The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 2: Football Reasons

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

After the Baltimore Ravens released Justin Tucker, it’s time to talk about the why. Also, we continue the discussion on last night's action in the NBA. Warning: the first half of Hour 2 centers around allegations of Sexual Assault and Sexual Violence. If you or a loved one has ever been a victim of Sexual Assault, you are not alone. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the Don Leventor Show with the StuGuts Podcast. What a night in the NBA last night. Huge upsets in game one. And there were some really hard tickets out there. In fact, an Academy Award winning filmmaker didn't get tickets to one of the games and he had to go to the Met Gala instead. And all he had to do was download the Game Time app. Yeah, so easy.

Yeah, so most people don't have the Met Gala to fall back on. So what do you do when you wanna go to an event that is sold out? When you wanna go specifically to an NBA playoff game that is sold out? Like this filmmaker, you should have downloaded the Game Time app,

create an account and use the code Dan for $20 off your first purchase, terms apply. Download Game Time app, create an account and use the code DAN for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Game Time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed incredible ticket coverage. For me Game Time is the best in the secondary market. I use it all the time especially come playoff time. Chris Cody in a previous segment, I don't know if you guys saw it on video if you caught

it or not, but Chris Cody was pantomiming. What looked like a pretty happy roller coaster descent into hell of the plane is crashing, I'm a fireball, I'm screaming, what have I done with it? Yes, it seemed happier than I would have imagined. Yes, that was you were Arnold Schwarzenegger falling from the sky.

I'm falling! On, yes. To quote Billy though, what's the big deal? Well, that is, I enjoyed. If you're dead, what's the big deal? Well that that is I Enjoyed your dead what differences to make if you saved $190 Billy yeah that's a little bit of falling that they'd like yeah, I understand no I don't want my last two minutes on earth begging for death and I take me away. It's like a ghost right now No, you're you're alive

I'm not gonna give you buy-in on this one pal, like I don't want to die in an airplane crash and I'm not gonna pretend like it's no big deal. Spirit has had zero fatal crashes in 26 years. You don't want to bite into an onion anymore. It's impossible to have less than zero fatal crashes in 26 years. I'm sorry, you daredevil, the man without fear, I didn't know you were this hard, this hard ass all of a sudden. Billy, to be fair, you don't want the last two minutes of your life being like damn why did I buy a spirit ticket that's that's it it's that that it's almost worse worse than death I could have avoided all of this also I didn't bring any cartons with me we should get on spirit flight right now pack a parachute they're gonna going to charge you, but you know.

The thing that I saw happening very clearly, again, I'm looking at our erstwhile executive producer and what's being talked about. What I'm hearing there is there are a lot of people who need that $200 and a $35 Spirit Flight.

You can shame people about it, but he did get home successfully. And while we can be classist or elicits elitist about two hundred dollars doesn't matter i need to save my life when chris cody is a fire ball with the last couple minutes of his life and he's enjoying it and it's schwarzenegger it's all dying it's also i'm dying and I've done some simple math. I knew that I made the price of my life $200 when I chose this particular flight. So it's not just that you're a fireball, you're a fireball that's made a terrible mistake on I only valued my life at $200. That realization while on fire burns a little extra.

No, it's even worse than that, Dan, because as he's crashing to Earth in his final moments, he can't even hold his son, because his son is sitting in a different little seat. I would find a way to switch seats, all right? When I start to see that this thing is going awry. Excuse me, is anyone next to you? I would manage to get next to my boy.

