The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Broken Celtics, Miami’s Improbable Run, Denver’s Biggest Win Ever, and LeBron’s Next Move With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Celtics' third straight loss to the Heat to put them on the verge of elimination, initial Celtics overreactions, "Heat Culture" praise, and more (1:05), before discussing the Nuggets' 3-0 series lead over the Lakers, whether Game 3 was Denver's best win ever, whether the Lakers are LeBron's best shot at a title next season, and more (1:11:57). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, the Celtics-Lakers finals is going up in smoke. That's next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey.

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problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new episode of the Prestige TV Podcast tonight. We covered episode nine of Succession, one of the best episodes in the history of the show. Me, Sean Fennessy, Joanna Robinson, and you can check that out. It was a lot more entertaining than the Celtics game tonight. Ryan Rosillo is here. We're going to break down Miami going up 3-0 on the Celtics. The Lakers falling down 3-0

to the Denver Nuggets. We're headed for a Miami-Denver finals unless somebody has the 2004 Red Sox come back in them. I doubt it. It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, taping this a little before 8 o'clock Pacific time on Sunday night.

The conference finals have gone into the dumpster. Ryan Masillo is here. The Celtics are down 3-0. The Lakers are down 3-0. We're headed for a Denver-Miami series that I think is going to be awesome. If you're an actual basketball, everyone's going to do the TV ratings thing, oh, Denver-Miami series that I think is going to be awesome. If you're an actual basketball, everyone's going to do the TV ratings thing, oh, Denver-Miami. But as an actual basketball series,

Denver-Miami with the way this Miami team is playing is going to be great. Jokic is the best part of the world right now. And yet we're going to start on a somber note with the death of the 2023 Boston Celtics. It seems so promising a week ago. Last time you were here, we were coming off the Game 7 Sixers series with a two-parter. And within

a week, the Celtics run is over. There's probably going to be some major changes to this team. And even more disturbing than anything, Russillo, it was a rollover. This was a rollover from really the beginning of the third quarter on,

but you could even say it was going back to the second quarter. This is a team that looked like they just wanted to get out of there. And Miami's punking them. They're talking to them. Butler's talking shit this whole series. Nothing. No response. This was awful.

Not good. Not good, Bill. I thought they were mailing it in in the second quarter i mean that's when i first started writing down like is this really going to happen are you guys going to go out like this because i feel like i don't care who you are somebody makes a run and they get down 10 at the end of the first quarter and you're kind of expecting that run to come and then it just never happens i mean there's a bunch of basketball stuff that we can get into where you know derrick White gets switched on

to Butler. It happens way too easily. Teams do it all over the NBA where they get themselves in a really I would say massive disadvantages on switches. But to see them complain the whole game, Smart starts going into his routine.

Tatum looks out of it. Jalen took a shot with 11 seconds left on the shot clock after an inbounds. You put that on Twitter. Yeah, he's just kind of standing there and seemed like he ran out of ideas pretty quickly. There's 11 seconds left on the shot clock. And he's like, ah, whatever. So both of those guys were terrible. And to go down, like it's one thing about how wrong i was comically wrong about

the heat which i know we're going to get to all this stuff but to see a team down 2-0 that's supposed to be talented because i still think they are to just feel so lifeless like it's truly like it's historically embarrassing for how bad they look yeah from a talent standpoint especially if you take out tyler hero and you just went player by player and you take out Butler and Tatum and then you just go on down the line after that. It's pretty rough for the Heat on paper. And yet, Caleb Martin was better than Jalen Brown this entire series. Jalen Brown, that was one of the worst games he's ever played today, ever. And I've watched most of them. And after one of his worst in game two. And he was really bad in game one too. He had six turnovers. He was just awful. And, you know, there's big picture stuff here with the Celts that I want to get into because

sometimes I think a team's trying to tell you something when they have a game like that. I think it goes beyond just, oh, we got our ass kicked. You come at a game too, where Jimmy is just asserting his manhood on them in all these different ways, right? And you think, oh, how are they going to respond? And the response is to roll over. It makes me wonder, has this group kind of run its course? Because we've seen this happen. I've seen this happen with the Celtics before. I've seen this happen with other NBA teams before. This team's had a really good run with the Tatum-Brown combo, even dating back to making it in the 2018 Eastern Finals. They made the Eastern Finals in 20.

They made the finals last year. They made the Eastern Finals this year. But the nucleus, and we'll get to the coach stuff too. That's a whole other can of worms. But just this nucleus, is this kind of as far as it goes with this? On top of the fact that you're going to know Jalen Brown with the all-NBA thing that he got,

he is now potentially a $50 million a year guy. So you're basically saying, Tatum and Brown, I have to be positive. This is the combo. I'm going to be spending $100 million plus a year in the salary cap era with real penalties once you go past certain threshold are these the two guys can these two win a title together and this is today was the first day as you know i've been on this pod a million times and i've always said i never want to break these guys

up i want to ride these guys i love these guys i love having them in boston today was the first day where i'm like does it make sense to have 100 million a year plus for both ride these guys. I love these guys. I love having them in Boston. Today was the first day where I'm like, does it make sense to have a hundred million a year plus for both of these guys? So do you want to do this now then? Yeah, let's do it now. Let's fucking do everything now. That's that, like the coach stuff, that's going to be easy. The coach isn't going to stay. Right. I just want to make sure that gets flipped. I just want to make sure we spend a good five minutes on how impressive this Miami thing is. I know

we're already in tear-it-down phase. I remind everybody during these times, after games like this, this is probably the worst time to start planning anything because it feels so bad. Look, I always thought the Jalen Tatum thing

in 18 and then in 20, it always felt a little ahead of schedule. You know, remember there was this stretch of like Brad Stevens where it's like, how come he can't get out? You know, and I was like, honestly, like, I'm shocked they're even in it, to be honest with you. Like 20 was a better team,

but they couldn't handle Bam. It was a better team than I would say the 18 team is the point that I would make. Yeah, I agree. 18 was just kind of like fun because you're going, wow, this is crazy. They're in a game seven with LeBron. And no Kyrie. Right, and no Kyrie. And he couldn't show up because he had a dental thing, I think.

He had a surgery. He had an elective surgery. Right, right. When it was bad last year, right, when it was that January point where you and I would be texting, and we're doing the pod too, but we're texting, and I'm going, I don't even like watching. When I go on my league pass, who wins the TV over here,

I've gotten to the point where like i don't really want to watch them anymore and it it felt hopeless and it was the first time i'd ever thought like maybe those two guys aren't going to click together which doesn't make any sense because they're both so talented they're both so young and you want wings you want these wings that can do a bunch of different things offensively in in theory, hold up switching defensively. Like, that's what every team wants. Well, and then you see a potential finals with KCP and Austin Reeves and Duncan Robinson and Max Struess and Caleb Barton. And it's like, maybe we're overrating wings.

Maybe they're easier to find than we're giving it credit for. Well, that's a whole different topic because what miami's doing is so special like i was trying to find it this morning where and i couldn't find it i was like is any team ever made the nba finals with a negative point differential i don't think there has been one uh yeah i texted you the 78 bullets yeah they were under one but they were still 44 and 38 and they were 0.9 that's got to be the closest no uh houston i found in 81 when moses was still there they were 40 and 42 but they made the finals they lost the celtics but they were still a plus 0.3 and so you have miami who was the fourth worst shooting team from three in the nba they were the worst offense of any of the teams going into the playoffs. They had a negative point differential.

The Atlanta game alone, where I thought they would beat the Hawks because they bottled up Trey so well in the playoffs last year because they're just so smart and they had a great game plan, but they get destroyed on the boards. And then against Chicago, I was like, look, Chicago's okay, but why wouldn't they beat them? And then everything happens. Well, heading into the

fourth quarter of that game, it seemed like Chicago was going to win. I went back and looked at that box score, heading into the fourth quarter of that game, it seemed like Chicago was going to win. I went back and looked at that box score. Gabe Vincent had zero points in that game. He played 27 minutes. He put up a goose egg. He had 29 tonight. So when I look at how special this is,

because a lot of it turns into, I'm not saying you're going there, but it's a bit of, wait, are we doing it wrong? Have we been looking at the way nba rosters are built with all of these undrafted guys as miami actually figured something out that nobody else has figured have we prioritized stars no like yeah we should prioritize stars but it doesn't mean that this is the way now right this is that a recipe i mean we i'd need more than one season of data before i'd start going everyone building teams to start trying to

do this now you definitely want to figure out whatever it is Miami's doing with some of these two ways undrafted and every one of those scouts every team should be trying to pick one of them off and double their pay because they keep doing this but what Miami is doing is so special but it can't be special and you should have seen it coming it can't be it can't be special, and you should have seen it coming. It can't be both things. For me, it's that special that they're a game away from playing in the NBA Finals with this regular season profile. And without Hero. Yeah, the Celtics were minus 600.

And to your point, Love, which, again, we get on the broadcast, it's probably a little too much, but Love leaves the game, and they're desperate for any rotation, guys. Strews' ankle was screwed up twice in game two, and then it happened again tonight, and I'm going, are they going to be down to six guys plus Zeller? Like, maybe Boston will be down 20, but this group will be so tired,

and you'd think there'd be some temptation of Boston to be like, just stay in it, stay in it. You know, keep it at 15, keep it to 18. Stay in it. They're going to get tired. They're going to be like, just stay in it. Stay in it. You know, keep it at 15. Keep it to 18. Stay in it. They're going to get tired. They're going to get tired. And instead, Boston showed you a team that I can't even believe they turned it around last year.

Because, you know, to get back to the Jalen and Tatum point here, I'll make this quick. Like, to start suggesting like, okay, maybe you break them up. Do you want to pay Jalen all this money? There's more to this. But this isn't some really talented team that has given us no reason to trust them. Their turnaround last year was part of their trust. I didn't think they were going to beat the Warriors. I don't think it was a coin toss series.

But they still were in the NBA Finals against the Warriors. They beat Milwaukee down 3-2 with Tatum going for 46. They were down 3-2 this year to Philly, who, again, none of us think are great, but they're talented. They're problems on the right night against Philadelphia. They showed mental toughness. Right. And then Tatum gets 51 in a game seven. So you're going, okay, how did this happen? How did a team that has given us multiple examples to buy into who they are with some recent history, how does it happen that they look anything like that three games into this one,

and especially tonight? You mentioned last year. So things turned like late January, and they have this really nice run where they're playing defense so well that at some point we started talking about them versus the 0-4 Pistons, remember? Remember we were having those compare and contrast? That's how good defensively. Is this the most dominant young defensive team that we've had in the league in 20 years? It was a real conversation.

I remember you having it more than I did. Well, I was asking you who is better since the 0-4 Pistons, and we were listing teams teams and it was like, ah, 11 Dallas. Like we had a couple, but the way the Celtics were playing, it was up there.

And then the start of the season this year and everything flipped in that golden state game. When they had that first game, when they went to golden state, it was around game 25 of the season. And there was a lot of talk about, you know, we learned a lot.

Now we want to win the title. That was such an important experience for us, but now we know what it takes. And Golden State just punched him in the mouth and beat him pretty handily. And that was a really bad sign. And since then, it's been a bunch of really bad signs. Is this the coach's fault? A lot of 10-point leads being blown in the fourth quarter. A lot of times where they seem disconnected, some dueling banjo, your turn, my turn. But the biggest thing, Rosillo, is the defense went sideways.

And that was the thing from tonight that was really, really, really alarming. It was alarming in the first two games too because they seemed so mystified with what to do against Butler. But today was, you know, today was a layup line crossed with wide open threes. I mean, it looked like a team that quit. And for the announcers to talk about that Barkley,

who Barkley will say some stuff during halftime, he was so disappointed at halftime, right? Then it goes to the third quarter and Stephen Gundy, you don't hear announcers, especially ex-coaches say this, but he's like, it looks like they've quit. And because they did. So to me, that's a team telling us this isn't working. And you could say that's the coach's fault. And if you change the coach, it's all fine. But this has now happened two years in a row because it kind of happened against the Warriors too. Those last three finals games, same thing.

