The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Heat Fall Apart With Joe House, Plus Michael Che on Swollen ‘SNL’ Casts and Stand-Up Comedy in 2022

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the Celtics’ Game 5 win over the Heat to take control of the series, how Celtics coach Ime Udoka’s adjustments are paying dividends for Boston, why the Heat desperately miss Tyler Herro, Kyle Lowry’s struggles, Al Horford’s impact, an updated NBA Top Five list, Mavericks-Warriors, and more (1:19). Then Bill talks with comedian, actor, and writer Michael Che about wrapping up Season 47 of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ finding the right chemistry for “Weekend Update” with Colin Jost, Che’s HBO Max sketch show, ‘That Damn Michael Che,’ his introduction to stand-up comedy, Lorne Michaels stories, the impact of social media on comedy, New York sports, and more (40:41). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Michael Che and Joe House Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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out. If you want more basketball coverage, check out Ryan my buddy Gus Ramsey. Check that one out. If you want more basketball coverage, check out Ryan Marcillo's podcast. Check out the Ringer NBA show and check out the mismatch. So we are, as long as these basketball games are going, we will be going as well. Coming up on this podcast, Joe Hassan and I are going to talk about Game 5, Celtics Heat. We're going to talk Warriors, Mavs. Then we're going to talk some real life stuff. And then after that, Michael Che

from Saturday Night Live. First time he ever came on this podcast. It was really fun to talk to him. So it's all next. First, our friends from Pro Channel. All right, Joe House is here. We're taping this at 8.15 Pacific time. House is on East Coast time, staying up late. Celtics just finished off the heat. Huge second half.

House, this is one of the worst conference finals I think we've ever seen. I'm delighted as a Celtics fan that my team is now up 3-2 with a chance to close out game six. But it's a combination of like the Walking Dead with you have like the Kyle Lowry zombies out there. He's wandering around just going 0 for 6.

Or guys playing hurt. Bricks, Miami was 7 for 44 from 3. We haven't had one good game in this series. It's been all double-digit wins. How is history going to remember this series? As the war of attrition that it indeed is, although I think depending on how Boston shows out in the finals against Golden State, because I believe Boston is now going to the NBA finals. All of the percentages and odds are in favor of this. And, you know, as a gambling man, I'm an odds guy now, Bill Simmons. but if the Celts show out well in the finals and they have achieved historical levels of defense, these incredible defensive numbers, that will be the predominant theme and then you can look

back at this series and say, yeah, Miami got dinged up over the course of it, but really the theme is the suffocating Boston defense. Right. Especially once Rob Williams came back. Yeah. This series put some chest hair on the Celtics. Win or lose. They still have to put Miami away in game six.

It's going to be hard. I think Miami, especially if they're allowed to muck it up like they did in game three, they cannot be counted out. I think it would be hard for them to win two in a row. You go through the team. Lowry is a shell of himself. I have Lowry at, I think he's five for 23 for the series. The only bet I hit tonight was Lowry under 18.5 points,

rebounds, and assists. He had zero points, one rebound, zero assists. He missed all six shots. He had three turnovers and he had five fouls. And Jackson and Van Gundy near the end, they were kind of talking in code about Spolster can't play him in game six. They're basically saying,

will Spoh have to change up his lineups? And what they really meant was, will he actually bench Lowry and just play Gabe Vincent? See how that goes. Which is the right move. I mean, it's not controversial, is it? No. I think they got to figure that out.

And then the Butler thing, Butler was four for 18. He's lost his ability to kind of go by people in the Celtics, I think, of figuring out his circuit jerky thing. He's got no legs. He had no legs in game five either. My dad and I were talking about it.

He was minus 15 when he was out there. You think how great he was the first two games. And he's limping the finish line. But really the big injury was the Tyler Harrow injury. Because as soon as they lost that, they lost kind of their freelancer. Everything's broken down. But this guy maybe either can create a shot

or we can run him off a pick. He might be able to score eight points in a row. He might be able to carry us for a quarter. Once they lost that and then Butler was compromised, they're getting nothing from Lauer anyway. There's just nowhere to go. They're playing bam out of bios,

a point center down the stretch because it was kind of the only way they could get anything going in the basket. So they've just, I think, run out of creators for a variety of it the big thing with them is laura's gonna be 37 next year i don't see that situation getting better right no no no this was according to the script when you when you did the series previews everybody everybody circled the secondary scoring options for Miami as the vulnerability. And what you wondered coming in was are you going to get that home court shooting variance

from the secondary players like Struis, like Vincent, Caleb Martin, Duncan Robinson, anybody. And they got it, right? In game two, they got it. Or game one. One of those games. Game one, they got it. It's forever ago.

All the bricks are merging into one giant, fantastic, terrible brick. But they had no room to spare. So Hero being out just kills them and Oladipo who carried them a little bit in game 4 yesterday and then he just went off a cliff after that it's pretty tough I think if you're the Celtics

and you're looking at this where you start the series Horford as COVID you lose well or whatever happened you're looking at this where you start the series Horford as COVID. Is that confirmed? Well, or whatever happened. I mean, he didn't play game one. It was some sort of illness. Exposure. Yeah. They lose

Smart. Smart tonight was one for five. He was okay. He was in the right spots, but he didn't look like Marcus. He wasn't flying around the same way. And then the Rob Williams piece where he just doesn't play game three, you know? And then it's like, he's in game four and he looks good. And then all of a sudden he comes out, he played, let's see, 27 minutes tonight, 10 rebounds and was all over the place. I think he's actually been the difference in the series because I don't feel

like Miami has figured out a way to handle it when he's on the floor. All the defensive possession numbers for the Celtics are phenomenal when he's on there. Did you notice Ime did a little trick to start the third quarter? He started Grant Williams because in the first half, they played P.J. Tucker as the backup five. So he starts Grant Williams with Horford and then brings Time Lord in with, I don't know, five minutes left in the third quarter. So basically, they had to keep Bam on the floor the whole time. They couldn't play P.J. Tucker

if Bam was going to be the... I mean, if Robert Williams was going to be center. It was a little small adjustment, but he may have made some really good adjustments for a rookie coach in this series. Yeah. For sure. And,

and you know, he, he gets the credit for stumbling upon, um, the, the hidden gem that Robert Williams was in and has become, you know, back in the winter.

That's it. He found it. The homie, Kirk Goldsberry tweeted out sometime in the third quarter, uh, the heat were over 10 when Robert Williams was the primary contest on anybody that he was matched up against. So that kind of emphasizes the point. Well, the other thing, there's some good stats that were out there.

In the first half, Derek White was 5 for 5 and every other Celtic was 6 for 25. So he's done this now. He did it in the first quarter game four and then in this first half. He was really good today. It wasn't quite the Derek White game, but I thought that was his best all-around game.

Also allowed them to not have to play Marcus Smart as much. Yeah, so they had Smart at 24 minutes and White at 29 minutes, which is a preferred balance because the 41 minutes that we got out of Derek White in game four were not preferred if you had the Celtics team over.

He's the team over killer. He really, your dad had it right. It's heckle or jide. Heckle or jide white. I mean, the doc has it. It was on the money. I don't know why you killed the doc for that. He's Dr. Heckle.

He's Dr. Heckle. Haral Bob texted me that Miami's starting backcourt has one made field goal in the last two games, Struis and Hero. I mean, not Struis and Lowry. And what's crazy about that is Struis makes the game-winning, kind of game-extending shot in game three.

Yes. Coming around the corner, contested 26-footer, up one, the crowd's going bonkers, and he just nails it. And I don't think he's done anything since. And they've been torturing him on both ends, so it was almost like he threw his entire series into that one shot

and was definitely a bit of a rally. He's hurt too. He went out in the middle of the third corner. They showed him going down the hallway. As an old grizzled basketball fan like myself, do you feel like it's a fluke that we're getting all these injuries or is there something more sinister happening? Would you blame the every other night games thing or is just how physical the

series is? Why are we getting all these injuries? Uh, I, I think there's two explanations. One is if we went back and looked at, you know, sort of the before times,

I, I bet this is not that dissimilar, but I also think speaking of it it this is the first full season with full playoffs on kind of the regular schedule the regular cadence and and it you know it's taking everybody a whole like season to get used to it again you have to recalibrate we haven't had had a normal season, an uninterrupted season. You know, COVID played humongous impacts, even on last season with the schedule they tried to restore. And obviously we had a bubble the previous season.

