The Bill Simmons Podcast - Steph’s Apex Mountain Leaves Boston Reeling With Rob Mahoney and Wosny Lambre

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Wosny Lambre and Rob Mahoney to discuss the Warriors' series-tying win in Boston, Steph Curry’s incredible performance, Jaylen Brown shining as Jayson Tatum struggles, a look ahead to Game 5, and more. Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Wosny Lambre and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, we're going to talk about game four of the 2022 NBA Finals. You can hear from the sound of my voice. It's not turned out the way I was hoping. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year.

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Rob Mahoney was at game four in Boston. Big Waz and I were not, but we're going to talk about it. An incredible Steph Curry game. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. Okay, taping this. It is 846 Pacific Time.

Just watched Game 4 of the 2022 NBA Finals. I'm in L.A., Waz in L.A. Rob Mahoney is on the ground in Boston, Massachusetts. For one of Steph Curry's greatest games ever, might have even been the best, what was it like to see in the arena, Rob? Unreal. I mean, he's had a couple of those moments,

especially here in this building over these last two games, where just hitting deflating shots, run killing shots, momentum boosting shots, obviously for the Warriors. But he has such a unique impact on opposing crowds. And this crowd has been so great through these two games. It's been kind of awesome to see him go back and forth with them a little bit over the course of especially this game four. Yeah, you could see in the first quarter, he was really getting himself fired up. You know, I think there's levels of when Steph is locked in. He was charged up. He was ready to go. I think they probably took some of the crowd stuff personally from from game three. But I think you made the key point. It's such a rare kind of player who can take a crowd out of it

like that. That crowd was crazy. It was a drunk Friday night, Boston crowd. I had friends that were there that were telling me the crowd was just off the change. Was, was that the best career game ever for you? For me? Absolutely. Um, when you consider the stakes, when you consider the opponent, right? Like I think this Boston group is a historic level defensive unit. Um, collectively when you consider their, you know, collective defensive talent and their like execution on that. And so for him to be doing that against this group is amazing.

I don't think Steph has ever played better. That's just my opinion from watching this. Yeah, it's interesting because he's been great now for, really since probably the 2014 season. But there's just this other level. It's almost you would compare him to like a tennis player, like a Federer type of person who won majors earlier in their career.

And then as they get older and older, the precision and just the little things, the sense of a moment, things like that. I thought, you know, obviously I love Curry. He's my favorite non-Celtic. So to say this has been bittersweet to watch him destroy my team. You know, he sucks to root against him. But at the same time, like, you know, I think he's been underrated as a playoff guy. He didn't get those finals MVPs, which I think people hold on him. Durant deserved it those two years. Durant was amazing. But at the same time, like Houston,

game six, 2019 after Durant went out. Incredible. And Steph sucked in the first half. And then I think he had like 30 plus second half. Yeah. Game three, Toronto,

2019. 47? 47. They lost, but it was just like Steph against the world. It was a little like tonight, except they won tonight game 4 2018 37 4 and 6

game 4 2015 against Cleveland 38 so he's he's had the moments I always thought game 4 2016 when Draymond punched LeBron the balls near the end but that game as a team I think was the best

realization of the pre postpost KD Warriors. But this was a different level. And the other thing is, it wasn't like he was getting a ton of help, Rob. There was a little pool. Wiggins was rebounding and the offensive rebounds were good. Klay had a couple moments. But for the most part, this was way closer to the 2015 Warriors, right? Or I think it was maybe even closer to what people feared the 2015 Warriors were,

which is like a jump shooting only team. Because the way that the Celtics can guard Draymond with Robert Williams lurking around the paint or Marcus Smart mucking up the paint, they don't get a lot going to the basket right now. It's basically whatever Steph gives you off the dribble, whatever he can tease out of these pick and rolls or pull up from three, that's it. And so I want to be careful because I want to thread the needle here and not disparage the other Warriors too much. But I think

part of what makes Steph great, and really the mark of any great player, is they could go on a run like this to the finals and they make it hard to tell sometimes that they're carrying the entire team. A lot of the commentary around the Warriors was, oh, Steph and Klay and Draymond are all back together. I think what's really going on is Steph has been here

and has these guys on his back, and they're doing great things in this game or that, but it's him. It's all him. Yeah, and my favorite part about tonight's game from Steph is you could tell from the get-go, he's like, I got to get shots up, period. There was no hesitation. There was no, he understood that Boston was guarding the hell out of everybody else on that team. And anytime he got any kind of daylight, he put that thing up

and, you know, his drive game was working. At the end there, when Looney got that layup, they finally blitzed him, which I thought was a poor thing to do with Tatum being the switch guy there. They blitzed him. Draymond gets the four and three, gets Looney to layup. So even when they finally send two his way, Steph quickly gets the ball out of his hands and gets his team a layup. He was just, he was perfect tonight. He was incredible.

Yeah. You know, this dates back to Davidson, right? Like the March Madness staff, just him carrying a group and this Warriors team is obviously, it's a good team. But the mentality of like, let's set up our guy. Let's set up our guy.

We got to ride our guy. We got to get him open. We got to go handoff, handoff, pick. Oh, he's going to be good. Like there was that play when Peyton had the wide open three in the corner in the fourth quarter. And instead of taking it, he did this weird hop step, save the pass, and then set a pick for Steph. Steph's coming around. All they're doing all the time is just trying to figure out ways to unlock and unleash him.

