The Deep 3 Podcast - It's Time For These NBA Playoffs Teams To PANIC | Ep. 208

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

NBA playoffs panic meter! #nba   Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/   Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW   Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794   Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree 0:00- Intro 5:47- Knicks vs Hawks 19:41- Nuggets vs Timberwolves 40:52- Thunder vs Suns 46:23- Lakers vs Rockets 1:02:20- Cavs vs Raptors 1:13:29- Pistons vs Magic 1:27:32- Celtics vs 76ers 1:35:33- Spurs vs Trailblazers 1:44:30- NBA news roundup   Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/   Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg   Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_   Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last time that we came up here on this show, we talked about that you, Donovan, were enduring the meanest of C.J. McCollum backshots. And how essentially we were talking about down to one. I actually know it was one one at that time, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Is it time for the Knicks to panic? Then if you guys follow us on social media, if you guys see our Instagram, see them our Twitter, it got spookier. We got lots of Donovan reactions on social media. So whenever they went down to one, when those backshots came again. But what just happened? You know. Everybody else knows.

And nobody hit my line. Nobody was in my face with a camera. Where's everybody now? I can get a whoo's on my phone. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Everybody can talk. Oh, yeah, two words, it's funny.

When everything actually goes right, when there's actually a win, nobody says anything. Everybody out here's scared. They're scared. Y'all are not men for real. Actually stand on something. And when it's 2-2,

now it's the best of three. Now let's see what you guys are actually talking about. Interesting. I didn't tell you this. B, I didn't tell you this. To the viewers, I didn't tell you this. Wednesday, when I missed my appearance on Thursday, couldn't make the show.

Why? Someone said, head on me. Someone tried to take me out. I played basketball the other day before right here. This man right here. We went to your deal, by the way. You? I went.

Yeah, we went to. in my gym and you set out a hit on me. You force someone to injure my eye, rupture my eye, causing an abrasion, a cut in my eye to have me stop me from doing what I do best, which is speak this isn't when it comes to the Hawks.

This is 2 on 2 right now. It's basically 0-0 and that's a win for me. You're clapping, you're barking, no one's here, no one's here, yeah, yeah. Rockwhaler barking because he beat down a Chihuahua. It doesn't fucking matter. This is the Hawks. This is a team we didn't expect to be at this point. This is a team I traded their fucking franchise player like four weeks ago.

There's no such thing I shut up. Your whole entire team, you guys should be fucking spiraling right now. Shut the hell up. After game two, shut up, shut up, hold up,

hold this on your face. Hold on, hold on. After game two, everything is a win. Everything is gravy right now. After game two, Moe FaceTime me. 100% and FaceTime me.

What did I say? Honestly, didn't say anything. Put the camera on his crotch. And moved it back and forth. He was doing all of that after game two. Back and forth, all of that. I was getting cursed out on FaceTime after game two. Hell yeah, you were.

On Thursday. Hell yeah. On Thursday. Everybody else, you over here screaming, moaning and everybody's here about how you guys just won. And now the Knicks go on the road, get a dominant win. Cat has a triple double. and nobody

not one text in the in the group chat in this group chat in many other group chats and I still don't understand everybody acts like the Knicks have been this like dominant power for like 25, 30 years

and we just hating we really haven't been like I don't understand what all the animosity comes from It comes from people like you coming up here and saying oh you the Hawks oh my God

this year should be over in four should be over and five I said the same thing but ultimately I led up to being like you know what I think it's going to go six. And I didn't even say four.

I said six. I said that the series would go six. I said, you are out of your mind. I said it should be a five game series. However, it's going to go six. And right now,

get that out of my face right now. Get that out of my face. This is shame. Touch it. I'm not like it. We're different. I'm not like you. Just touch it.

I'm not like you. However, all I'm trying to say is, it's a best of three now. Game five is tomorrow. But do you understand it shouldn't even be up to this point? Once again, I'm talking to the viewer. Next and I?

Game five in 9-11. We're going to win the series, right? I hope so. I hope so too. But all I'm saying is the energy was very, very different, and you can't say, and at this point confirmed non-existent after the game four win. And so I'm very curious to see where everybody up here has to say. You have to understand this.

I didn't hear what you guys had to say about the game after game four. Nothing that you guys do matters. because nobody does do with this matters because at the end of the day I don't know what you were doing and you had this whole 40s you were driving by then

you could have 100% driving when I took over you took me home you pulled up to my house the other day to pick up the basketball what time was it to pick up the basketball what time was it?

That don't mean you can't call me it was it. It was at night pitch of black after the Lakers game specifically quick question y'all yes you'll mind if I finish

intro this episode go ahead so with that being said we're here today talking about Which NBA teams need to panic in these series? We'll talk about the Knicks. We'll talk about the Hawks.

See which one that needs to panic. Every single team and every single playoff series, we'll get a panic meter. Yes or no, panic time or not. We'll go through every series. I'll cue this intro music. Hold off for about 20 seconds while the intro music plays. Then we'll get back in the Knicks versus Hawks.

I'm going to hog time and force him to put this shit. You get a hog time. Yes. He has to. Why would he hodge time? Because you don't want to put it on. What do you mean? You got to put it on.

Hey, play the intro music before he says some more freaky shit. We're throwing it back Whoa That's crazy He was bragging I hope you just said The cranium is crazy Oh my God

Crown eaters rejoice So all right Keep going Music's over What are we seeing In Nick's versus Hawks It is 2-2 Like I said

After game three When the Hawks went up 2-1 When Cedem McCollum Hit another big shot when McHill Bridges break the mid-range shot it's a damn shame that happened on the weekend

where we're not recording because that was one the funniest things ever Beasoles showed us green shot of the reaction video we had of Donovan it was a scene we were here at my house

watching the draft and that game shit was hilarious and then that set us up where we were talking oh my god I think they're going on in 3-1 what is happening right now

and they came back Nix obviously came back and responded series even 2-2 what do we see in that series in terms of the Nicks responding to going down to 1

I think we see the dominance, especially in game, especially in game four, we see the dominance that Kat has. We see that there's nobody on this team that has the complete package to guard Kat. You saw honestly one of the best games that he's played. He had some games last year in the playoffs that were crazy, but you've seen one of his best playoff games of his career in terms of the passing, in terms of the rebounding, him being a timely score, shot making. and he had one where he was driving left and driving left, falling, hidden the shot off of the backboard going the wrong way. I mean, he was fantastic. And between him and O.J. and Ninobe, I mean, those two guys really, really, really stepped

up, especially because Jalen Brunson in this series has not been amazing. And some, you could, you could just say poor. You could just say bad by his standards. 50% true shooting. It hasn't been great. But even though that the shooting wasn't great in game four, I was so happy with what I saw from Brunson because the last two games, I was up here screaming about you have to move the ball. You have to be able to get off of the ball and be more of a facilitating point guard, get other people involved.

Like, it's really not just you out there. And you saw a lot of that in Game 4. And you saw Kat getting touches early. You saw even McKell Bridges getting involved in certain points. And so between everybody on that team, I feel like Game 4 was the best team performance that they've had this entire series. and maybe even dating back to a couple games leading into the playoffs. So if they play like that, also defensively, swarming around, that combination, that's something where, yes, they can go out and win the next two games,

wrap this up in six, and then move on to the next round. Yeah, yeah. And that's what we talked about in our preview. The main thing we talked about when we're giving the back and forth about here's what the Hawks are doing well post-Tray Young trade. Here's the Knicks are doing poor and well in the second half of the season, lots of ups and downs. Basically what you just described about the first part of the series into this game

was the whole conversation around the Knicks. Sometimes the default to too much in the Brunson ball. The ball isn't moving around enough. Now we're back to where we've always been for the past two years. How are you going to maximize Kat? All these questions

because the system isn't flowing the way you'd want it to at its peak. But then we get moments like this past game, like we've had in the regular season where you see the full vision and Kat's having a monstrous season, right? On the other side, we're talking about the Hawks as well as they've been defending,

as well they've been swarming with all these switchable defenders, all these guard defenders that apply pressure to the ball. They have absolutely nobody that can stay in front of Carleton's, nobody with that size, speed, shooting combination that can do anything with them. When Yacca's too small. Jalen Johnson's way too small.

There's no big guy that can give you any other type of look. You assumed it to be free eats. It wasn't for two games. And then they just figured it out on a whim. Are you terrified? Mo, I'll ask you the question. Is it time for the Hawks to panic? I mean, to panic, no.

You should never be in a situation to where you're panicking because at the end of the day. So no one should be paying this franchise right now. the guys who've been like playing the best basketball, playoff basketball for this team, or guys who weren't even here back in November, back in December, back in January at all. It's Cidgen McCollum and Cominga who are really like being difference makers for this team. Daniel Johnson's averaging like, I don't know, 19 points on like 41% shooting from the field.

He's been pissed poor. Dyson Danes averaging like six points, bro. Nikila Alexander Walker, the MIP, who's averaged like 20 points per game for this whole season. And he's like really like been one of the better stories of this year. He's averaging like 13 points. like 37, 36% from the field. I am in no position panic right now.

37? At the end of the day? 37? Yes, it's ridiculous. Try 34. It's ridiculous. Good grief. That's even worse than I thought.

I am in no position to worry because I'm not even supposed to be here right now. The fact that I am and I can say that, oh, wow, like, there's certain parts of this team that, like, can work and have, like, completely restructured and reframed their whole entire identity in them, not even the middle of this season, toward the back half of the year. That's amazing. So if there's things to panic about, it's like, okay, fuck. Like, Daniel & Johnson, things are getting really spook with him

and all the things that I said about him when it comes to my worries postseason are coming into fruition. Dyson Daniels are some wonky things to work out with him in his game as well. And to kill Alexander Walker. Like, that's just like, hey man, like game is game. At the end of they're doing a great job when it comes to concealing him and taking away a lot of like simple pocket passes that really like help his ability to roam around the court and all that. So give me a favor. Hit that sound effect.

Whomp, wamp. Ain't no whamps over here, both you're huffing your hat. That was so weak. That was what is loser about it, bro? That was weak as hell. What? Weak as hell.

They figured us out. Maybe we're not going to defend Kat. Maybe they have a new way that can come back. Bro, Kat been giving us back shots for 10 fucking years. I'm not even supposed to be here. He's been like that. I'm happy. Two days ago.

Two days ago. We shut the fuck up. To kick your ass. Brothers, everything's a chair. Yeah. We should be here right. And the audacity.

to do that and to have that whole spiel and still come up here with the paper bag and be like, here, put this on. You should put it on. You can't have it. Your expectations are failing me right now. Do you understand that? My expectations are not failing me. That's the difference between me and you right now.

Do you understand that? I'm not supposed to be here. I agree with you that we're supposed to lose yes, but not in this manner. What the fuck? You're the five. You're coming away with those fucking licks. You know what I'm saying? We're the five CEC, but we're the ninth a couple weeks ago.

No. I succeed my bed. Now, and I did say, well, technically, technically. I know the path is crazy. Technically, yes, according to my prediction, we're right on track.

I said, I said that the Knicks would win in six. It's two, two, you have to lose two to winning six. So, they always forget about that. They always do. They always do.