So this is the first full 82-game season plus full playoffs. So I'm not that surprised to see injuries and stuff. You know what I was looking at? Because I was thinking like half of these guys are breaking down, right? Even Tatum and Brown, young guys, they seem like they're even a little dinged up. LeBron, from 2011 through the 2018 playoffs, eight post-seasons,

he plays 168 playoff games in eight years. He's in 32 series, and he plays 41.4 minutes a game. And I think, I actually think LeBron has been overrated, properly rated, underrated, depending on what the conversation is. I think his durability is actually

completely underrated. When you think of how many hits he took, how physical those games were, and how you see guys like Jimmy Butler where it's the third round. He got swept last year in round one and then this year, hits he took, how physical those games were, and how you see guys like Jimmy Butler, it's the third round. He got swept last year in round one, and then this year he's halfway through round three and his legs are already, they

were done by game three. And LeBron, just for eight straight years, just indestructible. I do feel like that should be higher in his whatever, as we're recapping the LeBronon career it's almost borderline first paragraph for me how durable the guy was i why is it even borderline it it truly is he's a one of one he's a unicorn in this respect yeah he is unmatched in the history of basketball

and i believe it will go on it well past the time that we're uh lucky enough to be on god's green earth that that you know we'll never see anything like this again in terms of that that endurance that durability and he played at a crazy high level over those eight years it's why i will tolerate i won't indulge it but i'll tolerate anybody no saying his name. I'll tolerate it. With MJ? Yeah. I won't indulge a conversation about it, but I can understand why somebody who didn't live with the full MJ experience

could try and imagine LeBron at that stature. He's not, but he has that single attribute that is unmatched in the history of the game. Yeah, I wouldn't say unmatched because I think Kareem and Karl Malone had it. I think he's the guy for this generation. Karl Malone didn't play in eight straight finals? No, no, no. Karl Malone was just exceptionally

durable for that era. I mean, he played for like 20 straight years or 19 straight years or whatever the hell that was. And he finally broke down that 0-4 season. It's the level of play is the thing. Yeah, and that's the thing. With looking back at those eight straight years with LeBron, even when it seemed like he got hurt, he was fine.

Yes. The normal humans get hurt. They're actually hurt. They're like, Jimmy Butler's hurt now. It's like, my knee hurts. It's swollen. Robert Williams is like, I can't play today. My knee's swollen.

LeBron just keeps going and going. I think when you compare like him to somebody like Tatum, who's like a mortal superstar guy who has taken, I think, a pretty big pounding really the last four months of the season and then in these playoffs.

But tonight was the night where the young legs really started helping you out. Once the Celtics made a couple shots, you could just feel the energy of the game shift. For instance, it was 59-58. And I was writing down notes at the time, which I don't normally do, but it felt like something was happening, where Williams hit a three in the corner, get a stop. Brown hits a two. And Brown sometimes will get going near the end of the third quarter

where you go, oh, here comes a Jalen Brown run. He does have, he's weirdly streaky for a guy who seems like he's reliable. White, they get a stop. White hits one or two free throws. Rob has a huge block.

Tatum drive, he scores. Brown hits a two. We get 10 points there in like two minutes. All of a sudden, it's 69-58 into the third quarter and within like

two and a half minutes it's 77-60 it's 80-60 Jalen hits two straight threes it's 83-60 and it all happens in six minutes they go on a 24-2 run

but you could see the energy start lifting it was like they were like breaking a wall trying to get through this and then they got through it

and it was like boom well breaking a wall trying to get through this. Then they got through it and it was like, boom. That was the winning time, six minutes. To me, the first two minutes of the third quarter was the crucial. They went on an 8-0 run to begin the second half

while all of the Miami fans, you and your dad talked about this from your own experience at game four. There wasn't anybody in the crowd. You can hear the Miami fans, you and your dad talked about this from your own experience at game four. There wasn't anybody in the crowd. You can hear the Boston fans cheering. And there was, you know, some audible Boston people in the house. The J. Brown Dunk got some noise. Yeah, there was some Boston fans.

That run got them to me. They started playing a little bit more downhill. Um, yeah, there was a run. That run got them to me started. They started playing a little bit more downhill. That that's what really, you know, got them going to me the beginning of the second half. I was a little worried that quarter 32 to 16. I was a little worried to Mark Davis. Hasn't having a great success.

Yeah. The email starts grant and then brings in Robert Williams later. I thought that was really smart. The heat just staying with Lowry. I'd love to know the mentality of that because after seeing him in person game three and game four, he just looked like he wasn't in shape to me.

He's beyond flabby. He is carrying like it felt like an extra 20 pounds. It didn't look like he was moving that well. Offensively, there's just not a lot there. I was surprised that they played him this much. I think Gabe Vincent's been pretty good in this series.

The choice isn't Gabe because I think Gabe was playing alongside Lowry. What about cloning Gabe Vincent? You have to give those minutes to Caleb Martin or something like that, right? Yeah, I guess. If I were them, I would have played Martin

and Vincent more, pressed more, and tried to knock Derek White out of his thing. Derek White, another good one, man. That trade, which they gave up their first rounder this year. They gave up Josh Richardson, who's playing, but they gave up this pick swap that's like top one protected like four or five years from now, I think 2027.

And you do that if you think this trade will help you potentially win the title, right? Because I don't like giving up pick swaps ever. So that trade now, they're one game away from the finals. Then that trade becomes vindicated all of a sudden i emay must have a new routine with him where he just yells at him to get fired up like a boxing trainer before the games because he's come out super aggressive the last two games i like it well i i it's clearly a point of emphasis for them and it's clear also that his confidence you know is inextricably tied to the level of

how assertive he is. I think you're right. It has to be something like that because his confidence, he's still so hesitant shooting the basketball. Yeah. I mean, he gets his stuff in rhythm, but as soon as he

misses one, you can see the body language on him. One of the texts I sent to my Celtics friends was that one of the reasons he's getting more comfortable as the series goes along is because everybody's shooting 30%. So he just fits in now. He fits in. He's like, I'm really comfortable in this series.

There's just bricks going everywhere. Miami must have had, I don't know, nine, maybe 10 threes that just like ricocheted off the backboard. I mean. Or hit the front of the rim and almost killed somebody. They were seven to 45 from three. Ugh. This is the thing.

Perk went on. Big Perk went on with Tony and Mike today on PTI. And Perk, he just fed the red meat to Wilbon, said that analytics is responsible for these crappy outcomes. Well, his point was that everybody's shooting these threes and the three-point shooting has been horrendous. The only reason that Dallas won a game is because they finally shot near 50% from three,

but otherwise have been so bad. But when you see seven of 45 from three, I mean, I understand the point he's making. It's funny. It's dumb to call it analytics, but I understand the point. Those guys love to blame analytics whenever anything goes wrong. It's like, it's the analytics fault. That's why. Or maybe this is just a matchup of two really good defenses.

And, you know, none of the guards of the Celtics can really dribble that well. And none of the guards on the Heat can create anything. So that could be another reason. I am not. I'm going to have a hard time. And we'll have to do this some other time. How can it be that Boston has only one player that can dribble? And his name is Marcus Smart.

Well, Pritchard can dribble, but he didn't even play in the second half, which I thought was nuts. We'll take a quick break. A couple more storylines. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

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The Larry Bird Trophy. The Larry Bird Trophy. I'm sure he was just delighted to no end to have the Eastern Conference Championship named after him. Are there odds for this anywhere? Well, I'm going to look that up. Vandal have some odds? I'm going to look that up as we talk

because I don't know if Vandal has the odds for this. I Well, I'm going to look that up. Fandle have some odds? I'm going to look that up as we talk because I don't know if Fandle has the odds for this. I don't see him. The reason I'm bringing this up is I think you can make a case it's Al Horford. Oh.

You think? Well, I think Tatum's going to win. But I think there... I actually think Al Horford has been the most important player in the series for the Celtics. Al Horford has been the most important player in the series for the Celtics. Al Horford has been the most important player for the Celtics

in these entire playoffs. I mean, when he didn't play the beginning of the series, I thought, you know, he and Smart are both obviously crucially vital to the Celtics, but I think it's pretty even between the two of them. The impact on the team, he has really been revitalized. Let's all be lucky enough to find the fountain of youth that Al Horford's clearly tapped into. Well, Tatum's going to win it.

Did he fight in Germany before the playoffs started? You know where he flew? To Oklahoma City, where he did nothing but recuperate for an entire year from his entire basketball career. That's a great point. He just got his knees back in shape, the whole thing. And then our guy, Sam Presti, traded him right to the Celtics. That's just its own.