And it's a true team. It's really cool. I mean, we've seen different kind of ball dominant teams over the years. That's not the kind of basketball I love, dating back to the Kobe, LeBron, the Harden. It's produced a lot of results. This is so much more inclusive. And they've had so many years now to do it. What's interesting is they can bring in these new characters who figure out how to do it on the fly. And, um, it was just spooky.

Some of the shit he was doing. It really was like for him to diffuse that crowd was, uh, was pretty nuts. What'd you feel like the Celtics kind of just said, fuck it. It's white and smart. It's Tatum and Brown and either Williams or Horford.

And they made the decision to go with the two guards late. Did you agree with that, Rob? What could the Celtics have done there in the fourth? Well, there was a lot of weird matchup stuff going on in the fourth in general. And I think they may have found it hard to figure out what the Warriors were doing because they were almost going offense-defense subs

at some points with Draymond and Jordan Poole. And so the matchups are so different with Draymond on the floor. I'm sure we could spend a lot of time just talking about him and the predicament he's put the Warriors in in this series in general and kind of coming up in some big moments offensively late.

I don't really have a problem with them playing the two guards, especially because of who they are and they can both guard Steph and they can both be involved in those plays. It just stretches you out a little bit when the Celtics have been so good when they can get the offensive rebounds

and when they control the glass and when they keep the Warriors off them, especially when Looney's on the court. I would hesitate to give any of that up. Do you think the Celtics would you have stayed big near the end? What would have been your wrinkle? I thought Al did a pretty

deep, the best job he's done all series on those pick and rolls against Steph. I don't really think the defense was bad. I thought they played about as well as you can. They had that miscommunication up top for that Klay three-pointer at the top of the key. But, I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do with Steph Curry? Like people panic sometimes and he got it to clay and he makes a wide open

three. I think they played as they played good defense tonight. They scored three points in the last five and a half minutes. And that's why they lost this game. Well, that's where I'm going with the lineups. So they're playing white. They have smart Tatum.

Just, I don't know what happened have smart. Tatum just, I don't know what happened to him second quarter on. He was really good in the first quarter and it looked like we were headed for a Steph versus Tatum game. Then all of a sudden we weren't. I think he ended up with six turnovers. I actually had him down for

seven. But I thought he lost his confidence as the game went along. Jalen, they just were staying on him and really the most worried about him. White, Smart, they seemed super happy when those guys were shooting threes. I don't know, man. I just felt like the game was slipping away there. The Celts, I think they were up 91-86. Brown hit that layup. Smart got fouled. Three-point play, basically, was Smart shooting the free throw.

I think that was at like the 730 mark. And after that, they were one for their next 10 with turnover. And it was just them chucking up threes. And this is like, KFC and I talked about this after game three, this Jekyll and Hyde Celtics team. And you feel it when it's happening.

It's like, oh, here we go. Nobody can do anything. Hot potato, 25 footers with five seconds left in the shot clock. And it took me to a dark place, Rob. It really did, where you start thinking like, can you win a title if you don't have the best player in the series or somebody who's within a hair of the best player in the series, right? Like the Warriors beat LeBron a couple of times. LeBron was... He was dead even with Durant in 2017. 2018, probably slightly

better. He got hurt. But can you win a series when you don't have the best player in the finals? There's just not a lot of track record for it. I mean, I think the argument would be could you win with four of the best five players in a series, basically? If you want to run down the list of who's been the best,

I think you get to a lot of Celtics before you go to a second warrior. Right. Well, I think, Waz, would you say Wiggins is the second best warrior at this point? Absolutely. He's been their most consistent player outside of Steph the entire series. Like what he did on the boards, offensive class tonight was huge to keep possessions alive. Obviously you see what he's doing defensively on an island against guys like Brown and Tatum where they're decent, but they're not scoring hyper efficiently. Wiggins has absolutely been the second best player on the Warriors this series, which shocks me, honestly. I didn't think

that that would be the case coming in. And, you know, we got to give some Warriors some props here. I thought the Celtics kept attacking Bielitsa. By the way, huge mistake. He's a sneaky good defender. They had no scouting report on that. It's a Euro bias because if Jordan Poole is out there, I don't know how you think Bielitsa is the guy that you want to keep going at over and over. And he held up, I thought, Klay Thompson in the fourth quarter. He guarded Jalen Brown on an island on three or four possessions and was incredible.

And that looked like vintage Klay Thompson defense there. So, you know, while Steph is doing everything on offense, I thought defensively these other Warriors absolutely stepped up to the plate and it mattered. Like, again, like,

these guys, the Celtics couldn't put together a great possession down the stretch offensively and these guys were the reason why. I am anxiously awaiting the Jason Tatum versus Nemanja Bialica one-on-one stats for this game

because he had at least two turnovers against Bialica, a couple of misses. For whatever reason, Bialica hangs in those switches pretty well. Yeah, and Klay, I thought... It's funny, after game two, Rossello and I talked about what happens if it's in crunch time, who occurs best five

going to be? And after two games, I would have said, I don't know if Clay's in there because I don't think he's moving quite the same way. And defensively, I don't think he's the same guy anymore. I thought his defense in the fourth quarter was spectacular. He really, really gave Jalen problems. And Jalen, it's so weird with the Celtics team because everybody's been in such a rush to anoint Tatum, so weird with the Celtics team because everybody's been in such a rush to anoint Tatum, including himself with the Kobe wristband and all that stuff. Maybe cool it on the Kobe stuff for a game. And Jalen's, as I'm watching this, just as a fan of the team, I want them, today I wanted them to get the ball to Jalen. And he was really, I thought,

torching Draymond. And we'll get to Draymond in the next segment. But I thought Clay, his defense on Jalen was one of the keys to the game. And then the fact that White, who I just thought lost his confidence as offensively as the game went along. And what's crazy about this game, so it was the only game with one day rest. Like, I knew Horford was going to game with one day rest. That like, I knew Horford was going to be affected.