Simple math. And so right now, we're back. We have home court advantage. If it goes to a game seven, yes, I will be nervous. Even at,

at this point, we're talking about should they panic. Yes. The Knicks should be 100%. You should panic because there have been two games where, C.J. McCollum has been able to get his game off.

I do think that we are far enough in the series to where you haven't had a start to finish amazing Jalen Brunson scoring game. And for that reason, he also left a little bit because he had the left ankle thing, which happens basically every 10 games, every two games in the playoffs. But those combinations, yeah, you should probably be worried. And you should play with that amount of panic and desperation every single night so that you can come out and handle business. And I think that they definitely do have something in them where they do respond pretty well. It's just the overall thing that we always talk about with the Knicks, which is, why do you have to let it get to that point?

Right. We 100% should have had these opportunities and taken advantage of them. And they right now have a great opportunity and I hope that they don't fumble it. And that's where I'm at right now. When it comes to the Knicks, like, I would 110% be panicking. Both of these teams should be panicking, obviously. But for the Nix specifically, like, you guys have, like, way more to mortgage. You have, like, a guy who you trade to step around, seven picks four.

And he's not doing a damn fucking thing, got 20 minutes and 19 minutes on back-to-back games. And he's been pretty much, like, non-existence side of, like, his great defensive presence two games ago or whatever. But overall, at the end of the day, when it comes to where you guys should be at and how there's so many, weird kinks. Mike Brown's been like pretty much outcoached this so far this series, which I think is pretty fair to say. I would be panicking because I feel like the ceiling is a little lower than what we all thought it should be when it comes. And then on top of that too, it's like, okay, like the whole Jalen Brunson conversation is like, ah, it's a little murky now. If he's not like hitting all these tough turnarounds and really getting his shoulder into,

which he still is doing, but not converting on those plays, there's no real conversation to be have when it comes to you guys, like, further advancing in the East. Yeah, we'll see. Also, last thing, at least for me on the Knicks, I am, I want to be on record. I want to plant my flag. I've said it before. I'll say it again. I will ride and die for Josh Hart.

I understand after every game, especially after game three, every single Nick's fan was like, you can't play Josh Hart. Oh, my goodness, when he's bad. I understand that. Look what he does when he's out here, though. He's had games this series where he's had double-digit rebounds, his steals, his activity, him pushing the ball in transition. In game three, it wasn't great.

The Hawks defense, it was very good. And CJ himself was really good timing stuff up. I, listen, Josh Hart has no more fans. I am dead. He's just doing a whopping 13% from three in this series. Relax, man. Not everybody's perfect. Every team needs a player like him, though.

Yeah, everyone needs a non-student. is it really important. No. No, but 11 rebounds is crazy. Obviously, like everything you said, he's been defending really well too. So very good, like, representation of, like,

how to be impactful without shooting well. But I like to see what a little bit better because the most point, I agree that the Knicks are still in, they should win the series. Yeah. I think especially with the momentum of getting with this last game,

figuring out the cat stuff, figuring out the Jalen Brunson off ball stuff. I say figuring out, it's always a push and pull with the Knicks. So it's like us hoping that they carry the momentum for at least two more games. They can close them out in six. We'll see.

You know, there's been a lot of games. they should win, and then C.J. McCullum, Magic happens. So you can't ride it off as they're going to close it out in the next two. But the momentum is there. The games they've lost, like I said, they probably should have won and they choked. Whereas the games they do win, they beat the fuck out of the Hawks. That's typically a good sign for the favorite, being the favorite, just playing with their food a little bit.

But I have a little concerned to most point about should the Knicks panic as far as this performance representing what they're going to do in the next rounds. I wouldn't be feeling super confident in the fact that Jalen Brunson isn't playing dominant basketball, like we've seen in the past playoff rounds. Like we mentioned, we did our playoff pressure rankings. He was near the top. Because for Jalen Brunson to be Jalen Brunson and maintain this top 10 player in the world, respect that he gets, he needs to be a nuclear playoff performer.

Not a little bit less efficient than league average because it's natural for a guard to drop off a little bit in that efficiency in the playoff setting. It's normal, yada, yada. No, he needs to be dominant. And he has been for two straight years, and that's why he gets to respect, despite his flaws. Would like to see a little bit better in the last few games

in the first round to at least give you confidence that he's going to do that in next series. Granted, Nikola is Under Walker and Dyson Daniels is a tough matchup, so you can understand it. But you can't really have that like, oh, I understand it. He needs to just be better than expected. He does. Otherwise, Becky Hammond is right.

He does. So sneak that in there. Like, literally, if he is not God amongst man, die at Shagullis Alexander in terms of mid-range shooting and being resilient, Becky Hammond was right. You're right. And he does have to be better. Yeah, I didn't think he was going to be this bad.

I did think that this series specifically, We weren't going to get the, like, the crazy, crazy Brunson just for those matches. That's tough. Very tough. It's very, very hard. And when you can switch. Yeah. Doing, doing the Jalen Brunson things against, against this lineup.

And if they can get to the second round, right, play Boston, then we'll see what happens there. Not really easier matchup either. I know. Just gets worse and worse. Yeah, Jitlin Russell is going to need to turn up against us. I ain't going on. I mean, he will.

He will. I mean, he's had, he's had success. And it was kind of the same thing last year. where they were going up against Drew and Derek White and obviously, Missoula and his ability to scheme and you have Tatum and Brought, you have everybody. Those guys are still there. Drew's not there this year,

and Jaylen's had some success against Derek White in the past, so that's why I feel a little bit, like, kind of calm or like, okay, that we can still have A series with Jaylen Brinson looks like that. But right now, the focus is 100%. Just take care of business, especially in game five. There's no world where they can go down

three, two, and I would feel any type of I don't know Zen about the outcome of the series Okay so Hawks obviously panic The Knicks might have figured them out a little bit They're playing with house money But in terms of winning the series

The Hawks are clearly in panic mode They lost their 2-1 lead And there's no reason as a series goes on If I'm more confident the Hawks Unless they continue to have clutch performances That scare us all Nix not panicking in the grand scheme of this series But long term

You need to see some positive regression From Jalen Brunson Otherwise it could be a little panicking You're going to see McAlbridge do something for you, man. But it's very important, especially against the Celtics, if we are looking for as the next round and giving the Hawks no credit, very important that the cat is able to eat, very important that he can play to me as Kato off the court,

play a fucking Vucevic off the court, like be able to... Oh, that's easy. Yeah. Food's getting killed. Playing Vooch off the court is easy. Mad easy, right? We've seen years where Kat doesn't make the easy match to get off the court. So very important he carries his momentum into the next series

that can actually be that mismatch to make those guys suffer. Yeah. Because Nameda's Kate is a fantastic shot blocker when he has a position, but not the biggest guy can get out rebound a little bit. If you get him onto the perimeter, you can use cat speed against him. Him dominating is like the one recipe of them upset in the Celtics. Yeah. Man, I need boots on that floor.

I don't put guards out there. I'm so hard of them. Yo, Stevens, you miss with that one, man. Everyone misses. You miss. We'll get to them in a little bit. Well, once you get off here, Joel and Vee Haight in about 20 minutes or so. Yeah.

Let's move on to a series that we need to talk about up top The topic of this episode As you see by the title is about teams I should panic Nobody in the NBA right now should be panicking more Than Nicola Yokish and the Denver Nuggets Nuggets versus Timberwolves Which one of these teams should panic Let's talk about what we've seen

And I say that Let's talk about what we've seen It's time for some Nicole Yokis Lander Whoa coming from you It's time to be fucking honest This is his 2011 MAP series In terms of bronze career Okay

This is a disastrous performance from Nicole Yolkid. This is the first blight in his career probably. I agree with you. It's the second blight in a row, but against the Oklahoma City Thunder when he performs poorly and shoots some tour dates here and there, you understand it because he's playing the greatest defense of the modern NBA. So I don't hold anybody's performance against them against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Just as a rule of thumb. If you get locked up, salute. Everybody probably should get locked up by the Thunder. You can kind of say something similar about Rudy Gobert that last year you played the best defense of your generation. Now you're playing the best

defender of regeneration. He's giving you fits. We can kind of understand that, right? Sure. You can tell yourself that in terms of Nicole Yokish's offense and his scoring and him getting locked up in the post by Rudy Gobert, so be it. His defense is goddamn cataclysmic right now. His defense is an utter disaster. Both sides of the court, he is simply losing his matchup and is not performing anywhere near the best in the world. And I'm starting this conversation focused on Yokic because I think it's important that we acknowledge that he is not playing anything to the level of the best in the world that we've seen give Rudy Gobert fits for years. but also this whole goddamn team

to lose two of the Timberwolves when Anthony Edwards hyper extends his knee when Dante DiVincenzo tears his Achilles in the first quarter tragically to get walked the fuck down by Io de Sumu who looked like he lost no production compared to Anthony Edwards on ball this team is the epitome of Charmin

fucking soft. It is ridiculous and in some ways they told us who they are all year all year they told us we're not going to play any defense everybody that thinks we're going to flip the switch and be some dominant team like we've seen in 2020 three come playoff time just because we're the nuggets shit was naive they are who they thought they were they are a mediocre defense and when Nicole Yokic isn't playing well enough to make

them have that buzzsaw offense they had in the second half of the season they seem they're getting exposed by a bigger stronger team again this is easily like the most disappointing outcome right now even if the nuggets come back to when no one's going to care because the process of it was just really junkie talk about Nicole Yolkis he deserves all that and also like I remember coming into the series you were like yo like this Denver Nuggets seems is not the same time for the other team that was from the years before you know Nicole yo which is different he leveled up which is true now he seems like he's leveled down the playoffs against really gobert specifically he hasn't been toward the chamber but more so bro

Jamal Murray what's happened that we came up here also saying this is not the same Jamal murray from years past that jama McDaniels has given real issues to and yo Jamal murray he's this is some of the worst basketball he's playing literally all year he's averaging like 26 tune sub like 38% from the field, tune like 25% from the three point line. Yep. If he's not going at all, I don't want to say it doesn't matter what Yokch is doing,

but because I have the situation, the Nuggets are in right now and how their offense has been clunky and no one has been like hitting all under, especially Yokic, you don't have anyone else to come out save you. There's no MP, Michael Porter Jr. saving you. There's no,

there's none of that. Tim Hardaway Jr. has yet to have one of those games. And he was like a fairly, like a really good six minute of the year. Did he win it actually? Who? I don't think it's been announced yet.

No, no, Calvin Johnson won. Oh yeah, Caldonson one. You're right, you're right. Tim Howard Jr. was third. But he was getting at it. He was averaging like 13, 14 a game. It was very, very dependable. And if you're dependent on Tim Hardaway Jr.,

you're in hell. I was very wrong about this series. This is the one series I said I was confident in. We did the whole predictions episode. I never felt like confident in playoff series. I said this is the one that I'm confident that the Nuggets will win in six. Six games that's like respectable because Timberwolves are good. But I had no doubts the Nuggets would take care of them.

Bro, I said five. You said five. Maybe I can't remember. Maybe I said five to you. It was either five or six. I said I have, I don't know what the margin will be, but there's no part of me that doesn't believe the Nuggets are the better team. Now, part of that is having too much faith in the never nuggets.