You got Zazz going, excuse me, pardon me, excuse me. Pardon me, pardon me, excuse me. Pardon me, pardon me. No, the G-forces on this make this totally plausible. A story I have not gotten yet to today, and I have been remiss in not doing so, I've done a couple of things today that have been a little delayed,

and this particular story, yesterday when I saw the Ravens statement and sort of did some inventory on the last 10 years of American history through the Ravens organization, okay, they, I mean, sports was the place where they kind of showed us what domestic abuse looks like. It's one of the greatest scandals in the history of sports that ray rice introduced us to all that's what it looks like when somebody beats the holy hell out of their significant other and that's what it looks like when ravens organization rallies to protect its beloved ray rice and that's

what it looks like when a ravens organization is pushed to the brink on the hey do you want to have a comment on collin cappernick as a backup and the owner says pray for us this is one of the best organizations in sports not just football in sports It's been great and only because of the Patriots are we not even regarding them higher the Ravens represent football very well football played Well football played with discipline. They've won a lot of games because their kickers better than everyone else They had Adam Vinatieri for the modern age. He was the best We all knew that when we're playing with math, right? because their kicker is better than everyone else. They had Adam Vinatieri for the modern age, he was the best. We all knew that when we're playing with math, right,

seven points or three points, the three points are hugely important, all the games are close. Justin Tucker is hugely valuable and beloved because holy shit, the guy never misses and makes me feel good all the time and other teams fear him, he's a valuable kicker. When you have a two minute drill

and most teams need to get to like the 30 to give themselves a chance, they go to the 45. They have no idea, well, they're about to find out, and they found out a little bit last year. No, they found out a lot last year, and that's why he's waived. Be clear on that. Be clear on that.

He's not waived because of the crimes. He's waived because he was bad last year. I mean that's what they said right? Football reasons. So let me give you two scenarios. Scenario one, he has a more typical Justin Tucker year last year but he has all these issues. Hold on, hold on. Before we get to the hypotheticals that we can have a field day with on on isn't morally right, just let me get through the part of this that outraged me yesterday, legitimately pissed me off as somebody who can be pretty numb to how cold sports can be the Ravens falling all over themselves to release Justin Tucker with a hand to their head and faint on this hurts so much to tell you all that it hurts because it feels like Justin Tucker's

the victim of, oh God, he was gross on alleged predatory stuff that seems reliable enough to be true no matter how shameless people are today about denying scandals. A lot of people coming forth, ew, creepy, disgusting behavior that the Ravens can't bring themselves to castigate in public as they release the following statement. Sometimes football decisions are incredibly difficult and this is one of those instances. Considering our current roster, we have made the tough decision to release Justin Tucker. Justin created many significant and unforgettable moments in Ravens history.

His reliability, focus, drive, resilience, and extraordinary talent made him one of the league's best kickers for over a decade. We are grateful for Justin's many contributions while playing for the Ravens. We sincerely wish him and his family the very best in this next chapter of their lives. That's executive vice president and general manager Eric Dacosta. And what that is, and this should be overt to all, I think, right? I don't know if this bothers you at all, but this is a person whose punctuation on his career

with very credible information, no matter what it is that we have to say about alleged here, was predatory in nature over women who were helpless in a way that's very similar to Deshaun Watson. Deshaun Watson wouldn't deserve a statement of release like that right now, and Justin Tucker doesn't deserve a statement of release. I'm hesitant to even use the word release given what he's accused of, but what the Ravens did there was not leadership, it was not hard. They're defending somebody as if he's a victim when he made others the victim

and they're doing it with a bad kicker it's not even they're not even doing it with the courtesy of a player who plays actual football respected by other football players cuz it's collisions they're doing it to protect the precious kicker that no one respects just because he's worth three points at a time and just because that means more to the ravens then real victims and women and i just wish one time one of these football organizations would stand for something not virtue signaling but just stand for something that says hey this shit's not okay even if you have to cover your ass legally which they do have to cover their ass legally

like i'm not pretending or moralizing here and saying there's not a lot of cover your ass legally that you have to do here because he hasn't yet been convicted of things and there's plausibly some stuff that he can do legally that makes it seem like he was fired before it was legally just to do so on things that are accusations and not yet crimes I would say the counterpoint to that though is is if he was a good kicker They may not have released him they were like Like they are releasing him because he was a bad kicker You're making it seem like they're using the accusations as an excuse for releasing him and they're taking this moral stand which they probably Wouldn't have taken had he been a good kicker. I think he's probably still around though, or not for the allegations.