Horford. I think he's old. He's a lot of minutes in the playoffs. And in general, like, I think the rest really helps him. You knew he was going to get hurt. I thought Clay was going to be hurt.

Clay played 41 minutes. Like Clay looks spry. I don't know. Did he fly to Italy yesterday? Was what happened? I might've been Germany for been Germany for the blood spinning. Who knows? Maybe some stem cells.

Who knows? But no, look, Clay, as much crap as he's gotten for his play at various parts of this series, he's money down the stretch. Whenever he takes a big shot, it's a tight game in the fourth quarter. You think that thing is going in. Again, you can't say enough about what he did on defense's movement, opening stuff up, because when Looney and Draymond are on the court, they just become so much easier to guard and less dynamic. And Klay is part of why there's any breathing room whatsoever.

So you got to give him his props for that. Jordan Poole in the second quarter, when Steph sat, he had some big minutes. That dude is not lacking for confidence at all. Like, he was on his step thing. He was like, as soon as I get daylight while I'm in here and Steph is on the bench, this thing is going up. And that was a huge stretch for them. Just a gritty, gritty, gritty win, man.

Well, and Boston wasn't hunting pool at all, which I don't understand. There's some strategy stuff with the Celtics. This game especially, I thought Kerr was outstanding in this game. I mean, he just, every switch,

and we'll get to the Draymond thing. Actually, this episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by State Farm. People assume a team with a lot of height will use it to advance in the playoffs,

but then they surprise everyone by leaning on their smaller players to speed up the game. So Steve Kerr has the big move. He says, screw it. He benches Draymond. He brought Draymond back in with under four minutes left, but Draymond was out for all of the fourth quarter.

And I thought it was going to be Klay when Kerr really needed a game, I thought. And he has to think about, how do I maybe sacrifice a little of the old dynasty? What kind of conundrum am I going to be in? But it turned out to be Draymond. And Rob, I thought that was the right move. I thought Draymond, offensively, was four on five. Athletically, just looked a step slow. And I wasn't surprised Kurt did it, but I was surprised he did it, right? It just takes an incredible amount of

political capital as a coach to be able to do that in a moment like this with a player of that reputation who's that important to your franchise or eyes look the eyes are one thing but like to realistically do that to draymond is tough like it takes stones and a player like him who you bench him at the wrong time do you lose him for the series effectively? Like, is he not the same player after that? You need him to be in an aggressive headspace. But the reality is Looney has been better

over the course of this series, without a doubt. Like, he's given the Warriors so much more of what they need in terms of defense, in terms of rebounding, most importantly in terms of how they're guarded. The screens, absolutely. And so that's really what the starting lineup shift was about starting Otto Porter in this game had very little to do with Otto Porter is more about separating Draymond and Looney in the rotation as much as

they possibly could to give the offense as much room to breathe as they possibly could and they found the right moments like Kerr did find the right spots for Draymond in the end he and Draymond paid off that kind of confidence, ended up with at least a high assist total, if nothing else. At least a Draymondian assist total. Even if he was a non-factor offensively, even if he hasn't hit a three in the series so far, at least he found some way to chip in.

Yeah, and Looney's plus 36 in the series. And I was waiting for them to do this with just looting more shooters, because I thought there was going to have to be a moment in this series when they just basically had to outscore the Celtics. I know you're supposed to outscore the other team all the time, but the offense I thought was going to be the big thing. Could they rebound while keeping shooting out there? They had 55 rebounds tonight.

The Celtics had 42. Rob Williams finished with 12, but I think he had 10 at halftime and Tatum at 11 rebounds was if the Warriors lose this, how does Draymond handle that in your opinion, after the game getting, getting sat for most of the fourth quarter, it felt like that felt like a do or die benching by Kirk. Cause I do feel like that really could have gone sideways. He didn't play well and he doesn't contribute to the thing that golden state was struggling with which is scoring so it made sense that he would not play like they played quite fine defense they were great as a unit like what they struggled with was any kind of offense outside of stuff like it was literally squeezing water out of a stone.

OK. And so if you if you can't score and your team is way below its offensive efficiency, I don't know what the critique is there on Steve Kerfuss sitting a guy who is he's not a neutral on offense now. He is a negative against a team as capable as Boston. And so, man, again, like, you know, I might be stubborn. And I did pick the Celtics to win this in six. I don't see Golden State's offensive woes going away anytime soon. And I still feel quite confident in my pick. Rob Mahoney.

Yeah, Rob. I see what you're doing here. I see what's going on. Yeah, Rob, you picked the Warriors in five. Yeah. No, no. That's not even what happened. It's not even what happened.