Second half of the year, or really last 20 games, their offense was so goddamn good. They're coming in on a high note that I had faith in them. Even though all year I didn't have faith in their defense at all, I said they can at least take care of the Timberwolves because the main thing I was wrong about. These Minnesota Timberwolves, they do this every year and I keep falling for it. They play mediocre as hell for the last. 40 games the year. They have these weird chemistry issues,

these weird identity issues where you're like, okay, surely they're going to go into the playoffs on this low note and see a great team like Nicole Yokic's Denver Nuggets and just get blasted

because they're not ready, right? They're not going into the playoffs with the right mindset. I gotta realize. Chris Finch has never made adjustment of day in his life that will impress you. But if you will make

these athletic motherfuckers impose their will against a mediocre, soft, offensive slanted team. Third year in a row, first time we see the first year, Kevin around on Phoenix Suns, the Minnesota Timberwolves punked the shit out of them.

Get them out of here in five. Next year, we see a Luca Donchish, LeBron James, Austin Reeves, Lakers team kind of clicking on a small run going into the playoffs with this finesse three ball handlers thing, kind of similar to that Sun's team. The Timberwolves punked them out their fucking shoes. Third year in a row, they go against the best offense in the league for the last 20 games, and they punk the hell out of them. This is just what the Timberwolves do, and they are immensely oppressive.

If you are not a physical team, the Timberwolves will punch you in the team. chin and you will fall down every time. And they will punch you in the chin because they don't respect you. And Jada McDaniels has made that abundantly clear that he does not respect anybody. He does not respect or fear Nicole Yokic. Yep. And Yokits at this point, and we've known it, but especially like for this version of the Nuggets and them being, them being soft, Yokic's sore loserness is at the top of it where anytime that they're losing, they're getting blown out, he's going to snap. And he's going to, he's going to run over. and try and grab somebody and start a fight,

which on a certain level, I guess, like, I'm going to leave it with something. But it's funny to say that. And so it's funny for us to say that. It's not funny when Nicole Yolka is actually doing it consistently. It's not funny at all. Yeah. And it's just like you had all this ferocity, all this aggressiveness in your body. Why don't you use it to get a stop?

Why don't you? Why don't you use it to get locked? The Brutica Bear has embarrassed you for four games now. It sounds like you can move them puppies, man. Yeah. I don't know. And they like this 100% should not this should not be the case Three one crazy down down three one crazy you were the better team like everything I said in

their predictions episode of why I felt confident in them I don't think was wrong It just has not translated because they just simply have not performed and Rudy gober Has leveled up in terms of his ability to defend yokuch one-on-one maybe to be fair Maybe part of it is Nicole yokch dealing with that injury that has neutered his defense second half of the year I'm sure it has some effects on his offense we've seen the pictures that he looks fucking I mean emaciated. It looks like he lost all those weight compared to where he was three weeks ago. I'm sure that plays a part and he's not 100%. Doesn't matter. This is him playing at 20%. It's ridiculous.

Like everything that we saw the advantages they had with how good their offense is playing, how Joel Murray had leveled up and we thought he wouldn't get locked up by Jamie Daniels again. I don't think any of that was wrong. They're just performing so unbelievably piss poor in just pure physicality. You really can't under, you can't slander them enough. Like in terms of this episode being a panic meter, 100 out of 10 panic. This is truly pitiful from a team that kind of just looks at their championship window passing by. Yeah, literally. And at this point in time, like, when it comes to, I'm not going to say when it comes to like

this era and their championship window is over necessarily. But there's so many like questions that have to be asked because, oh, like this team is not the youngest team at all. All these guys are like literally 30 years old or push or like towards the pinnacle of that when it comes to athletic prime. And then on top of that too, like you have massive questions when it comes to, okay. fuck we just gave christian brown like 140 million dollars over the next years that's how you win the window that's how you destroy a championship window right there

one individual contract that you thought was right because he had a good season in a contract year has just proven to be a bad contract just straight up bad contract yeah i agree and we're saying all this and like we we give a lot of praise of the timbrevool shout out to christ ventura again these isa lock in or whatever but more so like i i think my biggest issue with the timber was seeing how julius randah was playing towards the end of the year and how he's been playing in the playoffs. He's been, he's been good. But his numbers are even wildly impressive, too.

He's shooting like 42% from the field, 18% from three. He's not winning you this goddamn serious. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. The things we pointed to preseason, a pre-series about the Timberwolves are true. He is shooting bad. It should be a problem. And it's just not because the nuggets are that deeply unsurious.

Yeah. It's crazy. The Jamal Murray stuff also is, and you mentioned it, he's played like three more minutes than Nicole Yokic. He's taking like seven more threes. Yokic is shooting 39% from the field. Jamal Murray is shooting 37%. This is disgusting

brother to the max. I mean, they have not been able to do anything. And I think for Jamal Murray, it is interesting because this is the one year where it's flipped. And it's like you've actually been healthy for the most part of this year. You played your

best regular season of your entire career. Everyone's like, wow, you actually, you level it up. You're playing. of Jamal Murray for the entire, from the entire regular season. And then you come into this playoff series, and now you're playing like regular season, Jamal Murray from years past. And there's no, there's no let up.

And so when you have those two guys not performing, when you have Aaron Gordon in and out the lineup, dealing with his injury as well, Peyton Watson hasn't played this series. We're right back to the situation that we were in last year of this team has really six, six guys that you can legitimately trust to give you, to give you solid. and Yokic and Murray are so dependent or the team is so dependent on them carrying everybody else up

and they're not they're not living up to their expectations. Yokish three point shot has fallen off a cliff and last year Yokic is shooting like 43% for three and we're like oh my gosh he's 7-1 shooting 44% shooting 19% from three decisions it's tragic and this has happened in several playoffs series in the past couple years and we can excuse it when it's OKC defense and maybe you can excuse it to yourself when it's Rudy Gobert. The defense provides no impact. Yeah, if you're the, if you're the best in the world,

am I expecting you to come out here and have a 35 point triple double on, like, on record efficiency against absolutely everybody. No, I do expect there to be some type of drop off. This is, this is worse than 50% true shooting. You would think that's like the biggest are red flags for Nicole Yolkich, one of the most efficient players in NBA history. And people are doing a lot of efficient history now on Twitter. They're finally going to get their licks in saying,

He was never that great. Capably he'll put him in these conversations. No, he was that great. He's just not that great right now. This is several tears below what we know Nicole which is capable of. And maybe he's not the same anymore. If that's what's going to be a takeaway

and maybe he's no longer best in a world level. Okay. Sure. Maybe that's the case. We will see. They are down 3-1. We mentioned in the beginning. We didn't spend enough time talking about it.

Anthony Edwards will miss several weeks. Don't Steve Inchenzo was done for this season. They might have the most unethical 3-1 comeback of all time. I know. And that's fucking disgusting to me. I really hope they lose this game. because they deserve it and they deserve to look in the mirror and have to make serious changes.

If they come back and win this because they got gifted to them by Anthony Edwards knee, disgusting, but so be it. That's still possible for them to come back and for Nicole Yokush to have a bounce back series in the next series, right? The story isn't 100% written. As far as my perception goes, the shit's written. I don't even care if they come back and win. I don't care if it goes crazy against the spurs. This is disgusting.

And because of the offense and everything is struggling against Gobert, because the defense has been O lay at the rim, like it has been all year post-injury, no defensive presence at all. Nicole Yokic's defense is the worst it's ever been. I think it's totally fair for people to say that he's no longer best in the world. We've been flirting with that for months. Absolutely.

We made a video where we were like, low key, Shea's 1A, 1B. We're just kind of not ready to say it because Yokic hasn't like lost his title. This is how you lose that title and how Shea becomes unanimous and maybe when we become second. Let's keep it up being. The only reason he's in these conversations is purely because of his offense. Well, yeah.

When he's not consistent, you're done. You're cooked. I think that's the reason why IGA is still in these conversations and why I am so impressed with him throughout this whole season is because of his consistency. When you are not that, what are you? And that's a part, normally he is. So it's a weird thing that like,

this is not normally who he is and people are getting their looks off being like, I told you all he's overrated. Okay, fine. But this isn't normal. Like this is a strange one-off series in which he is just getting dominated. And we've never seen that.

And that's why he's kept that best of world title so firm because in past years he's felt like to follow. fucking boogeyman. The way that he, they just swept LeBron and AD with ease two years ago. Like there's stuff like that they just, you walk into series, you felt like Nicole Yokic would be that misdiscency, would destroy you in the fourth quarter. That's why I come up here and said in a series where I think neither team can defend each

other. I will always side with Yokic in the clutch because you've seen years where he is unfathably consistent in the clutch. Not today. Yeah, man. It's just, there has to be some hope with him. Going back to what you said, like he looked sickly and he's lost a ton of weight or whatever.

It's playing disgustingly, so he might as well be sickly too as well, bro. I think after the series happens, regardless of what happens, like, whether they win or lose, like, we should hear something about as to why he's been playing to this level and maybe, like, there's something else that hasn't been talked about just yet. But even then, like, regardless of the facts, man, like, Rudy Gobert, generation, he's having a fucking masterclass defensive series, bro. Like the Nuggets, I think they're, like, number one offense in the league. And right now, I think they're playing, like, a bottom.

five offense in the entire league right now at this point in time. And so going back to something else I wanted to talk about was like, bro, like Anthony Edwards wasn't even like doing normal Anthony Edwards thing outside of Rudy Gilberters. And I guess Ayadu Tzu-moon, you could have said, Don'ty Davenjin do too before he toured Achilles. Like no one's having like one of those series at all. These guys are just like kicking their ass and they're realizing like, you know, like we're so much faster and so much younger and so much more like spry than this old

ass Denver Nuggets team. This is sad. I will say I do want to give an apology to the Minnesota Tim Rules because I did go on this podcast a couple of weeks ago saying like every year they just get worse and worse and just overcompensates. I think this series is kind of changing my tune. Like every year they just figure it out. Yeah. Like they just figure out how to be a competitive playoff team. When you roll out the ball, they look great.

Yeah. Well, I would also say I don't overreact too much in terms of T. Wool's glaze. Like I applaud them 100% for punching them in their teeth, like I said. this to me is almost more about the Nuggets falling apart. Like you said, Ant is not efficient in the series. Julie Shandall is not efficient in the series. Jaddy McDaniel is not particularly efficient. Iyo is averaging 22 on 70s, 8% true shooting.

So he's just got, I guess. He's just a demon, and that's been the difference, right? That's it. Yeah, he's one for one. There's a theater of production. I applaud them for what I said in the beginning. If you are not a physical team, they will physically dominate you. And they have maintained that ethos over the years

as their offensive cast has changed around them. Yeah. I can't wait to see how it looks in the next round if they make it. Actually, maybe not say that. It's unfortunate

they just want to ban. So maybe it doesn't matter. I would have been curious to see how that looks in the next round where they face a team that isn't so physically frail like the nuggets have been.

And I wonder if we look up and they are the timbreuels we thought they were, which like I said, is the team physically capable of dominating a team that isn't ready like the nuggets are.

