's going to happen in these four that are about to happen. Quickly, Golden State, who do you think they'd much rather play the Lakers or kind of would

rather play the Lakers or wouldn't really want to play either if you had to guess, assuming they get there. We're definitely at the stage of the Western Conference Playoffs where it's just, okay, well that path sucks. That path sucks. That path really sucks. Um, I would say given the fact that JJ Reddick just played the same five guys for an entire half of basketball and they looked gassed at the end and one of them is 40. Um, and they don't have the Anthony Davis piece that kind of troubled the Warriors.

I would say the Lakers are probably a better matchup. The Warriors would probably prefer to play the Lakers a little bit. Cause just Minnesota. Especially from four weeks ago when they went head to head. Big nasty and I mean, but it's no picnic playing Luca. You look at Luca and LeBron, like I'm really picking that team. But I think given their respective states of the teams, I think I would pick, if I were the Warriors, I'd say kind of rather play the Lakers.

Yeah. And plus there's the Edwards. How real is this? This is last year. So here it is. Anthony Edwards has joined the party. He's now a superstar. And this year there's now this next step that might be happening. I don't want to jinx it. But I think he's at the party. He's at the party for you. Yeah, he's at the party. If you're starting a franchise right now, I want to do first tech second, because I think I saw this today. Would you, would you rather have Luca or Anthony Edwards next five years? Cause I think I'd rather have Edwards. That's crazy.

Yeah. Next five years. I think I'd still take Luca. Yeah. Cause you're getting a choice by the way. Can't lose with Luca. you're at least getting though What if he shows up on a mission this year piece like Shaq for those three four years with Shaq in the late 90s? Or it's like what if he takes this seriously one season?

Now we're supposed to pretend that never happened Okay, and then No chance Lakers come back kind of a chance sort of a chance or you feel like that was their desperation If you have home court it for five and potentially seven you got a chance I would be surprised if they came back. I would be surprised if this got to seven I would be surprised if it got to seven I just think you gas out your team like that. You've sent a message to the team like we got to win this game You don't win in Minnesota's hungry. They're young and they're fresh.

Um, I would be surprised if it got back to seven. You know what they need to do? Hope that Anthony Edwards goes into, I got this mode. Like they're going to probably win game five because they'll get every call. Game six. You hope for some hero ball from Edwards. You hope for the Tom Thibodeau doc game seven, 2010 final strategy of. Let's try to, let's try to use Edwards's desire

to be the hero against him and maybe just hope he makes some bad shots and kind of shoots them out of the game. I think he also could just dunk you into pieces and end your season very quickly. He is certainly unafraid. Zach low. I was, we ran out of time. I was gonna ask you to rank your favorite Ringer people, but we can do that the next time.

Ooh, that's a spicy one, another time. Yeah, another time. Podcast for you on Thursday. Yes, coming off two good games Wednesday night. Yeah, good to see you my friend. Always fun. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Goldsberry and Zach.

Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau for helping behind the scenes. Don't forget about new rewatchables. Went up on Monday night. Someone watch over me. You can watch that on the Ring of Moves YouTube channel. You can watch all the stuff from this on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel or as a video podcast on Spotify. I'm gonna be back on Thursday with more stuff. Some basketball, maybe a little bit. Not basketball, we'll see. I'll see you in a couple of days. ["I Don't Have a Few Hits With Him"] Must be 21 plus in President-elect states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino

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