They kind of rolled over. At least they had a little more fight in that finals. But by game six, it's kind of done. They were out of answers. This one, they're out of answers two games into the series. I mean, the Butler repeatedly getting white switched on to him so he could torch him and the Celtics having no answer for that. This is like basketball 101, you know, like Missoula not bringing back Rob at the end of game two, when that high screen was like the most successful thing they had. And he just, we never see Rob again today. I don't know what happened to Rob. He just got 2000. That was it. There was no rhyme or reason to the decision-making to the strategy. Grant plays zero

minutes in game one, plays 26 in game two, right? They start white today. Oh, I thought we found ourselves with the big lineup. Now we're going back to Derek White at the starting lineup. It's a team that was just like throwing shit against the wall. I honestly thought it was embarrassing. I thought Rob Williams and Grant Williams were the only guys that had any fight in them tonight. I really did. Agree.

Like the second half, I'm like, at least these guys are giving a shit. There was a Marcus Smart play where Tatum got him on a seal in the post where he just kind of lobbed it up to him, and Smart just decided to throw it up against the backboard to see if he could get a call as he fell down. You're like, are you guys serious? Like, play ball. Right.

Play basketball. Like, at this point, you're not going to con your way back down 20 in this one. The Rob Williams part with game two, Spoh took Love out because it was that one high screen role they were getting i think they got him three times in a row with tatum and so i think spo abandoned it and that's what i love about the playoffs which also makes it super unpredictable at times is that there's things that work in one i remind people of this all the time but like i'll be home going oh wait that might not work you might want to do that again and then they go

back with it and then that next night you're not exposed or the thing that didn't work works the second night. So I do think specific to the Rob Williams being subbed out was because they were using him as the screener to bring Kevin Love up and then Spoh, I think like 540 in the third never brought him back in game two.

This was a master class in Jimmy Butler attacking switches. Everybody gets switched. Everybody finds, you know, everybody goes through a weak link, which is another thing in Miami that other than Duncan Robinson at times and maybe some Zeller minutes, there weren't a lot of switches to hunt as much. And then there's times where if you're hunting all the time, then you're completely out of your offense. But Butler would hunt white.

I think the reason we didn't see Grant is that Grant is not as great closing out against guys, you know, his feet are just not built that way against the perimeter guy to go out and close. And there's a couple of times where I saw him closing out on guys. He just gets a little too carried away with it. So I think that's part of the grant part of it.

Not saying it's right, not saying it's wrong, but it was a masterclass in Butler going, okay, I'm going to get the switch I want. And then Miami would just overload the other side. It was unbelievable. They had guys standing next to each other in the corner.

Like the other three guys completely not in the play. And it, cause they just knew the two man stuff would work. Butler would have times where he might go into the predictable switch. And then he knew he'd have enough time. He's like, I'm just going to switch it again here. And that's where you start to wonder of like Missoula going, hey, do you think maybe you want to throw something at him just to change it up?

They doubled him on the sideline in the second quarter tonight, and they got a turnover, and it was like a late double. They did it two times in a row. It worked. Right. It was right at the end of the second quarter. And I was like, oh, my God, they did it two times in a row. It worked. Right. It was right at the end of the second quarter. And I was like, oh, my God. Because at the end of game two, and as much as we argue about the coaching stuff,

to let Butler run that free at the end of game two on those switches and never have a second guy there, like, shit, make somebody else make a shot. The problem for Boston tonight was even when they tried to do other stuff, then it was Gabe Vincent hitting a three. It was Caleb Martin hitting a three. They were 10-21 at one point. They were plus 12 at three points at the half. So even when they tried to do something different, every guy hit every single open shot.

So that's why they gave up. The Game 2 Butler thing was so infuriating at so many levels. They just, they made it easy for them. You know, I went to the Lakers-Nuggets game last night, and we'll talk about it, but Murray had 30 points in the first half. In the second half, the Lakers,

they basically made the decision, we're not letting him beat us. Schroeder picked him up 80 feet, was just reaching in, fouling, doing everything he could. He was just in his jersey and just made him uncomfortable, right? The Celtics were letting Butler just walk the ball up, go to the exact spot he wanted to get to, get the matchup he wanted to get, and then he would score. And everybody after game two was,

especially online, was mad at Grant Williams because of the poke the bear stuff. I ended up tweeting about it because I was like, I don't blame Grant Williams at all for that game. Grant Williams is the only guy who stood up to anybody. There's plenty of people, plenty of blame to go around for game two. Grant Williams being the only guy who seemed kind of pissed off that Jimmy Butler was, you know, trying to rip their hearts out. I can't get mad at him for that, you know? And I actually thought he played good defense against Butler. Butler just made some sick shots because he's been the best guy in the playoffs basically other than Jokic. So I just,

it just seems like everything, all the dialogue about this team has been so misguided. They've strategy-wise, they've been awful. They should have lost game six to Philly if Tatum doesn't need a couple shots and Philly just craters in game six, right?

Then in game seven, that Harden elbow flips the game and all of a sudden they get momentum again. But this was a front runner team the whole time. It really was. They were great when they were up 10 in these close games over and over again, they got outwitted, they got out executed and just big picture. It's tough to imagine this, A, the coach coming back and B, the nucleus coming back because I don't know how it's going to be much different next year. These guys are now heading into their, Tatum's going to be 26 next year. I think Jalen's going to be 27 or 28.

These guys have been together a while. And in a vacuum, no, don't break them up. But man, if you're going to be paying these guys nine figures combined a year, I better know for sure that I can win a title with that as my two guys and i don't know back to the grant thing quick because i have a question grant is one of my five most annoying players in the nba i think he volunteers i think he volunteers to be mic'd up like he'll go to the crew before the game like do you have anybody that's mic'd up because i'm i'm good to go steals the mic He just slaps it on his jersey.

Right. Him talking shit to Jimmy Butler after hitting a three in game two was stupid. That was stupid. I agree with you. But, but, this, I know Jimmy said it energized him and Spoh said, we got gnarly Jimmy.

He's been doing this to everybody at the end of the fourth. So it wasn't like, oh my God, Jimmy Butler scored points to close out a big-time playoff game. So I think Grant took too much shit for that. I also think it's because when you say, I'm going to make both of them against Cleveland

and then miss both free throws, you're just setting yourself up to be made fun of the entire time. But wait a second. On the Grant thing, it threw the limelight off Jalen, who had the worst 45 seconds of the season with five minutes left. He lets

Bam go flying by him, has to foul him. They get two free throws. Comes back down, turnover, then comes down the other way, loses Robinson on a three, comes back down the other way, gets an offensive rebound, gets stuffed

around the rim. It was like in 45 seconds he was involved in four really negative plays. And then everybody's blaming Grant Williams at the end of the game. I, I listened, they had way bigger problems than, uh, Grant Williams talking shit to Jimmy Butler. And by the way, what, what's the alternative? What are they? What are they? Shake his hand after he makes a play. Like I thought everybody's competing and Jimmy thrives on, oh, I'm just doing my thing. They're not even fighting back. The thing is Denver is going to fight back with him. Denver has a bunch of dudes on that team that are not going to allow him to do the pointing after a three and all the shit he was doing in the Celtics today. Yeah. I mean, I can't wait to

talk about that, but I think we need to stay on the Boston part of this because you said you can't pay Tatum and Brown that much unless he gets you a title. No, I didn't say you can't. I didn't say you can't. I'm saying for the first time, that idea makes me super nervous. Yeah, that's fine, and I get it, especially tonight after what we just saw,

but what Tatum and Brown give you, as unpopular as this may sound after what we just saw in game three, is and Brown give you, as unpopular as this may sound after what we just saw in game three, is they give you a chance. And that's all you can hope to have in the league. So if they brought everybody back and paid Jalen Brown instead of trying to get cute and hope that that money can be used somewhere else, because you know how tough it is that it's not really about getting off the tax. It's the same problem that Philadelphia has. It's like, yeah, there's a number I don't want to pay Harden, but I also don't want to lose somebody for nothing. It's why all of these deals happen. So I would say, despite how gross that was, because that was fucking gross. I mean,

to see them just go, nah, all right, well, we can't get Butler. We keep getting worked. We're not changing anything. I want to get to the Missoula thing with you. Oh, everybody's going to make an open three. When they were down and the game was over, they missed 18 and 19 threes and they were wide open in this game tonight. That's how bad Jalen and Tatum just started chucking up threes

being like, whatever. Let's get the clock running. It was a composure loss. It was terrible. As bad as that is, my thing would be all right, they were the second seed. They went to the Eastern Conference Finals. This is probably a better option unless you think it's so damaged. How damaged do you think this is the kind of loss that's so damaging and ultimately losing the series that it becomes a what's Brad doing?

Did they give a guy in Missoula a job? Which if we go back over that timeline, it's not like they were in the coaching cycle of to be like, all right, let's just go get somebody because EMA situation was right up to the start of the season. So that wasn't ideal. You look at all this stuff,

like what do you think they should do? Like how, how, how much of a, a recalibration do you think needs to happen here after tonight? Good setup. I will answer after the break. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

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How about pulling a 2004 Red Sox and fighting back? Where's Kevin Millar? Can we see the graphic at least? That would be the only benefit of the Eastern Conference Finals is when they show the graphic. 04 Red Sox. First team came back from 03. Let's put Tatum Brown on the side.

Marcus Smart. What am I getting with him going forward? Is he hitting a different point of his career? Have there been too many charges? Has there been too much contact? Is this basically like a tight end in football that was awesome for

seven, eight years and just kept going over the middle and getting trucked and then all of a sudden that tight end in football that was awesome for seven, eight years and just kept going over the middle and getting trucked. And then all of a sudden that tight end's not getting off the line anymore. I thought defensively, we talked about it a bunch of times. Defensively, I thought he really slipped this year. I voted for him defensive player of the year last year. I wondered if he was hurt this year.

I was shocked that he didn't have a bigger impact than this Miami series. I was shocked that he couldn't guard James bigger impact than this Miami series. I was shocked that he couldn't guard James Harden in multiple playoff games where he just didn't seem like he could stay in front of him. And that would be if you were keeping Tatum and Brown together and you're just talking about, all right, well, then what do you do? Do you keep White and Brogdon and trade smart?

Do you try to trade White? Do you try to trade Brogdon? One of those guys goes if you're keeping Tatum or Brown because you got to do something. Not an excuse for smart, but I thought there was like a weird back thing with him in Philadelphia where he landed a certain way and I couldn't quite figure it out with him.

But defensively, look, he was already bad defensively. I shouldn't say bad defensively. Bad for him. No, bad for him. The standard that you have for smart, it just wasn't there. It was like if you have the awesome lights-out cornerback who used to shut down everybody

and then all of a sudden they're not shutting down everybody the same way and they're giving up 160-yard games to receivers. It's like, wait a second, I thought you were a shutdown guy. He wasn't a shutdown guy this year. He just wasn't. No. So we agree on that. Last year was the best season of his career because I think he finally accepted the other two guys are better than him,

which I think is something that he'd been fighting for a long time. Shot selection-wise, that was always the worst part of Smart. It was like like what are you doing like why do you think you're the number one option as many times as you do and in this series it's kind of an overall NBA thing where I'll look at certain possessions and again this is a theory I'm not even sure I'm right about this but you know the combo guard that is the standard now at the position like if you can't score and shoot and take it off the dribble and get your own shot,

those guys don't exist. The traditional point guard doesn't exist anymore. But I wonder if in playoff series, having somebody go, okay, enough of this shit after three bad possessions. Who goes, let's get us into our stuff. And I don't know if Tatum and Brown need somebody like that. I'm not even sure who that dude is that exists anymore.