He's arguably the greatest kicker of all time. And I'd say what's pretty telling is, where's the big tribute video? Baltimore? Like, where is, this seemed like your showering praise on Justin Tucker. Why haven't you put out the tribute video to your social channels? Oh, that's right, because there's something around this whole Justin Tucker story that certainly plays into what you allege is a football decision

that was certainly made a lot easier because he all of a sudden, because I can only presume, had all this stuff going around his life that it affected his on-field performance. We got clued into that later this, later last season, and we were like, well, I guess this makes sense because what we saw last year from Justin Tucker was confusing because, and he was bad by most metrics,

but he was really bad by his standard. It was shocking because every time that guy came out, you knew it was going in between the posts. You knew that he would do things at a higher clip than almost anyone else in the history of the game. And that was my question. My question is, had he had a typical Justin Tucker year, wait, let me say it all, had he had a typical Justin Tucker year, but had these allegations, would he still be on the

roster? And then the second question is, had he had the year he had last year with no allegations, would he still be on the roster and then the second question is, had he had the year he had last year, with no allegations, would he still be on the roster? So we can have this conversation at any point through the last 20 years of crimes in sports. Can you guys look up for me something, please, because I think Mike is understating how bad Justin Tucker was last year. I think, I have not read the kicker numbers recently,

but I believe that Justin Tucker went from the surest thing in the sport, best there's ever been, to if not the worst kicker numbers recently but i believe that justin tucker went from the surest thing in the sport best there's ever been to if not the worst kicker in the league i think it might have been worst but if not the worst one of the very worst and so now i tell you when i ask you the audience what's tough about this decision why can't you make the stand on man this is like again they have to like, again, they have to wait for legal and they have to wait for times that you can cut people and there are corporate

things that have to be adhered to so that you can make sure that you know in front of everybody we have to make a corporate football decision that covers everybody's ass here. But would you not like to hear one team be able to talk about the, to be brave enough to work around the, to work around the lawyer stuff and simply say we released Justin Tucker, period. Not, none, we have released Justin Tucker. That's not even a stand. That's asking a football team to say about a bad kicker. Get, you know, get out of here. Like that's not what you've, what you're accused of.

It's not nevermind whether or not you've, you're a good or bad kicker. What you're accused of will knock out any kicker because it's the kicker. And we should respect women more than that. His numbers were actually pretty comparable to young way Oh, and, and Evan McPherson, two guys had to believe so have their jobs that we know to be good that and Evan McPherson. Two guys that I believe still have their jobs

that we know to be good, that had down years last year and we're not doing the whole football reasons there. I think for Justin Tucker, if none of this stuff is surrounding him, I think the greatest kicker in NFL history gets brought back for another opportunity to see. They may still draft a kicker like, okay, well I guess. They did.

Yeah, well, they did because I think this stuff was surrounding him the Justin Tucker if anyone at that position is afforded one slightly down well not slightly for him but slightly in terms of NFL average slightly down season it would be him well that's the point that's the part that's so frustrating is they absolutely release him it's like okay they did the right thing. They released him because he's involved with these allegations. So they essentially, they did the right thing here, but they're not willing to admit that that's why that they did it. Like, why can't one time they just say,

we don't want to be associated with anyone involved in these type of allegations. A player of his caliber who got that statement, by the way, which was a nice statement, a heartfelt statement for a guy who's been there forever and is one of the great kickers of all time. If that guy has the season he just had, he's getting afforded another season to make good on it. But he was clearly let go because of the allegations. So why can't they just one time say, we don't wanna be associated with this? Because then if they do that, and then the next year,

a much better player gets similar anything. Well, they drafted a player in the second round this year who dealt with sexual allegations. But it's just- This draft. Similar anything, God Almighty. Similar anything. There've been two of them, and there's not a similar anything