But I wonder if we'll just look up and say, wow, the nuggets were absolutely pitiful. And like, the timbrelores were good and impressive but weren't like, oh my God, insane? the nuggets were just that downtrodden.

I do want to ask, I with the reality of ants injury and the Dante injury, would y'all still rather see the Minnesota Timrose move on, or would you rather see the Nuggets more healthy move on? Out of pure entertainment, I guess the Nuggets because we would get Yokids versus Wembe in the second round. And I don't want to see Julius Randall and I'll have to go up against the Spurs. But, I mean, they're up three-one,

and they can hang with Denver, obviously. Listen, no aunt, no Dante. Are we putting something down for Rudy Gobert to score 20 tonight? What is wrong with you? It's 15-01 a lot. I've been thinking about it for the last five minutes. Brother put it down. It is like there have been, especially last year,

Rudy had the crazy game against the Lakers where he had 27 and 20. He had two years ago, the wild fade away in Denver. You know that altitude is crazy, weird things happen. This series is already wonky. I don't expect I owe to come out here and score 40 points again. He might just because the defense is bad. But when you start thinking about the production, it's not like they're going to,

it's not like they're only going to score 80, 80 points. Like they, the nuggets clearly can't stop anybody on, on their team. I think, is Rudy getting 20 tonight. No, what it might be is if,

if the Timberwolves do win this series, then I think they're in for like a Nasreid game. He hasn't like particularly popped off just yet. And he can give you like. He had 17 in game in game four. It would be just out of pure entertainment and just funny, it would be hilarious. If Rudy Gober has this like generational like defensive series and is really putting Yokic in a straight jacket.

And then it's like, oh, yeah, on the way out. Do you respect Rudy Moore? I really could have dimed you up, but I was just playing defense. Do you respect my wrong? Do you think Rudy Moore after the series? Yes, I do. How could you not? Yes, I do.

Do you think your dad does? Yes. Have you talked about it? Yeah. We talked a little bit. I haven't gone super in depth on this series. Man. But I'm sure he does.

To answer your question, it'd be more interchaining, see the Nugget the next round, obviously, because the Timber Bowls aren't whole. But I very much hope the Nuggets lose tonight and get out of here in the gentleman's sweep, just because they absolutely deserve to go outside because they have for four straight games.

And again, I will be sick to my stomach if they have this 3-1 comeback handed to them. It will be, in no exaggeration, the least respectable 3-1 comeback in the history of the NBA. It'll be sick to my stomach. That sounds tough. Yeah, I agree. I feel it.

And no, it's great looking back. Like, the amount of, like, it's tough because on one hand I understand why everyone has so much faith in the nuggets because, again, had who was perceived to be the best player in the world, who has, outside of being locked up by the Thunder, never really failed in the playoffs as far as his production goes. He has been consistent. Lost series, of course, and the team's over man, but he's performed at his level in which we say that's the best point in the world pretty much since he entered his prime, right?

aside of that and the trust that he gets people were doing a lot for Tim Hardaway Jr. And Jonas found Junis Editions Best supporting castes ever had Also Payne Watson's hurt. Maybe that's a big part of it. So much faith was given to them when they were so bad defensively

for the whole second half of the season that I came up here and I said I'm pretty sure that the champion will be one of the Thunder, Spurs, or Celtics maintain that, that all the teams in the second tier like the nuggets, like the pistons, whoever else you want throwing there, to me had like a very small chance

of actually winning the championship. because they're flaws. But man, we allowed, not we, everybody else, whoever else had strong opinions about the Nuggets being championship contenders. A lot of people still said they were their favorites, had a lot of faith in Nicole Yokic to make up for all those weaknesses defensively.

It's kind of fair. It is. Yeah, it's kind of fair. And even if he wasn't, if Yolkech wasn't this bad, the series would be 2-2. Right? They could get a game if he was 10% better.

But because he's playing offensively, at the worst we've ever seen him since he's been Yokic, that puts everything else on the back where nothing else falls into place. They've won series where the defense hasn't been amazing. They've won series where Jamal Murray wasn't that guy. They've won series where their shooters have not been shooters. And it's because Nicole Yokic has been that guy. So it's obviously we're looking at it right now.

It's like, oh, yeah, we should have known. We should have seen it. And we should have taken the data that was given to us 25 games prior. but also this is kind of what happens when you have the best player in the world somebody that people are already saying yeah that's the top 15 player of all time yeah I think both are true that we should have paid

more credence to it and I don't even say we like we weren't like Nuggers and were the championship some people were so not even necessarily speaking about us I think we talked a good amount about the Nuggets defense being so bad and being such a debilitating factor when they face the real contenders it just ended up being a debilitating factor against the Timberwolves which we didn't see we thought they had a little bit higher floor

but it is an understandable biasy Like you're going to give Nicole Oakesha credit until he shows you you shouldn't give it to him anymore. So it's not crazy to let him mask everything. But now we see the limitations of that, that everybody stays completely infallible for forever. Yeah. Yeah. That's why he had that pressure on him too. Is Shay the best one in the world?

Yes. No debate? Right now, no. Yeah. I would have, fair. Yeah, I think I would have taken Shay as best in the world when we had the conversation because he was already on on track. and listen, the stuff he's doing in the series.

And I don't want to get too ahead of myself because at the end of the day, it is the Phoenix Suns. And like they are much better. But yo, the stuff he's doing is ridiculous. Yeah, okay. Well, that's going to talk about the Turr Bulls Nuggets, the transition of that series.

Oklahoma Sea Thunder versus Phoenix Suns. Very quick conversation. Thunder up 3-1 should be a sweep. I mean, 3-0, should be a sweep. You said you don't want to get ahead of yourself because it is the Suns. And Shay just had one the most efficient playoff games I've ever seen.

But it is just a sun so you don't want to go too far. I have no sun's tax in my head. They've played a very good defense. Like Jordan is a very good defensive coach. The new meta right now in the NBA is to go, not meta, because that makes it like it's a new thing, but the current meta that shifts over time with the years is to go all out throwing all this defensive coverage of the stars

and making role player shooters beat you, throwing tons of gap help, not letting these guys get to the rim, and making the others beat you. Because you've kind of reached this point in the three-point era where at first it was, don't help on the threes because if they get three-point volume up, that's how they win the math, right?

So James Harden had all these driving angles. LeBron had all these driving angles and it was about these dominant ball handlers being able to take advantage of the spacing. That was like the late 2010s. Now we're at the point where defense has gotten so smart they've gone the other way where we're going to say, hold on, you can't have this many consistent shooters out there.

Let's let your shaky shooters beat us, right? That's how we saw the Thunderigie push to seven last year with lots of gap help, lots of Blue Dort miss threes, lots of Kason Wallace missed threes. Jordan knot is fully capable of that, and he knows, understands all that. He's done all that. Has it matter.

Shea has fried a very smart defensive game plan against him that I don't think we need to do a, it's impressive, but it's the sons. No, this is an impressive defense to fry like this. Yeah, I agree. I think although, like, if you look at the final box scores and the counting stats, like this series doesn't seem like, oh my God, like the sons are getting walked on,

but they're not really like they're fighting. And guys like Dylan Brooks and Devinbrook, like they're actually working hard defensively. I think O. Casey's just so showcased that they're just like, obviously superior and they leveled up in every single way of magical players from like top to fucking bottom you know yeah so not really a conversation to be had yes the sun should panic the breath of the thunder shouldn't panic they lost jada but they're going to be completely fine he's week to week that you presume that that won't be three or four weeks ideally so

no they shouldn't panic is anything else to talk about about the series that you've seen before we move on she's out here yelling which has been a very fun um it's been a fun of Yeah, it's been a fun wrinkle seeing him, seeing him have this, this like addition to his personality. Like all last year, you see him very stale face, very stoic, right? He has this, this, this, like, nonchalant gimmick. He's this entire year when he's celebrating, he's doing all of his emotes super aggressive. He's shalant. I love these shalant superstars, man.

We're seeing way more shalantness in the NBA. And that's needed. That's needed. Because my guy talking shit too, but we'll get it. Tandum's talking shit, Shay. Yeah. Weby Shalant, Lucas Shalant. They're all shalant these days.

It's needed, man. We're so done with you. So yes, I have, I've respected the shalotness of Shay, especially in this playoff series. After all of the rough stuff that was happening after game two, and then he comes back in this game, just frying them. And he's like, I don't need it. I don't need the call.

That was very hard. Yeah, that was tough, yeah. Yeah. J.W.B. evaluated one week. Then a week after that, they're going to take it every single week. AJ Mitchell took a lot of shots in this game. Took a lot of shots in this game.

game phrasing took a lot but it was an important sign mark dagonal had a crazy aura farm quote afterwards about that you want to pull it up pieceholds that's exactly what he said but it was in reference to a j mitchell getting a lot of volume up but not shooting his best day he's five for 20 that's all yeah and he's like shoot or shoot essentially but i don't you feel pulled up in a very very aura farming way shout on mark dagonal for getting bars off yeah he's getting influenced by his team now yeah yeah he's the shade captions he's getting a little a little bit of that injected into his veins he's hot i can do that too you know this is like a complete side mark but um you know the one of the craziest things that

i seen the other day on instagram uh was will hardy the utah dad's coach he's talking about or farming shit bro he'd be throwing up instagram dumps he playing like most like normal genzy music ever and like he has like a highlight real of himself on his dream is so crazy to see shout out will hardy well hardy yeah what he said he's zoom in how old is will hard he's sub for it i think he's He's 38. Yeah. Wow. Mark Dagnol on AJ Mitchell's

game three performance on his first ever playoff start. It's so tough. Well, he's obviously not shy, so that's a start. But you know, winners fail and losers hide. He wasn't hiding.

Tough. Clocking. They understand the moment. Good job. Good job, Mark. That's a good goal. If you still hear of comment, is Mark Dagnall tough?

You think he workshacked that one? Off the dome. Yeah, I think that's off the dome. Okay. Yeah, I think that's off the dome. Yeah. When is it, When has it become unacceptable for a head coach to post Instagram dumps?

It's kind of on the line with him because it's like, ah, you're talking to ass. Is it acceptable for any coach? Bezos, can you pull it up? Can you pull up while his Instagram? He's 38 years old. It's fine. When do we age out of Instagram dumps? Is that a thing?

Especially as an NBA head coach. Like if Doc Rivers was out here posting Instagram dumps? What's he showing a dump of? He has nothing to think. I'm surprised. Does Mitch Johnson post? Instagram dumps? He seems like he would.

He's young enough to you. He doesn't have a face to me that screams out of him on Instagram. Yes. But neither does Will Hardy, too. It's so fucking awful. You got a log in to see it. Oh, okay.

That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. Nothing to panic about for the OKC Thunder. This should be a sweep or a gentleman's sleep if the Nuggets come out

and have desperation and get one is what it is. Speaking of desperation to get one, Houston Rockets versus Lakers. Lakers went up 3-0 on the Houston Rockets since we last talked. they had a game in which the Rockets

ended up being up six with 30 seconds left and somehow lost because they are a bunch of worms for brains, young players who made the stupidest decisions I've ever seen, two turnovers, one from Jabari Smith, and then a foul from Jayshon Tate on a three-point shot, and then a Reed Shepard complete pressing by LeBron James

behind half court led to another three overtime, Lakers Dominate. They would go to this past game last night. The desperation of being down 30 at home, the Rockets defend home court in a game that basically the Lakers just completely had no gas. They were completely burnt out

from the previous game. LeBron, his worst playoff game of his career, which I don't think is an exaggeration to say. His number is bastardly. It's crazy.