There's like six of them in the league. I mean, Denver doesn't have that guy. Well, they also have the best passing big of all time. So, you know, that's kind of like Denver's. Denver, like, is not a model for anything. Well, basically, Jokic is their version of that. Because anytime things get chaotic, he can just get somebody a shot. So you're saying the Celtics don't necessarily have the guy who can get somebody a shot. That's kind of what Brogdon was supposed to be. Right? That's what we-first guy, man. Yeah. He really is. And White, you know, there's a little playmaking there. There's a little playmaking with Brogdon.

Jalen, I don't think that's never going to happen. I mean, Tatum has his moments at times. It's certainly better than it was when those guys were younger. But, you know, none of this matters. Like, Smart not being more of a playmaker, not having Tyus Jones isn't the reason they're down 0-3 right now. But as far as the bigger picture stuff, Smart just might be looked at as an asset with three years and $60 million left to go if somebody else feels like they needed to change their thing up too.

Because I still think... Well, especially if Rob is... If it's a two-for-one and Rob's in the trade too, and now you're in that kind of $30 to to 31 million range and you're doing a two for one and trying to get a bigger piece. You know, if somebody like Aiton was available, which I don't even know if I'd feel good about, but I'm just, you know, you're swimming in those waters. Aiton would have fought back tonight. Aiton would have been like, all right, time out boys. Aiton's never been on the floor for a 30 point blowout. Rally round. I have some thoughts. Yeah. Rob would be another trade candidate,

obviously. And other than that, from a pick standpoint, it's pretty bleak. And then the other move would be to just say, you know what? We fucked up with the coach. It wasn't his fault. I feel bad. 15 years ago, I would have been destroying this coach week after week. And I would add nicknames for him and done the whole thing. But I actually feel bad for him. I think he was in a horrible situation. Like Brian Barrett on our Boston pod did a really nice job Friday night of talking about like how long Darvin Ham was an assistant coach, right? Before he got the job, how long Mike Malone's been in the NBA, you know, even somebody like Spolstra who worked under Riley for years and then finally got the job and then had that first year where they're all trying to get him fired. And then Joe Maz, two years is basically

sitting in the second row. That's why my dad calls him second row Joe. And he just gets thrown in with this like skeleton coaching staff. And I can't think of a worse situation that a new coach has been thrown into. It's not like they could have hired somebody else. It was the season was about to start. It wasn't like people were sitting around. I still think they handled it badly. I still think they really underestimated the value of having that one experienced dude on the bench.

But I also thought he was terrible. Like, I really genuinely think he was terrible. Like, terrible as a coach in the NBA playoffs. I thought he was terrible. Like, I really genuinely think he was terrible. Like, terrible as a coach in the NBA playoffs. I thought he was terrible in the Hawks series. I have no idea how that went to six. The Philly, he didn't even start making adjustments until game six and then game seven. Then this series, predictably,

he got annihilated by Spolstra. I mean, this was checkers versus chess. And I feel bad for him because I don't think he should have been in the position. Okay, but when we go back to the timeline, they were screwed. They were screwed. Unless they were going to bring in

Vogel. I don't think Brad wants to coach. I don't know if they'll beg him. So are you saying he should be fired? I don't think he will come back. I think they will move on and get a bigger coach because especially with the amount of money

that the ownership is shelling out for salaries, if you're not going to make a major move, you can't bring the coach back and say, hey, we got him a really good bench coach. This year is going to be different. It just, it felt like he lost the team in this series. I've been watching basketball my whole life. You can kind of see when a team's kind of done and is the, are the guys done with each other? They done with the coaching situation. What is it? This is a team that over and over again, just got outwitted and out executed down

the stretch. So the other thing, so this is one of the things I was thinking. I was thinking about the most frustrating, really good teams that I've watched in my lifetime. And the number one version of this was the Drexel Blazers team, which had this really nice run from 89 to 92. They made the finals in 90. They made the finals in 92. The 90 finals, they absolutely could have won. They beat the L in 90. They made the finals in 92. The 90 finals, they absolutely could have won. They beat the Lakers in a playoff series. They had just a shitload of talent.

They were really athletic. They were deep. They were a lot like the Celtics team. And yet over and over again, they'd shoot themselves in the foot and they'd blow games. They'd lose close games. They just do dumb things. And you could always kind of outwit them. And it just was who they were. And they kind of left this legacy of, man, that team was so talented. Hard to believe they didn't win a title. And I fear that that's the Celtics run. It's the same kind of thing, except in this case, Stevens was such a good coach and Ema did such a good job last year. Last year, it was like, oh, they're a year ahead of schedule. Just wait these next few years. And remember we talked last year

and I was saying to you about, I know this is a young team, but I've seen this happen too many times with the NBA with windows. And I think there's real urgency for this team to win because I don't know what's going to happen next year.

This might be their best chance right now. You said it in 20. But I said it in 22 and i said it's kind of like too yeah yeah no i mean i get it i mean you said in 20 but you know a lot of it you can start mapping it out going okay well what's going to happen around them right and in 20 there were a bunch of i'm not going to remember all of them where you're like this might be their best chance and really when you're in the finals it feels like it's probably your best chance you're not going to get to go back all the time and it's actually pretty rare um if you were to say that

now about this team I don't I don't know that that would be true I mean other than writing off Miami all the time like I do uh I don't think you'd go into next year going, oh no, look at the Miami Heat. They're going to win 55 games unless the roster changes. The Milwaukee thing might actually enter into weird phase. The Philly thing could easily be worse. There's shades of weirdness with the Milwaukee thing. Yeah. Atlanta's whatever. Toronto's whatever.

The Knicks got some work to do. And then there's Cleveland, who maybe that was the young team getting their ass kicked and all the regular season numbers, meaning nothing. You know, that was the best defensive team in the league and they couldn't get stops against what's a lot of times, you know, a pretty heavy one man show offensively. Um, it, you know, looking at, at you positioning the Celtics and saying, okay, they actually are going to be one of the favorites to win the East already next year.

They just are. If they do nothing and they hire an expensive bench coach and keep Joe Maz, they don't do anything, you still think they're one of the favorites? Well, the bench coach thing. You might be right. I think the bench coach thing is mandatory. It's mandatory.

And I personally... I don't see how they can bring mandatory. I don't see how they can bring... I honestly don't see how they can bring him back. I know they extended him halfway through the season, but I thought he was that bad. Yeah, because I struggle with it. I'm not defending it. They're not doubling Jimmy and letting that happen freely

and not changing things up. And whenever a team is losing and they're throwing shit against the wall, the same way we saw Monte Williams and Phoenix, like as I'm watching it going, like you don't, you have like no clue

like what you're going to get from, or you don't like, you don't want, you don't know what to do here right now. How about five playoff losses in two rounds and three games? They lose at home five times. They, they were 34 and, oh, no, no, no. They were 34 and...

No, no, no. They lost nine times at home in the regular season. They lost at home nine times. Five in the playoffs. Here's the thing. I went to the Nuggets game last night. I'm thinking, this Nuggets team is going to kill the Celtics with their movement and how smart they are and how smart Jokic is. He's going to dissect

them the same way Butler is. It's just that they wouldn't have had a chance against that team. Not the way they're playing now. I will never... The best case you can make for it is the coach's fault. And I think we...

I even agree with you. Sometimes it's just too easy to blame the coach. And by the way, like, real quick, on that, the turnovers at the end of game one,

all right, the turnovers where they're throwing it to Jimmy Butler in center field. To not have that many fouls and have that many steals. And look, Jalen Brown against a smart defensive team, you know they're all like, hey, dude can't dribble. Dude can't dribble. And he's going to throw cross-court passes.

A couple of the drives that Jalen Brown had tonight when he's just falling down and everybody's looking at him. So that's the to throw cross-court passes. A couple of the drives that Jalen Brown had tonight when he's just falling down and everybody's looking at him. That's the kind of stuff where I'm like, wait, that's Missoula's fault? And it isn't. But there's enough other stuff with not having a different

plan of attack for Butler. Against a zone, you guys just stop running offense. There's like three things you can do against a zone. You just have Tatum dribbling the ball straight up into a zone, you guys just stop running offense. There's like three things you can do against a zone. You just have Tatum dribbling the ball straight up into a zone for some reason. Fundamentally, they have all the same guys as last year, plus Brockton.

How is this team so much worse on defense? That's just fundamentally how is that possible? All these guys are a year older and a year smarter. They've been in a bunch of big games. They may not score, and that's what was their undoing against Golden State. They could always default back to like,

we have a pretty special defense. Right, and even in game four of the finals, they lose because Steph just leaves his body in the second half, right? They were playing good defense that whole series. And then offensively is where they lost it. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up the Jalen turnovers thing, the unforced turnovers with him. It's been a problem all season. Um, I don't know if there was something like really wrong with his hand, but it's turnovers.

Yeah. They aren't just turnovers. Look, I looked at member last year when they played Miami and they win the game seven down there. But you know, if you go through it game by game in the turnovers, I was looking at like one game, they were plus 15 in turnovers. That's an impossible number. It's like one thing to have like more than 10 than the team you played against. Um, you know, it's, it's a joke with them. So I don't know. Look, let's take it back to the coach thing, though.

Oh, because I had a fake trade for you that I'm almost nervous to present. Let's save it. Save it for a second. Because I think there's a problem. And I don't, you know, this is the part of being in ownership and being Brad Stevens

where you go, what will the reaction be if Missoula is canned after one year? All right? Now, it's actually happened a lot more in NBA history, and sometimes it can be a little deceiving with the interim and then had the job going into the next year and then was fired. So is it hired one full season, then fired as a little bit of a carryover? But I think the number's at like 21

coaches. So it's happened a lot. It hasn't happened a lot recently. It just happens in football, too. But sometimes I think more in football. When Riley fired Van Gundy right before the or during the 06, I can't remember the time. It was right before they won the title.

He replaced him with himself. Invangedi allegedly had to leave because he wanted to spend more time with his family or something. But he got fired by Riley, basically. Riley just sensed like, I have this window. I have this talented team

and this is the wrong coach and I got to do something. If you're the Celtics, you're a luxury tax team. Tatum was 25. He was about to enter. NBA history would tell us he team if Tatum was 25 who's about to enter NBA history would tell us he's still not the player

that he's going to end up being two years from now right even somebody like Jokic even went up a level this year 27, 28 are the key years for an NBA super duper star so we don't even know

what his ceiling is not to mention all the other luxury tax all the other stuff they're shelling out and they don't really have picks there's no real way to rebuild you can't fuck around with a coach again. You can't be like,

man, well, maybe hopefully Joe will be better this year. I just don't think they can do that. And the reality is it's if, if they did get rid of them, I don't know who hires them. You know, they, it's not just that they lost email last year. They lost Will Hardy too, which we talked about last summer and we talked about how important he was. That combo was pretty devastating. They're going to have to think like, do we want to risk another year here?

Because we just squandered a year where Miami is going to make the finals after they went 44-38. They lost the play-in game and in the fourth quarter of the second play-in game, it could have gone either way against the Bulls, who are now about to blow it up. So my guess is that he's probably going to get bounced.

Okay, two things. I thought it was weird when we saw the video of Wick sitting courtside saying something to Missoula. Tell them to take out the starters, it seemed like. The starters out, and then Missoula and it was, I think it was like... Tell them to take out the starters it seemed like. It's starters out and then Missoula kind of went back at him like I am and I can imagine if I'm a coach with a lot

of juice, I'd be like how dare you say that to me during the game and the problem is Missoula's not going to have that kind of juice in the eyes of the people that make this decision. And that's maybe why it was even said to him in the first place.

You know, Wick probably is never saying that to Brad Stevens. And then the counter to that would be, well, Brad Stevens wouldn't have done that in the first place. I think it's worth bringing up though, if Missoula, this is an organization that I thought handled the Ea thing as

well as you could with how complicated as it was with the fact that they couldn't really say anything right like the whole when you go back and like look at how that played out too and then the stuff that had happened since like you know even his fiancee had said something like and i believe ex-fiancee was was essentially, like, the Celtics put all my dirty laundry out there. My family's like, actually, the Celtics did everything they possibly could at their own expense by not sharing more of what happened. I would say it was EMA's agency maybe had a little more of an incentive to share stuff. So, you know, Boston got dumped on, not by everybody, but because there's a lot of us doing this, a decision is made.