in like the history of us covering football. Similar anything to what he and Deshaun Watson did? No, he's had allegations though, to the point, like they could avoid the issue entirely, they don't seem to be, so it's almost as if like, you do have reason to believe that football reasons played into this, it's not exclusively the football reason, though I refuse to believe that, Justin Tucker,

it's a reason why we've yet to see the tribute video, because they don't wanna put it out there, because they don't wanna deal with a reason why we've yet to see the tribute video, because they don't want to put it out there, because they don't want to deal with the comment section. You'll never see that tribute video. And I think that's to Zazz's point, I think you're right, they're cutting him because of the issues, but at the same time,

they're trying to do him a quote unquote solid by like, hey, we're not gonna like bury you by saying oh, whatever. So they're trying to be nice to him by saying oh it's totally a football reason. Just the fact that they have to say for total football reasons who says that in a press release when you release someone. Usually yeah today we parted ways and so on so we wish him the best. That's how you usually release someone.

So the fact that they put all that in there is because they're trying to cover for him and for the allegations that have been made against him. And cover for themselves and for the allegations that have been made against cover for themselves too for sure because they they've done some reporting how how early in this process they were notified and they knew I don't know how the audience receives this I don't know if the audience thinks this is moralizing or virtue signaling football reasons I just I want just like we just did the math on I'm a fireball. I'm burning. What's my life worth? $200 football is telling you that if you are somebody who

Allegedly spends a lot of time revealing himself to masseuses Doing sexually deviant things that in in a massage parlor that makes several credible women many many women Covered by many journalists say this was something that he was repeatedly doing. Football has told you now, the Ravens, one of the great organizations in sports, you want us to be moral about these things? Here's the price if we've got somebody that we think has a name in our uniform even if it's a kicker.

We will respect women if he goes from 90% of his kicks to 80% of his kicks. That's what women and victims are worth to us as a football organization and also when that 10% goes down in the statement we will praise him and not say anything about it. If he goes down that's what they're telling you that league where the moral stand of what these things cost is, if you're a deviant, an alleged deviant like Justin Tucker doing the Sean Watson things, the way you will get waived is if your percentage goes from 90% to 80% and we will not say anything about your crimes publicly, we will take care of you at the end. Well, Justin Tucker's percent

actually went from like 86 to 73, which is extreme. He's 35 years old. Those two things and the off-field things saw his demise. I'm just saying that that 13 percent, like do the- It's huge. But no, absorb it. You say it's huge. I think you're doing the math wrong.

Absorb that what the NFL is telling you here is that if you're an alleged criminal with shameful crimes and you're a kicker, and you go down by 13%, that's about how much they value women and they're not going to say so in the statement. Look how far it took for the NFL to decide this, Deshaun Watson, for the Browns specifically to decide this Deshaun Watson thing isn't for us. It's the ineffectiveness. And he got a lot of opportunities when it was very clear it went over The the Ravens are just following the set standard like these allegations seemingly. Yeah, there's suspensions and punishment

But they're not being thrown in jail We still talk about them as allegations and settlements Dachon Watson at the the game's most important position survived it Surely a kicker could there there isn't a team in the NFL that would have released a Justin Tucker in his circumstances and made specific reference to the allegations. It's just not done. He hasn't been convicted of a crime. He hasn't been charged with a crime to my knowledge. The civil suits haven't been settled.

It is alleged right now. Now, do I think he's guilty based on everything I've read and heard? Yes, I absolutely do, but for his club not to mention that in a statement is not the least bit surprising. But Greg, the counter point is, okay you don't have to mention it, why would they mention football reasons specifically? Well they shouldn't have, and it was much too flowery. Right, well if it football reasons, we'd get the proper football goodbye for one of the game's greatest legends.