And the whole team just didn't have the juice that night. Luke Knar, didn't have it. Only person that came out that play was Danard Dr. who had like 20 and 10

before getting ejected for punching a player in the face, essentially. That wasn't even that bad to me, man. It was an accident. Shangoon ducked and then he went to bit his forearm,

hit him in the face. That was a state form. Yeah. But he's going to shanggoon duck So he didn't just bha right to the chin. I've seen worse. Whatever. But he got rejected.

But he did deserve it. I thought Flick and 1 was deserved. I think it was I understood why it was clearly accidental. But whatever. Didn't matter because like I said, the Lakers had no juice. They had no ability to win this game, which happens a lot when you're up 3-0 and you're on the road. One team is desperation.

One team is like, we're not going to lose four in a row. Nobody's ever done it. Kind of what you expect to see. Yeah. Especially when you're seeing a team like really like stretch out there, what they're used to doing in the output, including. like from top to bottom currently on this roster with Luke and Nardue, it should be expected

that he might have like a stinker here and there or whatever. Last night he had, what, seven points, shot three for eight, tough scene. But, I mean, like, it is what it is. It happens. Yeah. Shengu played, Shingoon played well.

Yeah, he is farming on Jackson Hayes' defense. Jackson Hayes can't do shit with him down there. Jackson Hayes is a fucking atrocious post defender. It's crazy. No three-point intents from Sengun. He's learning. He's learning finally. But, dude, Jackson Hayes is the worst post-offender I've ever seen.

He'll jump at every single pump fake. Every single bullshit pumps that Shangoon throws. He'll jump and then allow Shangoon to get to the bank. Every pump fake. Shingun's physicality style works very well against Jackson Hays. He's pushing him under the basket. So he was hooping yesterday. So, yeah, shout to them.

And amen. Basically, the Rockies did in this game what they should have done all series. They were bigger and stronger and exerted their will and defensively clamped on the Lakers, didn't let them get anything going because they have no ball in. handlers exerted themselves defensively, cost for a rivers got on transition. And Edmond Thompson did a lot of plays where he just hung out in the dunker spot

and just jumped way higher than Luke Kahnard is physically capable of, which I expected to see from game one because Matt Thompson can jump very high. Yeah. Nobody in the Lakers can jump at all. It should be very simple. Bro, I just don't understand what they be doing in those meetings, bro. What type of film do they be watching? What are their scouting notes look like at all,

bro like Luke canard of all players should not have like he should not be able to take breaks and just rest on defense at all bro really like he i mean obviously should have been doing this the entire series and i continuously said this again i think i made you know because the worst coach that the entire playoffs have to fucking offer you see them finally doing this is it's nice you should have been doing this but it's mind boggling for the series now um men thompson is at 20.5 points for your game 58% true shooting yeah i'm like encouraged by amen thompson It's just perhaps too little too late. Probably doesn't matter because they got embarrassed for those three games

and found a way to go down 03. Again, nobody's ever gone down 03 and won a series. Can they be the first? Can they be the first? Katie comes back. They don't blow a game. Are the doors open? Unethical three-year-old comeback, man.

No, this would be ethical one. I'm not going on. This would be one that's okay. You think so? Yeah, because nobody got hurt on the Lakers. They just couldn't keep it up. Yeah, the Lakers already walked through the series, like, already clicked. Yeah.

Also, I don't. It would be wildly impressive, I would say, because it's like, you shouldn't be here in the fucking first place. But considering, like, all the disadvantages that they have, everyone knowing, like, your head coach is your head coach. And he doesn't really, like, take accountability nor have adjustments in his bag at all. It would still be impressive. So I asked the question. Should the Rockets panic? The Rockets?

Yes. Yes, they should panic. They're down three one. You're dumbfounded by the question. Of course. They should have panicked after game one. Yeah. And it's not even fun talking about should they panic us for.

as the series goes. Like, you would think of history maintains. In fact that, again, nobody has ever came down from 03. You would think they should probably lose the series. Yes. Should they panic long term? Yeah, but that was a regular season question as well. Of like, I don't think Shengun is performed up to the level you've invested into Kevin

Durant. That doesn't look like it's working out either. Your head coach, you're saying he's the worst head coach in the playoffs right now. it's a lot of things that that you were bringing yourself up for to be a real championship contender this year and if all of that hinge I understand it, it's a massive thing.

If all of it hinges on Fred Van Bleet, yes, you should panic. Fred Van Villeet and Stephen Adams, so I don't even think that's like a very understandable caveat. If I am Kevin Durant again, please tell me why I should return to the team next season. Because who the fuck are you to request a trade? What the fuck do you mean by that?

I mean, he's still Kevin Durant, but it's like, if you're on this team, like, what are you looking to achieve to next year. I don't think you should be here. No, no, no, no. If Kevin Durant has the audacity request to trade.

He has enough to do a lot of things. He's had the audacity. This is something that KD. would do, I believe. Sure. You know, he's well, he has free will. He's within his right

to go to Raphael Stone and say whatever words he wants. Some of them might be arranged as I would like to be traded. That's possible in the grand ski with things. I would be flabbergasted if he had the audacity request to trade

after how this season has gone and his role in all these teams. everyone's already kind of lost a lot of respect for Kevin Durant. That would be a death blow to me. She has no respect at all. I mean, that, like, when it comes to putting the word respecting Katie in the same sense of just a non-starter,

and it's like, what are we talking about right now? That would be insane if he's like, yeah, I'm too good for this team right now. I think if I'm the Rockets, I'd want to get ahead of it and just ship them off and try to get like the best possible asset because this is just the loss cause and you have to like really figure out a way, long term, like panic too when it comes to them,

figure out a way to, to see how to like make the ceiling as high as possible with a men Thompson possibly being the faces team and also Shangoon as well. Why does Katie's presence stop any of that? Just the team building stuff and the locker room stuff? That I mean that that's also like an un-unctalked-about point for me but more so it's like, probably like 37, 30 years old

and this team is going to, by the time of men and Shangoon are like fully ready, I don't think they can win at all. But they think they're ready now. With the construction, I don't, I think there's still ways away. So it's like, just getting here. I think, I think, I think for me, the best thing for them roster construction wise is just like putting the young guys through the fire. Like with them being the leaders. They're in the fire right now.

No, I know. Like this is. And I think it's not good. No, no, no. But like, but yeah, they're in the fire right. That's what I'm saying. I think last game was actually a really great game. I don't think Kevin Durant includes them from being in the fire.

Like they're in the fire regardless. Like Kevin, I don't know. We're talking about Kevin Durant. like he's LeBron James. Like he's like 2018. LeBron demands all these touches. Like they're still Schengun's, Thompson, this is still their team.

Katie just fits in with that. Yeah. And if they didn't have Kevin Durant this year, they would, you have a better opportunity of putting them through the fire because you have Kevin Durant. Yeah. And then you get into these opportunities

in these spaces where you can go into a playoff series and you are playing meaningful basketball. If Shangun was playing the way that he played this year, like if you had the entire rocket situation this year, where Van Blit gets hurt, Stephen Adams gets hurt, and Kevin Durant is not there. Jalen Greens are in Dylan Brooks?

Oh, they're in Portland Trailblazers. It's awful. It's a very, very bad team and a team that would 100% be in the playing. So I think having Kevin Durant, if you're trying to make sure

that Shangoon and Thompson have as many playoff reps, having KD helps that. Now, if you want to say having KD long term is probably going to hurt us because we're not going to be as flexible and we're not getting what we

think we should get from Kevin Dorett, that's a different conversation. Yeah. But just being there, Kevin Dorett will be there, right? Yeah. Are we winning games? That's a different thing. And I think the idea of trying to win games, like shipping Kevin Ranoff because we want to contend in a different way via Alperian Shangoon first option hoops, that's an assinine

thought to me, especially with Reed Shepard having the, how do I phrase this? Defensive issues isn't the word. Potential defensive death blow of him just never been a good defender. Like deficiencies and learning isn't even the word. he might just be too small to ever be a good defender and he can ever be the player that we hoped he could be in terms of this on-ball shooter guy that's a perfect compliment to what a man doesn't do.

If that vision won't come together, I don't see a world in which his young core is just like an easy pivot to be contending via them being important. Thankfully for them, like they ran off with so many links a couple of years ago and they got like a pick swap with the Brooklyn net. So there's so many like unforeseeable fivis that they can move.

They have the nets pick. So many other random teams picks too. But I think if I'm in, I probably, I wouldn't want to trade Kevin Durant. But if Katie walks to my office and like, you know, has some type of energy, and he's kind of like looming, he's just looming overall, I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't rule that out if I'm the using Rockets because it's like, we're here, you're here. Why not?

Obviously it's not going to work out long term because of the serious flaws in holes that we have. And I want to get ahead of issues before you're like 40 years old or whatever. And by that time, you're like not a cooked product, but your value is not as what, that what it once was and so I just want to get ahead of it. Yeah. I think they're almost kind of stuck with this version of this team.

That's why I consider just doing the KG I think you have to just ripping the bandaid off. But what bandit? To what avail? Like how to, if you trade KD, what's the goal? Is it to get better and contend next year? No, it's not to contend next year,

it's to retool. Okay, so it's to work around. There's two things that you can do if to retool, there's two things. You fire E. You trade Shingu. I think those two things

are the, are the retooling piece. because I think especially after this year, like you said, the way that people view KD right now is very, very different. And yes, there is some level of, he's Kevin Wright. I'm going to wake up and get 27 on 50, 40, 90. I can do that on any team. But some of the limitations from Schengun is are very, very glaring.

If we start talking about Janus Strait, Janus Packages, the Shangoon thing comes up, We think that roster-wise, we're just kind of stuck in Fred and Stephen Adams. Once they get back, we 100%. Like, we know what we're going to be. Okay, fine. You may, you're out. Because if you lose this series, this series specifically, losing this series is a fireball offense. For them to not have Austin Reeves and Luca Dongers.

And for y'all to get cooked by Market Smart and Luke Conard, game in and game out, that's a problem. And that should never, ever happen. that you were down 03. Yeah. Cannot. That's inexcusable. Yeah, I agree.

I think firing him, getting me in a new offensive mind that can do a little bit more besides Rara is the first step. I think you keep Kevin Durant because he's the type of guy that there's no world in which you are in a better situation

for young stars by not having Kevin Durant. He fits next to them, elevates all of them, especially at them all being non-spaciers besides Reed. So I think you're probably better off there unless the off-the-court stuff is a bigger issue than we thought

and they just like toughed it out for the season, but there is a fracture there. and they don't want to play with him anymore for like chemistry, real personal reasons, then I can understand getting him out of here because nobody would, would ever argue with that being, like, that's clearly a team breaking type of thing. I would never be opposed to trading shingun, obviously, you know how I feel. I don't think they're going to go there.