Hey, how do you feel? I feel this way. Well, you know what? I feel this way. And the Celtics in some circles got crushed for getting rid of E-May. And they also were getting crushed because not that many people really knew what was going on. Hell, I've heard stories and versions of it that I'm like what you know like i'm not 100 sure what did or didn't

happen i feel pretty good about what i know and i'm glad he may get another chance because i thought despite deserving to lose his job he was deserving to get another another opportunity now he has that the only reason i'm bringing that up is that there will be some similar conversations around missoula losing his gig after just one year. And what you have to be ready for as an organization and what the best ones do is go, hey, we still think this is the right call. So go ahead, trash this. Trash this for a couple days on the TV shows. And then guess what? There'll be another topic that'll replace this topic. And then you move on. And that's what I think the best organizations do. Now, if their

evaluation of his, hey, he was a rookie coach. Our players also shut down. This isn't all on him. Let's get another assistant in here, and we could salvage this and all this stuff. Maybe that's the conclusion they come to, but it kind of gets back to that. No, there's a tweak to it. You just say, he didn't have enough experience to be a head coach. And we took a gamble, and it was the wrong gamble. And Joe is going to be a great coach someday. But right now with the roster we have, it was a bad fit. And that's how it goes. The other way is they just hire an awesome bench coach

and pretend this team didn't almost lose to Philly and really would have if Tatum just didn't start hitting threes at the end and then, and then whatever happened this round. Can I throw my trade at you? Yes. I can't believe I'm doing this.

I was like the last person on Never Break Up Tatum Brown Corner. And I still don't think they should. You're in a better mood. You're in a better mood than I thought you were.

No, because I knew after game two, I knew it was over. The Celtics were almost five-point favorites today, which I didn't understand. I don't know what people were seeing two, I knew it was over. The Celtics were almost five-point favorites today, which I didn't understand. I don't know what people were seeing with this series. Miami was smarter, they were tougher, and they had the best player of the series.

What else do we need? Yeah, I mean, look, it was minus... What was it, minus 10 in game two? Yeah, it was minus nine in game one, minus 10 in game two, and Boston was minus five. Or it got minus four and a half, minus five. It was in that range for game three. If they do decide to do a tweak, isn't Portland the logical destination, right? Portland's a team that they're on a timetable with Dame.

They got the number three pick in the draft. They seem a little bit desperate for a variety of reasons. It's either trade Dame or keep Dame and try to make a run. They've been open about saying we want to get a wing. And it just seems like that's kind of a fit if they wanted to make a move, the Celtics. Over, you keep these two together and now you're 100 plus million a year

for the next few years with two guys. So what's the deal? Let's say it's number three and it's Simons and it's a future first and it's a swap, something like that. Or maybe it's just the number three and Simons. I don't even know what Brown's value is, but you have the number three and you have Simons in it. And maybe more because as we've seen with these trades that we've had lately, I don't know what the values are, but Jalen Brown is the second team on BA guys, 26.

So not getting Lillard. You're trying to pick off Simons in the number three pick. Wow. I'm all in this one over. No, because Jalen's worth, I think Jalen's worth more than Lillard straight up well Lillard's gonna be 33 years old next year and I don't know where that takes you and the contract

so I guess the question for me is that number three is I hate to do the two errors thing because the Warriors have kind of ruined that but with the team that they have could they use that asset could they spin it forward where they're still really good, but they have some can't-miss guy? Is Scoot, in your opinion, let's say Scoot's at number three. Let's say Charlotte says, fuck it, and takes Brandon Miller at two. Scoot's there at three. Portland doesn't want to take Scoot. What do they want another guard for?

Is Scoot that good? Is Scoot a potential first-team All-NBA guy in your opinion? He wasn't as good this year as he was the previous year. You know, last year when I'd watch Dyson Daniels and Hardy and Beauchamp, I'd constantly be like,

dude, look at Scoot. One of my favorite Scoot games is where he played against Wimbanyama and he was like, I know what the marquee is. I know what everybody's here to watch, but I'm going right at this motherfucker.

But then he didn't play as well this year. So I don know if he was coasting i don't know if he was in yeah it seemed like he was in self-maintenance mode a little bit yeah i also think he's way more of a like he's probably more likely to go like the scoring guard route than the traditional point guard combo thing, which we've already talked about, which isn't exactly all that rare. I probably wouldn't do that. I wouldn't. Now that I've talked it out and thought about it, I know how bad it is tonight. I know how bad Boston's

talk shows are going to be tomorrow. Unless you're telling me something else that I don't know, that it's irreparable after this series, I would go all we're doing is trying to build rosters that have a chance. And as bad as this Heat series went, Boston's still going to have a chance next year.

So I wouldn't be in a hurry to do that. And, you know, Simons is really talented. I like him. Small guards in the playoffs, eh, I don't know. I mean, unless I was convinced of Scoot. Or Simons you spin for something else. I'm with you. I would rather keep this together and not overreact.

Here's my one caveat for you. I think there's some scarring and some damage from the last 12 months with Brown, with the team. And going back to the Katie rumors, I think that is unquestionably true. And my fear is you give him the big contract and he's still mad about all this stuff from last summer. And maybe you can proactively get ahead of it

by trading him for 130 cents in the dollar, which I think Portland would do. So that would be the counter for it. My instinct would be to keep it, but my other instinct is he's going to get mad. He'll feel like he got blamed. Why isn't Tatum in trade rumors and all that? And that's just where his head's going to go. Does he want to be the guy on another team? I, uh, I still feel like he can get better. I know he made second team on BA. I had him third, third team. Um, I thought he was the sixth best forward in the league. There were also a bunch

of forwards that didn't play enough games to qualify. I still think he's too sloppy with the ball, just period. He's too sloppy. He makes too many dumb turnovers. And I still think there's another level for him to get to as a player. The thing that is really, really, really disturbing to me

and it makes me wonder if as an asset, his value is higher than the actual player. What happened to him on defense? Like what happened? Yeah, that's a great question. Like remember when you thought, oh wow, you know, I thought he was in like an absolute elite defender and he's not, he's not an elite defender at all. I don't know. Who's he shutting down these days? Like to me, he's somebody that that chuck he chucks a lot of shots and he's i i gotta say like a mediocre defender this year he really was yeah it's really surprising because at one point like you felt like his profile was going to be everything you want in a

player and he's still even with this this handle which again it's not the hand this year you know when he fell down he actually was reaching for his left elbow, I thought, on that whole thing anyway, when he fell down. Because I know you were talking about the dunk at the end of the previous game. That's the last series against Philadelphia. Seventh game, yeah. Right.

But then I thought when he fell down in this series, he was grabbing his elbow. So, and look, dude, he couldn't, if you watch any of that Miami stuff from last year, like, I remember going, oh, my God. Like, they know they like PJ Tucker going at him. Right. Going like, oh, Hey, once he puts it on the ground, like go for it because he's not really more than a two dribble guy. But the defense is concerning because I thought that he was the dude that you wanted to avoid. And now I'll see teams like switch off a Tatum to go into Brown. Right. Well, speaking of Tatum, I don't want to absolve him either. I was thinking in game seven,

when he got over 50 in that Sixers game and he made the 50 sign. He made the five with the fist, right? That bothered me when I saw it. It was after we did the pod and I'd forgotten that he did that. And we saw it then and I was like, that's not... What is that? This team did a lot of talk about, oh, we're focused on the finals. We're focused on a title. That's all we care about. How many guys... Would Jokic put up a 50? At some point, there's another level to this, right? When you're actually like,

all I want to do is win the title. Yeah, but Jokic doesn't do any of that stuff. He doesn't do any of that stuff. Would Butler do it? Now I sound like a sports radio host. I'm just like... Butler took a knee and did a timeout in front of Horford tonight. He was trying to fuck with the other team

There was like gamesmanship with it Tatum was like look at me I scored 50 It was like kind of shit I don't know It's stuff like that where You're front running because You're beating up on the Sixers team that rolled over Like they did in game three tonight The Celtics

But I don't know, man. Just like win some stuff first before you start talking that much shit, I guess would be my point. Butler has at least earned it where he's carried the team to the finals. He's won a bunch of big series. He took down Milwaukee. He's beaten the Celtics team. He's gone right at him.

I still don't think he would do a 50. Oh, I don't know. I think he would. That doesn't bother me at all. He set a record for game seven points. He had been struggling. I think it was also a reflection of I've been 1-24 in the first halves of games

four, five, and six, which again, I still think is one of the most impossible stats ever to be as good as him. Can we agree on this? If you're going to do that, maybe don't roll over in game three of the next series? No, that's fair, but I do think Butler is capable of doing a lot of that stuff. I think a lot of players are capable. I also think, again, it was a bit of an

exhale moment of that series probably shouldn't have gone the way it went. Shouldn't have gotten smoked in game five. You know, Harden hits two huge shots, two threes, that's right, at the end of game one and the end of game four. So you think I'm overrating that?

To me, it was like a maturity thing. Okay, but prior to this series, Butler hadn't done more in the playoffs in his career than Tatum had. Who'd you like more in a playoff series? Well, of course it's Butler at this point. But, you know, nobody ever talks about the Milwaukee series. Yeah, fair.

Let's take a break and we should talk about Miami. Hey, you. Yeah, you. Scrolling TikTok and avoiding your chem homework? Chegg here. Hot take. You've seen enough Bama Rush, ASMR keyboard, and viral dance videos for one day. Let's lock in and start that assignment. If you need a little help, lean on Chegg's expert-supported learning tools. I say

this with love. Put on some lo-fi beats and get going with our step-by-step study support. Your weekend will thank you. Small steps today means big wins tomorrow. With Chegg. Subscribe today. You got this. 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. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. Alright, so the heat. Here's my theory on the heat. Do we just have parity now with the NBA

where you just need a great coach and two awesome players and some role players? That might be enough? No, no. This roster, this success goes against everything we've ever learned in decades of watching this sport. And because it happened this year

doesn't mean I think this is now the new thing. That's it. End of statement. Maybe we just have a super deep league where there's like Gabe Vincent's falling out of the fucking woodwork now. Like look at the, look at the Nuggets yesterday.

The key guys in that game were KCP, who anybody could have traded for this year, and Bruce Brown. Not to, I mean, obviously be on Murray and Jokic, but the role players they had, they kind of just grabbed this free agency. Those guys are good players.

Those guys are great players. They're even better around Jokic. True. They're smart, good players. Think about the 08 Celtics Cavs series when Delonte West is out there with Anderson Verjao and some of the dudes that were on the court

with eight minutes to go in a game seven. I think the league is really deep now. And, you know, to when you look at like, oh, man, the heat, look at these dudes on this team. Those guys were good. Like Caleb Martin's a good player. You know, I don't feel like that's like some random schmuck. Like that guy, I've watched him now in three straight playoff series, like make huge shots. So I don't know. I just wonder like, is the league just deep? Like we're working on this G League documentary right now that's going to be on Prime in August. And some of, like there's this, there's one guy who I won't

spoil the doc, but there's one guy in the doc and you're watching him like, this guy's great. How is this guy not in an NBA team? But it's the same thing. You watch League Pass more than anybody I know. Don't you see guys on certain nights where you're like, man, why hasn't that guy had a moment yet? Maybe there's just a lot of guys though. Well, we agree on that. The depth is insane. There was one night I remember watching Portland and I'm like, they're not even good. And look at their seven guys that they're putting out there. But that's what happens when you have

two really small guards. You're just not going to be able to defend anybody enough. And then Nurkic on top of everything else. I mean, they're their own specific problem, but I'm in complete agreement with you on the depth where there'll be players seven, eight, nine on teams. And I go, you're going to be kidding me. know as great as Caleb Martin has been and he's another massive success story for this heat team he was like a negative box score on the season he had a PER of 11 okay he averaged nine a game so like what's like Gabe Vincent with the zero in the in the second playing game now looks like he's, I don't know, Dave Lillard. So I'm going to say it a second time.