What a beautiful gift that was. I get it. I get it. Boston guys always looking out for each other. We gave him a number 16 pick. You know, it wasn't like, it wasn't nothing. And they took Kemba, who's able to buy out. But yeah, I mean, Horford had the year off.

It just goes to show you. Sometimes it's nice to have the year off. Well, I mean, Jalen gave Kyrie Irving all NBA 13 on a year that he took off. So, yeah, it works out. I got to say, I was really bummed out about that. Jalen's my brother, as you know. I'm glad he apologized. He did apologize for that.

29 games. I can't imagine what he was thinking with that. It's astonishing. Did Jalen know the votes were public? I want to ask you this, seriously. How do you know the votes were public i want to ask you this seriously do you how do you mark your votes i wondered if he fat fingered it if you push the wrong button i mean you don't write the name in do you oh interesting now it's this weird it's like this weird scrolling system where you have to scroll and you have to click on the name and oh so he

why didn't he go that route i clicked the wrong name well it'd have to be you'd have to click on the name. Oh, so why didn't he go that route? I clicked the wrong name. Well, it would have to be, you'd have to go to whoever was above or below Kyrie Irving. So maybe they, maybe you couldn't pull that. It would be somebody else with the last name I. Did you see that story today? Did you see that story today about the Nets?

Yes. What's surprising about any aspect of that? The story, I think it was Christian Winfield. Yes. Well, what's surprising about any aspect of that? So the story, I think it was Christian Winfield. Yes. He wrote that KD had not talked to the Nets front office since the season ended. And he expressed some doubts that this was headed in a good direction. The writer,

not KD. I know. I know. I understand. So if you're the Nets, you can't give Kyrie a multiple year contract. And you have KD under contract. So what's he going to do?

Like just retire? It's a weird, it's a weird one. I'll say this conspiracy bill. this was not on his radar. I had my whole summer buffet of stories I was going to dive into, like DeAndre Ayton trades, and maybe there's a sneaky Bradley Beal sign and trade, and just all that stuff. Donovan Mitchell, maybe he's going somewhere. Maybe somebody goes after Gobert. I did not have the Nets possibly blowing up on my bingo card. Why?

I just, cause they'd say KG, he's got his whole setup there in New York and he just signed an extension. They, they were, they got swept. What was the answer? They,

they're, they're bad. KD couldn't beat Al Horford off the dribble it's tough they got swept it made me think remember in swingers when they kept showing up to the bars and then their friend the black guy with the

with the hat he'd always be like yeah this place is dead anyway and no matter where they were he would always say that and I'm wondering if like NBA players are becoming like that, where they like going to the new place and they look around and then they go, yeah, this place is dead anyway.

And then they just leave to go to the next team. Like that can be Kyrie and KD right now. Well, Joel Embiid tweeted that Miami needs another star. And he tweeted during the game. Miami needs another star. KD to Miami? I mean, that's the point of the Kyle average trade, right? He was supposed to be the other star. That was their big move. It was Dragic and Precious and they went all in to thinking that was going to be the final piece. I mean, look, they were up 2-1 in this series.

It's hard to fault them too much, but I think they banked on a 36-year-old guy. This has been a bad year for old point guards' house with Kyle Lowry, Chris Paul. I'm starting to wonder maybe we were right all along that point guards can't play until their late 30s four straight rounds of the playoffs.

Maybe that hasn't changed. Why limit it to point guards? What's the ceiling for James Harden next year? What's the ceiling for Kevin Durant next year? Well, those guys are in their early 30s at least. What's the ceiling for LeBron James next year? Year 20. Whatever he wants.

One out of every three games. Yeah, I do think. So here's the thing. Because I was watching some old clips on YouTube to see what the intensity was. I do think the game is much more intense start to finish than it used to be in the playoffs. What? Probably starting maybe 2000, I don't know, 2003 or 2004 was when we went to another level with the defense.

And then they changed the rules. They changed the hand check stuff. And then it started to kind of drift back to where we were. I see some of the, some of the moving picks and how physical the stuff is.

I just think it's taxing to play. Like, when does Tatum get like easy, nice lanes to the basket?

There's always like three guys. He's always bouncing off somebody. It's like bumper. I don't know what you're talking about. What,

like, did you watch the Pistons Bulls series from the 80s? Yeah, but here's the thing with those series. There was no spacing back then. Everybody's kind of underneath the basket and you would just have to do these launches into a sea of bodies. This now, it's like the way they have to guard these three-point shooters coming around picks. Tatum's got to chase these dudes.

So even on defense now, he's bouncing off these dudes. I don't know. I would love to see some sort of study where somebody watches five playoff games from like 1993 and then five playoff games from now and just compare Jason Tatum to who's a good small forward from the early 90s. Joe Dumars. Well, he was a guard. Well, let's say Pippen. Take Pippen and all the possessions he had in the 92 playoffs and compare it to some of the Tatum stuff and see

how much punishment did Pippen have on defense chasing through all these picks and trying to do runs at three-point shooters. I don't know if it's more or less, but I noticed it in person at those last two games. The guys just seemed really, really bizarrely tired to me. It is, I think, to your point, the style of play, and this was something I was struck by when we were together in march out in los angeles watching the warriors and the lakers that was the first time i'd laid eyes on jordan pool he looks like a track guy he literally has the body of like a hurdler or something and and if

to your point about you know the all of the running around that's required to cover the perimeter and you know the inside outside kind of game for i i i bet to part of what you're describing in this analysis is like some incremental number of steps more like guys are running more than a previous era that that i'm willing to to think about thanks house Thanks for backing me up. I here, here's how I think I'm right. Remember rip Hamilton and Ray Allen. And they would always talk about how much running those guys did. And Oh my God.

And rip the 2004 finals. Part of what he was trying to do is just run Colby around screens and tire him out. Every fucking team does that. Now there's 50 rip Hamilton's. So they can five in this series that are just running around and trying to tire the other team out so i i don't know i would love to see that study somebody should do that this summer so the teams can take 45 to 55 three

pointers a game and sometimes some teams only make seven of them like tonight. I love that analytics suck is now back as a topic again. I missed it. I thought that was really fun once upon a time. Listen, I'm not prepared to say the Celtics are going to win game six. You shouldn't. Because I think it would be really hard for Miami to win two straight games in the

shape they're in, but do I think they could suck it up and turn game six into a really physical rock fight? Plus, is the extender going to be there? Or do they save the extender for game seven? Well, the extender can't extend game seven. The extender's got to be there for game six. Well, but is that too obvious

if you have the extender in game four and game six? I mean, he's been doing the Eastern Conference. I haven't seen him in a Western Conference game in a long time. Why wouldn't he just stay in Boston for a few days? Give me your best players in the league right now list. Wow. Good one.

Giannis. Giannis, a clear number one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's two? That's an awesome question. I'd probably say Joel. The Jokeroker you know two two a two b it's you know what do we really have to split hairs um luca

to see like i do i have to choose between luca the joker and imbeed no you can say that's a tier right below yannis where okay duran's not on that tier anymore for you? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Wow, you're really reacting to this. Al Horford stopped Kevin Durant mano y mano. Took him up, looked him in the eye. The fourth quarter of what we

watched, those net Celtics games. I think Tatum did it too, though. It's a bunch of people. He could not go by anybody. But if the Celtics have a historically great defense, maybe Durant should get more of a pass with that considering he was playing with a bunch of point guards. And Bruce Brown.

I still have Durant. I still have Durant on that second tier. I'm not going to hold that series against him because I think the Celtics' D is great. What's the Durant ceiling? Curry has to be in that combo too, though. I think he's got D is great. What's the Durant feeling? Curry has to be in that combo too, though. I think he's got to be in the tier with all those guys because they're going to make the finals

with a team built around him and then really a supporting cast that I don't know what I'm getting from any of those guys game to game. I'm prepared for all of the you know whatever kind of backlash I'm out on Durant Durant's top 10 for me but he ain't top

5 and he's not top 10 what do you think this is going to get picked up on Hoopsite tomorrow Joe House says he's out on Durant I hope you get aggregated from the crew nobody gives a shit what I say I get aggregated anyway nobody cares what I say you should get aggregated. Aggregate us. Nobody gives a shit what I say. Everybody knows I'm a moron.