I picked the Warriors in six, but I said I was thinking about the Warriors in five. He said he was leaving five. Waz is holding a half take against me, and I don't appreciate it. It's like a third of a take. Well, it's like people that assume they can't afford great insurance,

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Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. The Draymond thing, I was doing some work when I was flying back. I was looking at his stats during the peak versus where they were now. This was before the game, but he played 104 playoff games

from 2015 to 2018 and was 13, 10, and 7. 44% shooting, 31% from three, 3.7 free throw attempts, 17.1 PR. Heading into tonight, 19 playoff games this year. He was eight, seven, and six, 20% from three, 2.4 free throw attempts and 11.9 PR. So the stats are saying something's dipped. The eye tests are saying... I actually went back and watched some YouTube of him in 15 and 16. 16,

game 7, he played one of the great random games. He made like 6 threes. And was all over the place and just athletically... Man, go back and watch that and watch the dream I were watching now. That guy was like a robo athlete. And this guy now is

just a little more on the ground and i think you know his stats are okay today but the offense has gone sideways i still feel like her might even be playing him too much how he's playing him anyway i know he got benched today but looney is just a better fit for this team so something something interesting to watch down the road. What do you got, Wes? At the same time, it's a delicate dance. Because if you do say, you know, I'm going to lean into this Jordan Poole thing, man, you're downsizing in a crazy way. And you will suffer the consequences defensively. So it's like this.

It's this dance when you don't have two-way guys, guys who contribute on both ends of the floor. Steve Kerr is earning his paycheck in this series, man. And that's the beauty of a seven-game series, Bill. It's like this chess match. And Steve Kerr was masterful at it. Tonight, we'll see what he comes up with going forward because there are no easy answers here. I guarantee before this game

he was like, rebound, rebound. We got to rebound, rebound. I remember I was texting him before. We've stopped texting during the finals. We're going to pick up this summer. But he was saying that one of the things they loved about Wiggins and one of the things they really worked on him that he's come through on is the rebounding.

That especially if they play these smaller lineups, he just has to feel some sort of responsibility and passion for it versus just assuming other people do it. It's weird that sometimes somebody can just have five of the biggest rebounds in the game and it just felt like he did. And the realized potential of that, I know it's been a big storyline this whole playoffs, but can you imagine us two years ago, if somebody just took a videotape of that game from a time machine and showed us Wiggins in this game, be like, yeah, that guy in Minnesota

who they literally can't trade his contract, watch this guy because tonight he was a playoff guy. Well, the rebounds in particular like that was the thing in minnesota early in his career he was the most athletic guy in the league he would he would get like three and four rebounds a game the staff was like pleading desperate exasperated trying to figure out how to get him to rebound more how to get him to like plug in and like even participate in that way? And the idea that he would have a massive rebounding game, not only in volume, but as we've been circling, in magnitude, pulling down some of those opportunities,

turning them into essential baskets down the stretch of a must-win finals game. I think that's as significant as any other part of his transformation. He's a go-to defender now. He's playing his role offensively. This is completely unfounded in terms of a guy like him early in his career, who is one of the worst positional rebounders in the league. Becoming this guy, becoming a guy who can help you play small, that's incredible. That's an incredible player development success story. By the way, I want to give a shout out to Jet Van Gundy, who I still think is the best color guy that we have in the league.

Because he mentioned, he's like, look, if Rob Williams is going to fly out on all this weak side help and erasing shots and affecting shots in the paint and, you know, causing all of these misses. The forwards need to crash the boards. Draymond has to crash the boards. Draymond has to crash the boards. Wiggins has to crash the boards. And then you saw the Warriors actually doing that. Draymond had a couple of putbacks. We already talked about what Wiggins did. Looney, that dude, he gets his hands on a ball.

It's like super glued to his hands. Like he is just an insane rebounder. Look, Tom Lord is great when he's flying around, but there is a con to that, and the Warriors were lucky enough to exploit that tonight. Alright, we gotta

do it. I gotta complain about the Celtics. We did enough stuff, right? I feel like we led with the Warriors. We did the responsible thing. Warriors were great tonight. That was a hostile environment. God, man.

This was little flashbacks of Game 5 Milwaukee where you just feel like you let one slip away. I don't feel like the series is over by any means. The Celtics team, they sweep the nets. They're 10 and eight in their last 18 games, three rounds. They have not won more than two in a row.

It's the ultimate, we zig, then we zag, then we zig, then we zag. And it's almost like, they remind me of me in college. I got this term paper due Wednesday. When should I start it? Oh, I know. Tuesday at nine o'clock. I'm going to try to start it then.

When do I finish? Probably like 5.30. I'll just, I'll drink some Coke and coffee and I'll get that thing done. But you need that deadline. Rob, is this Celtics team? They just have to have their backs to the wall. That's it.

Why do they have to make it so hard for themselves? What's your take? I mean, I wish I could figure it out. They certainly can't figure it out. They're so weird. And like, I don't know. It wasn't as if they had some intensity deficit in this game. No! This was an incredible atmosphere,

an intense game, almost start to finish. I thought they were in it. Well, did you see that nobody had a lead of more than seven? Wow, is that true? Until the last minute of the game. Anyway, I interrupted you. No, but just an incredible give and take in that respect. But, I mean, it usually is their offense, right, that teeters.