I think what everyone's taking issue here and why Dan's crumpling up the paper is the way that the Ravens approached this last year was kind of bullshit. They never had to really address this head on. And now when he's on his way out and you conveniently hang your hat on football reasons but skirt all the other football reason stuff that you would with an honoring a proper legend it seems like the Ravens are trying to get one over on there or unfair for me to say it's not that they're trying to get one over on us one of the great football organizations has gotten one over on us because I'm giving

you the history of one of the best football teams there have been in the last 20 years when it comes to Ray Rice and Colin Kaepernick pray for us. Don't forget Ray Lewis. And now this thank you that the organization that gave you and birthed all of this with Ray Lewis but also gave you Ray Rice and Justin Tucker and pray for us on Colin Kaepernick. It's a fairly extraordinary thing for me to be able to look at a 15, 20 year body of work and say, look at that, Baltimore Ravens,

one of the great franchises, one of the great leadership football franchises, Cowards. Look at Kansas City though. Cowards though is what I'm saying. Look at what, yes, you can look at Kansas City, but when I'm saying one of the great football organizations stand for something you've got the confidence of you guys have been really good for 20 years you can stand for something what do you stand for protecting Justin

Tucker protecting your own protecting the compound protecting the huddle and not standing for anything other than cowardice in plain sight when you can actually make a literal statement on something. Okay, and what would that statement have said? It should have came during the season, and they cowered to a bunch of pressure, but they would probably hold up what they did with Ray Rice as, look, we did the hard thing. At that point, it was the pretty obvious thing, but remember how good Ray Rice was when that video burst on the scene. Hold on they did the right thing

when that video burst on the scene. Before that video burst on the scene they didn't quite do the right thing. Wait but was Ray Rice that good? I thought his last year he was 3.4 yards a carry or something. I think they did the same thing with Ray Rice. It's another data point as to why I think Justin Tucker would be given another opportunity because Ray Rice was actively being given another opportunity to recapture his form. Dan, to your point about the Ravens being one of the great organizations

and look at how they skated, again, I would point to who would we call the greatest organization of the 21st century? They had murderers. I mean, like, this- An alleged serial killer. A single murderer, not murderers, a single murderer. Murderers is serial killer a single murder not murderers a single murder Murders is what I'm a murder multiple multiple single murder. It was what it was one murder one murder one murderer

There's an extra syllable from murder to murder or one murder or we're all trying to help him murders murders though multiple murders. It's a weird word, murders. Sounds like a country person just heard, I'm a murders, oh, I hurt murders. It's a hard thing to laugh around. You know, you gotta find the funny in everything. Folks, listen up.

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Don LeBretard. A woman who was out swimming with her friends is believed to have been swallowed whole by a 13 foot shark without any of her friends noticing. That's the weirdest part about that story. You're swimming with friends, you're having a good time, and then all of a sudden people are looking around and going, where's Shelley? Like, nobody screamed? Every friend group has a Shelley though, that if they go missing because a shark ate them whole, you wouldn't notice. Classic Shelley. Exactly,

right. Stugats. She went quietly apparently. If I'm swallowed whole by a shark, you're going to know it. This is the Don the done libertar show with the Stu guards The Celtics last night segue speaking of new LeBron Took 45 Uncontested three pointers, they missed 32 of them. That's not gonna happen again. So we're clear, that has nothing to do

with anybody's defense incidentally. We can talk about OG's perimeter defense, that has nothing to do with anybody's perimeter defense. The Celtics missed 32 three pointers last night that were uncontested. Can I talk about two particular, or three particular attempts that I really didn't like, really hated.