Nobody cares what I say. You should be aggregated. He's not top eight. Wait, can we talk about Dallas Golden State tomorrow? Please. So, I think Dallas is actually an easy team to bet. And we talked about this yesterday in game four. Because if they hit threes, the game's going to go over and they either might win or they're team to bet. And we talked about this yesterday in game four. Because if they hit

threes, the game's going to go over and they either might win or they're going to cover. If they don't hit threes, the game's probably not going over. I would say the bet that I would look at, if you think Dallas can actually win, Dallas minus two and a half alternative spread.

Move the over down to 209.5. And then Jalen Brunson would have two plus assists. And that's like five to one on FanDuel. minus two and a half alternative spread. Move the over down to 209.5. And then Jalen Brunson have two plus assists. And that's like five to one on FanDuel. And that's just like, if you think Dallas is going to win, you might as well give yourself better odds than just the money line. My guess is Golden State

is going to take care of business tomorrow. I thought Kerr playing Kaminga and Moody and just like his younger guys for as much as he did, it was almost like he was saying to himself, my team doesn't have it tonight. I'm going to get my younger guys,

some rep, maybe they can bring us back, but they'll need this for the next round. Cause they're going to need Moody and Kaminga if it's the Celtics next round, cause they're going to need legs. So my guess would be word, but if I was doing Dallas, I would do something like that.

I would, I would twist the over and do some alternate stuff. Yeah, because you're just betting on them having some semblance of a repeat of the three-point shooting performance that they had in Dallas. I didn't understand the lineups last night that Golden State went with um for sure i'm i i you know kerr being distracted um you know not just steve kerr being distracted right the whole country being distracted um properly so i i just couldn't get a feel for what it was that they were trying to do kavan looney the only thing that stopped him was was steve kerr playing him 20 minutes. I didn't understand. He played, he'd averaged 30 minutes in the previous three games.

He'd averaged nearly 12 rebounds, double digit points, and then he got 20 minutes last night. It's not like they figured out an answer to Kavon Looney between game three and game four. It wasn't Dallas defense that was the limit. He might have been beaten up in the first three games and he was trying to steal the game without using him too much, knowing that in game five it could be easier for them to win. But Gold State hasn't lost at home yet.

My suspicion is they're going to win. If my life depended on it, I would do like a I'd probably do something like with the money line and the minus 300 with some sort of over-under, something like that. But I'll tell you this.

It'd be interesting if all of a sudden we were going back to Dallas for a game six. It'd be really fun. I'm rooting for it. It'd be like, whoa! Like in Luka, and all of a sudden it starts that Phoenix feel of, you know. Let's not count out uh adam silver

any possibility we see the extender oh for game five yeah oh that would be fun that would be fun wouldn't it yeah the extent they send the extender to golden state let's have a yeah let's there'd be like at least a good conspiracy theory i i'm glad you brought up the state of mind last night. Did you drive your son to school this morning? Yes, but we had a doctor's appointment early, so we went in late. We were like an hour and a half later than normal entry time. I drove my son to school this morning. It's just like,

just a different experience, right? It's in the back of your head when you're dropping them off. We've now had this, 2012 it happens in Sandy Hook and everybody's like, this is it. This is the moment. Now, this will be the catalyst

for us to change some laws and try to actually make things different. And then nothing happened for 10 years, and then it happened again this week. And I just say, how many times are we going to make that drive to school? With that in the very, very back of your mind. Who knows? Well, this is the point that Kerr did a pretty damn good job of making the statement, what about going to church?

What about going to the grocery store? Right? None of these places are safe. Now, it's grotesque that elementary school isn't the safe place but like you know there isn't as long as an 18 year old person can walk into a store and buy weapons grade military grade you know weapons of war and all the ammunition that that he wants and what about he had the the thing on to the bulletproof vest thing there was no and and there was he hadn't shown up there was nothing in his background this this guy this young fellow that um would have put him on any of the lists that are being contemplated as background

checklists it's just you can walk into a store and buy an arsenal because that's what we have here. You can buy automatic weapons. You can buy a full-body armor suit. You can buy bullets. You can buy a gun with a laser on it. And there's no red flag mechanism at all with anything. No, nothing.

No registration. No nothing. Just go buy it. I was thinking about it today when I was driving home. When we were kids in the 80s, it was close enough to the 60s, and our parents were either from the 50s or the 60s, and we had all these heroes in the 60s, right? We had all these people who stood for something.

And it was this amazing decade that I think was one of the most impactful in the history of this country. But all these heroes that came out of it, and it was Martin Luther King and JFK and RFK and John Lennon, Bill Russell and Muhammad Ali and John Lewis. It just keeps going and going and going. And when we were going to school and learning about all these people, it felt attainable to be a hero, you know, like because 20 years or less, we had all these people

who made a difference and who inspired millions and millions of Americans and I wonder like, who are the heroes now? As we head in, like who are our sons? Who are the heroes

that they're going to look at? Who are going to people, that's kind of what Kerr was trying to say yesterday. Is it just about getting power and then keeping it? Or is it about trying to make a difference, trying to make things safer, trying to make things safer for our kids,

trying to make it so that we're not normalizing somebody, an eight-year-old kid, knowing that he should climb under his desk if he hears a gunshot. So the thing I keep thinking about is who's going to step up and be the hero? What politician is going to see this as an opportunity versus just a protect the territory thing and actually try to make a difference? And I don't even know if that is capable of happening. I don't think so. There's no politician

current or in the works that... So maybe it's a celebrity. It's got to be somebody. Because right now, the difference between this and Sandy Hook was the Sandy Hook, it felt like at least all right,

this can never happen again. Let's get our shit together. Let's go. And this time around, it just feels there's a hopelessness that I think is pretty alarming. Yeah, well, because it's routine. It just keeps happening. That's the thing that is so devastating about it. And none of us regular folks who just want to go on, live our regular lives, take our kids to school, be able to go to church, feel safe, be able to go to the supermarket, feel safe. We don't have that, that, that luxury there. And there's nothing you can do about it. It feels like that's what it feels like. So I, to your point, um, to your point, who has enough clout? Who has that

stature? Who can make it happen? It's not anybody in politics. It is a celebrity. But who? Who's bigger? Or multiple celebrities. Right. But that's scary to be counting on celebrities. Anyway, House. Sobering week. It's weird to talk about basketball at the same

time it was nice to, I don't know, not think about stuff for a couple hours. But now it's over and we're thinking about stuff again. Good to see you, House. You too, buddy. All right, Michael Che is here. Not sure how this has not happened before, but you just finished another Saturday Night Live season, which started to feel normal by the end of it. You had an audience. There was less masks. I guess you guys had masks on at the end of each show. But for the most part, it started to feel like the show again about halfway through, right? Well, I think it's like anything else, but you kind of don't remember before the pandemic, you know, the audience

is masked up. We're kind of masked through rehearsals and around the offices. I don't know how much it helps, but I think everybody's just doing what they can, but it gets a little annoying. Yeah. I would say for comedy, it's a little strange to have masks on. Well, you can't hear

as good. And also, you know, you can't hear as good. Right. And also, you can only see people's eyes. You can hear the laughs, but you can't see the laughs. It's a little different. So it's annoying. So you guys had a giant cast. Yeah. I think it was like 23 people.

Something like that, like 21, I think, yeah. Yeah, I've always had this theory. Now, I know they had to do it that way or at least have a bigger cast because of COVID stuff and because some people were filming shows and popping in and out. But I always felt like, I've said this before, like SNL is like a basketball team

where you want like your nine or 10-man rotation. And if you're trying to compete for the title, but you're playing 17 guys, it gets a little harder. What, what's your take? What's the ideal number for a cast in your mind? Well, I, I tend to agree with you as a fan, but I never, I've never been on the show when it was only about eight or nine cast members. I think they hadn't done that since maybe the early 90s. But, you know, as a fan, I do think, you know, smaller cast can do a little bit more.

But like you said, you know, people are out for certain periods of time. Either they're filming and, you know, the way scheduling works, you end up being happy that you have so many people that can step up. of filming and the way scheduling works, you end up being happy that you have so many people that can step up. It's almost more like a football team now instead of a basketball team. It's kind of like a college basketball team because no one's staying there for

very long. You kind of want to make sure that there's still people in the wings to keep the tradition going. It's like a Gonzaga. It's not a Duke where people are just leaving every year. It's more like you might have somebody, you might have Drew Timmons stay four years. You might have Chad Holmgren

stay one. Right, right. It's Villanova. They graduate a lot of good players. So you're staying or you're going? You're like Tom Brady. Every year, I never know. I think I'm staying. I think I'm staying. I think I'm

staying. I don't know. That's the thing. I never know. It's hard to... Once the season's over, it's best to not make decisions like this towards the end of the year because all you want to do is get out of there. You feel like you've had your fill, but August or

September is usually a different story, but I don't have any plans to leave just yet. They should have told Tom Brady that. Tom, Tom, wait a month. You see what I mean? That's exactly right. Like, he wanted to leave. He was probably just tired. But then, you know, after a couple months,

he's like, eh, what else am I gonna do? It seems like you guys have so much fun doing Weekend Update now, especially you're at it for so long. And it was especially those early years as social media is rising up and nobody's going to like whoever moves into the Weekend Update chair. And then you guys find, you know, through reps and chemistry and all that stuff. And now it just seems like it's the easiest thing in the world for you guys.