That's kind of the side of the ball in which they're a little bit less reliable. I don't know where it comes from exactly. I mean, you could blame the fact that in some of these big spots, the ball finds its way to Marcus Smart to take consecutive threes, you know, even sometimes on one possession with offensive rebounds. Sometimes it's that.

Sometimes it's like you're talking about Tatum kind of, I don't know about disappearing, but fading into the background of this game a little bit after the first quarter. No, you can say disappearing might be the right word. I don't think that's entirely fair to him. Yeah, man. I'm not against it.

I wouldn't hang it on him, but if you were going to make the take, I wouldn't fight you on it. No, no. I am not making the take. It's more of a, are you the guy who scored 46 games, six Milwaukee? Or are you the guy that looks like 2018, you're a rookie in the league and

you can't solve anything? And that's been the conundrum with him all year. How some games you look like you can solve every defense and you're seeing everything in slow motion and you're making all the right decisions. And other times you have seven turnovers in the third quarter when your team has multiple chances to kind of blow the game open and put in double digits and you're just throwing the ball to the other team well to be frank i mean that's why he's not steph that's why he's not yannis or like whoever you want to put in that top tier he's in that next group of players and that that may be good enough to win a championship anyway but

you're gonna have to live with some of the ebbs and flows of that reality yeah and the crazy thing for tatum for me is that I've always been somebody who complained about his settling for these step-back long twos like being his go-to move. I'm starting to think maybe he should just stick to jump shots because some of these forays into the lane,

like in game three, he made some of the most impossible runners, running, diving type of layups and missed some bunnies at the cup. And today was a little bit more of the same. Like he just could not finish in the lane. And, you know, the thing about the elites that we mentioned earlier, like if you're a jitterbug, yeah, you're going to dribble right past him. But Tatum is not that kind of guy. He's not this quick not that kind of guy. He's not this

quick first step kind of guy. He's a guy that has to get an angle on you and his broad shoulders, you know, sort of win the day after that. And he's a guy who's good at creating space. But like some of these turnarounds from 14 where it's like, look, it's it's a pretty clean look, right? It's pretty contested. But like in the playoffs against a defense of the caliber of the Warriors, like you're going to get a fall away from 14 feet. And that's not a terrible outcome. He just doesn't seem to be making no's either. Yeah, too many long twos too.

I'm with you. The 14-footer is his bread and butter. The finishing around the rim is the perplexing thing to me. This is something that has kind of plagued him a little bit over the years where he just goes in these stretches. Like at the game three, he must have missed five layups. Once today, he would have these great drives, and then he just wouldn't finish.

And it's not like the Warriors have Mutombo patrolling the defense. They got Looney. They got a Loonzo down there. I have more Tatum thoughts, but we're going to take a break. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too.

So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See? Safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned.

Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. So you look at Tatum, first two rounds, he was 28, 6, and 6. 44, 39, 82 percentage. And looked like he was on his way to, you know, if the Celtics won the title, like one of the, you know, a really high-end forward performance, right? You think like not as high as 2012 LeBron, something like that, or maybe even

2011 Dirk, but the best forward on a title team, it seemed conceivable. His last 12 games in the last two rounds, it's dip. He's getting the rebounds, but he's under 24 points a game now. The free throw percentage is down basically at 40 and the turnovers are up. On the flip side, Jalen's numbers are up across the board. Jalen in the first two rounds was 22, seven and four. Now he's probably like 25, eight and three. And in some ways they seem way more even than I think people thought three rounds ago. Right. What do you guys see? You're not Celtics fans. What do you see, Wes? In the finals, I'm not going to lie,

Jalen Brown has kind of blown me away. And he's been doing so. Like, if anybody's been killing their matchups, whenever he gets somebody who isn't good enough, it's been him. And he even got some stuff going against Draymond Green, who was universally accepted as a defensive player of the year, all-time great defender, even at a diminished state, and he's gotten off against Green.

Like, I think he's been their most consistent offensive threat. Like, and we think of Tatum as that guy, and Tatum has done the playmaking stuff to a good degree, but then he's had some boneheaded turnovers, right? So, yeah, I've been very impressed by what Brown has been able to do in this series and generally speaking in the playoffs, and he's doing it without a handle. Yeah, you're right. We can't gloss over the playmaking part of that, though, because I think part of what makes Jalen Brown so well suited to attack in those situations is he's doing it

off of the ball swinging from one side of the court to the other off of Tatum even if he's not drawing double teams pulling Draymond into the paint pulling help defenders into the paint and working around them I think his passing has been really good even in this game I thought it was really good it's just not enough you know on a game where Steph has the night he does to also be

shooting poorly from the field offensively and the way that Tatum has like that's the thing some of the inexplicable misses, whether they're mid-range, whether they're at the rim, whether he's playing for contact, which he does a lot and doesn't get calls. It's been a tough scoring series for him, but the playmaking,

the reality is they can't get that anywhere else. He's the only guy on their team who can facilitate in that way, and that puts him in a good position to do that and Brown in a good position to be the killer on the weak side attacking from those passes. And that puts him in a good position to do that and Brown in a good position to be the killer on the weak side attacking from those passes. And that's why White's so important.