That's just an impossible, almost an impossible thing to do. If Yonis is on the table, I think it's possible. Sure. Yeah, I would do that because you have hella pivots. That's the only way that I think that they entertain. Janus and old Kevin Durant is a team construction with that much money. That's a tough pill in the second apron era. So I don't know if I'd be excited by that

just because you're going to have a lot of incomplete roster spots to figure out around that with how much money you got to give up for that. Because it'd have to be like money-wise like Shingood and Jabbar or something like that, wouldn't it? Because Shengu got the max extension, but I don't think it's closest to like Janus's maxes. Yeah, I'm not 100% sure.

I do know, Pratita's a wild boy. And he is somebody that I wouldn't rule that out for. And if you do think that the rockets are in this win-now error, you go out, you get Kevin Durant, and now you speed up your talent and not even speed up they were they were the two seed like they want they went for the games if you were trying to solidify yourself in a title window and you want to do that right now right now going out to get yonis does seem like something where an outside owner who is very uh impatient and so and sometimes just aggressive that's

something that he can do let's go get de mitch when the cows blow it up i don't even know that he's the solution i think it would be a very good thing we'll be we'll get to them next actually But yeah, I think trading shangoon would be a smart move if the right opportunity is there. Not even for a Yonis type thing, but like for a different lateral move for another good young player. Don't think they'll go there because I think they like him a lot. Whether or not they should or not. I think they view him as the building block, which is fine, I suppose. So trading, I mean, getting rid of EMA, running it back, getting Frith and Vend-Vleet and then making another small trade to get another guard so you're not fully relying on Fred-Vent fleet, that would be my thought of like the best actual realistic measure.

Yeah. I mean, they have all these assets. if they're smart too like yeah they have all these assets to use it for something they can upgrade the fuck out of their roster i think they have like pick so off with huston my bad with the phoenix sons as well since you know they've like emptied up the entire clip same thing with the sacramento kings like they they have a lot of real estate around the league i'm just so curious to see how smartly raphael stone uses it and tar easton is a restrictive free agent i don't know if they have the money to pay him that's a good target i think the lakers will

throw a lot of money in it if they can do a sign trade and get another picture of lakers something like that to get another asset to use to go replenish that roster spot with somebody more dynamic offensively. I don't think they're a lost cause next year. If they get their offense rebounding advantage back and actual point guard play, I think the idea of Kevin Durant and these young guys with a real point guard can still be decent.

They're getting walked down by Marcus Smart Man. Bozos. Shout out to Smart Man. Bozos. That's fucking crazy. Oh my gosh. Shagoon just killed Jackson Hayes for two games. Still has a 50% true shooting for the season. Eight points below league average. Nice.

I'm losing all faith in Rich Ever being in a hold his own defensively. Last night he was confident was shooting that shit. Great for him. Man, he's small. Yeah. He has to be one of the most confident

people on the planet for him to be successful. Dude, he's so... To just get... To just get destroyed every single time to get caught out every single time down the floor.

They're like, where's Reed? And then once again on the opposite side... And it works every time to you. That's the hard part. Yeah. Is that Marcus Martin really are doing you every time.

And those aren't players that should be doing anybody. It's tough. You should like see through your NBA player just coming at you every single time, man. And like I knew

obviously we knew he was a short guard. Dude, he's like so much smaller than I thought he'd be like, I'd play smaller than I thought. Like maybe it's just, how much does he wait?

He's down there in Houston. He need to get, he didn't get food on him. Like, it's crazy how small he plays. Like, we knew he's a small guard that had defensive chops

as a prospect. And like, you know, you put that into your mindset when you think about building him. Something about him, I don't know what it is, plays like the smallest

human to ever live. He's 6-2-180. I don't think it's true. He's not 6-2. We seen him in person. He's not 6-2. He's listed at 6-2-185. He's fucking 6-1-8.

You need to be on seafood boys and crawfish all summer long. It's a tough existence, man. Yeah. Okay, let's move on to another series where there's some real conversations that we had about do one of these teams need to panic. Cavaliers versus Toronto Raptors. We talked about this series on our last full episode on Thursday in which the calves were up 2-0.

And we were like, okay, it kind of seems like for this first two games that the Cavs have too much offensive firepower and maybe there's just not much talk about because they prove in those first two games that the Raptors just don't have the scoring in the half court to score enough points to keep up with a team like this that is balanced on both sides of the ball that salute everything the Raptors did all year

with no quickly, with the way Brandon Ingram's been playing and not getting any better, their offense just wasn't good enough for it to matter. That's maintained. Their offense hasn't been good. They scored 93 points. They scored 93 points. Yeah. Turns out the Cavaliers are deeply unsurious

and have also gotten punked by the bigger or more physical team for two games in a row and their offense has also not been good enough so the Raptors had tied this series up inexplicably because last night we saw Donovan Mitchell have the worst case scenario game

as well as the James Harden Stinger as well as the two big combination continuing to be incredibly soft and getting punked by C&B over and over again a 6-7 power forward a rookie 6-7 power forward poking the shit out of your star

big men duo and again the infinite We'll go to James Harden because he's an easy punching bag. It will go to FMO because he's an easy punching bag. Everything I've set up here for the last year and a half about why I'm not quite as high on Donovan Mitchell as everybody else in terms of him being like a top 10 player was on display last night.

His rigid offensive approach of off the dribble threes or open slashing lanes, not much in between game, not much ability to deal with tough coverages and be fluid in the mid-range, just being very robotic off the dribble three or slash. Came to head when these guys are switching on you and they're punked you, not letting you get your shots off. And the creativity that he was trying to impart on his game, where he's like, I'm going to look off the defense right here, throwing no look past. He's hitting the backboard.

Nobody has a chance to get it. He's passing while he's jumping. Jaylen Tyson's having to run all over the court to get the ball. The playmaking aspect wasn't great yesterday. The game before, one for seven from three, 15 points. He's had 35 over the last two games. This is a problem. And this is the version of the cabs that.

I thought we'd see it in the second round because I thought that the Raptors would be able to just go ahead. But for that game also, it was like 40 to 40 at halftime. It was so bad. And they had a seven point lead. It legitimate,

it felt like a 2000 and tens game. Where you had a seven point lead with two minutes to go. And it's like, well, the Raptors really can't do anything about this. I guess this game is over. And they let it slip through their hands time and time again.

Scotty Barnes, 25.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 7.3 assists on the series. On a 63% true shooting, best player in the series by far. Shout out to Scotty Barnes. Shout out to the Raptors for once again, not having the offensive talent to really contend what should be a balanced Cavs team. Shout out them making life hell for the Cavs and making them play down to their level offensively

and just wanting it more and winning with pure toughness. That's what Scottie Barnes said in the post game press card. He would say something along the lines of like, we just want it we're out here putting a heart on the line they won with pure fucking heart yeah i agree darko pretty much embodies this team scotty barns play style embodies the team especially when he's barreling to the rim like that like this ceiling is so high and when it comes to these like super loose playful conversations that we'd be having when it comes to scottie barns vs versus mobile fc that shit is so fucking beyond over i believe and i and i think when it comes to that conversation

is simply about like scotty barns and his willingness to like get certain things done in make himself be imposed and have some type of impact on the game there's so many times in that last game these last two games specifically where it's like okay I know Evan Moves isn't played in file trouble but it's like even when he's on the court I don't know that he's on the court

he's like seven foot tall six 11 whatever and he was the DPL why last year I can't really necessarily see that or feel that on any and any facets of the game that I'll talk about that too it's like James Harder is still there yeah we see we still do have the James Harden thing there was just one play last

game where Hardin and um who would have thought hardin and donovan Mitchell were just like at the left and right wing of the court and donovan Mitchell was trying to get his thing cooking like game offense didn't have it pass to james hardon james hardin did the same thing didn't have it threw a fucking grenade to donovan mitchell donald mitchie don't know mr. don't mitchell just tucked up with three and it's like well what the fuck type of offense is that yeah you know there's nothing there's absolutely nothing going this way and i think last game for me eventually or ultimately like decided for me that these guys are not real contenders i thought they had a chance to win.

You just now found it up. Been new that. I mean, obviously, like, they weren't at the highest of the list for me. Yeah. But, like, this is, like, officially over when it comes to how they handle these last two games with the Raptors. It was probably the highest on them compared to everyone. I had them going to the Eastern Conference finals.

Hell no. Never had that faith in them for a single seconds. Yeah. And, again, James Hardin is averaging six turnovers a game in the series. I think it's seven yesterday. Yes. That's too much. That's ridiculous, right?

Donovan Mitchell's been the bigger problem to me. Okay, Donald Mitchell's approach I know he's this guy that gets his credit for me this playoff riser because he's incredibly high in scoring. He unloads the clip, which is an admirable thing to do when your team is down. He's a reason why his teams are down sometimes and not enough attention is paid to him

because he kind of floats between these top-end players that get all the criticism while being too good to be one of the stinkers that go out sad because the numbers are still good. His approach is just far too rigid. There's a reason sometimes they have these flame-out games where his limitations shine. If there's not an open lane to the rim,

he can't be some like physical imposing finisher because of his height he gets his three-point shots which when they go in great that's an incredibly amazing weapon to have when they're not going in they're just bad shots that aren't forcing the defense open things up for anybody else he doesn't elevate anybody as a passer the downside of him against these high-level defenses is so under-talked about is why they needed james hardin and again is why his seven turnovers really fucking hurt de mitch deserves equal slander to james hardin equal slander to evamobly and that's why this team should panic they should have been panicking because now it's 2-2. You lose this series and you look up and you have all the conversation that you have about Demits. You continue to have the conversation about every Mobley that you have been having and it's either dang every Mobley still hasn't taken the leap or just acceptance in your mind where you just sigh and drop your shoulders and say he's never going to be that guy. Then you go back and look at all the moves that you made. We had a 26-year-old point guard that's no longer here because we traded him for a 36 year old point guard because we thought that we will win out and we lost in the first round. Where does this roster go from here?

And I think that you are about, you are on the precipice of blowing everything up and tearing everything down to the studs. And it might happen at the hands of Scotty Barnes and Brendan Ingram and R.J. Barrett. And if that happens, losing, losing obviously sucks. Who you lose to does matter. Yep. And you lose to these guys when you were up too old, that is,

that's inexcusable. And once again, changes will be made. And for this entire era, really, we've ended the season saying, you know, the calves are soft as hell.

They are, they are not serious contenders. They don't put everything together. And you have to retool, refigure and decide where you want this franchise to go. Yeah. This is them all in,

dog. Jesus Christ. If this is, if this is all in, you're going to lose. Yeah. Yeah. And,

you know, they can still win the series. 222. They are the better team. So, like, I applaud the Raptors for getting back into this. I have so much respect for the way these Raptors team plays. And specifically, CMB and Scotty Barnes, that's your foundation. And that's a good-ass foundation.