I know it's not easy, but it just seems like the chemistry is there. You're being kind. It was also bad. But, you know, we didn't give people much reason to like it for the first couple of years. But I do think the job could have been a lot easier had I known, obviously, than what I know now. Well, so what is that? Tell me. Walk me through that.

When you look back at those first two years, what do you look at and go, what the hell was I thinking? What were we thinking? Why did we do it that way? I think we were trying to do the job we saw and not the job we wanted to do. And that made it a lot more uncomfortable. It felt like we were trying to do what Seth did and what, you know, Tina and Amy were doing. And we're not those kinds of comics.

So it just, it felt like we were wearing our father's suit, you know, well, for me, speaking for myself. So, and I remember I would talk to Lorne, like, you know, I would try to get out of it. You know, like, I don't think this is working. This isn't fun. And he would always say, just stop trying to write

chemistry. That's what he would always say. And yeah, and I never understood what it meant. And it used to drive me crazy when he said it because it was like one of those kind of dumb old guy riddles, you know. But it made all the sense in the world. You kind of just have to find...

Kind of got to find it. Because we're always in a single. You know, when you do a feature with somebody on Update, you know, you guys are talking to each other. You could find that chemistry in the feature. So, like, I could find it with Kyle and Keenan, and Jost could find it with Pete and Leslie because they're talking and interacting.

But for me and Colin, you only see us together when it starts and when it ends. So we could be shooting that in two different buildings and the audience wouldn't know. We had to find a way to show that

we were together and what our taste was, uh, in those kinds of gaps before the joke and after a joke, you know what I mean? It was very, very weird and simple, but it's little things like that,

that just makes it feel a little bit more alive. And I think that's what started to work. Well, yeah, it's like you found the chemistry of it's like mock adversarial, but it's not. Yeah. You know, you're giving each other shit. I think in the past when it's been two people,

you know, like when, I don't know, Seth and Amy did it, they was like very friendly on the same team. It was not adversarial, but you guys had to find whatever that bound. Once you found that, you were set. Yeah, I like to think so. I think people started to kind of understand our dynamic,

and then it became a lot more fun. Were you on social media at that point when you guys were getting hammered initially as the new guys? Who the fuck are these guys? Were you even seeing that stuff, or were people telling you, don't even look? Oh, sure. I don't know if I was on social media,

but I definitely saw it. But also I knew, so it wasn't, it wasn't any, like, one thing about a comedian, I think, we know it's bad before anybody else.

You know what I mean? So there's nothing people can tell me that even if you think it's good, I can tell you why it's not good. You know, like we kind of, we're people can tell me that I don't, even if you think it's good, I can tell you why it's not good. You know, like we kind of, we're kind of insane, but we're never truly pleased anyway.

So it didn't even matter what people were saying because they couldn't have been as harsh as I was on myself. Were you friends with him when that, when that, when you started doing update together, did you become friends? Yeah, he,

Kyle was the one that got me into SNL in the first place. We saw each other, you know, Hannibal Buress? Yeah. And a good friend of mine, he used to have a show on Sunday nights at the knitting factory in Brooklyn. And Colin was there. I was doing a set. And he was like, man, you should write sketches.

Like, we're doing this kind of guest writer program. And I was like, yeah, okay, you know, whatever. And I came in for two weeks and been there ever since. So you came out as a writer initially. Do you have to, who you're sharing an office with? You always have to have at least one roommate in the office, right? Dude, so my first roommate was Jay Farrow.

Oh yeah, I like him. In a very tiny, tiny office, which was insane. Way too small for the both of us. Then it was me, Tim Robinson, and Leslie Jones in the same office. And that was also too small. And then for the most part,

it was me, Tim Robinson, and Zach Kanan together who went on to do I Think You Should Leave for Netflix. So funny. But those are kind of my buds. and Zach Kanan together who went on to do I Think You Should Leave for Netflix. Yeah. So funny. But those are kind of my buds. Yeah, well,

the show you're doing for HBO Max, it's like the cousin of the Tim Robinson show in a lot of ways, right? It's a lot of different... I mean, maybe... A lot of different things that's flying at you

and you never know who's going to pop in and it's cable. And I don't know. They're not... The shows aren't alike,, they feel like they have some sort of tiny connective tissue. I, oh man, that is a big compliment to me because I think those guys are like the best sketch writers going right now.

So, um, yes, I guess you share an office long enough. You start to, you start to have similar sensibilities. And there's also a lot of times, you know, where we'll have ideas and we'll text each other the ideas. You know, we make it like a punchline from each other. We still talk all the time. So, yes, it's pretty dope. Those are my guys. So you're sharing an office with Leslie Jones.

How big should an office be when you're sharing it with Leslie Jones? Should it be like 100 feet by 80? Because she's got a big personality. Leslie's the best, man. She has a huge personality. I remember when she came in, she used to have like a roller bag. I don't know if I should say this.

She always had a roller bag and she had everything you needed in that roller bag. She was like, I don't know if I should say this, she always had a roller bag and she had everything you needed in that roller bag. She's like, you need orange? You need medicine? You need everything. She had everything in this bag.

And we'd be like, she was just so sweet. She was always kind of thoughtful and, oh, I got you this. I thought that you might like this. And she was, I just seen her actually

at the Hollywood Bowl for a Dave Chappelle show. And it was the first time I seen her since she left the show. I haven't seen her in about four orappelle show. And it was the first time I'd seen her since she left the show. I haven't seen her in about four or five years. So it was kind of cool to see her in LA. I ran into her once

and she recognized me from the NBA stuff. And it's like, when she fixates on you, you feel it. What did she call you? Did she get your name right? Because she gets nobody's name right. I don't even think she mentioned my name.

I think it was one of those Yo! It's you! That sounds right. Were you at the Chappelle show when everything went down? No, I was there the Saturday and then I left Sunday because I had to work Monday and it happened

I think Monday. Yeah, I just missed it and I'm glad I did miss it because, yeah, that's kind of... Yeah, that's pretty grim. It's not something you want to see. It becomes a punchline, but in the moment,

I'm sure it wasn't fun. Yeah, especially on the heels of the Will Smith thing. Just in general. I mean, two isolated incidents, but at the same time, you know how this stuff goes where it's like, oh, I saw this person do it, so now I'm going to do it at the show in Kansas City, and now it's gone. That's the part that troubles me. I feel like this is a very attention-seeking culture. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times

attention seekers aren't the most creative in seeking that attention and they start to copycat other bad behavior. And we see it a lot, you know, in much, much, much worse scenarios. And, you know, it's just kind of disheartening. It's like comedy had enough strikes going against it in 2022. I don't know if we needed to add this.

It's already such a ridiculous premise to walk on stage by yourself, tell your inner thoughts, and make 20,000 people react at the same time in the same way. It doesn't make sense. You're a fool to think you can and uh it's kind of it's already hard enough to do and now we got to worry about right psychos well you kind of stumbled into it right you were you didn't weren't you weren't you like in the real workforce for a couple years then eventually just made a run at comedy or were you always doing comedy? No, every, yeah, I was in the workforce, but you know, like everybody, everybody's, you know, got to make some sort of a living.

But I think I always wanted to do comedy. I liked that. It was always like that, that dream, that fantasy of trying it, you know, I'd have friends who would be like, dude, you should try it. And, you know, what was it about you that made them say you should try it? Were you just like, you were holding court? Uh, I would hold court. I was, uh, pretty quick. I mean, it's hard for me to say now because I was so, what I thought was funny and good

was so bad then. So I definitely, you know, like if I, if I knew myself then now I thought was funny and good was so bad then. So I definitely, you know, like if I knew myself then, now, I'd be like, you should not do comedy. But, you know, yeah, I was kind of a smart ass. I would always, I would like sometimes go to a bar or a party

or something and just be in character for something and just be silly. You know, I always had something to say. I think my friends kind of, I think also too, when your friends know you well, they know you want to do it. So that might've been something of just kind of encouraging me to try it.