And the team kind of ebbs it. If White plays really well, I think they're really, really hard to beat, especially in this series. When White's a little more up and down, it gets tough.

Yeah, listen. I was on some threads. As you know, I'm on a couple Celtics threads. Up five when Jalen made those two layups. 7.30 left. And it was like, all right, if they win this game, the finals MVP bandwagon is going to be going by Jalen Brown's house.

Yeah. It seemed like he was in the pole position. Now it's 2-2 if the Warriors win. I think it's pretty clear who would win the finals MVP. But what's weird about the Celtics is the series 2-2 if the Warriors win. I think it's pretty clear who would win the finals MVP. But what's weird about the Celtics is the series 2-2, I have no idea who their finals MVP candidate would be. I guess, begrudgingly, it would be Jalen. I think Rob makes some good points, though.

Tatum's job is harder in this series. He's doing the superstar stuff. Yep. Yes. Well, yeah, he's the one that's drawing help. He's the one that, you know, as soon as he sees a guy on the weak side step his foot in, he's whipping that thing, that skip pass, that one-handed skip pass to guys. Like, he's doing the heavy usage, playmaking, create for other stuff.

And, you know, Jalen has been freed up to just kind of be himself and attack guys, which has worked for him. But, you know, they do need, they need Tatum scoring. They need it. They can't win this series without it. Is it fair to say Tatum and Brown are the best two-man combo in the league right now? I remember I always used to do this two-man championship belt thing. And obviously there was years like, you know, 2016, it's clearly LeBron and Kyrie, right, coming out of that. And then the next two years, it's clearly KD and Curry all the way through when KD, you know, gets hurt.

And then 2020, it's clearly Davis and LeBron. And then last year, it's Giannis and probably Middleton because Middleton was great in the playoffs. This year we don't have like the, I don't know who the two-man championship belt is. It's almost like Curry and any teammate, but I don't even know if that's a pick. It felt like it was sitting there for Tatum and Brown

to go down as this, you know, pretty amazing young combination of these 225 guys. Brown passed 500 points today. To put that in perspective, teammates with 500 plus points in the same playoffs. I was working on this on the plane because I knew it might be coming. 2021, Giannis and Middleton. 2020, LeBron and AD. 16, Kyrie and LeBron. 2014, KD and Russ. Only time we didn't have finals guys in there. 12, Wade and LeBron. 2008, Garnett and Pippen. I mean, Pierce.

And then 0-2, Kobe and Shaq. So this is only the eighth time this has ever happened in the history of NBA. Now, we play more playoff games so that you have more of a chance to do it, but that ain't nothing. And then you look at some of the Tatum stuff where it's like 900 minutes in the playoffs, 500 points, 150 rebounds, 125 assists. It's basically Tatum, 2003 Duncan, 2018 LeBron, 12-13 LeBron, and 80-47 Bird.

So from a historic standpoint, I think the aliens 100 years from now will be looking at this kind of more impressed than I think I am right now. Isn't it weird to think like, I'm just through some big names around there, but it doesn't feel like they're even close to the level, right? I mean, you got it. Look, the Celtics team around them is fairly talented, right? Like it's rare that you get a guy like Time Lord is like your fourth best player, fifth best player, right? Like they got a talented group around them. And I think when Kawhi and Paul George are right,

I think they're better. But those dudes are never right. When's that going to be? What year are we talking about? Those dudes are never, they never physically hold up. So I think you got to give it to Brown and Tatum at this point. And look, man, they're two wins away from an NBA championship. You know what I mean?

And they almost pulled this one out. So I hesitate to be really hard on the young fellas. And, you know, I think these are guys who clearly have stuff they can get better at, which is pretty cool. And even if they're not the best duo, they're the most balanced duo. They can do so much on the court. They can interchange spots, roles, like offense, defense, all that stuff. You know, if you're going to make an argument, it would be for a Steph and teammate,

Giannis and teammate kind of combination. Because otherwise, there's just not a lot of guys who have this kind of playoff validation and skill and now potential to get even better than this Rob I think this was either the Celtics fifth or sixth home loss in the playoffs and they swept the nets

but game one they probably should have lost to get that miracle Tatum layup at the buzzer have you ever seen a team that has depth and good role players, allegedly, and young legs who is more inept at home for what the upside should be? Like, look at tonight. Grant Williams, no show. 13 minutes, he sucked. Pritchard, 10 minutes. Had a three at one point that I think would have brought the house down,ed it. They got nothing from him. These were the guys that came through in game seven. Usually when you have crowds like that, the role players are the ones that rise

to the occasion. And yet it's not happening with the Celtics team. I guess Rob Williams did, but other than that, nobody. I just, when you look at, like, I'm too attached. I've watched them for too long. When you look at this team, it's an odd team, right? This is weird. It is weird, but we knew that they were weird. We knew that they basically had eight players. And if even one of those players doesn't show up in a game, it costs

them real... There are real consequences to that. They don't have any alternatives to playing these eight guys, other than maybe they could go to seven and play Tatum and Brown 45 minutes, 46 minutes if they really needed to. That's it. There is no margin for error with that group. And so, yeah,

a bad Grant Williams game is painful when you need him to be on the floor against the Warriors. But it's not like Golden State has a lot of options either. We're talking about, can they keep Jordan Poole on the floor is the kind of problem they have right now. So it's going around for sure.