This is really special what Miami is doing. And the reason it's special is that it's not supposed to happen. So that is the part that I will marry myself. I'm not going to then go, well... So this is not reputable for you? No, the reason it's special is that it's unique. Do you think? Do you seriously think?

And this is what I have a hard time with data points, right? Nobody ever look at a business and see their stock do well for a month and then be like, hey, maybe that's what we all need to be in. be in now granted we could take it to the extreme and say that's exactly what happens with the way people would trade but you would you would hope the way you would evaluate things be like okay well how many seasons did this happen well it's happened like um well this is the second time it's happened in 24 years where an eight seed made it to the NBA finals. Okay, well, so that's not normal. And the other time it was a lockout.

Right, right. And so whenever I look at something that's this special, the reason it's special is that it's not supposed to happen. So I wouldn't think that we have to now start looking at roster roster building differently i think it's like a lot about miami and i feel like all heat culture jokes are dead i don't think anybody's ever allowed to say them anymore i know i'm gonna stop and it's a bit like you know tyler johnson getting what 70 million from the nets right and then you go yeah with miami he might have been worth that. Well, the part that's not, the part that's not replicable is the Spoh part.

And this was the fear. I mean, how many times did we talk about this on the podcast? So I didn't want the Celtics to play Miami. Well, why did I want them to play Miami? Cause they had Jimmy Butler and they had Spoh. And that was it. And I thought they were going to outwit the Celtics. And it really scared me, even though the Celtics had more talent talent and I still didn't think it would happen right they fell to eight

and it was like well thank god at least we don't get to see the heat and then we saw the heat anyway but look you deserve credit for it the the big winner is the Bucs because that looked like one of the worst losses in recent playoff history now the heat accrues to the finals it's like yeah maybe the Bucs shouldn't feel as bad. You're right. Look, you deserve credit for even bringing it up. And I started yelling at you, saying no, no, no. You're going to be kidding me. At some point, you have to look at who they

are offensively and go, there's just not going to be enough scoring for them to carry this out. I still think of Giannis' plays, the full series against Milwaukee, or not even at this point. I believe that. The Knicks thing completely outclassed them and have embarrassed this Boston team throughout. But the Spoh part of it that's really funny,

when I was looking at some of the stuff, like how Boston fell apart against the zone. Well, you've got to figure out, eventually you can't just be like, oh, they're in zone, we're fucked. You can't stop running certain parts of your offense. Teams get weird and they stop screening as much.

They have the perfect dunker spot guy in Rob Williams. He's built to be the dunker running the baseline against any kind of collapse. You have to figure out a way to break the paint and get in there

and collapse, set a screen and dribble into the paint. You know, anything at the top to try to find a way. Or put Tatum on the side, have Tatum running the baseline back and forth and cutting up.

There's a million things you can do. Right. But they would just have the ball and they would watch and then they would stop. And you're like, okay, so that's it? And then you think about Spoh. And I remember when the zone was first reintroduced in the NBA because we always grew up with like zones for losers. You can't ever play zone. You know, no head coach in basketball like, you know, high school unless your team's just really, really small and the other You can't ever play zone. No head coach in basketball in high school,

unless your team's just really, really small and the other team can't shoot, but you always feel like zone is for losers, which again, there's parts of me that still kind of believe that, right? A little bit, but the value of the zone was disrupting teams. And if you look at it this year,

Miami ran more zone possessions than any team has run in 19 years and that's what John Shulman on NBA.com wanted to give him the shout out when I saw that note and you're like oh wait so the best coach in the NBA it's not even debatable anymore like nobody can enter anybody else into the chat the best coach in the NBA decided that they needed to play more zone than any team has played in 20 years hmm Hmm. Maybe, maybe that's something. Well, think about the reasons that he did that. Because he was trying to hide and protect some of the people in his nine-man rotation.

Like you're doing it partly because you have lineups that have Duncan Robinson and Kevin Love out there at the same time. You don't want them in space guarding somebody. And no team could figure out how to unlock it. It reminded me of those football teams when they, you know, like Lou Amarillo, when it'd be like,

Oh, what's he doing against my homes? Oh, he changed. Oh, now he's got this new defense. Oh, different look for this series.

That's kind of what Sposal was doing. Like a football neutral zone trap devils. Uh, yeah, look, I, you know, and then like something is simple. Cause I still feel like there's somebody

running the NBA coaches challenge seminar and it might be my mom I don't know who's running it and telling them when to use the challenges but when Spoh kept the challenge at the end of the Milwaukee game you're like you know what the best coach in the NBA said under no circumstances like am I using this even though I kind of understood Missoula's, which the broadcast kind of missed the point that that was going to be Rob Williams' third foul. And that's why they did it. And it was a four-point swing, which is another reason.

Honestly, I still don't know if I would have challenged that early. And you go, oh, Spoh decided to do this. Like, Spoh's the guy that's like, you know, I really don't want to use it because you can pretend the math, possession is possession, points are points. Not really.

Not for me. There's going to be something that happens weird there. Why not have it in your back pocket? And it turned out to be a huge part of, again, they were going to win the first series once they had the Giannis problems. And then, you know, look, Milwaukee. Something's happening here. Milwaukee's soul escaped from their

bodies in those last two games when it looked like they were going to win, it looked like they were going to cruise. The Knicks, that was a different kind of collapse. And here's Miami without Hero and Oladipo, who at times looked washed, but at the same time, there'd be other nights where, can you get 20 minutes? You could at least throw them out there, yeah.

Right, get 20 minutes. They lose those two guys. They lose love immediately after he scores five quick points. I still think Struis was hobbled pretty big time, yet didn't seem like it was something where you go, hey, let's go ahead and attack this guy. You're watching Thibodeau on the other side when Butler can't even move when he turns his ankle in that series,

and then the Knicks had 12 possessions and didn't attack Butler the whole time. Like these things keep happening where they're making everybody else look weak mentally and challenged mentally on just basketball intelligence. And it's really because of Spoh.

I don't know if I can take the regular season seriously anymore. There could be another outcome of these playoffs. House was texting me about this. Just like, does any of this matter? I was already there with hockey, but that's where it was this year.

But see, this is back to the I need five more years like this. I need five more years like this because we can run through the entire West. Denver, they look fucking awesome. And by the way, I'm picking them against Miami. All right? Me too.

They were under 500 on the road. There was this lingering thing where I'm like, how does that happen with a one seed? Has that ever happened before with a one seed? They just seemed like they packed it in the last month of the season. They did. They seemed like they were saving themselves, especially Jokic. They did.

They had a really bad last month. And then you look at Memphis and you go, wait, they're the two seed, but they're a mess. And then there's Sacramento where you're like, that's a three seed? Well, it's because they're five guys played the whole time. And they won all the games. They actually, you know, they were locked in from end to end, but they probably would have been a fifth or a sixth seed in another year. Golden State was a mess. The Clippers were

a mess. If Lonnie Walker doesn't get hot in Game 4 against Golden State, they better win that series. Right. So I could go through the entire West specific to this year and go, man, collectively the whole West was so weird.

And then at least the East... Except for Denver. Denver was not weird, especially in the least the East... Except for Denver. Denver was not weird. Like, especially in the playoffs. I think Denver has been... No, no, no. Denver, they've fallen behind by 10 points, I think, once in the playoffs, which is a good sign that you have a really good team. And they have...

The reason I love them against the Lakers and may or may not have put a wager on it is I just never saw them discombobulated for more than a couple minutes in a game. And I can't wait to talk. When do you want to talk about that game? Should we just do it now? Well, no.

I have one last kind of collective on it because I know what you're saying is going to be really popular, and I'm resisting it in that the regular season, maybe this happens, maybe this continues, and then we start having... Because again, the Denver side of this is not a weird finals appearance. Because you're right. They were weird the last month. But they had the

best player in the world. So you have to take them seriously the whole time. But they were still 15th on defense. They were worse than Golden State this year on defense. And the other part where I know Malone's taking a bit of a victory lap here, which I thought was a little early for it, where he's pissed at everybody for not, you

know, talking about him enough. It's like, dude, other than that Western Conference Finals appearance where you lost 4-1 to the Lakers in 20, there's not much. And I know they've had injuries and Murray missed a bunch of time, but there really wasn't that much about the team resume-wise in the playoffs where you were like, okay, they are a certainty. Now that we've seen them play, and now that they're up 3-8, you're like, okay, they're awesome. All the role players, as you suggest, have been incredible against the Lakers.

But I just, I don't know, man. I think it might be maybe if it's part one of a weird regular season stretch, but to me, it's still part one. I think these teams are super deep. And even you think about how close Chicago came to beat Miami in the playing game. I don't think they would have made the finals, but that was a pretty good team and they didn't make the playoffs. It just seems like from a talent standpoint,

the league's as talented as it's been in 30 years. Okay, let me ask you a quick follow-up then. So that means if we have a team in like two years that wins 64 regular season games, you're just going to go, well, who knows? You're going to think that team's awesome, right? Well, it would depend if they had, do they have a guy like Jokic on it? Or is like a 2006 Pistons type of 64 wins where I'm like, that team won 64 games. So is this a line in the sand then for you? That's kind of what I'm asking. Is this

post-season result a line in the sand where you now are going to go, I have to think about the regular season and how it influences me differently? Well, this is something we've been doing this pod for a few years and we've talked a lot about the difference between regular season basketball and playoff basketball. And I feel like it's more profound than ever this season. Um, and I don't really know what that means longterm, but I do think it feels like more teams are in it than where we were 10 years ago, where it was like, you know, you look at like that Nets team that had Darren Williams and Joe Johnson on it. Did you ever think that team was actually going to make the finals? Like it was pretty, it was always pretty clear.

There were like three teams. You're right. You really took seriously. This year it was like if the Warriors had just gotten their shit together for a couple of weeks, like could they have been up 2-1 against Denver going into a game four? Like, I don't know. There was a bunch of, I don't know, There was a bunch of I don't know teams. Milwaukee was another one.

I still don't know what happened to Cleveland. Like if they had a different coach, what would that team have looked like? So I just think the leagues, I know it's a cop out, but I think the league's really talented. With that said, I agree with you that the Miami thing

is special and unique because of the infrastructure. It's the infrastructure that's doing this. It's Butler and it's BAM and it's SPO. And they find these role guys that just aren't afraid ever. And they play really hard and they're tough. And they seek them out. They went and signed Caleb Barton.

It's not like they developed them. They signed him from Charlotte, right? They found a couple dudes. They realized love was going to fit with their infrastructure. And they obviously lobbied him when he was unhappy in Cleveland. Come here, you'll do great. He wanted to go there. So now they're getting these dudes that are either ring chasing or just know like, hey, that culture is the right culture for me. And it's hard for me to believe that somebody down the road, like a Giannis type doesn't see

that or Luca or any of these guys that two years from now might be in the same spot ring-wise. I guess Giannis has one, but somebody like Luka, does he see this from afar and go, man, if I ever switch teams, I'd want to go to that team. I think they've at least achieved that.

Yeah, look, the heat culture thing, I'm going to stop making the jokes because before I thought it was stupid because I was like, ooh, Pat Riley makes you run. Cool. What's heat culture? Dwayne Wade and LeBron figuring out three years ahead of time with Bosh to all go to the same team at some point, and then it just worked better in Miami. And then when you go to South Beach, you're like, I can see being a 25-year-old dude or 20-year-old NBA player and going, yeah, I think I want to hang out here for like four years. So I always thought it was kind of silly. I always thought it was. Well, there's the Riley Spoh thing I think really is something. And especially if you even see Riley on TV and it's like ever since Red Auerbach died, he's kind of replaced Red Auerbach as this semi-mythical figure who's been involved in

all these great teams and eras and situations. Ever since he showed up to Miami, they've been relevant. They've had a couple of hiccup stretches, but never more than two, three years. But even in the finals, think of it this way. I think you just landed on a really great point. All the years, like, oh, you know Miami, you know what they're doing? They're clearing the decks for Giannis. Oh, he resigned with Milwaukee. Oh, you know what Miami's doing? They're going to decks for Giannis. Oh, he resigned with Milwaukee. You know what Miami's doing? They're going to make a play for Durant. Oh, okay, cool. It didn't happen. They ended up getting Jimmy

Butler just because Butler didn't get a contract from Minnesota and then he was so sick of the Embiid and Simmons stuff at the time that he's like, wait, what are you guys doing here?

He still needed Philly's help with that trade, which was the, he needed help from Philly and he needed Portland to take Whiteside's contract. It was like two semi-miracles for him to even land because they had no cap space. That was one of the craziest things about that Butler acquisition is I'm still not positive how they even got him. And then somebody who watched Hassan Whiteside play was like, yeah, we're in. Yeah, Portland's like, ooh, he could solve our backup center problems

for $30 million. Right, just like, okay, so you know, for years, I'll admit, I kind of did an eye roll every time because they were linked with any big name, potentially, and they weren't getting any of them. And the Butler one was very different it

wasn't like it was it was oh we only get jimmy because he knows he comes here i think the biggest win for the heat the organization for the fans is that it may now be like hey do you see what they just did with that group like maybe maybe this is real i'm serious like I think that's the biggest win not just beating Boston yeah it's a four year run where they make they're gonna make two finals

and come within a Jimmy three of making a third it's pretty good pretty solid when you consider that it's been Butler

and Bam and then a bunch of moving parts I don't think anyone felt like the Lowry signing really worked. The old Depot re-signing, that didn't work, and he got hurt again.

There was a moment there, probably in February, where it was like, whoa, this is finally, heat culture's finally done. And now it's the opposite. Now the Celtics are reeling, and I'm making up Jalen Brown traits. Let's take a break, and we'll talk Nuggets Lakers. Built for Celine, who just wants to retire and explore the world's flea markets. So take a moment and think about what you're building for. We've got the financial tools to help make it happen.

Wealthsimple. Built for possibilities. Visit wealthsimple.com slash possibilities. All right, so I went to Nuggets Lakers last night, and I do think I attended the greatest win in the history of the Nuggets. And actually did some of the research. It was appalling. Top 20 Nuggets wins. Go.

I'll give you five. The 2020, they beat the Clips in game seven in the semis in the bubble. Murray at 40. That got them to the Western Finals. 2009 Western Finals, Lakers, game two. Really good game. They win in LA. Carmelo is 34.

94, Seattle, game five. They pull out the upset. The first one, eight. Mutombo holding the ball. 1978, West Semis, game seven. They beat Milwaukee. David Thompson at 37. And then they beat Kentucky

in the 76 conference finals in game seven by 23 and Thompson had 40 to play the Nets. Those are the five greatest wins. Did Kentucky beat Denver? No, Denver beat Kentucky. Those are the five greatest wins that I could come up with for the Nuggets. I went

year by year. And I think yesterday was the greatest because A, it locked in the finals. They'd never made the NBA finals before. They're going to make it now. But the things that were against them in that game, right? Jokic gets in foul trouble. They're not getting any calls. They're on the road. Murray has this 30 in the first half that seems unsustainable. And there's this moment in the second half. Jokic isn't out there because he got this fourth foul that was unconscionable. He has to sit down.

They're playing Gordon at the undersized center. And the Lakers start hitting shots. All of a sudden, the Lakers are up one. The crowd's going nuts. They're not getting any calls. Unlike the Celtics, they don't melt down. They don't flip out at the refs. They know what's happening. Because Murray's

going nuclear again. No, because Schroeder is just attacking Murray every play. He's all over him. It's like a rugby match. And they just kind of rode the storm. And they made a couple shots. They bought time

until Jokic came back and Jokic comes back in the fourth and he just, he Kaiser Soze'd it in the fourth. And they fought it off, had the 10 point run, played some defense. I was so impressed because when you win a game like that, when you're on the road and the refs are against you and you're going against LeBron and he's just driving to the basket, it seems like he's getting every call. Davis is playing well. It would have been really easy for them to roll over. And they did the opposite. And it was awesome. And I was watching, I was sitting behind their bench.

So I was watching their bench. Their bench is standing up going nuts. Jokic is just like screaming after every play. It was the kind of game like you win that game. I think you can win the finals and I think they're going to win the finals. I agree with you. They look like the most complete team. And they've certainly showed that in these three games. I mean, look, I don't even think it's a conversation at this point.

But what Jokic does is expected what Murray did at the end of game two after getting that, you know, because Murray, I know he gets pissed about, and look, any great player should always be thinking he's better than everybody else. But when he starts saying, like, I'm better than a lot of dudes

that have people, you know, and then it's like you do the list. You're like, I don't know. I kind of think you're kind of around where you should be. And then he goes off in game two with the close. You're like, God, this guy is capable.

He was in the 30 in the first half, the point of bringing up those two guys is that when you have Brett Brown making every play, Michael Porter Jr. hitting every open shot. Right now in this series... Bruce Brown. What did I just call him, Brett Brown? Yeah.

Wow, you sound like me. I know. KCP. So if you look at them through the three games on open looks which you're going to get a lot of open looks because all the attention to the two-man game with yokich and murray which at times during the playoffs i felt like the yokich murray two-man game was like a little too predictable and now they have every angle they have every handoff they know it perfect and if if you leave any of the other, they're knocking down every shot right now.

Those three guys on open looks, as far as the tracking's concerned, they're over 60%. And I thought despite Jokic going off in the fourth and coming back in with all the foul trouble, every time the Lakers needed some kind of stop, one of the others made the right play.

Yeah, I agree. And there's an infectiousness with how great of a playmaker Jokic is. Like, Gordon made an unbelievable pass yesterday. There's no way when he was in Orlando he made a pass like that. I thought... I've watched a lot of Nuggets this year, as have you,

but I've watched a lot of Nuggets. A lot. And I thought Jokic... I love watching Nuggets. And Jokic had a really weird first half. And to me, and I thought... You've watched him a lot. I love watching Nuggets. And Jokic had a really weird first half. And to me, I thought he was burned out in the fourth quarters of game one and game two

because he worked so hard in the first three quarters of those games. I felt like he actually ran out of gas in both games. Look how fast he's going. Off every make, after every miss.

It was nuts. But no, you know what I love? Real quick though, just because people talk about running. People talk about pushing tempo. Yeah. And very few teams do it as much as they talk about it.

And he, from the jump, is like, I'm running you to death at his own. Like, a lot of guys start taking it. He's running the wing, too. Right. So, go ahead. I just thought it was worth just hammering that point. Game three, he was way more careful and it was quick I said

I was with my friend Ben and I was like I know what Jokic is doing he's saving the saving the tank for the fourth quarter now what happens is he ends up getting in foul trouble and is out of the like basically seven minutes of third quarter but when he came back it was like he had like seven red bulls and he just well he sat oh my god like

seven and a look he got subbed out because of the fouls i you know i think it was like seven and a half minutes yeah and it just seemed like they were dead in the water it was like it was it was 724 and then the non-yokich minutes you're always tracking those in a playoff series right okay how's that because there's certain times you're like oh man like again you know one of the arguments against his plus minus being that absurd was that the bench was so bad over the regular season yeah going that's but they only lost two points they were only a negative two it was america for seven and a half minutes of the third quarter at LA. And Murray couldn't make a shot anymore.

And they were mauling Murray. I mean, just mauling him. And they weren't getting any calls. And they somehow held on. And then when he came back, he laid the smack down. It was so impressive. And then there was the LeBron piece of it, too. My big argument against the Lakers making the finals was I just didn't see

how those two guys would hold up for three series. LeBron physically is just a mess. He's not the same guy. And I know he came back from that foot thing, but the explosiveness not there, he doesn't have the lift on his legs. And I think the amount of games that they played, there was a weird vibe in the crowd. I got to say Rosillo, there were a couple

times when he was lining up threes where there was kind of the no murmur from the crowd. Like, no. They kind of didn't want him to shoot the threes. They either wanted him to pass it to the basket. Well, look, if you don't want to shoot in threes, then what do you want him to do? I mean, look, the first thing

I guess post up. The post up is good, but he's going to take threes. He has to in threes, then what do you want him to do? I guess post up. The post up is good, but he's going to take threes. He has to take threes because he's not going to have the sustained energy, and it's something you saw in the regular season where the bursts... And in the first two rounds.

The bursts are there. When he knows he's going downhill, there's not much you're going to do. He's still going to make those finishes. I know he had the layup and the missed dunk, whatever. I don't care about that. But the constant movement of him cutting off the ball and that kind of stuff, it's just not going to happen

because I don't think he has the reserves. The stuff he did in Miami. No, he doesn't. He picks his spots, and this is a team you can't really pick your spots. What was really, really, really interesting about that game was more stuff should have run through Reeves, and it was a case of LeBron because he's LeBron, and the ball should run through him.

He's one of the greatest players of all time. But Reeves was their best matchup in that game, And really for the series, the Reeves-Davis pick and roll, the high screen with those two guys with LeBron kind of as a decoy over on the side was the play that Denver had the most trouble with. And Reeves in general, I mean, he was seven for 10 yesterday, but I just liked everything he did I think he's been a revelation in these playoffs like there's no chance zero that nobody's going to offer him like 80

90 million bucks like that's just going to happen he's basically Jeff Taller Jeff Hornisch like reincarnated but I thought he was kind of should have been where the offense ran through but you can't do that because LeBron's on the team. So there was a little bit of a who are we moment

that I felt like they had in the second half. You can feel it in game two, too. But the other guys are the D'Angelo Russell minutes. Well, victory lap for you. Well, I knew I was right the whole time, so I wasn't thinking about it. Well, just take a slow jog. I don't need it.

Just take a slow, just do wave, hold the American flag, Well, just take a slow jog. You don't have to sprint. I don't need it. I don't need it. Just take a slow, just do wave, hold the American flag and just do like a half-flag. Are you saying his style of play is un-American? I don't know. Yeah, it's very Euroleague-ish.

Yeah, I think they've tabled the contract talks for the offseason for D'Lo. People were screaming in my section, Get him out of here! Come on, Ham! Take him out! There was a lot of vitriol on the stands yesterday. Because not a lot of Nuggets fans either.

It wasn't like the Warriors game where you have the small percentage of Warriors fans. They were mad at him. They were mad at the LeBron 3s. The Ham thing's certainly taken a 180 in this city. My God. People are ready to start calling him the next whatever. Like, hey, do we have West Coast Spoh out here? And it's like, oh, no, this guy sucks.

Which, again, he doesn't suck, but I thought part of it. Because there's certainly a revisionist history of how you can look at this Lakers playoff run where you go, Memphis is a mess. They caught Memphis. They were like fucking Chris in town. Speaking of the town. Memphis had a two-year-old stepchild, they'd shine. I'll tell you what. It's a lot cooler to watch the town four times a week by yourself when you beat Philly. Right.

It's a lot worse when you lose. It's like, wait, this guy watches the fucking town four times a week? Dude, my fucking cousin's in that, and I ain't seen it. Here's the thing. If our Celtics coach, and for people who don't know the story, Joe Mazzulla admitted that he watches the town up to four times a week. What's funny about that is the town ends with them having a terrible plan for the last heist and everyone dies except Ben Affleck, who also should have died. But in general general it was really bad planning that led to just a bunch of murders

and i thought it was funny that that's his favorite movie so does that mean wait the celts will get game four because the town ended up one three in the series i think joe's gonna end up in the same place in the everglades the the little house looking out of the water. It worked out. Worked out. See, I'm sick of my buddies asking me if I'm friends with Missoula because we have so many common interests. Right. Having no family,

limited friends, terse. The town. Into MMA later on in life, like you're proving something to anybody. Snapping at reporters. Right. Snapping.

Hating stupid questions so alright wait wait so I want to get back to this Lakers part of it because wait before we do that can I ask you if news came out about the town too and it was

it was Doug's been in the Everglades for the last 15 years but ran into an old friend and it's time for one last job. Are you in just from that sentence? I was in just when I heard the town to the town. Is it called the other town? Dougie's working a bar. Maybe Shine shows up.

She's 18 now i think i think ben adopts a kid and the kid gets in too deep with a local bookie in the panhandle gotta get back in yeah right sounds great we can we can workshop it anyway go back to the lakers to share with the audience though um i i think you're going to be okay with this because i just want to share what happened but Bill sent me a text that something that you know because he has a relationship with Affleck and it was about the town and we were talking about the town and then on the thread I was like tell Ben I said hey and I let it linger for like a couple minutes just to see see what my response would be right because I think I was driving or else I would have had a good response. Because I could just see Bill being like, all right, you know, we do the Sundays, but

like, go fuck yourself. God, do I have to pass that along? I'll do it if he asks a second time. Right, right. And then I was, yeah, I was quick follow up. All right. No, I look, I feel like I lost my train of thought. I know what I would say about the Lakers, but since you went, if you have more, let

me just go after you. So go ahead. You seem to have a point, is my point. Something's stewing right now. I think this was the best chance they're going to have with this nucleus because I don't

see LeBron a year from now being in better shape physically and lift-wise than he was this year. And they had a really good chance here. You know, I didn't feel like Denver played that well for Denver in either game one or game two. And it really felt like the Nuggets could have blown game one, especially. And now it's 3-0 and the Nuggets are clearly better.

But I do feel like the longer that series went along, we've just never seen some of the guys on the Nuggets in that spot, right? Like we've never seen Bruce Brown actually having to make a three in a game seven when you're playing LeBron and those guys. But anyway, the window's gone and I don't know if I'm the Lakers now what that looks like because now I got to pay Reeves $20 million a year

probably letting Russell go. Maybe you can sign and trade Russell, but I don't even know what the rules are with that new CBA. Also, who wants him? Imagine having to sign Russell to a contract and then going, oh, and we give you stuff? Right.

The West is going to be better. There's a bunch of these teams. oh and we give you stuff right you know it's not impossible like there's a bunch of these teams fucking Wemba Nyama is going to be in the Spurs next year they might be better right away Memphis will be in better shape

next year Denver I mean one of the things I was thinking about with Denver if you're just a player watching this at home how would they not be one of your free agent choices

right could Denver start being one of these teams that cherry picks the older veterans and just the same way Kevin Love went to Miami? Could they eighth, ninth man year after year, just people like I want to play with Jokic, that guy's amazing. But on down the line, the West is just going to be better next year than it is this year. And I think from a Lakers standpoint, pretty rough, which is why I think that Davis and Bede trade that I threw out on Tuesday's pod

I think would be a pretty interesting one for both sides. And I don't know who says no. And back to my point I like to sign a trade with Russell. I just don't know that, you know, I don't obviously it's not impossible. We've seen plenty of stuff happen in this league. I just don't know how much of an asset that thing is that you're getting back.

It's kind of like the Houston-Philly-Harden stuff where you're like, well, maybe Philly can sign and trade Harden to Houston. And you go, why would – For what? Why would Houston give up an asset when they can just use their cap space for the whole thing? So, I mean, that's a different topic, so I'm not going to derail all this stuff. You're right about the Lakers,

because it does feel like this was another remarkable kind of individual story where they were dead, but the real elixir to all of this was Anthony Davis looking like Anthony Davis again. This is why we are so excited about him when he's actually healthy. And in a weird way, I think him being healthy longer allowed him to get over some of the stuff.

Like when you're not playing and you get hurt, I know this sounds really simplistic, but when you're not getting, you know, you're getting hurt all the time because you haven't built up any tolerance to kind of the bang of going out there for 30 plus minutes a night. And then kind of once he got through that

and he started falling, it was like, oh no, I actually think he's going to be all right here. Yeah. I think the Lakers story story you could be really positive about it where you could say this is an incredible turnaround they still actually gave themselves a chance uh it was more about ad than it was about any trade but the trade got a lot of the headlines i think there's another part of it too i would say it was more about just getting rid of westbrook more than what they got back, right? It's not like the three guys from that trade

lit the sky for them, but they got rid of Westbrook. So next year they have Rui's an RFA, Lonnie Walker's unrestricted, Reeves is an RFA, and Russell is a UFA. He's out.

So Rui has been kind of a revelation for me and Russell is a UFA. He's out. So, I don't, I, Rui has been kind of a revelation for me, and I don't know whether it's just LeBron dependent, you know. I don't think it has been. I think it's been a lot of him.

But, but when, especially when you see him in person, like he's just a big fucking dude, man. He's like six, nine, six,

10. He can post up. I like his game. I don't know what happened to him in Washington, but if the worst thing for somebody's career is, I don't know what happened to him in Washington, I could say that about 30 guys. You know?

So I think they have to bring him back and I think they have to bring Reeves back. So now you're talking about skyrocketing money. The other thing is you have LeBron as an expiring contract who, you know, he's not shy about pushing his way to another situation

if he has to. So they're on the clock with him to some degree. His son's going to be at USC next year. I would guess it's one more year, but I'll tell you this, Rosillo. As much as I think the LeBron experience this year was fun for the Laker fans and all that, it is shocking.

Repeat, shocking. How many Kobe jerseys are at these Laker games? Like by far the most that have like more Kobe jerseys than all other jerseys combined. And I do wonder like, do wonder, this is always going to be the Kobe town and it should be, and that's the way it is. But I don't know. I wonder if he has a door that could potentially be open at some point, or if he decides there's another

team or he's trying to plan for a year from now, like, does he bail on these guys? Cause we've seen him do it. How many times now, you know, he's always going to do what's best for him, which he should, he's a professional athlete, but he, he will always do what's best for him. And it makes me wonder like, what happens this summer with this? What if he decides this isn't the place for me this summer? I want to go here. I want to go there or you got to do this, or I might leave. We've seen him do all this stuff before. Yeah, I think here's a question for you. Would you rather be Golden State next year or the Lakers?

I'd rather have Curry than anything else out there. I also think they have real outs. They can trade the pool contract if they want. I think Kaminga has real value. I think Moody has value. Clay's an expiring. The Draymond piece will be interesting. I do think he's going to have value. Even if you look at the Spurs, if you're the Spurs, is it worth it to make a run at somebody like that next year? Now that you have Wemba Diama, you might actually be good next year. at the Spurs. If you're the Spurs, is it worth it to make a run at somebody like that next

year? Now that you have Wemba Diama, you might actually be good next year. Is it worth it to go get, you have like 40 million in cap space. Is it worth it to drive the price up for somebody like Draymond or Chris Middleton or whoever and try to get a veteran guy for a couple of years at big money? You're making a face. No, I just don't think, despite all the challenges with Draymond and all that stuff, I don't think that group...

I don't know what that group would look like without him. Would you follow the stories this week? Draymond admitted it. Anchor admitted it. Pretty openly that the punch changed their season. They basically admitted everything we've said all year. You said it

more than I did, so you deserve credit for it. Well, I don't deserve any credit because it was obvious. But the question for me is how do you heal the pool thing and whether they just decide to move on from him? Does he have value? I would think he would have value for some of these up-and-coming teams. Despite

that contract, I still think he's a good score and he's been in big games you know like what would he look like on the spurs uh see that's that's something that you know i remember one time we had uh eric mangini and there was a lesson in there we had him in studio we were talking about different stuff and it was like what do you do when you're this stuck and you're trying to figure out a quarterback we ended up landing on Matt Castle. And he said, even if your options aren't great and that's the best you can do, you at least know there's a season or two in there where you're like, the guy played the position. And even though that season where he filled in for Brady is, I think, comically overrated because the scheduling was a joke and everybody won a ton of games in the NFC East that year, which is another lesson I'm not going to get into here.

But there was a point that applies to kind of everything, and for us in sports, where he goes, at least I know that person has done something like that before. And in this case, it was just the standard of, could he be a starting quarterback in the NFL? And the answer for Castle was right, even if he ended up not being that great long term. I think it's the same principle with Jordan Poole that you're talking about. And I agree with you that as bad as this was, he still at one point last year during that playoff run, you're like, no one can stay in front of this guy. And he's making every shot. Like, look how big his shot making is. And yes, he gets lost on defense.

And yes, he turns it over. When Poole has a turnover, especially this year, it was like a monumental turnover. You're like, at the worst possible time, you did the worst thing. I mean, I guess over the course of six or seven months, I'd wonder why the punch would still linger and prevent him from making better decisions. It just seemed like it went sideways and shit happens. And you and I are both people that have held grudges and let things affect us. I could totally get it from his side.

If I'm the Spurs, I have a million first-round picks, right? They have 10 in the next five years. They have some good ones. They have a top six protected from somebody good. They have a couple Celtic picks. They have a swap. We're on the same page. Yeah, I would do it.

As bad as it was this year, at least I could sit there if I'm sitting there with my front office going, okay, what are our options? All right, the free agent market stinks. All right, we have cap space. We have to use it before the escalation of the rookie contracts kick in. We've been drafting all these guys. So now you're going to see teams spend cap space on not even the plan B, maybe the plan C. On Ruby Hachimura for $18 million a year.

And if you're Golden State and you get out of that pool contract, which you don't want to lose the asset, but if it saves you $90 million in luxury tax and allows you to bring back Draymond and do some different things, I think you would think about it. Did we talk about the Nuggets enough?

Because I feel like we might have, but I also feel like Jokic is just clearly the best player in the league now. That's the only other point I really want to make. It's so obvious to me he's the guy now. Yeah, and you know what? They win this whole thing. It looks like they're going to win.

I would say this is what happens when you win, right? Because remember all the MVP arguments against him, which were really fucking weird from the MB camp about Jokic never winning anything. And you're like, well, it's not exactly you sitting over there, Mr. Three Rings. Well, and then the flip side of that is just how devastating the Murray injury was for the timing, which we've talked about before. But they lost him before the 21 playoffs and it carried all the way through the 22 playoffs, right?

So they lose two postseasons where potentially they could add a run like this in one of those seasons. Who knows? That's a huge what if now when you look at how great Murray is, how he's been in the playoffs as like a legit number two guy and then just has special yokages. Okay. Then I'll ask you, what did you think of Malone calling out D'Angelo Russell and then going off the other night about being disrespected, about the Jokic disrespect, you know, all these different things? Because it felt a little early for him to kind of do a victory lap, or maybe that's'm still not 100% in on Malone, but I think he's been pretty good. I was really impressed last night because the thing he did yesterday was make sure that the team didn't get too affected by what was going on with the officiating. He handled most of it. When his guys were kind of getting unhinged, he was pulling them in. And there was just a know-how with it that if, for example, like that's some of the stuff that Joe Maz was missing this year.

He just hadn't been in the job before. Like he hadn't been in a situation like that. I had a question for you. Remember in Rocky IV when Duke brings, they're in the cabin in Russia and Duke brings Rocky up and he gives him the speech.

When Apollo died, a part of me died too. But now you're the one, you're the one who has to make sure his dreams. And he gives him a whole like pep talk thing. Did you do that with Jeff Green? Did you say, Jeff, when Chris Paul's title dreams died again, a part of me died too. But now you're the one Jeff green. You're the one who's going to make Chris's dreams not go for that.

I believe in you. You're my guy. I feel like Jeff's the one I know I'd be happy with and be a good parent, but Chris was the one that really revved my engine. Chris was your literal Chris in the town. Yeah. I mean, that's not a coincidence. Jeff Green would still feel pretty good, though. Had a nice three yesterday.