I had one buddy who would always tell me, you should do it, you should do it. And then I finally did it and I loved it. And the first thing I noticed was the view. I remember that being like, whoa, this is what it looks like. It was addictive. What became your place

to work on your stuff? Did you have like a... What was your home stadium? There was tons, but later on, it became more steady at the Cellar and at Caroline's on Broadway. And yeah, those are the ones.

I remember when I got into Caroline, I mean, when I got into The Cellar, I was working there like seven, eight shows a night, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy. We was going every night, At least five shows in that. And then, you know, Caroline's as well. They used to let me open. I got to open for so many people. I got in Caroline's first,

and they would let me open, you know, for the weekends with, like, Dick Gregory or, you know, Gilbert Godfrey or Jim Jefferies. Like, there's all these great kind of legendary stand-ups that I only saw or, you know, Gilbert Godfrey, or Jim Jefferies. Like, there's all these great kind of legendary stand-ups that I only saw on television. And getting to work with them on the same stage was a huge, like, motivation, you know?

That was a fun time, too, the 2000s for comedy. Because you see it in the movies, too, where I was watching The Hangover. I was flying The Hangover. I was flying to Boston for one of the Celtic games. And it was JetBlue and they have the TV. But they don't have

the real movie channels. They just have like the TV movie channels. Right, right. And I was watching The Hangover on Bravo. And it was just completely mutilated. It was like a mutilated corpse.

They're cutting jokes left and right. They're bleeping stuff. And it was like 40% of what the movie was, which the whole point of that movie was to cross some lines. And that era feels like it's gone now.

Well, yeah, it seems like. I don't know. I don't think it's the artists, though. And I don't even think it's the fans. I think it's corporate pressure. Yeah. I think it's studios kind of self-censoring and self-editing for this imaginary boogeyman

of offended people that in no way reflect what the movie going public wants to see or stand-up going public wants to see. And I think that at some point, somebody needs to be bold enough to say, you know what? We believe in this art as art, and we're going to put it out because we truly think it's funny.

And that's what you want. Not just kind of bend into Twitter pressure. It feels like it'll cycle back. You talked about it the first show of your new season, that day, Michael Che. You did a little, um,

stand up thing about how being a comedian during cancel culture is actually pretty exhilarating because you're one step away from your career's over with every bit. It's exciting. I mean, to me,

if you feel like you can say anything, then you will. Sometimes you need those. I think that's part of the reason why SNL is still relevant. It's live and it's network and there's rules and parameters. And, you know, there's only a certain way we can shoot. And I think that's what kind of makes it exciting.

Because at any moment, something cool could happen. Maybe not, but, you know, it could, theoretically. The show, it's such a weird thing now. Like, I saw that first take sketch they did that got cut. Mm-hmm. Right? And it was from the dress rehearsal, and it just go. And then it kind of went viral two days later,

because Chris Redd's Stephen A. Smith impersonation is just so perfect. So good. Talking about whether a hot dog's a sandwich or not. And it just made me think, like, you have all these cast members, you only have, it's a 92-minute show, but you got 20-plus minutes of commercials in it

and two musical acts. So you're really doing like an hour of content and just like all the content that's left on the table that feels like it should be disseminated in some way. Well, thank God for YouTube. It is. But, you know, watching the way that show is produced gave me a completely different, you know, bias,

but completely different appreciation for it. And, you know, we always go in long. We always, you know, and sometimes it's an either or, like there might be another sports casting thing or it might be another similar type vibe for another sketch. And we don't want to put both of those or maybe the host will have a choice and they'd rather do one thing or another. Or maybe, you know, whatever it is, maybe the set we can't get from one sketch to another because of the set. Or there's so many different moving parts that make that show work or not work. And I remember, you know, when I was a kid, I'd watch SNL and always like

the 10 to 1 sketches would be my favorite sketches. Me too. But, you know, in classic 10 to 1 fashion, sometimes they'd end so crazy and so abrupt and so weird. And I had no idea.

It was because a lot of times we're editing the 10 to 1 while the show's on the air because we need to make up time, something spread or whatever. So now we have to cut out a part or now we have to get shape a minute out of a whole kind of rehearsed sketch. It's a very strange, you know, way to produce a show. But you know, that's again, like that to me is what makes it exciting, what makes it, you know, also exhausting, but it's what makes it fun. Everybody that comes to the show, everybody that comes to the show,

that even people like my friends that are like skeptical of the show, everybody that comes to see it, they're like, Oh, I get it. That's crazy. You know, like it's just on the, just from the crew perspective and just from the production perspective, how that show is put together is bonkers. It's, it's really crazy. I went, I think 2009 really crazy. I went, I think, 2009. I went back. Because Seth had been on my podcast

a couple of times. He's like, when you're in New York, come. And I was just... You had a podcast in 2009? I had a podcast in 2007. You're like, OG, OG. I was, yeah. I had... Seth was one of the first celebrities that came on because he would email me

and he would be reacting. And the first year or so, it was a lot of me just talking to my friends about sports. And Seth's like, I want to come on and talk about the Steelers or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I had Sudeika. I had a bunch of SNL people on from back then. I had Sudeika.

Sudeika came over once and taped. Because we didn't even have a studio. So sometimes people would come to my house. That wasn't a thing. No. And most of the time, when I'd have the people, they had never done a podcast before. So it was almost like the first time they'd been on a date.

And we would just shoot the shit for an hour 10. And they'd be like, that was amazing. They don't realize. Yeah, that's what every pod's like. But when I went in 2009, I, that was the production stuff was what, what was the staggered me. Cause I've been watching the show my whole life and just to see how fat, just things and 20 people come out,

all of a sudden things are moving and people are, the host is rushing off to change in two minutes. And I thought that was really cool. Yeah. So, so much of like, you know, you know,

people's complaints about the show. I sometimes feel like if you knew how hard it was and why we had to make those types of decisions or whatever. And sometimes it's fair points, but also it's just like, it's a very difficult show to, to put together in a week's time with somebody start with the, with our star, somebody that we usually never met before

and maybe hasn't done comedy before, you know, like in a lot of cases. So it's very strange. And we always love when we get a break, when we get an alumni hosting or somebody that's, you know, a live performer that can kind of get it, you know, but it's a tough, tough get it, you know, but it's,

it's a tough, tough thing. Well, I remember Seth would say you, sometimes you get like the random actor or actress who's just amazing at it. Yeah. And like, could easily been a cast member and you just,

you strike oil for that week. Cause they just fit in and that's it. Totally. Like I remember we had, we had, uh, uh, well,

I guess Don Glover is a comedic actor but I mean when he was on we were like oh you could have easily been in a cast or like Chance the Rapper I always think his shows are really really good this guy could have been in a cast for sure or you know Justin Timberlake or you know whatever

Ryan Gosling so there's a few people that you're like oh okay this guy totally gets it and would be great I thought Natasha on the on the Saturday show

I thought she kind of seemed like she got it she was playing characters usually it's the people who can play different types of characters and they're not looking at the cue cards

the whole time that's when you kind of know yeah she's a pro she's been doing you know she's been a performer since she was of know. Yeah, she's a pro. She's been doing, you know, she's been a performer since she was a kid.

So, you know, she's just like a showbiz kid. So that you don't have to worry about. But also, you know, she kind of just understands where the jokes are, why it's funny.

She knows where to land. And she's naturally great. It's funny that network TV is in such a bizarre place these days. Mm-hmm. And yet SNL is like kind of as omnipotent

as it ever was. You know, I mean, they're even running it in primetime on the West Coast, which they, I think they started doing

like three years ago because it's just going to do better than, you know, Chicago, Chicago paramedics or I don't know. Yeah.

I don't, I never really like know the rating kind of thing or whatever. I just, I never really follow that stuff. I, I just kind of know like, you know, what we like and what we don't like,

but you can, you can feel the, you can feel the temperature where we get it right. And when we get it wrong and when we get it wrong. And that's kind of the relevancy of the show. People, whether they hate it or they love it, they still care. And I think that's hard to do in comedy, especially. Well, then you had the situation this year where Pete becomes as famous as the show from stuff,

which I think that's probably the first time that's happened with the show from stuff, which I think that's, that's probably the first time that's happened with the show. Maybe, I don't know, probably since like the two thousands, like it felt like Will Ferrell, like his last year on the show, it just felt like he was an A plus list movie star who was also on the show. But Pete, like Pete's like legitimately famous now, like, you know, in a kind of crazy way. So when he pops on the show, it's like, Oh my God. But it feels like we watched him grow up on the show.

I mean, I remember his first season. Yeah. Yeah. He's, and it's kind of a weird, it's kind of a weird thing now with, you know,

having 80 and Kyle leaving. I mean, for me, because I kind of came in with those guys. Yeah. That was your rookie class. Sort of. Sort of, yeah. Your generation class. A.D. and K were before me, but you know,

yes, it's interesting. I've kind of known them my entire career, so to not have them is going to be weird. Well, I assume the show is going to be a lot different next year. I mean, I assume more people are going to leave because they're not going to have 20, even 19 people. is going to be a lot different next year. I mean, I assume more people are going to leave because they're not going to have 20, even 19 people. That would probably be too many.

I never know. I never know. It all comes down to one dude. So I did a podcast in his office once in, I think, 2014. Yeah? It was awesome. Yeah. And what's cool about him is he really does remember and it was awesome. Yeah. And, uh,

it's, what's cool about him is he really does remember a lot from all the seasons and all these lessons and he treats it. It's like how, I don't know, some like coach K and Duke or whatever, like some college coach that's been there for 40 years that kind of understands the cycle of who somebody is when they show up for the show, how their life's going to

change when they're on the show, and when they hit these various career points that then affect how he has to manage them on the show. I thought that was the most interesting thing about talking to him. That's why I always say it's more like a college team than anything because he's

kind of the one constant, the one mainstay. He's going to lose a Kate McK than anything because he's kind of the one constant, the one mainstay. He's going to lose a Kate McKinnon. He's going to lose a Tina Fey. He's going to lose Bill Murray. He's going to lose all these stars and he still has to replenish and the show must go on kind of thing.

So it is kind of, it's kind of ill to watch them work. Well, one thing that, I mean, the show is way more diverse than it was when you joined the cast. I think that's, that's one thing that, I think when you look back

at some of the old seasons from the 80s and 90s, that was probably, I don't know. I mean, it's a smaller cast, I get it, but it seems like the show culturally

can go in some different directions with the material now because they have the people. Yeah, I think diversity in comedy is an interesting thing

because it's, you know, I think we think of diversity, like when I first got there, I was the only Black writer. And Jay and Keenan were the only Black cast members. And we got Leslie and Kendra.

It took a while. Like you said, like, you know, with a bigger cast, it makes more room for people. We've got, I don't even know who's on the cast anymore, but we've got a ton of people. We've got Bowen, we've got Echo, we've got Fred, we've got Punky. It's a lot of different walks of life.

It's not just, oh, it's a black guy and the black lady. It's a lot of different takes and a lot of different types of comedians, which I think is kind of cool. There's some stand-ups in there. There's some sketch performers. There's some good writers. I think that's the kind of diversity that I think makes it a little bit more

exciting than just color and gender. Well, and also, I mean, the show since 1975 reflects pop culture, right? and gender. Well, and also, I mean, the show for, since 1975 reflects pop culture, right? Yeah.

And, in a lot of cases becomes the barometer for, hey, I've said this before, but one of the things I love about the show

is with the musical acts, especially, and the hosts sometimes, but especially the musical acts, a lot of times it's like the highlight of this musician's career,

this band's career, right? This is the biggest album they've ever had, or this is the time they broke through, and the show catches them at that moment. And a lot of times it'll be with the host too, same thing, where it's somebody, this is like, this is it. This one Netflix show they have, they're never going to be more famous than right here.

And I think with pop culture because pop the whole pop culture landscape so diverse now to not have snl reflect that in some way would have been i think a weird choice like think about music like hip-hop and rap and pop music now think about how diverse that stuff is so how do you you know you need cast members that i think can reflect that in some way. So the show makes more sense now, I think. I agree. Yeah, totally.

And that's why you... That's why it's always good to constantly make room, I guess. Yeah. What did you feel like you could do with the HBO Max show that you couldn't do on SNL? Curse, for sure. Yeah.

You could just lock in. You know, SNL is a variety show. You got to, you know, it's not your house. You get a little bit of real estate, you know,

and that's about it. The stories you can tell in five minutes are different than the stories you can tell in 25, you know, and you can kind of cater and be more specific and target the audience a little bit differently than SNL.

You kind of got to compromise it somewhat for broader because you're competing. Right. You're going to make it more mainstream. For a live audience, that's not necessarily there to see you or your stuff. Yeah. So it's got to work for them. And streaming, you get a little more leeway. A lot more leeway.

You get some swearing. You get some content leeway. Yeah. They kind of let you cook. You know, it's a lot of fun. It's something that, you know, I wouldn't want to be a glutton for it. I wouldn't want it to spoil me,

but it is fun to kind of be like, all right, let's just say it plainly and not try to figure out what standards would let us get away with. Who's the best comic right now? Stand-up? Yeah. Who has the championship belt right now?

I mean... It's hard man that's tough I mean Dave is Dave but you know I love Burr

I love watching Burr Burr's playing Fenway Park Burr is cooking in August I don't know how you play a baseball stadium I can't wait to see how even they do

the set for it he's cooking man he's a lot of fun to watch. He's one of the few guys that wherever he is, I'll pop downstairs and check out what he's doing, man. Yeah, there's a fearlessness to him that he's had this whole decade that I think is really special. But yeah, him and Dave are on one right now, man.

It's kind of hard to choose but those are my two favorites any up and comers? yeah people to watch? I'm sure Kevin Iso and Reggie Conquist were on this show which I love watching you know I love watching them

they're super funny. I still love Dan Soder and Big Jay Oakerson. I still love Mattel. I love watching Mattel. He's not an up-and-comer, but he's somebody that I don't think gets put in that

short list of the best comedians in the world. He maybe should. He definitely should. I can't think of everybody, but there's a ton of comedians that are really cooking right now. Do you think... Michelle Wolf. I always love

Michelle Wolf. TikTok advantage or disadvantage with comedy? I think TikTok... TikTok doesn't bother me as much because at least it's usually clips from a live show, which I don't mind. I think what bothers me a little bit more are podcasts

because it changes the palette. I think when comedians do too many podcasts, they're just talking and that's what people like. And then when you go to a standup show, like they're not really there for jokes. They're there for like gossip and you know what I mean? It's not, it kind of,

it kind of hurts the balance for comedy fans, I think. But TikTok seems fine. I thought, I don't know much about TikTok. Like, honestly, like we,

Joe tried to do a TikTok and we were drunk and the network accidentally deleted it. That was our one TikTok experience. I don't understand it either. I have a junior and an eighth grader and I'm just amazed and kind of astonished by how dominant TikTok is for their attention. Yeah, that's their language.

It's a weird thing. I haven't quite figured it out, but there's guys that are doing TikTok now and they're just selling out crazy numbers just because of their following on TikTok. I don't know how to do it. It seems like a higher energy. It's like, be a little more like this.

Grab the attention. It's super fast. It's a bunch of cuts. It is a lot of like... But to me, I heard something early on in comedy that I think I've seen in a documentary about comedy. It's kind of one of the things that seems to ring the truest

and last the longest is at some point in comedy you either go to the audience or the audience comes to you. Going to the audience means, you know, different avenues where the people are, cruise ships or whatever, and

audiences coming to you, meaning you do your thing and then they just follow. And I think TikTok is one of those things where people are going to the audience and they're gearing their shit toward what these people already like and what they're kind of interested in. The algorithm.

Yeah, to the algorithm. That's the part that I'm not as interested in. My son will be- That is wrong. I'm just not interested. My son will come over to me with this phone. He'll be like, Dad, you should hire this basketball guy. And he'll show me the video.

And the guy will be like, top 10 dunkers right now. Number one, Jalen Green. And then they'll show the clip. And I'm like, I'm not hiring that person for a podcast. What are you talking about? Yeah, who wants to listen to that for an hour? This is a new real thing? For like a minute. I thought the TikTok sketches were really good

that SNL did, though. My kids love those because it really captured A, how dumb TikTok is, but B, it really did feel like five minutes on TikTok. It was smart. Yeah, it truly is. It's weird. It's a weird culture.

What level of sports fan are you? Huge. So all the New York teams? I love the Niners. But yeah, all the New York. The Niners? Yeah, I hate the Jets. I love the Niners.