Waz, your take on the Celtics just being a fucking weird team? My thing is, like, their half-court offense. Like, when it gets down to what I like to call nut-crunching time, it can just devolve into just, like mark is smart god bless him his i got this it's like do you though like maybe he almost got this he almost did got this right i get it but like you know and so that that's my thing with this group is like oftentimes in the half court they just don't play up to the level of their talent um a lot of times and again so like it's not like golden state's defense doesn't have

just as like impenetrable at five spots you should be able to generate some decent stuff against these guys that's the thing really that confounds me is that like you know in the biggest moments sometimes just just like against a set, they look like bad news bears. Well, you know, I was looking back over the course of history, like the worst teams that have won the title, just record wise, the three were since the merger, the 78 bullets were 44 and 38. The 77 blazers were 49 and 33 and the 95 rockets were 47 and 38. The 77 Blazers were 49 and 33, and the 95 Rockets were 47 and 35. So then the bullets went 14 and seven. So they finished with a record of 58 and 45. They won

the title. The Rockets finished 61 and 42, and then the 77 Blazers finished 63-38. The Celtics right now, they're 51-31 and they're 14-8. So they're 65-39. It's really hard to find a lot of teams that are like basically 20 games or under for a win differential for a season. The 75 Warriors were 60-39. The 69 Celtics were 58-40. I guess we should have expected this finals to be super weird because the Warriors didn't have a really good record either. And we don't have that dominant team that just, when push comes to shove, they can just rely on their stuff.

The Warriors have Curry. And I guess we're going to find out what the Celtics have because now it's the best two of three. What do they have? What are you? Are you a team that night to night, anyone can step up? Or are you a team where Tatum now is going to have to be the guy as we head into a best two out of three? They're more probably closer to the 0-4 Pistons, where they have the four to five guys that you just don't know game to game. But it's really rare for those teams to win titles. The 0-4 Pistons are a complete anomaly. So I don't know. I think what the Celtics have is that they're bigger, faster, stronger. And in these next three games, they got to be better.

That's just, that's it. You know, they're the more physically gifted team. And I think that's borne itself out in these first four games they just got to go out and do it i wonder if maybe we're out of practice with this coming off of a warrior's dynasty the heat before that that like most champions are flawed you know they're i think we're in the era of that right now like the lakers the bucks whoever wins this series these are flawed teams. They're really good and they're able to pull the right things together

at the right time, but they have really significant holes and they have great players who can kind of paper over them just enough to hopefully win four. And that's kind of what you're hanging on to at this point. Well, if I'm in a flawed finals, I want the best player. And right now it's the Warriors. I thought the Celtics were going to win tonight and then lose game five. I was very surprised. Steph, what can you say? Rob,

what have you heard on the ground? What's the scuttlebutt? What are people talking about the finals? What are people talking about in general? I mean, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of Draymond talk. There's a lot of podcast talk. An unexpected amount of podcast talk, I would say. It's become front and center in the NBA Finals somehow. We'll see if that gets put to bed. But I think there's been a lot of consideration about Steph's history, Steph's greatness that will only continue after a game like this.

The Finals MVP talk is only going to intensify from here. Maybe even if the Celtics win. Steph has been so far and away the best player in this series. It's not even close. I'm open to the argument he should win even if they lose the series. This is an incredible moment for him.

I think we're going to keep spiraling that theme for the next week or so. Yeah, it feels like... Because now we have three more days until Game 5, and this feels like the Steph referendum of, which is so funny for the people who were there the whole time. Like me.

Where it's like, wait a second. Steph Curry is one of the most unbelievable players I've ever seen. He did. This is the last thing he needed though. Assuming, you know, let's say they win the best, two of the next three, they win the title. This was the last piece for him he already had a great career they already won the mvp but he didn't have that signature hakeem in 94 and 95 you know uh bird in 86 where you're just like so clearly the dominant guy in a playoff run. It's the last thing for him.

Now it's sitting there for him. And the thing about him, and Rob, you're in the Bay and you've obviously spent some time around the team. I do think he thinks about this stuff and I do think he's aware of it. I think some of these guys are either blissfully unaware

or completely unaware. But I think Steph's like a student of the game. I think he came into the game as a real basketball fan. He grew up as the son of a player. I think he gets it. And I'm not saying that's propelling him to new heights but I think he understands what this means. Like there's always that little asterisk of the KD,

the two titles or, oh, in 2015, the only reason you won is because this happened and they blew game seven at home in 16. This kind of needs this one, right? This is like the Will Smith, King Richard Oscar without the violence. Waz, I needed a laugh on that one. I made a King Richard joke. I feel like you're- Are we laughing? Are we laughing at that incident now? Is that what we are? Come on, it's been three months. We can't laugh at Will Smith jokes? Anyway, Rob, what do you think?

Oh, my God. You know, I think you're right. I mean, Steph is obviously hyper aware of his place in the history of the league in terms of the finals MVP stuff, all of that. He's made aware of it, even if he doesn't want to be.