They should launch Brandon Ingram into the sun at some point this summer, or at least into the direction of the sun. Doesn't matter where he lands. Just get him out of Toronto. They should launch a lot. Yacopold if they can, they should pay a king's bounty to launch him to Jupiter. Don't know if Jupiter wants him either. We'll figure that part out. They need to retool the plate

pieces around them. But CNB and Scott Barron's your foundation of these two physically imposing, versatile, power forward-sized bodies, that's going to take you far in a playoff environment that we're seeing now. Being physical and being imposing is the biggest advantage in a playoff series. If you're skinny and can't handle pressure,

you will not go far. Get them out of here. Get them out of here. Get these silly boy stars out of here. You can't be built like lamella ball these days. Dude, Colin worry boys. This rookie class is literally like... Weight room or nothing.

Literally, that's where we're at. When is work. Colmarie Boys He's like, bro, he's almost been never talked about Pretty much on the shelf row Because this rookie class is just so like stacked And he is very much a part of the conversation When it comes to talking about him as like

One of the best the best defender out of this class He had that he had that role He had that label But I think because of the construction of this team No one really talked about him Because it's hard to see It was hard to see him the regular season Because they just had so much overlap going on

Yeah, he got hurt Yeah, that as well. But I think in the playoffs, he set himself so much apart because his game is pretty much like feels like it's like Taylor made for this shit with how physically he is, with how he's just like a smart offensive player. Yeah, he doesn't shoot or doesn't shoot it well at all this yet in his career. But he's still going to be at the perfect place at the right time. He's going to be super physical when it comes to the boards.

And also when it comes to like overall defensive instinct and barely able to like legitimately switch one through five, which like almost no one can do in the NBA. I forget Scotty Barnes exists, which is why it's so fucking scary. Yeah. Yeah. So, Cavs probably should still win the series. They will. I think they will.

I don't care. They should panic because going to the next round, I think they've showed us why they're not built for it. And I agree. I think they're heading towards a blow up. We've been saying it kind of like half jokingly all year, but like, until they get DeMitch, I keep doing it out there. I'm half joking, but like, not really.

Like, I do think this team is quickly going to go towards a space where deMitch and look around. Maybe he's one of request of trade. or they do it proactively, I do think this version of the team should be over after this year if they go out how we think they will. Probably.

I agree. I agree. I think the, yeah, the deemage team, that's going to be fun to talk about him to something. Yeah, because he's a team. He needs to be a second option somewhere, is my thought, is he needs to go somewhere

and be with somebody that's more reliable of a playmaker next to him. Him and Cade, mountains. It's kind of tough. It's too much. Of course, it's kind of like, man, if we can trade the Aaron Fox in pieces

for DeMitch? That would be disgusting. I mean, I mean, D. Mitch better off a player. Actually, I don't know.

I don't know if that changes anything really. Yeah, I do want to see Dimich and second option who's place in. Yeah. And second option

is like a rigid way to frame it. I just want to see him with a big playmaker. Yeah, like James Hardin. Yeah. And somebody, you know,

who can hold down the paint like every mobile, you know, DPOI. Yeah, maybe he's in the best scenario ever, maybe, never mind. So yeah, Cleveland Cavalier should panic.

Raptors, it's all gravy. your team isn't good enough and you're finding a way to be good enough anyways. No reason to panic either way. Yeah. Detroit Pistons versus Orlando Magic. It's a time for the Detroit Pistons to panic after losing two games to the Orlando Magic.

I hope would have been panicked. No, there's so many teens panicking. I'm scared. It is funny because we came into the playoffs and like, oh yeah, this win, win, win, win, talk, chalk, chalk, talk, nope. That's not how it goes. That's not how it goes. And we should have known something was up.

when everybody in the world we're saying, yeah, all the top teams are just going to roll. People on Twitter were like, we should make the first round to go back to five games because this is so predictable right now. And I'm happy we had this unpredictable

last first round where these teams are getting punked. But on one hand, that is true. On the other hand, the Pistons, are exactly who we all, us three, probably you two, be souls,

thought they were all year. But not to the magic, though. Not to the magic, though, so that's the point. To the magic is why we can talk about it. We could call Pistons,

but he said, all year. I don't know if you saw all Pistons fans in our comments on TikTok and shit. They were so mad if we didn't give them credit and we never once said the real contenders. Like, I don't think any of us ever uttered the sentence the Pissons will win the finals, despite being the one scene of wire to wire. I didn't even have them

coming out of the east. I got the Celtics came out of the East by the time we got the half way through the season. Before that, we all had either the Cavs or Knicks preseason. None of us ever believed them as a true contender. We applauded them and respected and enjoyed their season. At the deadline, if y'all remember in the comments, we harped like crazy on the fact

they didn't do shit. Yeah. I was begging them to get Michael Porter Jr. You wanted to get Kobe White. I'm sure there was a flurry of players you wanted them to get. I'd assume someone, please.

Someone, because we saw that the offensive talent and the ball handling and the shooting and the combination of both around Cade isn't good enough. And we imagine a scenario where they get to a high level team in the playoffs and we saw what happens last year. They put a lot of defensive attention

towards Cade and he shoots TOR dates and everyone slanders him because it's just all, it's super easy to defend him when nobody around him has any offensive threat. And it would be this cycle of perpetuity where he feels a situation. disappointing, but it's not his fault, and you have to have this weird contextual understanding

of the team and yada yada. We're there. Now, Kate's playing well. He's found a way to be successful despite that. But we are exactly where we thought we'd end up. Can you talk to me about your man? Jalen Duren? Yeah.

Oh, my God. In game one, I said, okay, I understand why he wasn't involved. Only had eight points, couldn't shoot. They just said, you're not going to roll. We're not going to let you catch the ball. We're going to make it the clear emphasis of our game plan to take away the rim and make the shooters beat us and they can't. Cut him some slack.

And I said, okay, well, what is he supposed to do? Like they're not feeding. Like, what is he supposed to do in that scenario? There's been several scenarios since then where he's been utter dog shit and there's been plenty of options and he is being punked. He, what is his efficiency in this series so far? He is currently averaging nine points per game on 46% true shooting from a center who doesn't shoot the ball on the perimeter. How is that possible? This is an abysmal season of series from him that I understand the people that are saying they should not pay him max money.

Like more than understand it now. This is a terrible showing. Yeah. I think the pissons are in such an interesting position to where, like, they got, I don't know if their front office got way all over their heads and, like, just really, like, had another move in mind for the offseason and wanted to sit on their hands. But to not do nothing is baffling. For your move to be Kevin Hurt or again is disgusting work where there's so many other players who you got for the, for who were traded for for the fucking free, like Kobe White. Like I'd assume, there's so many guys who were out there who were very getable for cheap for a team who also like, bro, they have all their picks still. they have so many moves to me they can unload the clip for anybody at this point in time or maybe not even

unload the clip but at least give a little something give up like three two three second round picks but they decided to do nothing and at this point in time i think they're interesting they're interesting because dylan durin is the exact type of player who not lucked into success but he had success happened at the right amount of time and he's kind of forcing their hand to pay him not whatever he wants but to pay him handsomely but he's the exact type of player who can be problematic team building wise when it comes to how you build your finances out because there's so many things you have to work around these not a like fully complete modern day center that you love you know yeah but it does so many things well but in this series when it's one a lot of those things are

gone are gone you could at least ask them to play fucking defense like I understand like the points are going to be there but what the fuck does it have to do with you ball watching what the fuck does it have to do with you letting wendell carter junior grab like eight offensive rebounds on your head that's nothing to do with anything yeah and I'm not like selling selling a little stock in Jail and Dernard. I still think he's good and they should still like keep him around but certainly makes you question exactly.

There should be some contract negotiation, I think. I think we've talked about in the past that the fact that every good young player just gets automatic max. Yeah. Feels like a meta that should die and there should be like some real back and forth. I think it is that.

I think the Trey Young stuff kind of. Yeah. Good. Jaylander should not get the complete max. There should be some negotiation here. He is not max max, max players, especially if he makes all NBA. Most time when people make all NBA,

we assume don't get that bump and get that Supermax type of deal because how can you look them in the eyes and say you don't deserve it? I can look him in the eyes just fucking fine. I can look him in the eyes just fucking fine and say you don't deserve $50 million. This is the point of learning for him

who have to improve his off ball defense. I think he has some possessions in his last game where he did some good rim protection, had several key blocks that he's not a completely incapable of defender. Yeah. But very bad moving his feet off ball. Like you said, blowing coverages.

And offensively just like has to find a way to be effective and provide some value when the easy stuff is taken away. And we thought we saw that leap the season. Early in the season, he was shooting mid-range jumpers off the dribble. It was crazy. He has a little short roll bag. All that's been taken away and the rhythm isn't there.

He has to learn from this just like Kay did last year when he got abused in the playoffs. It comes to the territory of being an important player for the first time in the playoffs. But the disappointing part is they're getting beat by the Svalina team. Who we talked about after the first game of they're just a perfect matchup for them, right? They're bigger, stronger, just as physically imposing and have more offensive skill. So like nightmare matchup, this magic team never should have been in a game. eight seed, now they're playing to their potential. Kind of makes sense, right?

They're not even getting playoff pallowed. Palo's averaging 22 points on 53% true shooting. Shit's ass in terms of his scoring outlook. Now he's doing a really good job of moving the ball, playing his role and doing everything he needs to do to enable Jalen Sugg doesn't Bain and Franz to play. Palo isn't playing terrible. But scoring-wise, the production is not good at all.

The efficiency is ass. And you're still not able to keep up with them. There's going to be more games where Palo's, gets on a heater like you saw it in game one. Yeah. How are you going to respond then? Like how are you going to have a chance then? I don't know.

At this point, what they have shown in this series is that if you score 100 points, you could beat us. Wow. That's tough. And they won game two because they had that 30 to three run. If we don't put this historic run, this all time, we're at the peak of our powers run into this game. Is this an 03 series?

Right. That game was close. at halftime. And then they pulled away. Are they going to be down 03? This is... Wow, they're one quarter away from 03. Yeah. It's... And those are the margins in the playoffs and a lot of things

flip very, very quickly. But I... For all the things, as you said, the biggest thing that's just so disappointing is hell man, you're getting pumped. Yeah. And that... For that to be the foundation of everything that you do and to have

several games now, if it happens in game one and you're like wow okay the magic are actually out here to play that's fine game two it was close at home you you were still like going back and forth with them game three you go to to Orlando the magic came out jumping at no point outside of that quarter have I felt like the pistons have been the aggressor in this series I feel like they are are continuously just reacting to everything Orlando's doing and they're letting Orlando dictate everything They're letting Orlando, whether it be with lineups, with physicality, we're shooting. They're letting them say, we want you to do X, Y, and Z, and now you have to respond,

and they have not been able to do anything of that sort. And just because it has to be mentioned, and we all knew that this was going to happen, Tobias Harris is also playing very poorly because he is unnecessarily important right now. He's real important. Yeah, he's so important. He's so important, and that should not be the case right now. You know what I was thinking. Because you know that in the playoffs,

Tobias Harris is going to do this. Watch this last game, do what I thought. Imagine the pistons are the ones who gave up four first-time picks for Desmond Bain. That's the exact player they need next to K right now.

That's exactly what I'm saying, man. Like, all there's, we see it time and time again. So many teens feel like they're a piece away and they constantly, they consistently make these swings. You give me two first-on picks.