Also, I thought he did a great job guarding LeBron. And the refs, of course, gave no respect at all. LeBron, one of my things for the league, and there's no way to look at this, but can we crack down on out-of-control dribblers? We now have this thing where these guys, they can just basically, you go downhill, you're out of control, you flail your arms into somebody,

they can't do anything, and it's a foul on the guy. And it's now this glitch in the system that the really smart players like lebron just know how to do and i thought a couple times yesterday jeff green like defended him perfectly and still got it's like what else is this guy gonna do he's moving move his legs he's in the way what he's not touching what else what what other options does he have? I hate how I control dribbling. No, you're right. And I, you know, it's been a thing for me the last couple of years where as much as I was complaining about the charge stuff where I think there's a change. That's why I kind of can't believe they overturned the Lowry one. The Tony brothers, who, by the way, was voted the best official by the players, the anonymous athletic poll, which I think is always important to bring up because I feel like every night...

You know, it's another thing... I was suspicious of that poll. I promise to get back to this. There are now official announcements where it'll go, oh, Zach Zarba and the Kings are one in seven in his last eight. Right.

Pretty small sample size. Okay. Now what? Now what am I supposed to do? Like I know some of the Scott Foster ones have been weird. There was a Chris Paul one where it was like 16 in a row. It's pretty bad. If it gets to 16 in a row, that could, yeah.

But because of the Scott Foster one being so interesting and seeming to be like mathematically, that doesn't make a ton of sense. I think there's now promotion of ones that mathematically make all the sense in the world yeah oh okay so you got tyler ford for the last 10 games and you're two and eight like right instead of five and five i bet that's happened i bet that's happened and for the scott foster part of it last night when you were there and you brought up the refs a bunch of times, I think the Lakers, you know, I had two issues. The refs are awful. I thought there were two games against Golden State where I go, OK, well, then Golden State's not going to win this game. You know, I know the free throw differential was part of it between Golden State and the way they played and the way the Lakers played.

But there was one game where it was so absurd. But then even last night as I'm watching it play out, knowing what everybody's going to say if the Lakers will pull that off, there was a monumental call against Schroeder yanking Jokic's arms where Foster was the furthest away from it. But Schroeder pulls so much shit in the course of games. It was funny because even though, look, lose and jim michael green puts a cap on lebron on his post because lebron's like we don't flop we don't flop it's like actually the lakers between russell between schroeder and actually reeves flops all the time like they have some all-time

excellent at it i think he's like the new flopper of the year. Rookie flopper of the year. Is that an award? Yeah. Well, he'd have to be a rookie too. Well, man, like for maybe newcomer, flopping newcomer of the year. Best new star.

Breakthrough. Breakthrough flopper athlete. Why is there no junior challenge? Breakthrough flopperpper who was it who was it the other day it was a player was like we need third team all defense so that kids are more inspired to play defense like yeah there's a ton of kids in a playground right now going i don't play any d because there's no third team nba doesn't recognize it uh there was a huge that was a huge huge call and it led to free throws and I thought, hey, if the fix was in, why does Foster

call that foul? That foul was enormous at the time. It definitely was a foul. It was obvious in person. He pulled it backwards. Well, it was definitely a foul, but the small guys always win against the big guys. They can pull all sorts of shit against them. I think there was a point. Oh, Flea didn't like, see, there's another thing.

I'm very very pro bill on your basketball thoughts the culmination of them i thought you made a great point for game three you were like lebron should defend yokich more because the officials are not going to call it on lebron and you know what you're right there's just a level of respect it happens people can pretend it doesn't it absolutely happens flea came right at you tell them my guy flea did what did he say you didn't see his tweet he goes that's bullshit bill flea was in your business oh and then some guy some guy said to fleas like you mad bro and flea said yes i am i miss this which is an unbelievable comeback is only behind what horror movie is it where they're playing softball and

the guy's like eat shit and die and the guy goes eat shit and live you mad bro he said you're mad flea flea said yes i am mad but flea was super mad at you and i actually thought i i read the tweet i was coming back from the combine, and I went, I think it's a great point. Another one for Bill. Thanks. Occasionally I'll have one. All right, one last thing I had for you, Rousseau. At the game yesterday, Jack Nicholson

sent front row with his son, who I'm completely fascinated by. Can't get enough of that guy. And he just looks like he's like a cross between Roman Roy and Conor Roy. Eddie Murphy sitting across courtside next to Katzenberg left at halftime FYI.

Denzel Washington there as well. Eddie Murphy looks great. Eddie Murphy looks great. Denzel Washington's there and LeBron James is playing. If you had to rank those people, because those are four, I think, of the most famous celebrities we have, right?

If you had to rank the fame, what would be your ranking, one through four? Denzel one, LeBron two, Jack three, Eddie Murphy four. Jack over Eddie. Yeah, because I think the mistake people are going to make, like, are you kidding me? Jack's been doing it such a long time.

You have to understand the same way we don't know anybody in music that's new for the last 10 years. Anyone what, like 30 and younger is like, who's that guy? Right? Right. And then Eddie Murphy's. I just knew it was the guy who sits in the front row lakers eddie murphy's clearly fourth because his run it's great that he's you know hanging out and everything but his peak is so far in the rearview mirror now and see i think i would have eddie over jack i would go, I would go LeBron, Denzel, Eddie. I'd go Jack fourth because Jack really like,

he hasn't made a ton of movies the last 30 years. No. Eddie's got like a couple rewatchable movies like 48 Hours, Trading Places, both by Real House Cops,

Coming to America. Does anyone under 40 watch those movies? He's got those kids movies that every kid has watched all those weird movies like Norbert and Norbert and all those ones. Welcome to the Norberts. Is anyone

under 25 watching Jack Nicholson movies? Like is somebody in the ninth grade going oh I was watching Chinatown last night. Crazy ending. Is anybody under 50 watching Chinatown? I think Jack Lee's famous. I would disagree on the Denzel-LeBron thing.

Do you have LeBron over Denzel or vice versa? I'd have Denzel one and you have LeBron one. And my point would be, I think those of us that are in sports think like, no, that's ridiculous. Like LeBron's global or whatever. Denzel's got like almost two decades on him, and a half and he's still doing stuff and i think the person that i actually think actors at the top of their game i would always say that that person's more famous than the athlete unless we're talking about like international soccer because there are so still so

many people in our lives that will be like, yeah, that person doesn't even follow sports or doesn't know anything about it. I think there's a bigger group of people that don't follow sports that would be like, again, who's LeBron sounds like a ridiculous question, but I feel like more people would know Denzel's work. Have you ever sat in an airplane

where there are a couple other sports media people and wondered if the plane crashed, would you be ahead of them or behind them in the article about the plane crash? Yeah. Vern Lundquist and I. I do that every time. All right. Who would you have been behind that you were on a plane with? No, I just see people. I'm like, oh shit. Katie Couric's on this plane. I think she's ahead of me. Yeah. I think she's ahead of you vernon lundquist was definitely ahead of me we took a quick puddle jumper over yeah you like see steve levy you're like hmm i might have a nudge on levy my buddies do it all the time with the uvm thing they're

like between you dirks bentley and martin st louis and i was like well first of all i'm definitely not catching dirksks. Right. Well, I would never put a salary cap on your life, but right now I'm behind a guy who's been a country star for 20 years. St. Louis, Hall of Famer, Stanley Cup MVP. I don't know. Our Sunday night podcasts mean a lot to people. Yeah.

You have a great show. Head coach of the Canadians. What if you rate the town too with Affleck? I'm already thinking about it. Everglades. I got distracted for like five minutes because I was thinking about... I can tell you.

You're thinking about how Shine, who's going to play Shine, Shine comes back. Call up Basil. Be like, hey, what do you think about this? Because I was actually going to have you hit up Affleck and be like, Rosilla wants to know

if Chris is seeing anybody. And then he'll have to say it's actually just an actress. Fergie's flower shop? Does it stay a flower shop or does it become something else like a deli? It was a good space. It's right in Charlestown.

Is he screwing up gone, baby gone where we use real locals? Like Chris wasn't a local. Tell him that. Chris was the, I, the platonic ideal of, of what you get out of a local.

Um, all right. I think we hit everything. Celtics are done. The Lakers are done. We're headed for a Miami-Denver finals. I guess if you had to pick one team to come back from 0-3, would you take the Celtics or the Lakers? You have to pick one. I would pick the Celtics because I still, you know, like I,

I had a million things, you know, we weren't going to get to all of it tonight. Cause I'm sitting here going like, how did you, how are you so dismissive of Miami? I was like, I know why I was so dismissive of Miami and it's going to be as wrong as I've been about an NBA team in my career.

But I don't think you can even feel bad about that. In the first round, they were like 10-1 underdogs, right? In the second round, they were underdogs. The third round, they were plus 450 against Celtics. They weren't even they won game one. They still weren't favored. They weren't favored tonight. They were

minus four and a half. That's my rule is that there's no way you can fake the desperation of the team that's down 0-2 unless they're just way worse than you, which, you know,

I still don't believe. Or they're dead inside like the Celtics team. I would ask like Heat fans, although I know the answer now, they would just say no. But like if, in a weird world of sports

where all of a sudden you could have your roster, you could have the Celtics roster, like who would you rather have? Heat fans would probably have to watch Game 3 and be like, I'm good. We're good. We don't need it. I was thinking about... Go ahead.

Miami-Denver is an incredible travel finals. It's a great one. It's one of the best ones we've ever had. Low high. Just such a contrast in a good way of two really fun we've ever had. Low high. Just like such a such like a contrast in a good way of two

really fun cities to go visit. Cherry Creek, Halcyon, Pura Vida. I guess the one thing we didn't talk about. Berries of Denver. Well, the one thing

we didn't talk about was what this would mean for Butler if he actually like won the finals. Maybe one of the craziest achievements in any sport, not just basketball. Right? If they. If this team wins

the title, this would be, I don't even know who to compare it to. Especially in basketball, you would have the 2011 Dirk season and stuff like that. But I mean, even that 2011 Mavs team was probably more talented than this team

without Hero. This team lost a 22-point score and won three straight rounds. It still is getting to the NBA Finals. And that's the point where it's like, is Hero going to play when he comes back? I don't know. Or he'll come back and score 30 a game. Like, nothing. All bets are off with this team.

Although, it sounds like if we can get a game five between Denver and LA, Mo Bamba is back. So I saw that. We want to update. Just got to get to five. It was, you want to talk about one of the most pointless health updates I've ever

seen. Like just don't even, don't even tell anybody. Just if it happens, great. Hmm. You went to the combine. We didn't get to talk about that, but I'm sure you'll talk about it on

your pod we will be back on Sunday which will probably not have any sort of game so we'll have to figure out what we do next Sunday maybe we'll I know what we're gonna do we'll do some sort of gimmick right we'll talk about it I already have it for the don't spoil it I'm not I'm not don't we'll do a really fun gimmick for next Sunday because we also have the succession season finale next Sunday. You know what I want to do? Rewatchable Vertigo.

I watched it on the plane ride back from the combine. How was it? I wonder if people in 1958, when it came out, thought the ending was like a real Kaiser Sose moment. Oh. Have you seen it? It's in so long, I don't even remember it happens. Well, you know what I did is I forgot that, what's the other one? Rearview mirror?

Rearview window? No, rear window. Rear window? That's the one I loved when I was a kid. And Vertigo, it's Hitchcock. There's just awesome stuff in there and you get jimmy stewart but uh i i'd imagine younger people would be like people thought this was like amazing you were like well it was 65 years ago so you know the cutoff is like 1972 ish for you take

any movie before then it gets pretty tough to watch just the pace is different everything seems off the way they film it we get her now kyle's got to put this up uh okay rusillo i wish i could say this one was a pleasure it really wasn't my team is uh in complete chaos hey hey at least you had philadelphia right at least we broke, we broke that, uh, that tough sixers team. Uh, the podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton.

You can listen to Rosillo on Tuesday morning and I'll be back on, uh, on Tuesday night. We'll see if we have games or not. Thanks for Scylla. I don't have. On the way.