I think he has his priorities in check in terms of what winning basketball looks like and what he needs to do. But you can't watch that ceremony in the Western Conference Finals when he got basically a token finals MVP trophy and the way he and his teammates celebrated and tell me that wouldn't mean something to him. The games

like this and performances like this. In the first quarter of this game, he ran full court to chew out some fans along the baseline like clearly not only does it matter to him to win but to win in this way dominating on these terms it's huge we had marcus on our show um a couple of weeks ago and he was he was talking about a conversation he had with Steph. And he said, Marcus Thompson of The Athletic, of course. And he said, I'm telling Steph, like, dude, you're a made man. Like, everybody's giving it up to you.

Like, even LeBron is sucking up to you in public. Like, you're done. Like, you did it. Like, you're a made guy. And Marcus said Steph's response was, all it takes is one flop and they'll be right back on my ass so like he is hyper aware of what he needs to do and what he how he thinks people are going to feel about him if he doesn't and so his play is just just been proof of that man and look we we the three of us watch so much NBA basketball, just shitty Orlando Magic games in January.

And like all of this crap, this long slog of a season, this is what we do it for, man. Like nights like tonight where Steph Curry comes out and just plays a level of basketball that, I mean, Mike, LeBron, you know, there's only like a few people who have ever been this incredibly dominant. So, like, I'm just really happy we're getting to watch him here, man. You know, the other thing, the great road win is a special kind of win for these teams. I remember Kurt talking about that once. Like, it's always fun to win, obviously,

and have the big close games. But when you do it on the road and you shut the other team up, it's the most adversity you're going to hit. And when you can come through that and come out of the other side, those are pretty much all of my favorite Celtic wins are the ones, the road ones,

the ones when they just cut the heart out of somebody and walked off. Back in the 80s, McH when they just cut the heart out of somebody walked off, you know, back in the 80s McHale putting his hairy armpits up as he walked out of an arena and you could feel it today with the Warriors you could see it on the bench too, on the TV like, those guys were standing up like it was a way different energy I felt

like than Game 3 and to shut up that crowd, man they said the decibels were like 112 in the first which was like a jet taking off for something i think i think that was the blood alcohol level too it was it was incredibly loud in here i'll say like the crowd gave a standing ovation for eddie house that was louder than anything i've heard in any other arena this season that's hilarious do you hear any any durant buzz walking around mahoney the last couple days any haven't haven't I've heard in any other arena this season. That's hilarious. Any Durant buzz

walking around Mahoney the last couple days? Haven't heard a lot about Kevin Durant lately. What gossip front is there for Kevin Durant right now? I don't know, man. I'm watching that one. KFC and I talked about it a couple days ago, but what's going on with the Nets, I think. You know, because these finals is going to end.

It could be by Father's Day. It could be Thursday night. Who the hell knows? But we're immediately going to go into Donovan Mitchell, Durant, who are the top three guys. And it's going to be happening overnight. Oh, yeah. There's a big chess piece.

Zach Levine, who now seems like he's available. James Harden. Yeah. What the hell is it? Is Philly going to resign him? We're going to. It's going to be that season right away. It seems like a million.

Let's enjoy actual basketball for now, though. Good point. Do you feel sad that we're almost done, Wes? You starting to get pangs? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We have three games left. And then that's it. Absolutely not. I'm looking games left. And then that's it. Absolutely not.

I'm looking forward to hanging out and chilling and not being expected to be smart about the NBA for a little while. But I'm really loving this series, though. Like, I tweeted, I was like, this is the best possible matchup that we could have gotten, in my opinion. And I think these two teams have lived up to it. This is like extremely high-level basketball, man. Well, I'll tell you this, guys.

Giannis for two weeks was a fucking nightmare. I went to the Game 3, and I said to my dad at one point, I was like, it's just so nice to go to Celtic playoff games and not have Giannis just kind of wandering around the court like an alien. And just every fast break, you're aware of him. And it was just so nice to just not have him in a series.

And then we shift immediately to Steph. It's like going from a haunted house to a haunted house. These are the two scariest guys in the league. I mean, I'm sure. As you said, part of you wants Steph to hurt you, though. There's a part deep down that wants him to have games like this. You know, I wish I could agree with you on that. But man, I'm not rooting for him at all.

And I've even been able to work up like a tiny bit of antipathy for him. I got to say. Yeah, because I do think he pushes off a little on the drives. I do think he dives into people a tiny bit. But, I mean, the rest of the guys. Clay, I was surprisingly

easy to root against. I mean, I find him annoying now. I just have to complete 180 on him. It's like, who do you think you are, Clay Thompson?

And then, you know, obviously, Draymond has been a delight as a villain and especially like a little bit of a diminished villain you know it's a little like schwarzenegger in the batman movie yeah my favorite my favorite draymond moment of this series and i don't know if it would be topped is when he used jalen brown as an ottoman and like pretended he pretended like what oh i'm just putting my leg there.

It's like, yo, this guy is, he's just another level of troll. That was a normal basketball move, was, finding your slant. Yeah,

they do it. They do have more tricks than I think they get credit for. I think they're assumed to be this classy team, but Clay is really good at just shoving the guy

backwards into the guy who's shooting when he's being screened and they do have some stuff. All right. We're we're going to wrap up was Rob Mahoney. It was, it was, it was great to see you.

I don't really like the circumstances to, to headed back to Boston to Golden State for game five. I'm going to be back with Priscilla on Sunday night. This podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton. Thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Ceruti as well. See you on Sunday night. Feelings within On the wayside I'm a bruised soul I never was

And I don't have To ever be