So the Jets drove you away from the East Coast teams and you had to get as far away from them as possible? I support the Giants. I like the Giants. I root for the Giants. I'm a Niners. So the Jets drove you away from the East Coast teams and you had to get as far away from them as possible? I support the Giants. I like the Giants. I root for the Giants. I'm a Niners fan. I've been a Niners fan since I think the first football game I actually watched was the Niners-Broncos

Super Bowl. And I remember them Niners- Giants-NFC Championship games. I remember it being a huge deal and I always just loved the 49ers. I guess maybe it was probably the red and gold helmets and shit. But I always loved the Niners. This sounds like a bandwagon jump a little bit.

I don't know. Yeah, probably. You need to get the bandwagon committee. I was five. In a way, a lot of kids love the Warriors now. I've always loved Steph Curry, even though I live in Kansas City. Yeah, it was just like that's the team that appealed to me. But I never hated the Giants.

I just liked the Niners. The Jets I hate. That's weird because people feel bad for the Jets, but they don't usually hate the Jets because they're kind of pathetic. Well, I hate the Jets because we used to go to Jets games when I worked at a car dealership. We used to get free tickets and go to Jets games. And the Jets fans, I would always get into a problem with the Jets fans.

Oh, no. I would always get into a problem with the Jets fans. It was like the most, it was the worst. I hated it. I hated being in the stadium with Jets fans. It was like the most, it was the worst. I hated it. I hated being in the stadium with Jets fans because they were just the most obnoxious fans. So I'd never want them to be happy. But still Knicks, Rangers,

and any boxer from New York I support. No Yankees, Mets, out. Yankees. Yankees are back now. They did a staring contest with Aaron Judge. I look forward to a Subway series. I was at a Rangers playoff game

and the Yankees was there. DJ and Rizzo and Judge was there. I saw Judge catch a puck with his hands. It was crazy. Jesus, seriously? Yeah, it was freaking angel. He just caught a puck. It was nuts. You know, we're taping man. He's caught a buck. He's nuts. You know, we're taping this.

It's like a little before noon East Coast time. And there was just a story two hours ago about how Kevin Durant hasn't talked to Nets management since the season ended. And the breadcrumbs are now being laid for the Nets to completely blow up. And this whole two years ago, the Nets are going to take over New York. Listen, I wasn't the only one, but I was one of the loudest being like,

then the Knicks are going to own New York. That's never changing. Good luck to the Nets, but they were always going to be the Clippers in New York. And now it feels like we're heading that way. It's like, it's like when the Mets got like Pedro and all those guys and you're like, yeah, they're not Yankees. It It doesn't matter. You know, like it's, this is a Knicks town. This is a Knicks town even more than it's a Yankees town,

I think. And I think it's a basketball city. I think the Knicks are the most important franchise in the city. And if we get a winner, it's a wrap. I mean, you see any energy

at a garden just when we had that one team with Derrick Rose hobbling out there.. I mean, you see any energy at the Garden just when we had that one team with Derrick Rose hobbling out there. And I mean, God bless Derrick Rose, man. He gave us everything, man. I love that guy.

He's one of my favorite. He's going to be one of my favorite Knicks of all time just as how much he gave us when we needed it for that playoff run. But you know what's funny about that playoff run?

I think you lost in five to the Hawks. Yeah. And then they were like, we got to bring it back. And they paid all the guys to come back and now they don't have cap space. Well, I think they tried to go crazy offense and I think they lost their kind of defensive intensity and what kind of made them what they were.

Well, Rose broke down, which makes sense because he was in the 2008 draft. And then, it's about that time. I don't know what happened to Julius Randle, though. I didn't get that part.

I didn't understand why he was unhappy and why he didn't play well and why are there all these stories about he was being a weird teammate and I didn't get that. Yeah, he was like

yelling at the fans and stuff like that. Yeah. Because he was so happy the year before I didn't get that. Yeah. He's like yelling at the fans and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he was so happy the year before. I don't know what changed. So they got to get him going. But I think, I think it's,

you know, New York's not for everybody. You know, that city could be harsh, man. That garden can be harsh, but Durant made a mistake, not coming to New York for whatever reason.

It could have been worth it because he's not happy in Brooklyn. He'll always be second tier. Kyrie, I don't know what he was thinking. I don't know why he wouldn't come to the Knicks. I remember I saw Blake

at a party and we were talking about it and I was like, the Knicks? And he's just looking at me like, you're an idiot. The Knicks are not going to do anything. But, you know, whatever.

Well, I think they had hit such rock bottom that they couldn't even convince these guys to come who wanted to be in New York. Like Durant wanted to leave Golden State and come to New York and their star had fallen so dramatically. I mean, they would have years where they couldn't even get meetings with the free agents. And they're the Knicks. I don't understand. I don't think that's the case anymore.

No, I think it's getting fixed. I think they've done an okay job of at least they're back in the mix a little. They keep talking about Dame. They keep talking about Spider. You never know. We get one or two really, really good players. It changes the culture they keep talking about Dame they keep talking they're talking about Spider you know like we never know we get one or two

really really good players it changes the culture a little bit what about Zion what about rolling the dice on Zion I'm always worried as a Knicks fan

of signing a guy after big injuries just because we don't learn so often because it's happened 30 times to the Knicks you know we always it always feels like we get the bargain we get the bargain barrel guy that we want.

We had a chance to get Reggie Miller, I think, one time. We got Allen Houston. Not that Allen Houston was bad, but we're like, well, get Reggie Miller. It's Reggie Miller. I don't know. I just feel like sometimes we don't get the guy. We get a close version of a guy. We didn't get Durant. We got

Julius Randle. By the way, that's been almost 50 years of the Knicks. Really since SNL started. You're going back to Spencer Haywood and Bob McAdoo and all these dudes. You're catching them two years too late, three years too late, or

two years too early. It's never at the actual... Bernard King was the only time they caught a guy at the perfect time in his career. And Mello. And Mello. We got Mello for one of his best years in New York. Yeah, that's fair. In 2013

he was really good. I still don't know how they lost to Indiana. It was like the Roy Hibbert. It was great. I still don't know how they lost to Indiana. It was like the Roy Hibbert. It was the peak of Roy Hibbert and all of a sudden they were going home. Well, they were built I don't know if you remember, but they were built to beat Miami.

Indiana was like the complete opposite. They were like this big kind of bruiser team and we never even got to Miami. I think they were built to run with Miami and that would have been fun to watch. Dumb Indiana gets in the way. I remember I was doing TV that year

and I remember we were doing segments about Knicks or Heat. Who do you have? Because they got, after the All-Star break, they got red hot. They were like 40% from three. It was like a little early small ball in some ways. Yeah. Yes.

And it was like, oh my God, Knicks Heat. It's going to be amazing. And then Roy Hibbert spoiled the party. Paul George. Paul George and Roy Hibbert spoiled the hell out of that party. And it was crazy because I was working Indiana that weekend and I was in

Indianapolis doing shows and the Knicks were losing to the Pacers and it was the Indy 500. And needless to say, the shows were not sold out. Oh, no. Yeah, it was a rough weekend to be doing anything other than sports.

Yeah, that's always tough. Kimmel and I did that once. We went back to Boston to do this show and it's my fault but it was like the Saturday of a Red Sox playoff game when we were back there oh my god how did we allow this

to happen you're just not winning anytime against sports and the sports towns no I went to it was a Vikings I was in Minnesota doing shows on a Saturday. And that Saturday night game was a playoff game between the Vikings and the Packers. That must have been 2012 or 13 or something like that. And people were actually getting up in the show to go check the score.

It was brutal. Ouch. Yeah, no one gave a damn. All right. That Dan Michael Che. Thursday damn. All right. That damn Michael Che. Thursday night. HBO Max. Season 2. You can also...

I like the HBO Max app. You can go back and you can check out the Season 1 episodes if you missed it. And then I guess you're coming back to SNL, but you're going to do the Tom Brady thing. Just milk it. Start lots of rumors. You might go to other shows.

Just keep your name in the news. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe somebody drops off a duffel bag with a couple of 20s in there, you know, just to kind of, you know, make my decision a little easier. You never know. All right.

Good luck. Good to finally meet you. Very nice to meet you. Thank you so much. All right. Good luck. Good to finally meet you. Very nice to meet you. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. That's it for the podcast, produced, as always, by Kyle Creighton.

Thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti as well. We are going to be back, I think, on Friday night, potentially, for the end of Game 6. Hopefully, it will be

podcast-worthy. So, planning on doing a Friday night pod, unless for some reason the game is just a disaster. So see you then. Stay safe, please. I don't have feelings within On the wayside On the bruised side Never once said I don't have feelings