One was Drew Holliday grabs an offensive rebound that off of a missed three, grabs it in the corner, turns around and wildly pulls up another three. Like just kind of like, ah, just throws it up there, I'm like, what are you doing? And number two, and this one really bothered me, and I get it, we say this about him him all the time but I'm like come on guy Jason Tatum you got Jalen Brunson on you on an island that's the matchup that every team

that's playing against the Knicks is looking for. How can we get Jalen Brunson in single coverage against our best perimeter player and this Jamoke takes one, but two step back threes? What are you doing? Please. Well, what they're doing is being lazy is what it is. No, but- It's so much easier to do that. Let's examine for a second what the Celtics

have done to basketball and the poison that is them having it easy last year and Mike Ryan being frustrated all off season because he's like, Tatum didn't even have to show us anything. If all he's gonna do is just take every step back jumper and you're just better at threes that everybody knew just better than everybody and they beat the respect out of you by making all their threes tatum last night but is not brunson is the shot of the remedies you run uh... an easy one and none of us are questioning

how clutch he is but man tatum doesn't even get tested on the clutch and in last night's game, those shots were weak. That's a guy that's used to, I'm gonna get to take all of these 33-pointers every spot, and I don't even have to break down Brunson. I'll step back because I can get this shot whenever I want for the rest of my life,

and history will not respect me if that's what I am at the end of games, because I don't even have to try at the end of games. I'll make 14% of these, and none of them will be in tough games and we'll beat everybody by five. Zaz, you were surprised that I wasn't as thrown off by Dagnall saying we would foul up three again, maybe a little later in the clock, but as an overall philosophy. I one up you with Joe Mazzullo after the game being asked about, hey you guys missed

40 some odd threes. 19 of your 20 attempts in the third quarter were three pointers. But think about it, can you say that part again? Because I feel like you say that and maybe some people watching and listening, they don't really grasp what you just said. Tell everybody again in the third quarter what their field goal attempts were. The Boston Celtics took 20 field goal attempts in the third quarter. They were winning by 20. They were in the third quarter, the Boston Celtics who have not been tested, they give up a 20 point lead because they just start taking jumpers from 40 feet away. They took 20 field goal attempts in the third quarter.

19 of them were from three. That's garbage. That's garbage, basketball. I'm so over the Celtics, where they're winning basketball games with math. I like analytics. I like learning more about the game. I like the numbers and people

to be able to help us figure things out. But the Celtics are just winning with math. Let's shoot as many three-pointers as possible. It's one of the worst things that has ever happened to the league. But they won. They won a championship. Yeah, with math because they're really good at shooting. So why are they gonna change their game plan just because they've got a 20-point lead? That's what they do. I hope they do because it's not just math. It's also conveniently we have this

core where everyone questions their mental fortitude and we had the pristine luck of every round the opposing team's best player got injured. Until we made it to the finals against a team nobody expected to be there in the NBA finals and they somehow got lucky and won an NBA championship. You need some luck there. Not lucky. Not lucky. They got lucky in that every team's best player in the playoffs in that Eastern Conference

got hurt. Mike hurt. And what happened last night was they were playing with their food because they expected to come easy to them. And they're lazy. Because it did come easy to them last year. I mean, Dan, Dan, they attempted 63s and 37 twos. Guys.

Taz, it wasn't even, I'm sorry, Dan, but it wasn't even like, man, but it wasn't even like man like we couldn't get any dribble penetration or whatever we can get to they even try it was strictly perimeter based and I must stick up for analytics analytics doesn't say keep shooting like a dumbass the most valuable shot in basketball is a layup or a dunk that even with all the threes in the corner it's still a layup or a dunk. Even with all the threes in the corner, it's still a layup or a dunk is number one on that list. Right? And so they didn't even attempt,