I'll give you Mikkel Bridges. All right. All right. All right. All right. Who says no. I need someone who can dribble and shoot. I don't want Michael Bridges.

Spaghetti for Macbook. break the fuck out my face who do they do you right now because doesn't be like that type of player that can defend well enough but is a shooting threat

while being able to dribble and create penetration that's precisely what they need that's like Tyler Hero but he doesn't defend well enough for their ethos that type of player Derek was might be up on the

market he's a Derek right yeah you're on the market I don't know if you could shoot maybe it's like Norm Powell that's the type of guy they need

and you lose some of your defense but that type of shooting guard who can dribble and shoot off the ball is exactly what they need I'm going to and Norman Powell, good player, All-Star. You had your chance to make your, to make your like small tweaks, sit down in your hands, not do anything.

I'm getting, I'm getting a star at this point. Because I'm not, I'm not doing. Also, Jalen Duren, you had your opportunity to prove that you are secondary star, that you are going to be this guy and get your max. Right now, that's a little bit in flux. I'm not wasting any more of this time. Whoever are some of the big fish out there that we feel is available, I'm going after that. Well, the answer is the same thing we've been saying for about three years now.

We thought it was more important because the other guy needs to be saved. Now we've reversed it and Cade needs help. And it's still a good fit, even though the dynamic is a little bit different now. The dynamic of first and second option flipped in the past year and a half. Devin Booker needs to be the psychic kick hunting him. Yeah, I don't think that's. The book makes so much more. Sure, you're right.

You're right. The contract makes it hard. I'm calling them, though. I'm calling Phoenix. I don't think Phoenix is going to return my calls after the first one. But I would- I would inquire about it. He might block you. He's kind of crazy.

He should listen. He'd send out a hit if I call it asking about devil book. Kauai's Leonard needs to be the paring with Kate then. Something. I agree. Some type of good score there. Bro, I will say, Kawhi on the Pistons?

If the Pistons lose this, we might have to retire that 2015 Hawks label. It is now the 26 Pistons. We can't keep calling these teams the 15 hogs You are now the 26 pistons of the future Especially to the Magic too Who are so disappointing And part of it is like

I don't even know of I don't really feel like this is a big slander series Like I'm not really slandering the pistons They're just like their deficiencies are What we thought they were And shout out to the magic for locking at the right time They're playing magic basketball Detroit just can't fucking score

I'm looking at their efficiency right now Paulo soon 42% from the field Doesn't have been 36% Although he just had like a stellar game last game. Jones sucks 39% Franz, 42%. Like no one outside of like Wendell Carter Jr., no one is playing like out of their mind at all. So like shout out to them for getting the job done.

You got to win these games. It's a good team. It's a tough thing. Like we didn't expect them. It's tough also because we didn't have a chance to really talk about the series because we recorded our predictions before the plane finalized.

So we kind of just talked in theory about whether it'll be Hornets or magic. So I didn't put any thought into the series. I can promise you, I would have to pick the pistons. Guarantee you ought to pick the pistons. But I don't have like a strong thought about what we would have said before that. Yeah. We never would have picked the magic though.

I guarantee that. We didn't think they were going to be here regardless. Exactly. So we wouldn't have had the foresight to say they have this matchup ability to beat the pistons. We wouldn't have been up here saying that. I guarantee it. But outside of that, now that we know they do have this matchup, I don't really know to take away for the magic as far as going to next round. Next round is, hey, conference finals is on the table.

You're up to one right now. you look on the other side and that one four match up Toronto or Cleveland either one of those guys who come out here either I get to play another team that can't score reliably or I get to play one of the softest teams

in the playoffs Oh shit the magic are making the conference finals The magic are in line to make the conference finals Wow they have they're up to one They have two games where I'm If they win this series I'm picking them whoever they play out of Cleveland and Toronto

and I'm going to pick the magic to make the conference finals. While we're staring down the barrel of a Celtics magic magic conference finals. And then... And a magic raptor second round. Oh, God.

That sucks. 65. That got to be the worst second round of all time. Everybody in the comments I was like, stop talking down on the east. They're just as good as the West now.

Watch your mouth. The Easter conference sucks. I don't care. I don't care about the regular season win totals. Somebody has to win these games out there. These teams blow. Yeah.

Second round series on 2B is going to be hilarious. It's going to be fun. But again, this series isn't over. We're talking about assuming the magic advance. It's not over at all. But the piston should be panicking. The highest level of panic, that's what they should be. Yeah.

Everyone in the league, yeah. I think they have like the highest, the most amount of pressure and also panic beers should be out the fucking, out the fucking radar. I think right now we should be thinking about the series as Magic and Seven. That is going to be a long series still. Unless the Magic come on win, it's tonight, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's Tuesday.

No, it's tonight. Oh, it is? I'm looking at it's wrong. unless they come on win and to go up with 3-1 then it's fucking over obviously the pissons don't hunt

to shooting power to come back from down 3-1 I can guarantee you that well I would think we'll see unless it goes down 3-1 if it goes 2-2

I think we're looking at magic in 7 that could be pissing in 7 the series is far from over I agree with you as far as panic meter goes 10 out of 10 yeah

B souls yes Celtics versus 76ers what did you see yesterday in Jobe's game back and should the Celtics panic the Celtics should definitely not panic

I will say this. The ass beating that we've been doing to the Sixers all these years, it is getting to Lebronto levels. We may need to rename the Philadelphia 76ers to the Philadelphia Zeros. Okay, you workshop that on that? Yeah, I actually did. Did you like practicing the mirror? Yes. I think you delivered it well.

I'll give you a plus for that. No starter, no nothing, man. Yeah. Did you write a script and read it? No, no. Okay, okay. That makes sense. Yeah, no.

Paraphrase it a little bit too. Okay, bars, bars, bars. A little freestyle. Yeah, no. And beat doesn't change shit. I almost wish he didn't play, bro. I was like, fucking beats here. You already know it's going to go down.

Yeah. Fuck, man. You know he's cursed. You know the Celtics owned him. Yeah, no. Like, it didn't change. If he played, if he not, he was going to win.

Okay, so obviously they can win the series. That's not a question. Are you panicking? Seventy Sixers should panic and not can win the series. I don't care about that. Should the Celtics panic as far as,

as the Derek White stuff and the reasons they have lost that first game. You know, he's been shooting tour dates for several weeks now. For the whole season, really. For the whole season, really, but it's kind of worse over the last 25 games. Now you're up 3-1 looking into the next round. Jason Tend has played really well. Is there any part of this roster that, with the expectations of you should,

run through this week-ass execution conference, is there any part of the roster that's making you panic a little bit? Yes. Derek White's three-point shooting is truly a problem. He's lost full confidence. Like, he's hesitating on shots now. wide open shots he's like pump faking and then shooting and then he's missing

my god he's shooting 30% from the field I know it was that bad he is horrible now I will say if Payton Pritchard keeps on playing like this that'll offset some of that close the games of Payne Pritcher not dare quite yeah um so there's that also Vucevic easiest lick on the team

oh my goodness he's so bad defensively like I said at the beginning of the show Brad Stevens you missed on that trade I will concede on that I would much rather have Anthony Simon on my team right now. Maybe we could have got I.O. That was also a rumor during the trade deadline.

That would be so much better than Demfusovich right now. But yeah. Tough, tough, tough. Sixers don't really have a chance. Is what it is. Never thought they did. Shout out Jol B for working hard and coming back from Independence Sites for only two weeks. Pretty crazy.

Yeah. Unfortunately, it won't matter. But shout out to him. Respect. Yeah. I will say this. Respect to Embed for playing through the injury. If I'm the Sixers, though, I'm so off.

It's just so hard when your best players so in and out of the lineup and the adjustments that you have to make game in and game out when your best players, like, just never there, you know what I'm a Sixers fan? I think if I'm a Sixers fan, I'm just, like, mentally living on the seventh level of hell because what can you possibly do or think as a Sixers fan? You just have this constant

yo-yo of In Beads hurt. Now he's back. Oh my God, Jubilation. Tide the series up. Up, back's broken. Tyree's Maxie. He's playing so good. Struggling to be the first option. It's just his constant ebb and flow of misery in different fonts that come through as a Sixers fan.

Yeah. I wouldn't know how to live my life as a sports fan if I lived in Philadelphia. That's what I'm saying. Like at this point, I'm off of MB. Let's build around Tyrese Magi, VJ Ashcombe. Let's build fast. That's one thing I noticed too with MB there. They play so much slower with them.

I don't like it. Yeah, you're right. He throws off like their entire fungsoe. And if I'm the fucking Sixers, at this point of time, it's like, yeah. Do you really have pressure on your back? Are you really like panicking right now? Panic for what? I think so.

Because you're right, like they have no, they have no Tai Chi when, when Joe is there. And the extension hasn't kicked in. No chakras. And the bead extension? Yes. Oh my God. He has a, he has a three year, $187 million extension that starts next year. So that's why I do feel the, the panic because you see.

I sound like, bro, why are you here? It's like, relax. People are like, shouldn't be retired. No, he shouldn't. He's not. He's not. And the last year of that, when he's 34. In 2028 slash 2029,

it's a player option for $67 million. I love to be good for him. He is going to, he's going to play these next three years. Imagine if Andrew Bynum in his last year and you couldn't play. Oh my goodness. He was making $67 million.

It's crazy. But like Tyreys Maxi has elevated to a certain level. You see the promise in BJ Escombe. You can't really build out a proper roster when you have $65 million against the cap to a guy who's going to be in and out the lineup is probably not going to be there in in the in the playoffs it's very hard to do that so yeah i that's why i i feel the panic for them because they can't really do anything for a

i would a question you're in trade that one what if the detroit detroit piston say ron holland four for shown picks i'd smack everybody oh maxi oh maxi okay oh man maybe yeah what do you fuck no he's that same beat yes i was about to smack the entire city of detroit i was the tari's maxi to compare we can get again on that note fuck no so you should still smack him what do you mean to get tyree's maxi if no if the sixers if the pistons

ask me that oh okay yeah yeah yeah you say maxi the available yeah like you can't get him for ronhan four first i'm not doing that for first would that be shrewd would they have no that's not crazy but it's like no like that's he's my identity right now you want me to do do all this just to try to find another version he is my sunshine like when we can't we can't trade him we can't move yeah i'm cool i would want to

I'd wonder what they'll think if they're so downtrodden. And like they know they have these two terrible contracts of Embed and Paul George. They know VJ's a rookie and he should be a star. I think it's safe to say in some capacity he will be a star player. I wonder if someone comes to them and say, here's a grandfather offer to give us your win now star right now. Who? Maybe 25. Maybe 25, whatever he is.

Like I wonder if that'll make them think like maybe we just do this little quasi rebuild with Dwell and be playing 12 games a year and selling tickets. I wonder if they don't think they should, but I wonder if they'll be able to be tempted. He has to, I mean, they have two years because, and $67 million is a lot. But if you find some tanking team and then at the end, it's like, you know what, Joel, we've had a good run. You're going to go somewhere else? No one would do that. You think a tanking team would accept that?

A tanking team? Yeah. For what? Yes, because it's so easy. