The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Great Jokic, a Total Clipocalypse, Panic Trades, and Kemba Search Parties with Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Clippers collapse in game seven of of the Western Conference Semifinals vs. the Nuggets, where this game ranks among historic playoff collapses, how the Nuggets match up with the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, panic Clippers trades and more (2:55). Then Bill and Ryen talk about the Heat beating the Celtics in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals, what Rockets should do next, and more (1:20:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We are cranking it out right now. Post Game 7, Clips, Nuggets, as well as Celtics Heat Game 1. We're covering it all. Rossell and I, NBA, coming up right now. First, our friends from pearl jam All right, we are taping this. It is 8.45 Pacific time, Tuesday night. We moved Rosillo. He was supposed to be on Thursday and said,

hey, Rosillo, what if we do Tuesday night instead? Game seven, Clips Nuggets. Who knows? Maybe something will happen. Here's what happened. One of the great playoff chokes in the history of the NBA. We're going to get to that in a second, but I want to start on a positive note.

Nikola Jokic. We haven't had an impactful center in almost 20 years. I would say since 2002 Shaq, the third of his three finals MVP seasons, when he could still reach deep down and just destroy a team. And since then, we've had Dwight Howard, we've had Embiid, we've had cups of coffees with guys. Deep down, we knew they weren't great.

And I think Jokic has a chance to be the first impactful guy we've had in 20 years. Before tonight's game, 27 playoff games, 26, 12, and 7, 51% field goal. Really, nobody in the history of the league has done that for their whole career. And then today, even though Murray was the guy who scored all the points, Jokic had a triple double in the third quarter. He just completely discombobulated the Clippers. And yeah, the Clippers fell short and we can talk about all the terrible things they did in this series. But the bottom line is they didn't know what to do with Jokic. They didn't know how to defend him. They didn't have a plan for it. And even in game seven, as it's slipping away, they're doubling him. They're blitzing him. It's like they had no

idea who he was. What was your reaction as you were watching this? Well, we always talk about changing up coverages, right? And we do it and we talk about it in football all the time. And then we get really excited about it with Toronto and Nick Nurse. And then some of the stuff where Spolster even downplayed it in the Boston game where he's like, yeah, we had a few zone possessions. But we like this stuff, right? We like it. I think Jeff Van Gundy was incredibly Van Gundy in the cut was very, very telling. And where he's like, yeah, they just keep doubling them. They just keep doubling Okich.

And he's just throwing it to everybody. Now, again, when you're saying you're doubling the greatest passing big man of all time which is what van gundy called him yeah and it was like it was walton in the second quarter and then by the time they had that run again they were like nope it's yokich it's yokich it's not walton anymore i mean that they stopped arguing about it that's seriously like what kind of come up this series is for yokich and his standing and and where he is in this game and that's what happens to playoffs that's why it's so fun. But there's part of me that goes, you know, eventually they did change it though. They did change it where they put a big on him

in the switch, but you're selling out and you're trying to double. And by the way, the Clippers are up nine at one point here. Okay. They're up nine. Third quarter. Yeah.

And then Paul George gets his third foul at 515. Although it may have been good on offense to not have him ever come back. And then Murray unleashes. But then on some of these double actions where there's times where I've watched Denver now so closely over the years ago, I don't know, is that two man thing really going to work? Well, when Grant hits a couple threes and then Harris gets his first one and then Millsap hit that one at the top of the key when they doubled again, you're like, okay, well, this is different now because a lot of games Grant's just out there to miss and not rebound.

Harris can't shoot to save his life. I think there's probably a lot of games grants us out there to miss and not rebound. Harris can't shoot to save his life. I think there's probably a lot of people that forgot Millsap was on this team three times this year, but this whole series, man, I don't want to get too far in the weeds with it, but at least for, let's just talk at least for game seven,

I think it's almost having to credit Jokic going, well, look, if this is what you're doing and you've given me all these options, I've already figured them all out now because it's seven games of this stuff and I'm too good. That's the key point, right? You're challenging somebody who already has the answers to the test. You're saying like, Hey, here's another multiple choice test. And he's like, I have the answer key right here. What are you doing?'s a c b d whatever you're doing i'm ready

i already know how to handle this he had 13 assists he had one catch he had one catch in the paint where he was facing opposite to a guy at the elbow of the three and he got doubled faked a pass to the opposite corner and immediately turned around like because these guys all know where everybody's supposed to be positioned that's why when you see you're gonna throw it out of bounds they'll point to him being like you're not you're off your spot he already knew that he wasn't passing to the guy in the corner it was passing it to somebody behind him exactly like you're saying because now he's so comfortable and he's seven feet getting doubled just looking over everybody and if they do the double and then they back off it he's smart enough to take his time and get the little foul line jumper or the runner

or pretend he's going to have the foul line jumper and then hit somebody last second. He had 13 assists. What's crazy about it is Murray was six for 13 from three. The rest of the team was seven for 24. If they had hit more threes in this game and if they credited when you have, you know, you think those couple times

where a guy got fouled because Jokic got him a layup and it didn't count as an assist for him. Like he honestly could have had 20 plus assists in this game. If there's two layups where the layup actually goes in when the guy's getting fouled and then four other people hit a three or whatever, he's up there.

I just thought he was so dominant. And it's weird because Murray had 40. Murray finally showed up, you know, in both halves, Utah, massive, massive, massive,

his second quarter was nuts. That's the guy that shouldn't, you would think like, all right, Jokic, if Zubats gets in foul trouble, which is what happened to me in this game. Well,

all right, that's going to be trouble for the Clippers. Murray, they have seven guys to throw at him and he was torching them. And I felt to be trouble for the Clippers. Murray, they have seven guys to throw at him, and he was torching them. And I felt like the spirit of the Clippers, you could see it fading as that second half went, which is the same thing that happened on Sunday in game six, right?

The whole point of the Clippers this whole time is you go, okay, look at all these options that they have when it's right. Because when it's right because when it's right it looks pretty good yeah and when they're up 3-1 you're like okay this is what's supposed to happen and when they're up 19 in game six you're like okay enough of this and then you go what the hell is wrong with these guys you're like okay well now whatever human nature there is which i don't think we do enough of where i always say like you can't fake being desperate you can't be as desperate as the team that's down 2-0, now, if they're terrible, if we're talking like a Nets or

magic first round series here, being down to, oh, it's not going to help you. But if you're pretty good and Denver's pretty good, there's just a different gear that they're going to have. But then when it gets to game seven tonight, Bill, and the Clippers get up, you know, almost 10, and then they get up seven early in the third quarter. Did you think they were playing well, though?

Because I didn't think they were playing that great. I did you think they were playing well, though? Because I didn't feel like they were playing that great. I didn't think they were playing well, but I thought whenever they attacked and swung it, Denver's actually pretty bad on their rotations. And look, you don't have to believe me. Even Van Gundy's pointing it out. He's like, look, he started talking about that pistol screen that they were setting.

And again, why Van Gundy's just better than everybody else that does it. I don't think there's another color commentary person nationally for basketball would start pointing out the pistol screen problems. Like, and he had it immediately. It was like two plays. They ran it. He knew the action.

And he was like, this is why it's messed up. And Denver was messing up some of their defensive rotations. If any, a gun, he's even pointing out and I'm going, okay, you know,

like the normal thing is going to happen here because Kawhi. And yet then it gets back to something that we've talked about where it feels like we've had all these negative storylines with these teams because it's been so unproven it's why do the Clippers think why do they think so highly of themselves Kawhi went and did that in Toronto last year Kawhi did it without any of you guys the rest of you guys haven't done anything so why do you guys carry yourselves like this team that's like in year three after back-to-back titles and that's kind of how they carried himself with this this group that never really clicked yet at the same time i'm like okay how the hell they ever get up three one how do they get up 19 in game six how did that team just look

fucking petrified in the fourth quarter of a game seven those are grown men that were scared to be playing basketball and i give kawai a pass because I think he was trying to press the issue and it just wasn't working like he had an awful game but other guys were scared Bill yeah I agree with that but I do think you know game seven you saw in the first half none of the Denver guys could hit a three and it had all the makings it's like oh man this is just gonna have to be Murray and Jokic. And those two guys together kind of kept Denver hanging around until Denver started making some plays. But they were playing good defense, though.

And I think, you think back to that Jeremy Grant trade where OKC's like, hey, we feel like saving money. Any interest in Jeremy Grant? Denver's like, sure. I thought he did a good job on Kawhi. And I don't know,

we know Kawhi, I'm not going to say he, you know, I'm like you, I hate using the word choke. I thought he looked tired. And this is something we had talked about heading into these playoffs where it's like the every other day, every other day, every other day, was that going to favor younger teams? Was that going to hurt older guys? Was that going to hurt somebody like Kawhi, who's really been careful about how much mileage he wanted to put on himself the last couple of years? Now look at who we have in the final four.

We have this young Celtics team. We have a Miami team that has a couple of old guys, but for the most part, younger guys like Bam and Hero and people like that. And then this Denver team built around two young guys. Then the Lakers, who haven't really been tested yet. But I do wonder like if you had home court and you, and they, the schedule wasn't as kind of stacked as it was, would this have been the same result? We'll never know, but I think we have to mention it. Well, it's certainly with Denver, because when you look at their runs that they'll have, and then you'll kind of more so two years ago than, than this year, but you'd be like, well,

wait a minute. What's the, what's the record on the road? That was like more of me two years ago when talking about this team. Yeah. You know, even this year with Philly, I'm like, wait, this healthy team I'm supposed to take seriously and you suck on the road. And then, you know, everything happens.

So home and road doesn't really matter. But I think as much as I do want to get back to the Clippers thing and I do want to get back to Kawhi, I almost want to save that though because I want to hit that in the next segment. I want to hit Nuggets and why they won first they won first yeah no that's what i'm doing like i want to give you more room here to just talk about yokich and what is now like this is the fun part

this is the great part about the playoffs you have these kinds of performances and now we have to look at you a lot differently now even though the numbers might be the same even though look his playoff regular season numbers he's blowing up but just to control the game the way he did, he didn't shoot it great tonight. He's also in that group of like, how come you don't shoot a little bit more? But he's so patient. He's dissecting every single thing. And once he gets rolling, and as we said at the very top, once he understands everything that you want to do, it's like Magic Johnson type stuff. Well, what about when he takes the rebound and he goes and he's running three on two fast breaks?

And that's where, when you're talking, I was lucky enough to see Walton at his peak and then when he was on the Celtics, when he was a little regimented there. Not on his peak? Never saw, yeah, well, but still like an incredible bench player. Yeah. Never saw Sabonis, saw like grainy YouTube of him,

stuff like that. And then Jokic, and those are the three great passing centers of all time. I do feel like it was funny that Jackson mentioned Will Chamberlain as a great passer, which is just, you know, he was forcing, he wanted to win the assist title that one year and really like was assist, assist, assist. Kind of like when Rondo was chasing assists on the last two years. The guy everybody said was a great passer back then was Russell.

Because, and Russell's like never mentioned any of these said was a great passer back then was Russell. Because, and Russell's like never mentioned any of these, but if you go back, like Russell averaged over five assists, at least one of those playoffs and was a great outlet pass. His outlet passing alone on those old clips is like unbelievable outlet passer. And then also they used to put them kind of like how Denver uses

Yoke, it's at the top of the key and they would run all these little zigzags and he would hit people and throw. So for whatever reason, he doesn't get mentioned. Jokic, I think the difference with him and these other guys is his ability to off the dribble to create plays. We've never seen centers do that before.

It's kind of, I've never seen anybody like him. Walton was not like him. Walton was a great passer, but they were not alike as players at all. And when the Jokic thing first starts happening too, you go, like, who is this guy? And he looks like, and a lot of people are going to get this reference,

but do you ever remember being a little kid and like maybe it was you and your buddies, you're on a little league baseball team, so you were like the popular kids in recess, but there was that kid who had like a hand-me-down winter coat and he always had boogers in his nose and he was like bigger than everybody else and nobody really talked to him and then his face was always like

red and weird and then like one of the cool kids like said something to him and started making fun of him and then he just went berserker mode on you and beat you and all your friends up in the at recess that's what yokich looks like to me like that's when i see him he's got like these weird like jogging things he'll he'll like kind of do this odd apology to a ref with his hands his mouth he'll be like uh you know and then he's just killing everybody and he wouldn't pass my right yeah he wouldn't pass my alien test like if you brought an alien to a basketball game you're like who do you think the best player is they would not pick yokich yokic would be like the seventh or eighth pick. He's like an extra large

shamit face. Fury guy. Well, so, I did some research because he's, you know, he's over 25,

10, and 5 again in the playoffs. This year, so heading into this game, he was 26, 10,

and 5 and a half. But now he had like, so he's probably like 26, 11, and 5.5. But now he had like, so he's probably like 26, 11, and 5 now, something like that. Here are all the players who were 25, 10, and 5 with shooting 50% field goal. Jokic did it twice. Tim Duncan.

Larry Bird in 84. Chamberlain in 67. Blake Griffin in 2015 underrated playoffs. Barkley in 86. 12 games there. Wilt Chamberlain in 67, Blake Griffin in 2015, underrated playoffs, Barkley in 86, 12 games there. Will Chamberlain, 68 magic and 80 Bill Walton in 77 and Lucas and 72. Those are all the guys,

16 games or more. All of those guys are hall of famers except Blake. And at least four, one, two, three, five of those guys are top 10 all time guys. This is not something over the course of a playoffs.

You're not supposed to be 25, 10, and five. He's 25, 12, and seven. And I know the stats are a little messed up because of the way basketball is being played now, but it's not like he's shooting threes. It's not like he's assisting. Like, this is all flow of the game shit, and he's just dominant. 16, 13 assists boards 22 boards and he only took six free throws i mean he was he was 5 at 13 he missed every three

that he took tonight so if you just looked at this this is one of those basketball reference games you'd be like oh that was a weird game like but he wasn't doing much you go no he was he was kind of doing i can't say he was doing everything because it would discredit how incredible murray was in that second quarter which it just kind of changed everything but i still kept waiting for that clippers comeback i kept waiting for it to happen but uh this is like i don't know what's going to happen next you know i'm probably gonna pick the lakers but i i now look at it yokich and murray different. And this becomes this battle of like, oh, these guys have always been this. Well, not really.

Like, not really. And now they just did it again. They came back from 3-1 again. And when they were down 3-1 to Utah, I'm like, ah, man, this Denver team. Like, why do people on TV say like, oh, look out, they're like this sneaky team that could come out of the West.

And now it's real. And now it's a real possibility. So yeah, like now I look at the Denver Nuggets differently because now they've done something and what they did against this Clippers team. I still can't like I'm sitting here in disbelief that this actually just happened. Well, let's talk about a key component. Continuity. And we're in this league now where everybody just changes teams, constantly changes players constantly and the stars switch teams and all this stuff. And the stars switch teams and all this stuff. And the Clippers are a great example of that, right? These guys were thrown

together. They played two thirds of a season. We never were a hundred percent comfortable with where they were as a possible contender. Pandemic happens, go back in the bubble and the same thing on off switch. They look great. One game ease up the next game, whatever's going on. And Denver's a team that's kind of grown up together here. You know, they added Grant's a new piece. Porter's relatively new, even though he trained with them last year. But the Jokic, Murray, Harris, Millsap, those guys have been playing together for a while.

Corey Craig's been there for a bit. Yeah. And I think this really helped the Celtics in that Raptors series too, where you had Smart and Jalen and Tatum. And those guys have been in wars now together for three straight years. Jalen and Smart have played together four years. I do think the continuity helps. And when you really notice it is when things are going south. And like this Clippers team in game six and game seven, where all of a sudden they look like a pickup basketball team. They don't have the history. And the first time I really noticed this as a phenomenon, it was the 08 Celtics.

Because the 08 Celtics were awesome. They won, they were, what were they like 66 and 16, 65 and 17 in the regular season. And then the playoffs came around and Atlanta was going at them. And it was like, they just, the continuity and the cohesiveness just wasn't there yet. They hadn't built it. They hadn't played with each other enough. And they barely got by Atlanta. They blow them out in game seven. Same thing in the Cleveland series. Took them forever.

They finally finished them off in seven. And they kind of built that continuity as the playoffs went along. And then it kind of clicked in the Detroit series. Then it took off. I don't think this Clippers team had a chance to do that. And I don't really know what their identity was. Because I think to the bitter end, they didn't know who their best five guys were at the same time. They're still playing Lou Williams in this game. They're going down the ship with him. Lou Williams shouldn't be playing at all in this series. The defensive stats on him

were worse than the Herald stats. They couldn't, Denver was hunting him way worse than Toronto was hunting Kemba in this series and they didn't need his offense, but Doc just was like, oh, these are my guys. We'll figure it out. And then all of a sudden, the game's over. It was hard to bet against it, though, even though that was something that was happening the whole time, right? Because we're watching them. We're going, when are they going to play together?

I remember going on with Cal Hurd, and he was like, I think this is great by design because they're wrestling guys. I'm like, dude, it's not by design. They would love to have 20 games with these guys. They would love to have 20 games in a row with all of their players and figure out what's happening and then you come back and montrez isn't ready to go lou gets busted for going to magic city pat beverly's in and out of the lineup the whole time and it's really tough like they had a moment with reggie jackson where reggie jackson was playing some really good basketball for him and then you'd say uh you what? I don't really want him out there closing.

And then he had to go to him at some point. And then Shamit, you know, he turns his ankle. But like I thought, oh, hey, Shamit's back on the scene. He hadn't been able to hit any shots in the playoffs whatsoever. But it's like they didn't want to give up on him. But the Jokic numbers against Montrez were terrible. The second unit numbers were terrible and long stretches throughout this playoff season.

They tried to mix it up, I think, late with Paul George getting in some more minutes with the second unit. But really what it comes down to is like when you max out and everybody in the world wants Paul George, like, and look, people are going to listen to me thinking I'm giving Kawhi pass. I'm going to save you the time. I am.

He had a bad game for a guy that's at legend status. This isn't his 10th Harden game, okay? This is somebody who carried a franchise by himself and absolutely diced up the heat becoming a superstar all right and so since he has those on his resume i'm going to look at him differently because i go you know what he's forcing the issue but there's there's a bunch of those possessions in the fourth quarter and i knew it marcus morris who may have screwed the whole series up by pushing milap and Millsap being like,

look, you want to be a fucking tough guy all the time. And look, Marcus Morris is a tough player, but he's not tough mentally. And Millsap's been around long enough. And then Millsap has that incredible run in that game. That's that comeback. And you're like, oh, now look, is it all because of that? That'd be overstating it a bit. But Morris got the ball and he didn't want it in the fourth quarter.

And then he got stuck with it, and he took a shot. I still can't believe Morris hit that corner three against Kleber in the Dallas series, because I've seen him miss that shot his whole career. Reggie Jackson has a flailing attempt. Jermichael Green goes to throw it down to give him some momentum. That thing ends up punted at half court. Then Paul George, in the same possession, has the ball,

throws it out of bounds. Paul George dents the side of the backboard. Yeah, that was a corner. And you're just going, you guys are all toast like you're it was just like you i don't like saying choking i don't like questioning the manhood of these guys because deep down like these guys have all had to go through a lot but to have it be so obvious in front of your face in that fourth quarter you're like nobody not one of you guys is comfortable right now. And I think Kawhi's discomfort was, I can just drive in on a million people right now

and throw it up at the hoop, but nothing. We're done. We're toast. We were watching a team walk to its own funeral. We need a better word than choke. It's almost like gack, but you know it when you see it. Did they look scared to you, Bill? I thought they, you know, we always say,

oh, they look a little tight. I thought that the whole team had deer in the headlights. Once the Nuggets threw a couple haymakers and it was like nine points. And every time I felt like the Clippers were going to have a run, the Nuggets would make a shot

and you could just kind of see it. It was that hot potato look. And Morris was a good example. Like Morris got the ball a couple of times. Morris, big tough guy from Ph got the ball a couple of times. Morris, big tough guy from Philly, wanted no part of it. Reggie Jackson, they threw him out there. He was terrible in like the minute and a half he played.

All these dudes. I never, just for the record, I was always on the record. I never was a huge fan of the Morris signing. I didn't like the moves that made it the deadline. And I didn't think they addressed their biggest issue, which is like, what happens if you're playing Yoka, you're Anthony Davis in a playoff series. What are you doing?

Are you like, does the team really need zoo bots that much? Um, but I don't know. I don't want to know a ton of things available. I mean, at least Morris in some version of it, like he's not unplayable,

but I, I love one of those when he got stuck taking that first shot that he took in the fourth quarter. And I was like, he doesn't want it. He doesn't want it. And I don't know if everybody picks up on all that stuff, because then you start looking for it and you go, you know, you shove Millsap when you're up,

but now you don't even want the ball in your hand. Well, some teams are like that, though. Some teams are great when they're up 13. I thought Boston and the Toronto series, after the miracle shot in game four, the whole team was tight. Did that mean they choked? Or were they rattled from the game? I don't know, but you could see it. You could see collectively they, they were not playing freely. And I think one of the great things about this Denver team, they're so tested now with these comebacks,

you know, they first team ever to come back three to one, two, two series in a row, much less, uh, in the same playoffs. And they just were never scared at any point. I wrote them off after game one. When they got killed in that game like an idiot, I was like, oh, all right. You know, this is a pretty limited team. It was two guys.

They have too many holes. Their bench isn't good enough. The Clippers are going to kill them. And they just kind of kept hanging around, hanging around, waiting for this Clippers team to fold. We're going to take a break and I want to talk about some of the great collapses in the history of the NBA playoffs.

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So listen to that on the rewatchables. We also have EZA coming later this week. I'm not on that one. So two rewatchables this week. All right, back to this podcast. So when we're talking, we use the word collapse for the playoffs. And there's two kinds, right? You always see the stat about teams

that blew a 3-1 lead in a series, stuff like that. To me, when you're talking about really memorable collapses, it's got to be the team was either better and they blew it, or the team had the series by the balls and the series flipped

and all of a sudden they're standing there going, what the fuck happened. So you go back to the 60s. The 68 Sixers were the first team that blew a 3-1 lead to the Celtics and Bill Russell. That was when everybody thought the Celtics were dead. Sixers had beaten them the year before.

And then the Celtics come back 3-1 they win a game 7. 69 Lakers, that was the West Baylor Chamberlain team. Let the Celts are running on fumes. They end up pulling game six out of their ass and then they win game seven in LA. I think that was a collapse. Was the game six one.

It was that last second thing. Which one is game six of that series. Sam Jones. Yeah. Yeah. Sam Jones, uh, 79 Spurs.

Shout out to Sam Jones, James Harden, the, his spiritual NBA godfather, George Girvin, who was the James Hard Sam Jones James Harden his spiritual NBA godfather George Girvin who was the James Harden before James Harden

Spurs are up 3-1 in 79 over the Bullets and blow the last three games and Girvin disappears in the last couple minutes of game 7

the 81 Sixers had a 3-1 lead over the Celtics Celtics came back one of the great series of all time. That to me wasn't, I never felt like that was a collapse.

That was just like an incredible series, but I never felt like the Sixers choked. You watch those games and it's like, you know, one of the great battles. That's one of the great series. That's, I would say, we're talking 40 years now. That series never gets,

I don't know. You'd have to be from Philly or Boston to remember that series as well as you probably do. But that's one of the all time. That was one of the first ones me growing up. I was more aware a year after that being a little kid, but that series then going back and people kind of talking like the mythology of that 81 series was probably the first series.

I remember at least being aware of basketball and sports where it was like, what happened against Philly in that one? It's just considered one of the all-time greats. And every game was one point, two points. You can watch on YouTube. The 84 Lakers really kicked that Celtics series away. The game two had the Henderson

steal against Worthy. Game four had the comeback, the McHale clothesline, all that stuff. And after that series, you know, that started with the Tragic Johnson. Tragic Johnson, yeah, that was separate. 87 Pistons, that started with the Tragic Johnson, Magic Johnson, a whole bunch of shit. Yeah. 87 Pistons,

the Isaiah steals the ball. They blow it. They have the Celtics. That series is basically done. It's going back to Detroit. They have the lead. Bird steals the ball, flips it.

They lose in seven. Your guy Barkley in 95 with the Suns. They blew the 3-1 lead to the Rockets. Well, they blew a 2-0 lead to the Rockets the year before. They blew the 3-1 lead to the Rockets. Well, they blew a 2-0 lead to the Rockets the year before. So, 94 kills me

and 95 was just as bad. So, I don't need to remind you. Basically, two years in a row where they folded when it mattered. The 2015 Clippers against the Rockets. I went to that game. 2016 Warriors.

That was actually sneaky. One of the weird Harden beginning of some of the anti-Harden stuff. Well, he was on the bench. Yeah, he got benched and had a towel over his head. I was there. 2016 Warriors against Cleveland. LeBron comes back.

2019 Rockets last year where they blow a series where Durant's out. They get the break of breaks. They still lose. And then this Clippers team. And I don't think I missed anything I think that's 50 plus years did you have Oklahoma City when Golden State blew a 3-1

yeah would you say that was a choke collapse or would you say that was Clay just pulling their sphincters out I guess it's a little of both well I would say it was a collapse if it looked different than Westbrook and other big spots, which was

to say that it always looks bad for the most part. The reason I'm bringing all of these up because they're all famous for whatever reason. We've never seen a team roll over in a game seven like this. It was a roll over.

It was a submission. It was not only are we losing, but we've, we're actually giving up and you're going to watch us on live television as we throw shots against the backboard, as we give up wide open threes, as we do dumb coaching decisions that we're just never going to change our dumb strategy. That's not working culminating. And when Kawhi gets stripped and I think their Nuggets are up 18 with like two minutes left and Kawhi gets stripped and he just stops. And everyone in the Clippers stops

and the Nuggets have a 3-on-0 fast break. And none of the Clippers are even running back. That's never happened in one of these collapse series. I'm just telling you. We've never seen a team visibly roll over like that. And they should be embarrassed. Okay, I'm not going to say

that the play like that has never happened, because we've seen plenty of teams. That whole quarter, how they rolled over, has never really happened in one of these situations. I'm trying not to do the recency thing here, but that was so... It was such a... Again, I don't want to sit here and start

but i'm i'm not in shock look i'm in shock from the very beginning that denver came back 3-1 again okay it's never happened before they did it again and like i said if you're that good like how did you get down 3-1 how the hell did you get down 16 and then 19 and then you still kept coming back and i think the lakers have a little of this they did it with houston they they were so um disrespectful of who houston was that they were like what like houston they would let houston get back into some of those games like you'll never remember any of this stuff yeah for sport but but when you were watching it it was like holy shit rondo's hitting threes all right let's just stop erin and they're like wait a minute like houston just went on a 25 5 run like what the hell are we doing and i think the clippers were very guilty of that the difference all right, let's just stop Aaron. And they're like, wait a minute. Like, Houston just went on a 25-5 run.

Like, what the hell are we doing? And I think the Clippers were very guilty of that. The difference is the Lakers were like, all right, enough of this shit. We're going to go ahead and win this game and win this series in five. But it's probably, of at least recent memory, I would say it's one of the more disgusting efforts I've seen from a basketball team.

And I don't know how you argue against that. Because it just was... Well, for all the shit they talked about being, you know, who they were, what they were going to accomplish, the confidence and the swagger they had, which they had rightfully

because Kawhi's on the team. But when push came to shove in Game 6 and Game 7, they completely disappeared in both second halves in like a really memorable borderline historic way. I cannot remember a team completely rolling over in two second halves like that when they're up 3-2 in a series.

To my knowledge, it's never happened in an NBA series before by a good team. I'm sure it's happened by like the TMAC Orlando, like those type of teams, but not by a team that was favored to win the title three weeks ago. I'm with you, man. I can't, I can't believe it. I mean, look, Golden State 3-1 lead.

First of all, Kyrie and LeBron turned into like all world players, three straight games. And it was still a possession game. And Draymond missed game five five game six cleveland was amazing and game seven was a dog fight at least they fought the whole game though yeah that's totally different that's totally i'm just thinking because i know what's going to happen is there's going to be some game that we're not thinking of because it's just hard to keep track of i don't know every single game but that was as i'm sitting i rewind plays and go oh my god like this guy doesn't want anything to do with this like he's looking like there was one play in particular where I forget who it was on the right side, but they were going to like set up the action on his side. And he just went, no, no. And started pointing frantically to start the action on the other side. And the other guy was like, this isn't what the play is. And he's like going, so now I'm supposed to cut with no screen to the ball okay cool now i have

the ball like what the hell am i supposed to do and it's it was weird it was just weird to watch a team completely unravel like that and it wasn't like it was like you were waiting for kawaii you think you think they were just waiting for kawaii to be kawaii and he was just having a bad game and he he looked tired to me and i don to, I'm not going to make excuses for Kawhi and not everybody else. I'm just saying like Kawhi's built up this playoff resume that's almost unassailable and he just looked like

two steps slow. I mean, we think about two weeks ago, we were talking about how he seemed like he was at the peak of his powers. Yeah, I think defensively. And he couldn't even beat guys off the dribble today. Defensively, there was some slippage with Kawhi. And you can tell with some of the defensive assignments there. And there's some other stuff.

If you looked at some of the Dallas numbers in that series, you could make the argument that he actually wasn't this great defensive stopper. But I also think Doncic has a lot to do with that, too. Or if Doncic just gets you even, and he goes India, it doesn't matter who the hell you are. He's just going to be bigger and finish over you. But I think Kawhi had two. I'd have to look at it again,

but I thought there were two stretches in the fourth quarter where he looked like, okay, fine. I guess it's up to me. And then he missed every shot, too. And then once he missed every shot, then it's like, holy shit. It's like the toughest guy in your group getting beat up first as you're running across a field to fight the rival town. And you're like, Danny just got

knocked out. Maybe we go home. And Paul George was really bad. He's terrible. In another big elimination game, Paul George was absolutely terrible. And that's why I call him 30-13. 13 points would have been an improvement from what he did tonight. He had 10.

Did he get to 10? He got to 10. I was hoping he was going to hit that last three, so it actually would be 13. My 30-13 theory, but let's look at the shooting numbers here again. I got to be honest. I was not surprised by the results of this game. I'm surprised the Nuggets won by 15, but when I was looking at the lines today,

the Nuggets were plus 7.5. The Nuggets were plus 290 to win the game. I was alarmed by what I watched in game six. win the game. I was alarmed by what I watched in game six. I really was. I was alarmed because I thought they were real fundamental issues. It wasn't just like, oh, that was an off game. They just fell asleep at the switch.

It was like, no, they have real matchup issues and their coach doesn't seem to realize them. And, you know, we have to mention the Doc Rivers piece of this. He's now presided over, I think, more of these than probably any coach. Now, he's been coaching for a lot of years. He's been coaching for almost two decades, but he's just been on the wrong side of history in a lot of these. He's blown three, two leads, uh, three times, 2010, 2012, 2015. He lost game sevens at home in oh five and oh nine. He lost the game seven to Utah in 2017. And then he blew a three one, um, in this series. And I don't know whether it's an adjustment thing, whether it's bad luck, whether he had the wrong guys on his team. But I do wonder, does he survive this?

Who's the fall guy? Do the Clippers just run this back? I just want to finish the line here for Paul George. 4-16, 2-11 for three, one free throw attempt, four boards, two assists in 38 minutes. So the one free throw attempt is he should be thinking about that all off season. That's embarrassing. Go to get to the basket. They have moments. Put Yoko in foul trouble.

He has moments where he's like early Seth Curry with more rebounds. Yeah. And now I think Seth actually get to the hoop. So I'm not turning this into like a massive. Yeah. Sorry, Seth Curry. Yeah.

I'm a Seth Curry. He's like, what the fuck? I would, I would have at least gone to the basket. Uh doc thing i don't know what happens and i don't know what happens because look we all know i like doc i think he's a really good coach i think he's a really good coach for stars i think he's a really good part of it too but you're right the resume has some dings on it and when you're favored and you lose to this nuggets team after you're up 3-1

like i'm not gonna sit here and tell you like no way you're seeing it all wrong he's like he was 11 million a year i was looking through what the extension was the extension was like a year ago so you got to think he's probably got like two more years on this deal i had an idea trade him he's been traded before he has philadelphia 76ers need a coach just start out there for who I don't get a future first for him promote Tyloo okay but can I ask you a question maybe you like this no you like this this is pretty good but this is give me a little little like I know I can go too long but give me give me a little bit little, like, I know I can go too long, but give me, give

me a little bit of time to explain this. There's a reason why the same time as we were talking just a couple of weeks ago about Anthony Davis and that I, in a million years, I would not bet money on Anthony Davis signing somewhere else because I don't think Anthony, I think he's a very impressionable personality. And I don't think you blast your way out of new Orleans with clutch packing your bags for you. And then say to clutch, Hey, you know what? You know, say they were to lose to the Denver nuggets and Davis doesn't

get enough shots. He starts getting beat up and he says, you know what? I don't like this. Let me experiment here. Let me see if I want to go. I actually want my own team now. Okay. I don't think any of that stuff would happen, but the reason why teams prepare for that and work out clutch clients or do things to always be as if they are like, hey, we always have your back to the agency because that's part of the front office job, is because the unexpected always happens in this league. And the unexpected could be not only the doc part,

but what if Paul George goes, eh, I'm not really feeling this. Or Kawhi looks around and goes, not one of these guys. Patrick Beverly, I can't sit there and say that thatwhi looks around and goes, not one of these guys are like, Patrick Beverly, I can't sit there and say that that guy's not a tough guy because he at least plays tough. But what if Kawhi looked around and said, I'm not really feeling this right now. It's not like he hasn't blasted his way

out of two other places. Now again, Toronto, he just left because he could leave. But San Antonio, he was out of there. What factor is Doc in that decision? Because did they go there because they love that Doc takes care of their guys and Doc absolutely takes care of his stars. is like doc 101 as a coach so all of these things i think

are valid points to bring up in how weird could this offseason actually get with the clippers after what we just saw but as my default normally is with this is they usually just run this shit back considering this was year one of this group yeah Is there a fall guy or do you fall into the habit of, you know what? It was our first year together. We were all in a bubble. The bubble was really hard on all of us. Magic city.

We played all year for home court advantage and then we didn't have it. And we still feel like, you know, year two, we'll add another piece. We want to bring this back. With that said, if Philly calls and says, we'll give you Embiid for

Paul George and Doc Rivers, what does Balmer do? You like that one. The first ever two players in a coach trade. It's not even. Are we drinking? Are we supposed to be drinking on this podcast tonight i should have had a beer why don't i don't have a beer right now i know we should have

we should have a beer we've never done that in the pod uh 38 minutes in cracking white claws um oh you like it i would it'd be for paul george and doc you have to take his whole contract i'd tell you with the rumor mills and all the different stuff going on i still think mb and simmons get a chance next year with everybody there but i don't know that simmons is going to cry any tears about it yeah and paul george is as bad as he was tonight if he's a free agent this year he's a max player yesterday he's a max player again yesterday but like that's why I get so frustrated arguing about some of these guys. And I think people just kind of give up as I go, look, I don't

just randomly watch a player one day and say, hey, that guy stinks. It's usually after a few years. And these elimination games for George, elimination games for Harden. But at the same time, with Kawhi as bad as he was, I'm not going to sit there and say, okay, all right, so I've got LeBron. All right, Giannis, you're going to knock him down a few pegs all right right now top three players in the league are lebron butler and tyler hero and then i now have kawaii fourth yeah but some but something did important something important did happen tonight though kawaii lost his title he didn't lose his nba title he lost the title as if you could have a playoff guy for one series, who would it be? And mine was Kawhi until tonight. So now it's LeBron again? Or Tyler

Miro? I don't know. It might be Tyler Miro. You saw him again today. The guy's just he's got Buffalo balls, man. He's upset. He told a couple buddies on a text thread, he's like, I can't believe I didn't get one MVP vote. Tyler Miro?

He's like, second team all rookie. Fuck this. I'm going to hit the biggest three right as the Celtics are about to finish my team tonight. I've been hitting a huge three. No, but I do think the Kawhi run, which was really the best thing the Clippers had going for them this year, is like, well, we have Kawhi. In a series big game, Kawhi's the guy. Well, he lost.

So I'm wondering if it could be Jokic. Jokic could grab the title here. Jokic, they played, I went back. For one playoff game. Come on, it's LeBron now if it's not Kawhi. No. See, I don't like doing this game to game. No, no, no, no.

It's vacant right now. It's vacant. Vacant title. Whoever comes out of it this year has the title. Or LeBron has it right now. But they played the Lakers really well. They played them four times this year. Lakers won three of the four games,

but the Nuggets killed them once. And then one game was OT. One of them was like a one-point game. If you watched it, it was like both teams kind of had trouble stopping the other. I think their supporting cast is better. And the Jokic thing, like, all right, great. You have to play Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee more. Awesome.

Jokic is going to torch those guys. And then the Jamal Murray thing, like who's going to guard Jamal Murray in the Lakers? They'll figure it out. They'll figure that part of it out. Who do you trust? Who's their best defensive guard? Pope, probably.

I think there's some awesome Caruso numbers, but if Pope's hitting threes, you know, you're going to go with Pope. Pope was getting some of the defensive assignment there. Well, this brings me to my next piece of that Kawhi question. Right.

This just fell so perfectly for LeBron. And I think we said this the last time we talked about this stuff, like gets the, gets the beaten time we talked about this stuff. Gets the beaten up Portland team in round one. Wait a minute, though. Everybody was saying, oh, this is bullshit. They get the one seed and now Portland's back and healthy. But that team was a corpse. Yeah, okay.

But that's not what anybody was saying before game one. But now that we know what happened, that was a good time to catch that team. Second round, they get Houston. Westbrook, I am actually in the camp. It swung too far with people against Westbrook because... Recently? He had COVID.

We know he had COVID. And he was hurt. And he came back. And I don't think he was even 80%. I just don't think he's as terrible as he was in that Lakers series. He was terrible. He's flat out terrible. I don't think he's as terrible as he was in that Lakers series. Like he was terrible. He's flat out terrible. I don't think he's that bad of a basketball player, but regardless, I thought he was terrible

in the game. And he had 30, like he had 30 and he was so bad for, and I was like, this is so bad. That sounds like a Daryl Morey text you. Here's a question. I want to know, you're a scholar. No, that was not a Daryl Morey text, but they had that Daniel house thing too. And now they're going to play the Clippers in round three and now it's the Nuggets.

I'm just saying, this is great for the Lakers. The Lakers would have signed up for this. The Lakers are going to beat Houston no matter what. And Daniel House is an important player to the rotation because they basically just eliminated 20 to 30 minutes out of that. But the P.J. Tucker stuff towards the end, and I love P.J. Tucker, but he's looking around going,

are you fucking kidding me like this sucks okay this sucks um i have a point and i'm going to ask you as a scholar of the game yeah has anyone ever lost in the playoffs healthy because nobody the rule is if you're the marquee guy we just hear about how you're hurt like a day or two later it might even be like an hour later yeah I feel like Toronto

was like hey you guys got us we didn't play that well congrats there was no like hey you don't see I'm at a sprained MCL there was like nothing that came out after that series no injury stuff there's an example I'm not going to say anything nice about Toronto for a week MCL. There was nothing that came out after that series. No injury stuff. There's an example. I'm not going to say anything nice about

Toronto for a week. It was a rough ending for them. Wait, I have one more Clippers thing for you. And you're right, by the way, about Toronto. Yeah, nothing came of it. Do you know this was the 50th Clippers season? Yeah, I do. I wrote it down on my notes. Dating back to

the Braves. And they showed that graphic, and it's amazing where they're like, Clippers season? Yeah, I do. I wrote it down on my notes. Dating back to the Braves? Yeah. And they showed that graphic, and it's amazing, where they're like, franchises with the most years not making the conference finals. It's like Clippers, 49 years. Charlotte, 30 years. And then somebody else,

18 years. Amazing. That's impossible. We're now a half a century. It's the conference finals. It's not even winning a title. You can't get to two steps removed from winning the whole thing.

You can't get out of the second round for 50 years. That's impossible. Do you know the Celtics have been in nine conference finals since 2002? I had no idea. And I don't even feel it. You wouldn't be like, man, remember that unbelievable 20 year Celtic run.

But my point is it's not like that hard to make the conference finals. It's a little hard, but it's like Portland made it last year to not have it happen once in 50 years. It's incredible. But my point is that it's not like, it's not like impossible to make the conference finals for them never to do it but then you think of all the great players that they've had or the great draft picks they've had you know they've had just this decade they had Chris Paul

they had Blake Griffin they quite letter that Paul George so that whole thing like I know a few Coopers fans and it was already a little weird because it was like wow the one year we have a real chance to win the title. None of the games are going to be here and they're on a fucking bubble in Orlando.

But still, this is great. We have a chance, but it's a little weird. But now it's like, okay, we're halfway through Kawhi and Paul George before they can opt out in the summer of 2021. Now we're talking. We've given away Shea Gojis Alexander. We gave away Gallon Air is expiring. And we gave away 130 first-round picks. And now it's all

on next year. Now it's 2021 or bust. And one or both of these dudes could look at each other and be like, yeah, I don't want to play with you anymore either. And they're both gone. And there's nothing left other than this giant arena they're building in Inglewood. I mean mean it is a fucking disaster we both know any front office would do it all over again tomorrow to get those two guys but i mean i i really do think you have to and again i know i agree i know that

george would be maxed immediately but i wonder if any teams ever actually have these conversations you go hey if we could max George, would we not? Would we not after the eighth game where you're like, what the hell are you doing out there? And the answer would still be that you were probably maximum. But I think it's all valid because it was that bad. It's not just disappointing. It's like horrifying where you go, whoa, like what? What just happened to us?

Well, the other thing that was amazing about it was these guys. We thought like Paul George and Kawhi together, this is going to be unbelievable. This would be, we, we wouldn't have seen this since Pippen and Jordan were together as perimeter defenders.

They're just going to lock down everybody. It's going to be ridiculous. I just didn't think Paul George's defense was that good. So I thought he had moments against Murray where he was incredible and he was locked in. It was not tonight. No, I'm just saying he consistently wasn't at the level he was a year ago. I thought Tatum today in that Miami game,

even though Tatum fell apart offensively in the last five minutes in an overtime, I thought that was the best game I've ever seen him play defensively. Even that Butler three-point play when Butler just threw it up. And I thought Tatum played really good day. It was an arguable foul call. He was just, his hands were all over the place. His switches were perfect. He had either a couple steals or where he forced a steal because he was in the right spots and just was a dominant two-way player for the first 43 minutes of that game for his offense went away. And George had moments like that last year in Oklahoma city, the first four months before he hurt his shoulder, he was a

dominant two-way player where it's like, wow, this guy's one of the best five players in the league. We didn't see that this year. And I know had flashes but they're always just flashes he had a weird slow start and that was off of that horrible close to the playoff series two years ago with okc and then he had like i remember watching i don't know the first week okc games because i was i was always watching him because i was like am i wrong about these guys is it going to click and he had kind of i mean i don't know what the game log says now because in the moment versus game log is always a little dangerous. But I remember just going, this guy, what the hell? And then he goes on this tear where he ends up being

an MVP type player. Well, he reminds me of Jalen where you'll be watching the game and you forget he's out there for four minutes. And I love Jalen. But like Jalen today. Yeah, but no one's talking about building a team around Jalen Brown. And maybe we shouldn't be talking about Paul George either. We're going to take a break and I have one more thing to do on this.

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Because we know there's no loyalty either way these days, right? The players don't have loyalty to the teams. That's been established the last five years, and they shouldn't. And the teams have never had loyalty to the players. And it's like, hey, yeah, we're building this whole thing. But maybe if they make a move, maybe it's that. Let me do some rapid fire ones. Would you do Paul George for Harden right now if you were the Clippers?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think you still would. I think you still would. It's weird. Would you do Paul George for Bradley Beal? Washington wouldn't do that because George only has a year left on his deal. Yeah, that's the problem. He has a year left on the deal, but that might be why the Clippers

aren't looking for... How about Simmons? I don't think Philly's going to do that. I think Philly's afraid, if they're going to split that up, I think they'd be more afraid of Embiid's long-term thing. And they don't want to end up

trading Simmons and then keeping Embiid. And if Embiid, who is track record of staying... He's actually been healthier than I think I would have ever imagined. And maybe he doesn't get enough credit because he has the dings here and there. But I don't think it's obscene of staying he's actually been healthier than i think i would have ever imagined um and maybe he doesn't get enough credit because he has the the dings here and there but i don't think it's obscene to suggest that everybody should be worried about him beads body's gonna hold up

because he needs to be getting thinner as he gets older he needs to do the duncan thing and even though he's so young and duncan got thin a lot later in his career yeah i just would like to see mb'd close some of these games where he looks like he's a little bit more in shape. And until you see that from him, although we get to hear about it all the time and then it never actually happens, I would think Philly would be, you don't,

do you agree? I mean, wouldn't you agree that Philly's probably a little bit more scared of like if we traded Simmons for somebody and we, where we haven't beat in them two years from now, it's not any different health wise. Like what's, what do we have?

I'm on the record. I would not trade Simmons. And I think over and over again, we learned this. It's not any different health-wise. What do we have? I'm on the record. I would not trade Simmons. I think over and over again, we learned this. It's just been so long since we watched playoff games. I judge all my dudes by who's going to be there in that Friday night game seven. You know who's there? Marcus

Smart. God damn, is he frustrating. He takes even today, they're up 10 early in the first quarter.'s hitting shots and then he literally has four straight possessions in a row where he makes just the worst possible decision you're like god he's so frustrating but i fucking love that guy i ride or die with marcus smart and in a game seven guess who i want on my team marcus smart guess who's not rolling over in that clippers nuggets game today marcus smart guess Smart. Guess who wouldn't have lost?

Guess who wouldn't have been on a team that lost by 15 in a game seven when they were favored by seven points? Marcus Smart. He would have gotten kicked out before he even witnessed it. Totally agree. And I've not been the biggest Marcus guy over the years, especially when he was taking shots. He was shooting like in the 20s from three.

But now the shooting from three is definitely passable. There's still offensive decisions where I go, come on, man. It's like how this like in the 20s from three but now the shooting from three is definitely passable there's still offensive decisions where i go come on man it's like how this early in the shot clock and you're in your next to tatum and jaylen and kemba he even had an iso where he got bam one-on-one and took a long two over him you see did you see jaylen go up like jaylen was going up like oh this is an air ball. And Jalen's at the rim. His head is at the rim, and it goes in. And Jalen Brown's like, whoa. Marcus Smart, the play he made in the corner on the Embiid pass where he was going opposite corner,

and he jumps out like a defensive back, jumping into the flat. Marcus Smart just does stuff that's different. I've struggled with him. The flopping with him drives me crazy because I just don't like it no matter who I'm rooting for. I just hate it because it's in the game, but you're right. But I don't think, I don't think he's going to get, would you trade Marcus smart for Paul George? No, I bet Marcus is untradeable for me. That's a no from you.

No, Marcus is going to retire as a Celtic and he's going to take Cedric Maxwell's job when Maxwell retires. And he's going to be in my life for the rest of my life until I die and I'm signing up for it now. 16 years Celtic career immediately becomes either the radio guy or the TV guy and then another 40 years is that. He's never leaving Boston. What if he opened a bar

called Smarts and everybody called it Smarts? Smarts? I think that would work. Can I just read you all of the Denver Nuggets playoff highlights in the history of mankind? So 2009,

they're 2-2 against the Lakers in the Western Finals. Then the Lakers win the last two. That was great. Are you done? 1985, made the Western Finals, got killed by the Lakers. 1978.

Not a lot of people having a lot of 1978 basketball conversations. Took Seattle to six, and Seattle beat them in the 78 Western Finals. And then in the last ABA Finals ever, they lost to Dr. J and the Nets in 1976. Was that Dan Issel's squad? And those are all your great Denver Nuggets playoff highlights. They have never made the NBA Finals. 78 was a really

fun what-if year for the league, because that's right as we're heading into the cocaine era and tape delays and people really turning on the league. And they came very close to having David Thompson versus Dr. J in the 1978 finals. And Philly ended up falling apart.

Washington makes it. And then Denver loses to Seattle, but we, that's the Dennis Johnson. That's the Seattle. Yeah. Seattle bullets, two straight years really hurt the league.

Cause those were not like, you know, there's no stars to like market, but if you had at Thompson and Irving, anyway, star cross franchise, and this is about the best it's looked. I mean,

if you were doing, I'm starting a franchise with and this is about the best it's looked. I mean, if you were doing I'm starting a franchise with dot dot dot, who do you pick? Jokic is no lower than third or fourth at this point, right? Stonkic, Giannis, Jokic might be the third pick. I don't know. You do this sometimes. No, don't give me that you do this.

Yeah, I am. Now Jokic is the third best player in the league, and you're starting your am. Now Jokic is the third best player in the league and you're starting your team with him? I didn't say third best player in the league. I'm saying I am starting my franchise and I could have anybody. Who am I taking? You're taking him over Tatum right now.

I think it's a debate. I don't know what the answer is, but I think those are probably the next two picks after Luka, Giannis, and I think it's Tatum or Jokic for that three spot. I mean, Jokic is only 24 years old. It feels like he's older than that, but he's not.

He's two years older than Tatum. I thought Tatum was 19. Murray is 22 years old. God, this team's young. We always talk about, oh man. Murray was a young because- God, this team's young. I know. We always talk about like, oh man, what, you know, this team- Murray was a young qualifier. He was like young at Kentucky.

Right. Well, it's like how Kobe was a rookie when he was 17. But we always talk about like these destinations for different free agents and nobody ever mentions Denver. And meanwhile,

that's probably the best situation, right? Not only do you get to play on an annual contender, but you play with a team where the ball actually moves. The guys like each other. You could play with a guy who actually makes you better. I have one

more Paul George trade for you. Paul George for Porzingis. Porzingis is a no just because he's too big and has too many leg injuries. Is that a hard no? You had a hard no the other day, and it became a headline and then aggregated. Yeah, that was actually one of the few times

you get aggregated where I'll get something sent to me. You'll send me some article, and I go, oh, no, what now? What happened this week? And that one was like, oh, yeah, that's exactly what I said, and that's accurate. It was like a hard no. Hard no.

So Porzingis is just a hard no for you and i like porzingis but he's he's a leg problem so i'll uh you know if we ever get a beer if we ever get like heineken or one of these beer companies to sponsor a beer for us i think hard no locker would be a good one hard no just we have a segment like Rosillo's hard no of the week where I throw a trade at you and you just you're like, no, no hard no. Hard no. That's a soft no. It's a flaccid no this time.

I want to know which Celtic you would trade for Paul George. I think I'm more fascinated by this. It's no to Tatum. Would you trade Jalen Brown for Paul George? I don't want Paul George in my life that way. What about Robert Williams? How about all three of our picks and Robert Williams? Is that enough?

You hate the picks. Would you trade Romeo Langford for Paul George? I'll say this. I like having the picks this year because I was looking at KOC's mock draft and it seems like everybody's just all over the map with this draft that stanford kid had like koc had him like going like 23rd terry yeah i like i'm in on that kid yeah and my guy haliburton was

10th the school really likes uh stanford kid the school really liked him and the more you watch him i mean some of the steph curry stuff i mean it's kind of ridiculous uh when you do that but he was a young kid was taking big shots for that team. So I like that guy. All right. Quickly on the before we move on from clips nuggets. Mike Malone fired by the Kings.

Yeah, just pulled off two back-to-back 3-1 upset victories. It was a weird firing when it happened, but I just like the fact that the Kings didn't even make the playoffs and somehow we're losers in multiple ways, right? The Luka trade is the most iconic

fuck-up non-pick of the decade. You know, I mean, we'll be making a documentary about how did Luka go to three and not even go to the team that actually had the third pick. That'll be a documentary in like 10 years. And then Mike Malone, who's the one good coach they probably had in the last 15 years, they got rid of him.

And I think they've had three coaches since. I was anti. No, I do. I'm going to give it to you here right now to be totally transparent. I was very anti Mike Malone for a long time and it had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with every person that wrote for years that boogies boogie cousins career would have been different if it weren't for the fact

that Mike Malone were let go. And I would be like, you think so? Really? You think cousins would have just been a super team guy and locked in and boxed out and done all the stuff that you kind of need to do if you're going to be a winning team? You just think because everybody kept writing this excuse article. Everybody's an exaggeration, but there were many people, multiple people that we know that kept writing about.

Well, he was Cousins felt so betrayed. So I ended up like going, Mike Malone, give me a break here on this one. And it wasn't fair to him. But whatever he did, whatever his deal is with a young group to get them to keep buying in and his whole one game, all the cliche stuff that I don't like to give too much credit because all of us know what you're supposed to say. I could be the coach of an NBA team down 3-1 and all my interviews would kick ass. I would know exactly what to say. But he got these guys to believe it. And he got these guys to believe it when they're down seven at the start of the third quarter and you know i i think you know for anybody saying kawaii's tired

jamal murray's playing a ton of minutes out there too you know and then yokich he was ready to throw back out there and then they had this nice run in the fourth quarter where yokich is on the bench chewing his face off and then he throws it back in there later so you know i think they're a little predictable with that two-man stuff when it doesn't look right. But then it looks amazing against Utah when Murray's not missing any shots. And then tonight, once they... Look, if Denver can ever have the consistent guy that plays off of that two-man game that's knocking down the shots,

they are a completely different team. So as much as we're going to get on Doc's case for having a team collapse like this, getting a team to believe that's pretty young, that's never really done anything in the playoffs. They probably should have been in the Western Conference Finals last year. I'm kind of surprised they still lost that Portland game a year ago. I just, that was one of those things that kind of stuck with me a little bit

where I'm like, how the hell did they lose that game? And they did. Yeah, they're young. Well, the biggest thing that changed. I'm a fan now, right? I think if Harris played the whole Utah series, it would have ended sooner. And Harris had a really bad regular season.

And I think he's been really good in the playoff bubble. He played... I don't think he was really good right away. No, but he was really good in this series. He played 37 minutes tonight, hit a couple threes. They were plus 21 when he played, but his defense

I thought was good. I thought they really missed that against Utah. And once, you know, if you do that Utah series again, where he can guard Mitchell a little more often, um, I,

that was one thing. And then I do feel like they kind of went all in on Grant in this series. Cause they had all these different dudes and it was like, sometimes this guy would play. Sometimes this guy would play. And, you know,

Porter played 15 minutes tonight, which I think was smart. Yeah, Porter was not a big part of this at all. They went with playoff guys. Millsap played 32. He's certainly not all-star Atlanta Paul Millsap, but

knows where to go, knows what to do. He's tough. He's not going to back down. They basically wrote him and Grant, Jokic, Murray, Harris, and then got a little out of the bench. I always like Morris' minutes. I always like Morris' minutes. But yeah, the Porter, that's a good call because we hadn't really mentioned him at all

because he hits that huge three earlier in the series, a big part of the turnaround as well. That was huge. After he was catching all that shit. And let's face it. I mean, Blake Porter's not a popular guy, although I did think it was interesting that a young guy complaining about work wasn't supported more.

But he hits that shot. He hits that shot. And, you know, it was kind of funny. I mean, it's all just results-based because it's like, who are you to do that? And you shouldn't do it publicly. But yet Porter hits that shot. You know, Reggie Miller's like, good for him, right?

So he's thinking, this is awesome. And,, he, he backed it up a little bit, even though he said something that he shouldn't have said. And then for him to not be a big part of this though, was surprised because you're thinking if Denver is going to win a game seven, some third guy has to go off. I think that's the thing with Denver. This is the thing you look at with the Lakers and the Lakers are probably going to stick to a lot of the same rules. Hey, Grant, you got to beat us first. All right, Gary Harris, lot of the same rules hey grant you got to beat us first all right gary harris we're going to be you got to beat us first but but i think anthony davis is a completely different deal than zubach and um a girl closing defensively against yokich they'll probably not ask anthony davis to chase

him around from the tip all the way through but i I would be shocked if Davis is not closing on Jokic. They might cancel each other out. And then it, you know, the problem for the Nuggets is LeBron is so consistent, which is crazy with the amount of years he's been in the league. But if you're a seven-game series with them, he's going to be there in a big way in probably four or five of those games. And with Murray, it's maybe two, maybe three, hopefully. Yeah, this is where LeBron,

you know, people don't talk enough about LeBron's steadiness. But, hey, LeBron. Did you see the Mark Jackson on me? LeBron had some shooting games in that Houston series. Remember that first half where he had like 20-something

and he was hitting every, he was doing that deal where he was like, not just heat check, but he was like, what can I, what can I get to go in tonight? Yeah, can I make this 29-footer? Oh, shit, I shit, I can. All right. I'm going to go to the left side

and try this now. So I almost think that gets lost a little bit. Did you see the clip of all the times LeBron blocked Westbrook? He had four crazy video game blocks on Westbrook. He clearly just kind of Westbrook bothers him. I think, I think that one year Westbrook won the MVP. LeBron probably just kind of tucked it away and his things to get pissed off about file and was really kind of taking it to Westbrook. And then when they had that moment with Rondo and they're going back and

forth and Westbrook's like, better not double, better not double. They're down 29 in a clinching game. He's talking shit. And LeBron's just laughing at him it was embarrassing that was a tough series for westbrook by the way the other part of that that series is that rondo turned into like clay thompson and you go okay look if you're the

rocket you're going all right this is hard enough and now you've played a couple games so now you've figured out that we don't really do a ton. Okay. So it's easier for you guys to figure this out. And I still think Oklahoma City must go back and look at the tape of those games and go, why did we not attack the Peruner guys more? Like, what the hell were we doing? Why were we getting stuck all the time offensively? And then when you saw LeBron, LeBron's different than Chris Paul and certainly Shea, Gilgis, Alexander, but Rondo just killing you from three.

If you're the other staff, you just go, oh, so what are we, out of here in three games? This sucks. I think Paul George would make a great rocket. I don't know how we can make that happen. I don't think the salaries can work. I could see Paul George getting traded to the Rockets and then he and Harden at the intro guaranteeing a title.

I'm proud of us for one thing. We talked in the bubble about we weren't sure home court was going to matter. And we felt like with this every other day stuff might advantage the young teams. Even to see when they showed Miami was a five seed and the Celtics were a three seed and that was the first time the top two seeds

hadn't made the Eastern Finals since like, what, 1999? Or maybe it was even... I thought it was 84. 84, whatever it was even, I thought it was 84, 84 or whatever it was. Um, I do think it's just weird. And 2012 was weird.

It had weird outcomes. Okay. See, made the finals. We didn't expect that to happen. Boston and Philly, um, played in a round two. You know,

we didn't, we didn't expect to see Philly in the final eight. Um, and I think that the possibility, we have to consider it, of a Denver-Miami Heat finals. It has to be considered and acknowledged. It just does.

Miami is a better team than Boston. I don't know if that means they're going to win, but they have a better one through nine. I was really worried about this series. And we're going to talk about it in a second. I could not believe Boston was favored. I was stunned. Talked to Sal about it on Sunday night.

He thought I was a reverse jinx. I was not. But, you know, Denver could absolutely beat the Lakers. I don't know if I would bet it. But, Katie, wouldn't that be the perfect outcome in the bubble? Is a Denver Nuggets Miami Heat playoff series fourth rounder. Well, I'm glad you brought it up. No, because I was going to ask you at some point

how weird is that going to be? How weird is that going to feel? And you can take more credit because you shouldn't give me really any credit, but this is something that I've just gone in circles on the entire time where leading up to the bubble, it's like, hey, we're going to expect all these weird different things and weird outcomes. Okay, maybe, but we could still expect all these weird different things and weird outcomes.

Okay, maybe, but we could still have Lakers. We didn't get Milwaukee, but even though Milwaukee had this incredible point differential, when people were kind of off in Milwaukee and loving teams like Boston, I was like, well, look, Boston hasn't really played together a ton. But I think Boston defensively, when you look at even what they did today against Miami and then what they did against Toronto, I think they have a defensive gear that's really, really special. But if they were going to have to play against Anthony Davis in the finals, like, I'm sorry, I'm just not picking the Celtics against Anthony Davis. I'm just not going to, because I've seen what a really good big can do against a short front line. And so I kind of still defer to like, why would the bubble all of a sudden have outcomes where lesser teams were all of a sudden have outcomes where lesser teams

were all of a sudden better and the better teams were lesser versions of themselves. But I think it speaks more to the individual teams where you and I for years now have had this thing about Milwaukee where we go, what are they really as a playoff team? The other thing you and I have talked about now for two years is the difference between regular season and postseason basketball. If you're a three-point barrage machine and you think that's just going to completely mimic itself in the playoffs and get the same outcome, I think we're learning more and more

with this new version of basketball the last few years that that's not really a guarantee. It's actually more unlikely that you're just going to be able to duplicate your success with that kind of style where you just play five out

and take a million threes. I mean, how many more teams do we have to see that are sort of disappointing? So is it the bubble or is it that an unproven Milwaukee came up short again again um is it the bubble with the clippers tonight nine for 35 from three right like is is the bubble the reason yeah granted the clippers would have had home court but you know denver probably evens the series at 2-2 because they would have been playing up in

denver um and if it's the bubble then then why are the lakers just rolling through everybody right now so i don't know that we have the answer but if it's Denver, Miami, it's only going to be because of the bubble. It'll only be, which is unfair to those teams. But that's the way it'll be played up is that, oh, it was this really weird deal. That's the only reason we got it when it's like, well, wait a minute. There was no Golden State. Okay. There was no Chicago Bulls.

There wasn't even a Lakers with Kobe or the Celtics with those three-year run. There was nothing that was established enough this year as a group that should have scared us off that, you know, we may have had a very unlikely outcome in a normal circumstance. Every year has some sort of weird variable. This year was the bubble. And some teams figured it out. Some teams didn't. And the teams that I think Milwaukee is a team that really could have used a crowd. And that was why you play the whole season. I think it would have helped them. I don't think if I don't know if it would have been enough because I really

do think Miami was just a worst case scenario team for them to play. And I think we would have had the same result. Maybe Miami wins in six and they get an awesome crowd in game six and whatever. But it definitely wasn't ideal for Miami. I think same thing with Denver in this Lakers series. If they're playing the Lakers in the Western Finals in games three and four in Denver, it's hard to play in Denver. Teams have trouble there. They have a great home record no matter who's on their team.

So the bubble's even some of that stuff out. But what I like is it strips out all the shit. And a lot of these games have just come down to who has more people who are going to show up for a big moment. That Toronto was a great example. Toronto had so much respect for that team. They didn't even play that well. Lowry was the only guy who really shot well out of their best three. Van Vliet was under 40% for the series. Like Siakam was a disaster. But that team was so mentally tough,

they just would not go away. They're fucking Michael Myers. You have to chop their head off to get rid of them. We should do a, when it's all said and done, or maybe, you know, up into the finals, if we have an off day or however the schedule works out, but we should do a reassessment list of who are the five to seven players that we may have to reassess

after these playoffs, but then the excuse will always be the bubble. Get back to the bubble. But Pascal Siakam is one of the first guys I can think of because he was so bad in that Celtics series, and I haven't heard if he's hurt or not yet, but his story is incredible when you watch him in college, and you're like, he's kind of this big athletic guy, but

is he super quick twitchy and it's a little robotic. And, but then his story is unbelievable. He gets the money. He was on a tear at the beginning of this year. When you watch him, you can see that he is, if he doesn't already know where his feet are going ahead of time, a lot of that stuff isn't natural. And once you figure that out with him as a defender defender he'll turn into the wrong side of the defense like when he would go to post whatever whatever like the end of his his combination of moves that he was throwing at

you he would actually turn into the worst option you know like unless it were boom boom to dribble okay i'm bigger and i'm more athletic i'm going to finish the siakam part of that series like i ended with that series going you know for all the stuff about toronto and oh they didn't get enough credit they didn't have credit like wake the fuck up you lost maybe the best player in the world it's not complicated it's not personal don't take it personally you lost kawaii leonard that's why people were off you and by the way everybody was wrong including me about what they would be this year but when it was all said and done and they lose in seven of boston they weren't as good as boston i go i think they got the right amount of respect i think the people that mattered

gave them the right amount of respect certainly for me the second round of boston wasn't a huge shock because they were struggling in those games and then you'd look up and be like it's a four point game again like how they were michael myers right the seattle thing jaylen brown just figured him out semi figured him out and Semi-figured him out. And then it was like the whole team. And then they were like, oh, this guy does these three things. Yeah. And then when he couldn't hit threes, he was in his own head and that was it.

But I think it's weird. I think it's weird for these guys and I get it. They've been there for over two months now. They're running into guys they're playing against in elevators and on campus and all these things and it's a different vibe and people handle that differently. And for the guys who,

like the younger guys, like Tatum and Jalen Brown, those kind of guys, you can see Tatum loves this. Tatum today, I'm telling you, those first three and a half quarters,

that was some of the best basketball I've ever seen him play and he was really carrying himself like, I'm ready to that those first three and a half quarters, that was the, that was some of the best basketball I've ever seen him play. And he was really carrying himself. Like I'm ready to take over the league. And then I think all the energy who was exerting on the other end and chasing all their dudes. And all of a sudden, all of his shots for short lost his confidence.

And that's why he's not there yet, but he's going to get there. I really do think he has a chance to be like really, truly a special forward, you know? And you think like the great forwards of the last, like, I don't know, 25 years, like Durant hit a point and I don't know if he's going to be as good as Durant got to. I think Durant, as you know, I think he's one of the 15 best players ever. He's certainly one of the greatest offensive players ever. Um, but Durant hit that point in like 2011, 12. You mean my neighbor Kevin Durant?

It started with the Turkey World Championships. When you're like, oh, so this is actually really going to happen now. And then there was baby steps and it took us 2012. And you could see the MVP coming. And it feels like that's happening for Tatum in these playoffs.

If you told me Tatum's going to win the MVP someday, I'd be like, yeah, I could see it. He's hitting all the check if you told me Tatum's going to win the MVP someday I'd be like yeah I could see it he's hitting all the check marks you would hit if that's going to be the logical ascent to where this ends up like he's hit every checkpoint so far is my point do you want to do this game now because I feel

like we have to do a full I don't know what order you want to go in. Yeah, let's do that in a second. But before we do that, guys, footlong season is at Subway. They make it easy to make a good call on food. So here's a little segment we're going to call bad call, good call

Rossella. We'll look at some of the good and bad plays. Let's go from tonight. Give me an example of a bad call in one of the two games. Not referee call, a bad call by a team or a player that we saw tonight. So not refs. I didn't love the Celtics offense to close regulation and in overtime.

It was, you know, as much as we're going to give love to the big picture of Tatum, I was incredibly frustrated that they looked like the 12 seed. They can't believe they're about to knock off the five seed in the NCAA tournament. And then they just freak out and take terrible shots to close the game and then lose. Great, great example. Bad call. The clogged toilet offense that the Celtics ran. Another bad call.

Kyle and I, we watched football on Sunday with my son, and we got... Wasted? We got wings from a place. Oh, wings. Wings kind of moved because of football. We should have gotten Subway, but we ended up getting wings, and I got the spicy hot wings, and I was feeling it for the next 24 hours. Not exactly my greatest decision. This week, Kyle, we're going to make a good call instead, like a sweet onion,

chicken teriyaki sandwich from subway. Yeah. Another good call. Getting a free footlong when you buy two at participating subway restaurants. So let's make some good calls this week, order and pay contact free in the subway app for quick and easy pickup or delivery on game day or any day. It's footlong season at subway.

Eat fresh, freshly prepared in front of you. By the way, though, did you know Subway originated the take? Because everybody says takes, hot takes, the whole thing. Fresh take, yeah. It was Subway Fresh Take Hotline. Subway Fresh Take Hotline. Yeah.

The OGs of the take. One of the great ad campaigns. The clogged toilet offense at the Celtics ran. This has happened to them a couple of times in the playoffs. It has. And I know when it's happening and I start yelling at the TV

because the whole reason they're beating Miami in game one and they should have won this game and it's probably going to come back to haunt them. Let's be honest.

They're playing with pace. They're using their athletes. They're pushing the ball when they can. They're not going slow. It's not turning into a slow half court game. And then all of a sudden they're 40 feet from the basket with eight seconds left on the

shot clock, just kind of dribbling. And this way it wasn't just the last minute. This was probably eight or nine plays in regulation OT, where it's just like they're killing clock. Like, like they have like an eight point lead. They're running like the four quarters. And I thought it was just bizarre. And I thought it cost them the game.

Yeah, there was one Kemba one in particular where he just dribbled it the whole time. And then you're like, look, even if you get the angle, the help guy is going to be bigger than you. And at that point with the help, with how long you took to drive. Yeah, there's four seconds. What's happening? Yeah, that's that's what I can't stand with some of these clocks is where you

go. All right, fine. I get that. I'm not even talking about like the last second where i don't want to leave anything left on the clock you're talking hey there's still 140 left and you're up a possession and the whole reason you like the celtics team is they've got four guys that can make a basket and then when you decide hey i want you three guys to watch and you know i think it happened more probably going back 15 years i don't know you know it's not like I keep track of blitzing opposing point guards, but I felt like that was every defense's first movement where they'd blitz, they'd bring the big, they'd keep it with the point guard,

and that's why teams are always scared off of small point guards. There's still teams that are scared off of it. And I'll see times where you blitz Kemba, and he's still good enough to get around you and turn the corner. And now you're talking about four on three or maybe even five on three if he still has the ball and there's a couple times they swung it and they made some good decisions but for as much as i love tatum he had going on in the toronto thing a little bit and the final numbers are great maybe it's because we have such high expectations for

tatum because everything you said about who he could possibly be i'm with you i don't have a ceiling for him and it's it's so complete now and some of the passing he's making and the defensive assignments were like, Brad actually likes him better than anybody else there defensively when he has Jalen and Marcus as teammates. He guarded Butler on the big play of the game. I thought Smart was going to guard him and he picked Tatum.

But I can't help but think the Celtics won a game that could have gone either way. Miami's the better basketball team of the two. But to just let yourselves take yourself out of your offense like that and not even ask Miami to defend anything, that's not what I'd expect from Brad Stevens in the Celtics. Tat game and Boston lost comes down to two plays for me. Tatum at the end of regulation playing for the last shot and it was almost you could hear

he was channeling Kobe. It was a classic, terrible Kobe hero ball possession that it goes in once, but they never show the YouTube clip of the 20 times when it didn't go in ends up with just a terrible step back. He knew it wasn't going when he shot it because he's running in for the rebound. And it's just like, dude, you're, you're an incredible

athlete. You can get to the basket anytime you want, get to the basket, try to draw a foul, get some contact, get in the air. Maybe we get offensive rebound, whatever, go to the basket. So now we go into overtime. Butler, same situation, right? He's, I think they're down one, takes Tatum off the dribble, goes into him. And he's just like, you're, I'm getting a foul and I'm getting, the ball's going to hit the rim and I might get a three point play, but I'm deciding this myself. I'm not doing ball's going to hit the rim and I might get a three-point play, but I'm deciding this myself. I'm not doing some garbage step back thing. Not that when Tatum does it's garbage. It's just like

I just want my guys going to the basket. So when he got blocked at the end by Bam, which was an incredible block, one of the greatest blocks I've ever seen of all time. I love that. I'll defend that a hundred times out of a hundred with Tatum. Should he have dunked it? I don't know. Could he have tried to do a finger roll or tried to get contact?

Of all the things you can get on Tatum for, it's not getting rejected by Bam. No, no. I'm saying like, could you try to bang off him and try to get contact? I don't know. Who cares? You try to throw it down. Bam made one of the greatest defensive plays I've ever seen in a playoff game. So I'm not having a problem with that.

I'll tell you this. I've been watching the Celtics for how many years? I've never seen anybody block that Tatum dunk. Have you? Has that happened before? Remember when he almost got LeBron? Oh, no. He did get LeBron in 18. Remember he got LeBron in 18 and LeBron got to laugh about it because they won in game seven.

It didn't really matter. I don't know. That band play, I don't feel like it is recency bias to say it's one of the most amazing blocks I've ever seen in a basketball game. Well, how much strength do you have to your arms behind you as somebody's tomahawking it?

The odds are, I think, more likely you separate your shoulder because your shoulder is getting pulled backwards out of your body, but somehow he blocked it. The dribble into traffic, 180 turnarounds, where he goes off of one leg. You're like, what are what are you doing tatum are you trying to make this even harder and by the way

you're right the butler drive because he had hit that three before when you probably at that point thought the celtics were going to win the game and butler been pretty quiet i think 12 points going to the fourth quarter he hits that three in the corner and you're like ah here we go you know jimmy time because really i think the scary scary part for the Celtics long term in this is that even though we both agree Miami's better, you go, okay, but they don't have the big as great as BAM is. They don't have the big to exploit them. They don't have the good big. Because Gasol's a bad big. And that's why I think Nick Nurse struggled with how many Gasol minutes.

He wanted to play him more because he was big. Because even though Ibaka was the better player, he's like, now I'm playing right into the Boston thing by being small with them, and I'm not exploiting their front line. You should have played Ibaka more, though. Well, yeah, I would agree with that, but I think I can understand what he was trying to do, and where Miami, you'll go, well, wait a minute,

they can't really exploit that part of it, but when Butler hit that insane and one layup, there's also a playoff to the side where Dragic and Jay Crowder are arguing about who's supposed to set the screen, and Butler just says, fuck it, I'm going. If you look back at that play, Butler's like, whatever, you guys, out of the way, done. And that's what I think every Philly fan watches and misses.

It's like, you know what? Butler, we've done it before. We don't need to do it all again. What's his standing as we update these things by the minute? But to know that you have somebody, after we just watched a Clippers team where it looked like every single guy was afraid for 12 minutes, Jimmy's just at least never going to be afraid, even if he's not one of the top overall guys every single year. And it was a little bit of like Tatum's the best player in this series. Tatum's going to be the best player in this series. This is going to be awesome. That's not the way it closed

because Tatum made a million mistakes and Jimmy made two huge plays. And it's even worse than that. I'm glad you compared the Clippers to them. The Heat have so many bad motherfuckers in this series. Bam, Warrior, Dragic, not afraid of anybody.

Jay Crowder. Dragic had his first subm machine gun at nine years old Crowder Crowder You know maybe could could dip Into the Marcus Morris And this Cooper game tonight side but I think Is more the guy that we saw today where

You want him out there in crunch time he's gonna fight And he's gonna to make plays. And then Crowder's always got the toughest assignment to Crowder was the gun. Yeah. He was the one guarding Giannis, not bam. And he's played in Crowder's been in big games. Like they made the 2017 Eastern finals that year when he got concussed by

Jair. And then hero is the least afraid of anybody in the league. I mean, the fucking balls that he has that, that three he took near the end of regulation was like it wasn't even a play it was just like he was open for a split second he was like ah fuck it and it was a huge three

if you missed it you would have been like it was like a Marcus Smart terrible three but it went in and I don't know this team just has a lot of swagger to it I think it's going to be a really hard team to beat I felt that way before the series I think the fact that the Celtics over and over again in these games, they're up 10, they're up 12, not just Miami, but the whole playoffs.

They're up 15, they're up 13, but they don't have a bench. And at some point you either have to play the starters too many minutes or the bench is going to let up a little bit. And all of a sudden it's a two point game again. You saw it again today. And the other thing with the heat, you know, they made how many threes? They were 16 for 36, 44% from three in this game.

I wouldn't say they're red hot. That's kind of who they are. They're going to be between 38 and 44% game to game. They're going to hit between 15 and 23. So they're never going to go away. You're not blowing them out. No. And even when Boston got up, game to game, they're going to hit between 15 and 23. So they're never going to go away. You're not blowing them out. No.

And even when Boston got up, you know, I don't know why. I don't know how many times people are going to watch games where a team goes up 15 and the other team comes back. Like it actually happens. That's, that's normal where they come back. So even when Boston was up early and Marcus smart, like Marcus smart hitting a bunch of shots earlier, like, okay, this is weird. Cause you know, there's going to be some late one coming.'re like ah but he's just gonna take him and you have to accept you know it's amazing what now you know the theory when marcus hits a few in the first

quarter it's actually you get worried yeah it's the whole ultimate feeling yeah well that yeah then it's like oh he's like now i got this guys i'd rather he missed early and then hit some late i here let me give you let me give you some more numbers on the threes though i'm sorry but like kemba yeah good in his last five games one of six one of six one of six one of seven one of nine when it's against toronto where toronto's entire defense was set up to screw you up and you're watching it going like that was hard it was really hard for kemba to get free on that box one against toronto it worked on stopping kemba it did not work to the point where you won enough games to win the series.

But then you're looking at this Miami part of it. You're going, OK, it isn't box one. Like you have your free looks to come off that high screen, dribble into your three. Kemba is not a catch and shoot three. I don't know what the numbers are. It just doesn't look comfortable at all. He's so much more comfortable dribbling into the three point attempt. Those shots are there for him again.

And now this is five straight games. The guy can't hit any shots. and I think he's moving all right, so I don't know what the deal is here. I'm on a lot of Kemba text threads right now. How's Dr. Bill doing on it? He doesn't understand what happened to Kemba. There's three types of text threads. One, is he hurt?

They're not telling us. And it doesn't look like he's hurt. And then two, it's like, what the fuck happened to Kemba? Because this guy was awesome during the season. Like he, you know, he not only is like a 40 plus three point shooter, but, you know, he can beat people off the dribble. And he has like these three spots, a little like Chris Paul. He has his little spot on the right free throw line. He's got his little

pretenses driving that does the step back 12 footer and then he's got like a 20. So he has these shots that he just consistently hits and I've never really seen him miss them consistently. And now none of them are going in and trying to figure out what happened to this guy. And I really think it's as simple as this. This is Dr. Psychologist Bill Simmons. Not my dad, myself. My theory. Licensed. He hasn't been in a big game since March Madness, UConn, nine years ago.

And I think he wants this so badly. And this is, it's almost, I wouldn't say it's like when you say somebody is choking, it's almost like he wants it too much and he's thrown himself out of his game. Cause some of the stuff he's doing is, is stuff that I've never seen him do before.

Like he's passed one time today, he passed up an open three so he could pass to Marcus smart for a contested three. And it's like, you would just never do that in January. You were just taking that every time. And then some of the stuff when he's driving to the basket, it's like his handles off.

And it just seems like he's pressing to me. I definitely think he's pressing. So I would say it's more that because I just don't like when a guy's out there running around for 40 minutes. We're all supposed to just think a guy's hurt because he has some injury history from before, even though I think all of us think that watch it closely, that there could be a lingering thing there with Kemba, but not enough to use it as an excuse that you can't hit a shot now for five straight games. But his drives into traffic, not without much of a plan.

And, you know, you're always going to be the smallest guy there and you're not some high-flying guy especially at this point in your career but like the last five years he's been 38 37 39 from three he's a really good three-point shooter a guy that really number one option when he had no help like the numbers he was putting up with that charlotte team where there's it wasn't like there's another guy you know it wasn't like he was doing some absolutely gross shot attempt thing to get his numbers. He's a really good player. So this is alarming that it's gone on for this long. And I don't know.

Well, he's just the last three games. He is 13 for 46. That's game six, game seven, game one today. And I like some of the stuff they were doing late in the game. They were just doing a two-man game with Tatum and kemba trying to figure out like okay well if we get the switch here that we like like how do you want to attack it but then it's like okay like at least with yokich and murray in the two-man game even though it's predictable there's different options off of it when it's right look again i'll admit there's times that i didn't always like it with

kemba and tatum it was just okay we got to switch all right who wants to do an iso I do oh all right I'll get the next one it was I couldn't believe I couldn't believe how bad it was at the end of that game but Miami was tougher they were tougher than them at the end and by the way the game shouldn't even have gone to overtime because smart flops gets that bullshit call before the inbound they take the free throw and it's just such a horrible look it's such a bad look in that spot because you go you only made the call because you fell down. I'm going to ask people, and I know softball stats, Holy Cross, two on two games, how shout out to the whole Worcester crew. But how many times do you fall down and pick up games? Is the answer zero? The answer is probably zero when everybody was pretty good. Like maybe

somebody falls in a layup attempt. Maybe somebody could fall down. Guys don't fall down this much normally in a basketball game. And now everybody falls dead. The greatest athletes on the planet are falling down left and right. And it's like flopping isn't as bad in the game, but some of the off the ball flopping that gets called now. And I just don't understand. Like, I think the league needs to really revamp this to actually make it harsher to go. Unless you saw someone absolutely get crushed on something let's default to they probably flopped because most guys this strong wouldn't be falling down for two and a

half hours well the kemba thing today i actually liked a lot of the shots he got i did too throwing away the end of the game but it certainly he had a lot more freedom than he did in the toronto series and i also like the fact that defensively they could hide him on a couple different guys. Like there were times when he was just guarding Crowder because it was like, well, if you're going to try to three. Yeah. It's like, if you're going to exploit, if you're going to post Kemba up with Crowder,

like, please go ahead, knock yourself out. That would be great. Or Iguodala, same thing. Please post them up. So I think this is a better series for them. The Drogic thing is a problem, obviously. I think those are the type of guards, and I said this on Sunday night,

those are the type of guards that have just killed these Celtics teams over the last couple years. It's the one type of guy that Marcus isn't great at guarding. I think they did a really nice job on Butler. You know, he hits that three in the corner, that huge three he hit,

I think either an O-tier regulation, whatever. That was regulation, the one in the right corner. Yeah, it was kind of like a broken play. No, and it was a broken play, and he stepped up as the defense went behind him, but he was a non-factor of this. You're right about, Dragic carried them when it was weird.

And then they had that amazing second quarter. And then Harrow hit that one big three. Yeah, late. But Dragic early was, I thought, really important to kind of keep him in it. But what worries me the most is,

I mean, they actually, Watermaker was pretty good today. That was about as good of a Watermaker game as you're going to get. Yeah, he was, and they actually brought him in

for defense at the end, which I don't remember them going offense-defense with Kemba like that in a big game. But they can't play Robert Williams against Olenek because all Miami's going to do is they're going to hunt him and sneak Olenek off and shoot threes, and then they'll have to take Williams out.

Grant Williams is going to have to play, which means Miami's going to leave him open. And then other than that, it's like Ojale and stuff like that. My point is, everyone's like, well, Hayward's coming back this series. Okay, well, if Hayward, let's say he oh, it's like, and stuff like that. My point is everyone's like, well, Hayward's coming back this series. Okay. Well, if Hayward,

let's say he comes back for game two, he plays 20 minutes. We're not getting like peak Gordon Hayward. Like we've seen him come back from injuries. He's always tentative. He's going to be rusty. Even if he plays out of it, that's not going to be till game five,

game six. And I just think the Celts are in trouble because this team, the dirty secret of that Toronto series was Toronto wasn't very good. Like, go look at the stats. Go look at their shooting stuff. Like, Van Vliet and even Lowry didn't shoot that well. Baca was the only guy who, like,

really shot well for them in that series. It was just, they were so tough and they were so well coached and they knew every trick in the book and they were able to drag that series. It was just, they were so tough and they were so well coached and they knew every trick in the book and they were able to drag that series to seven. Meanwhile, Boston won six of the seven games. Basically, it's not going to work against this Miami team.

Miami is really talented. I think they're the most talented team left. I would have said that before the Clippers lost. I don't know that I could see most talented when I still think like they're one and two in the drop off from where the Clippers were in the Lakers. I mean, that's, that's, what are we arguing here? Top tier talent. They don't

have one top 10 guy. They don't have one top 10 guy. The Lakers have two top five. I like their one through nine more than any other team, including the Clippers who are now gone. No, I know what the argument is. Cause then you go one through nine. That's why I think the LeBron promo where it's like, we're built different, man. We're like, well, yeah. Three through eight. Would you rather have a great one and two and then a bunch of... I'd rather have a great one and two. You would. Yeah.

I think history tells us you'd rather have a great one and two. But the difference between Miami's depth is that they're going to be able to do different stuff. They just are. I'm going to say this right now. Cue it up, Kyle. Get the record button ready. If Miami plays this Lakers team if Miami gets

by Boston and the Lakers get by Denver I think it is a 2004 finals scenario in the making for an upset I think it's a terrible matchup for the Lakers wow so you're talking Pistons figure them out

and then every game you're expecting the Lakers to figure it out. Yeah, it's like, oh no, they got it. And then it's going to be like this Clippers Nuggets series where

it's like, oh, the series is over. Yeah, the difference is that the Lakers won't be coming off of a bunch of titles in a row where they're sort of over it because

they're not as hungry. It's a good point. And that's also something that I think is kind of funny. You think of the irony of some of the discussions around Kawhi, where it's like, what do we do with this guy

if he goes to three different franchises and wins a title? It's never been done. This is crazy. What do you do? And my argument was, as impressive as that is, the difference is that the great players of all the other generations wouldn't have jumped to three teams in three years and put them in position. They would have won a title. They would have stayed. And a lot of these guys stayed for the prime of their careers. And we have this odd deal here.

But LeBron is actually close to doing the thing we were ready to start applauding Kawhi for doing, which we didn't really talk about. I thought on Sunday night, I thought Miami should be favored in the series. And I thought they were going to win the series unless Tatum went up a level. So I still feel like that's in play.

And I know that's kind of a cop-out. It's like, we'll just pick the series. It's like, that's my pick. I think Miami's going to win the series unless Tatum vaults up a level a little like Durant in 2012 in that Spurs series and just everything that happened where Durant went up a level

and then it was like, this guy's the best part in the series. They're going to win. That's what it has to have for Boston. There's a scenario where Kemba shakes out of this slump and starts hitting shots again and might go back to being a 25 points a game guy, but I can't bank on it anymore. We've,

he just hasn't been good, you know, really in the bubble like that, other than a couple couple Philly games. I'm not counting on it anymore. Nope. Nope. Miami's a better basketball team. If Boston had gotten this one, who knows?

It's still not impossible. The Miami thing, they roll through Milwaukee, but it still feels weird that if they'd played, I think, an 82-game schedule and I threw that number out to you, they would have been a 49-win team. I know, but the thing is, the Crowder Iggy trade, that changed their team. I don't think Iggy does much for them at all. No, but I just think it rounds them out and it gives them a flexibility they didn't have

before. And the Hero just got better as the year went along. It was the other piece. All right, quickly, a couple more things, and then we'll go, because I want to get this podcast up. Most fun D'Antoni team for you. Where do you want them to go? Ooh, okay. I'm, well, we've heard the Philly thing for a while.

I really hope Philly doesn't happen. Please, no. No, I don't know that it makes a ton of sense for him because it's just not built that way unless it's a check. Unless he looks at it one more time and says, hey, this is the check and I'm ready to go. It's probably New Orleans. Yeah, that's how

I feel. This would be the best thing to happen to Lonzo, right? Here are the car keys, Lonzo. I'm showing you Steve Nash and James Harden videotapes all summer. I'm going to spread the floor for you, do some Lonzo stuff. Now, whether he's that type of player, I don't know, but he's just been great with point guards. I mean, he got Jeremy Lin to look like an all-star for four weeks. So if Lonzo can be redeemed, and KOC did a good job talking about this the other

day on his podcast about Lonzo went south. It wasn't just a shooting. It was like this guy on the Lakers looked like he had a chance to be a semi-special defensive player and doesn't play defense anymore in New Orleans. So I don't know if D'Antoni is the one who's going to be tapping into that, but I agree. I think him with Zion would be really fun. The important thing is Lonzo looks so bad on the restart that I want to forget it happened

and give him a clean slate that he goes into a normal season looking like the player that looked like he was going to... He's gone from, oh, I kind of like this. I like these in-between things he does and not everybody else understands. He was really good defensively. He's a smart defensive player in the concepts. And you're like oh this guy's gonna be a bust he

stinks he's passive he can't shoot he's on you don't even guard him and then this year in the normal phase of the season there were really some good things to that you were watching if the shot was better he had to be somebody at least had a close out on and respect enough and yet the defensive part of it i mean god it was so bad watch him come back i'm just gonna pretend it didn't happen and do like clean slate lonzo thing i think that's fair yeah because at least the restart was too short so let's see does lonzo have sham at face in your opinion no because he went to you can't have sham it face and go to does Gary Harris have sham it face he went pretty high though okay just checking would you

trade here's my next thing for you would you trade drew holiday for the number two pick Andrew Wiggins and the Minnesota top three protected pick next year. I got three more years of Wiggins though, right? Yeah. You know, I probably... Drew Holiday is like 31 now.

I probably would. I think I would too. And I think I would if I'm Golden State. I could go Curry, Clay, Drew Holiday, Draymond, and free agent, whoever. Jacob Evans. Yeah, that one. I mean, Wiggins immediately scares me off every time I hear the name. But I kind of, I know, look, maybe I'm an insane person,

but do I kind of want to hear, by the way, Jacob Evans finishing with Minnesota. I just want to double check that for the huge Jacob Evans fans out there. Am I nuts for wanting to kind of see what Wiggins looks like with the rest of those guys? That would be where

I landed as well. If I were them, I would trade back and try to get somebody to fit. And they have like a $17 million trade exception. I would trade back from two to like nine, 10, 11 range to some team that's hot to trot for like, to get somebody second and try to steal some like Jeremy Grant type, whoever that version is this year.

Yeah. And you go back and you get like the eighth pick and you get that guy, you put them in the trade exception. I think that's a better move. I would want the draft pick because of the fixed cost. And I like some of the guys in this draft. Yeah, that's where I think the New Orleans thing would be interesting because you could, I'd have to look at their salary sheet.

I'm not going to pull it up right now, but would the two picks save you enough that if Zion stays healthy in your building, so you get like a second reset with Zion to bring in somebody around him. But also with Golden State and how the salaries, I mean, the four guys and those salaries are so nuts. Yeah. If you're moving Wiggins out, you still are so high up salary wise that it'd be amazing to get a couple of picks just for that, that cost effectiveness of it.

And you would figure, you know, at the very least you get a rotation guy, but maybe not this year. Who knows? Not a good team. Next thing for you. Fertitta calls you.

Or Fertitta. Fertitta? Yeah. Either one. Whatever, however you pronounce his name, he calls and he's like,

he's like, hey, I've just been calling around people I respect. I'm a huge fan of the podcast. What would you do if you were me? Would you run this back with this team and a different coach? Would you try to get it big?

What would you do? I go, hey, does James want to play with Russ again? Or can you trade Russ? And by the way, trying to trade Russ now is the worst possible. Like if you've maybe been able to trade him. Well, you didn't even want to trade him. I think Harden still likes Russ. I got to know what's important to Harden.

I go, okay, hey, the new coach comes in he doesn't want to let you dribble the ball between your legs for 40 fucking percent of the game um do you do you want to keep doing that yeah what do you do that are you do we need to do this another year to see that it doesn't work like what do you what are you looking for james and i don't even know what kind of answer you get from James Hart. He'd probably be like, oh, you know, I'm built different. I'm a problem. I would, I would blow this whole thing up.

I would, I can't imagine owning the team and having to watch this and then sign all the checks. So I would, as talented as Harden is, I, I would not want to run. Now, I don't know if with his money situation, everybody keeps writing about how he's not liquid and with everything going on and all the hotels and all that kind of stuff. Does he need to just be competitive so he could trick all the Rockets fans into thinking like, hey, man, you know who's been on fire this February's Harden?

We went 12-3 in our last 15. I think we could really do it this year. Is that enough that, you know, and again, who knows what normal is? Is that enough? Like, what would you do? All right, let's turn it around. He calls you. What would you do? Hey, Bill, I want to make you GM go. I think because you have no other choice, you talk yourself into how the team looked in

February and what that could look like outside the bubble with fans and I can tell you how it's going to look. No, no, I'm not saying it's right, but I think it's like a relationship where you break up with somebody and then you get back together and then maybe like, ah, maybe she won't cheat on me with other guys again.

And you just talk yourself into whatever reality you want. I think... Maybe she only does meth on the weekend. Right. I think the reality of this team is that their window was 2018 and 2019. And then the other thing was they traded Chris Paul.

They deserve credit for 18. They deserve a ton of credit for 18. They came damn close. But the other thing I think that fucked them was they traded Chris Paul, not realizing that he was about to go to this plant-based diet that completely changed his career. Like, go Google Chris Paul plant-based diet. He basically went a time machine back to 2014 athletically,

and that's why he looked so good this year. He had chip on his shoulder too, but I think if they had known that was going to happen, the smarter move is just to keep Chris Paul and those two extra first-round picks and the contract that ended a year earlier than Russ. I think they thought they were selling high

on Chris Paul because his career was about to go in the poo-poo and they didn't realize that he was about to have this kind of rejuvenation um don't make a face been hurt paul no paul's been hurt okay so i'm not but paul's argument was hey i'm still beating guys off the dribble folks okay like all of you that want me in a retirement home here I'm still taking people off the dribble the problem is is Harden doesn't move okay off the ball Harden doesn't do anything and you can say that it spaces everything but like the defenders know in big spots once James isn't in the play he's not in the play now I don't have to pay attention to him that was Paul's beef but I also think because Paul's like this this high IQ

basketball guy he'd be pissed at Harden all the time. And Harden's like, this is my team. I'm sick of this shit. I get along with Russ better anyway. And so Harden goes to management or excuse me, goes to ownership and says, I want to play with Russ. So I think that's your biggest problem. Even if you want to try the Harden thing again, the guy's incredibly productive. We know this, he's healthy. He's going to hold up, I think, for a really long time. But I'd want to know, like, hey, do you want to keep playing the style? Okay, you do. Well, the Russ part, like, I know those two months were incredible. We opened it all up. But like, do we want to just be incredible in February or March? Or do we want to have a real shot at this? Because having a real shot at this, the way we were constructed right now, we probably don't

have a great chance. And that's the biggest, like, the Covington thing's great. I love PJ Tucker, Eric Gordon, you know, look, up and down. but for where he is on this team is the third, sometimes fourth guy. It's not that big of a deal, but I would have to know where Harden's head's at with the whole thing. Cause just to run it back with Russ and him, which is probably what happens. Um, because I think trading for Russ is really, really hard. The only teams I ever hear about Russ, this is what happens. I think I've shared this with you before, but a team that would sit around and be like, we're stale. We haven't done done shit we're totally off the radar for five something years do we just throw a bunch of pieces at Russ and say all right we've got a superstar and I'm

using air quotes for superstar with Russ do we just do it to shake it all up and be different and have a cool attraction and then you're like wait he's 44 million and he's hurt no it's a move that in the 70s and 80s in the NBA, Russ would have been traded two more times. It's like George McGinnis, where Phil is like, hey, man, any interest in George McGinnis? And Denver's like,

yeah, that guy's great. Here's Bobby Jones. And then they give Bobby Jones the best defensive forward in the league straight up for George McGinnis because back then, people barely knew how to run a team. And we still have that with certain teams. Could a team like Sacramento go, hey, Russ, you won the MVP three years ago.

Could you sell tickets for us? Put him with De'Aaron Fox. That's exactly how it happened. We're getting the better player. And then all of a sudden, Russ is on your team. And Russ has moved again. And it's like, wait, I thought you and James Harden were so close. James is like, yeah, buddy, he'll

spot up shooter. So my guess is they'll run it back, new coach, blame stuff on the bubble and the fact that Russ was banged up. Well, they'll blame somebody. They'll definitely blame somebody. Those articles are coming. Because there's very little accountability

with that organization. Yeah. This is. I mean, look, the referee report against Golden State two years ago, I still think is one of the more embarrassing things. It was a joke. What's the best rumor you've heard over the past two weeks?

That Jay Cutler's dating Tommy Loren. Is that how, is it Tommy Laren or is it Tommy? Tommy Loren. I think it's Tommy Laren. The conservative lady. I don't, I don't know anything about her. Is Tom Brady washed up? How about Arians going? Yeah yeah i don't know what the

hell his problem is he looked like tom brady practice i don't know what that was all about we're like whoa not used to that uh here's here's something i i want to tell you because i was i was actually listening to mason and ireland out here on 710 big fan of the show and they were doing the brady segment where it, what does this mean? I almost called in because I can't believe in what world would we have 20 years of evidence that Brady's the fucking man and that Belichick's the best to ever do it. And that somehow that's still all in the balance with a few weeks here in his 20th season at season 43 that would be like

watching braveheart and watching william wallace the whole movie going all right whoa all right okay all right and then he gets his guts spoiler alert guts taken out at the end and then somebody in the theater turns next to you goes hey we're not that tough after all huh wasn't that tough like what are you talking about like we already have we have all of this evidence that they're both incredible i just i resist and i think less of the argument that somehow that this is something that's on it's a dare some game yeah there's one winner one loser we're still not sure who's actually any good in this. So that's not a bad rumor. It's just a bad, bad segment.

I almost called in. Yeah, I saw your tweet was like, what was it? Belichick won Brady zero. Yeah, it's the updated Bill and Tom power rankings. I had Bill won this week, Tom too, but we'll see how next week plays out. Sal and I talked about it on Sunday

and I don't feel like this is an overreaction. Brady's lost his ability to improvise, and I think it's a really important quality for the quarterback position when something unexpected happens or when you have to go to plan C on

a play. You were really already there. I think it's based off of last year too? I felt that way last year. What I saw in this game was a continuation of last year where he's become a stage actor

who has to have the lines exactly how he memorized them and then the other actors have to say their lines exactly and he's used to it. But if somebody ad-libs on him, he kind of doesn't know how to roll with it anymore. That's what I see when I watch him. I think he knows what he's doing for two and a half seconds

when the ball is snapped. And if anything goes wrong, he either throws it away, doesn't want to get hit, and he's not ready to experiment. He just doesn't want to do it anymore. That's what I see. As somebody who's watched him now for two decades of my life, he used to have this supernatural ability to

move around and create an extra second, extra second and a half. Just kind of move around without being like a scrambler like Josh Allen. No, his mobility in the pocket is the best I've ever seen. Mobility in the pocket. He's not a mobile quarterback, but his mobility, which is I think far more important than getting out.

He doesn't move like that anymore. He just doesn't. And I think these teams now are going all they're just sending dudes at him because they're like, if we can get to him, if we can start hitting him, he's going to not be able to do his thing. He's just not. Now, he did get like 100 yards of pass interference on top of his

stats. I think his stats were a little deceiving, but I thought he had like five or six like really terrible plays that I don't think you can chalk up to. Oh, it is those teammates yet. That wasn't what I saw. I saw a guy was 43. I didn't really want to get hit. I thought the Evans throw where it was the first pick.

I could see how that could be on Evans. But again, this is 20 years of thinking it was never his fault on any interception. I know that's how good he was because you could usually go back and look at every interception in those peak Brady 15 years and you go yeah all right actually you could see what happened here and why that went wrong I don't know whose fault that was um the throw to the right looked like it just took a long time to get the ball over there and that's the throw where people will tell you like when it goes that's the throw you can't really make anymore. It was funny watching Drew Locke. That's what happened to Manning. Yeah, well, Manning's, it was over.

He was having to throw pop-ups to get the ball down the field, and because he was throwing it higher in the air, it was easier to recover if you were the defender on the route. It's not that bad. He's not as bad as Manning was. I wouldn't compare that in a million years. Good, good, good. I'm glad we got that out of the way

because it was about to go there anyway. Drew Locke, for Denver, he had a throw to the sideline that was sick in that game against um against tennessee and i was like oh that's right because brady's looked so bad i'm gonna go ahead and wait because i think brady's a huge well we know this i don't need to say i think so i just stopped saying that we know that brady is a big rep guy there's no way he got the reps he thought he was going to get. I don't know why you wouldn't defer to Brady. That's what Elway did.

The great Peyton Manning story, when he was in his free agent tour, he goes to Harbaugh, and he and Harbaugh are playing catch, and Harbaugh's actually like, ah, losing a little something on the ball. And Harbaugh's like, you're going to, he's like, what are we going to run? And Harbaugh's like, you're going to run what I'm going to run. We're going to run my stuff. And then he goes to Elway. Elway's like, you run whatever you want.

I don't know why you'd bring Brady in and tell him he can't run his stuffbaugh's like you're going to run what I'm going to run we're going to run my stuff and then he goes to Elway always like we run whatever you want I don't know why you'd bring Brady in and tell him he can't run his stuff that he's comfortable with so I got to see more of him looking bad before I'm ready to write this off although the accuracy numbers last year there was a lot that weren't very good how about this he's 43 years old you know that stat about the seven games yeah you know that stat that stat and I'll repeat it one more time seven games. You know that stat? That stat, and I'll repeat it one more time, seven games have been started by a quarterback 43 or older in history. This was never going to end well.

And there's going to be a season where it just is a rough season and then it's going to end. And it was Brett Favre in 2010. It was Manning in that last season when they won the Super Bowl. They barely did it, but it was jarring

because I was with Kyle. We're watching the Arizona San Francisco game on one TV and then Buck saints. How about Kyler? Huh? How about his run? You're watching Kyler and then you're watching Brady. And it's like, if a Cardinals play went wrong, Kyler's just like, all right, cool. I'm going to run for 11 yards. And by the way, he had like 13 runs. He had Kyler had 13 runs and he either ran out of bounds, slid or scored on 12 of the 13. He only got hit one time.

He just dominated it. And you watch Brady who it's like, if the play didn't go perfectly the first two seconds, it was either he's throwing it away or he's getting hit or God only knows. And it's like, all right. It's hard to say he's the goat anymore, even though he's the goat.

I'm just not ready to, I'm not ready to say that it's like, you sound like you're ready to just write this off. I'm pretty bummed. Like it's eight and eight. I was rooting for him. I really, I bet on them. Like I wanted to root for him and it was a bummer.

Is this like when older buddies show up, alums come back to school and they're like 25 and they get shit faced with you and they sleep on your couch and they wake up at your house and you look at them and you're like oh my god that guy looks so old you never had a lum sleep at your house

we had that we had a couple and we were like horrified we're like what the hell is that what's gonna happen to us I was thinking last two years bird when it's like he looks like Larry Bird he'd still put up 20 he'd have a couple awesome games. But it was like I knew it was different.

I just didn't want to admit it. Well, we'll see. I'm shocked to use the Celtics as a comp. That was amazing. He loves Scotty Miller. I'll tell you. I'll tell you, Joe. He loves Scotty Miller.

He really loves this guy. Loves him. We're going to hear that all year. Priscilla, thanks for staying up late on a Tuesday night to commemorate the clip apocalypse of 2020. Trademark. There you go, TM. All right.

You have a podcast coming Thursday. I do as well. We will see you then.