Tatum had one layup in that fourth quarter or slash overtime and I was like, oh, I thought you were allergic, what happened? What, how did you, did you get lost on the way to the three point line and find yourself under the rim? Fans love talking about, you know, what adjustments you're gonna make from game to game. Halftime adjustments as if we can never have the coach make an in-game adjustment and Joe Mazzullo after the game, oh by the way I

don't know that Joe Mazzullo is a good coach, Joe Mazzullo after the game has to go look, he says he has to go look at the tape and see what they did wrong. Joe you shot a thousand threes you missed them all and you kept shooting them all game long what are you talking about you have to go back and look at the tape and see what they did wrong you shot a thousand threes you missed them all and you kept shooting them all game long what are you talking about you have to go back and look at the film do something else with your offense and shoot threes i mean this is what i'm telling you is confusing about the evolution of this sport okay cause james hardin will be a plague forever more for not doing this aesthetically well but winning the mvp and saying leap off it's all about efficiencies i don't care whether you like how it looks i don't

care whether you think it's entertaining when i'm sitting here doing a sports show with people i know who knows sports and zazlo sit here saying out loud i don't know if james all is a good co-op and mike is sitting here disrespecting what has been one of the great teams of the last two years over two full seasons that have trounced his heat with, ah they're lucky, when what they've

actually done is Brad Stevens did what Theo Epstein did, which is like yeah I'll do accounting, I'll figure out how to get Drew Holliday and Porzingis and we'll take all of the threes and we'll fix the math of the sport but also make it less interesting and I'm gonna be confounded by whether Joe Mazzullo is a good coach, because they've just fixed 50 threes in your face, and Pritchard is better than anyone out there shooting ridiculous threes, because they have the pieces in place

that both ruins the sport and makes the analysis of it stink when we give it so much math that Mike Ryan is like the Celtics are lucky and Zazz is sitting here is Joe Mazzullo is a good coach oh it's all because they're built better than everyone else they're like in racing they've got the better car well no no one on this show has given them more credit for doing the hard thing and actually making the aggressive move it's couched every single one of my Miami heat takes but the fact remains no Jimmy

Butler no Joel Embiid Halliburton gets hurt, Rick Carlisle, look at that Pacers series and look at their win probabilities and look at the bullshit that the Pacers did down the stretch to blow those games. It is irrefutable that they got lucky on their path to their first NBA championship, a championship that eluded that core for years on end. This is what I'll say, Tom Havisro said this a long time ago, every single champion in NBA history has an asterisk, every single one, because someone got hurt,

someone got suspended, that's part and parcel of the journey. I'm not gonna take anything away from their championship as a result because every little champion before them has benefited in one way or another. Having said that, Dan, they don't have the best roster. They haven't broken the sport.

They play well, they win a lot of games, guess what? So do a lot of other teams in this league. The Nuggets win a lot of games. Have they broken the sport? They won as many titles as the Celtics have, right? The Bucs have won as many titles as the Celtics have in the last five years. Literally since 2018, we've had a new champion every year,

so I don't think there's any one team that says, yeah, we broke basketball, and everyone has to fall in our way. Now, yes, the three-point line is more important now than it's ever been in basketball. We figured it out. We figured out taking contested two-point jumpers is bad. Take that step back, take a three.

But as I said, the road to the most efficient offense still begins with under the, under the, in the rim, in the restricted area. Number two is a free throw. Number three is a corner three. Number four is a wing three. And the idea also is it's not baking, right? It's not one part, this one part, this one part, this instant result. You have to be able to adjust. Put too much salt, okay, let me add some more sauce over here.

What the Celtics do is they're like, no, I gotta keep adding salt. So they said there's salt in the recipe, gotta keep adding salt. And that's not how basketball is played. It's not played by robots, Dan. It's played by human beings that have to, Dan, they have to make decisions.

Your tears are salty and all of it salty. My tears. No, because listen, you guys are- They lost the game last night. My tears. I'll tell you what tears sound like when you're a Heat basketball show. The Boston Celtics have been indisputably, now we can talk about Cleveland and an OKC, for the last two years up until right now clearly the best team in

basketball by point differential you can we're all you want about that give them their respect on what they've actually been the last two years you can tell me you think denver's better you can tell me you think okay sear cleveland is better but to date no one challenges them and they've made it look easy and I would not be surprised if they win this series by five games they play the next if they believe that in it uh... that was a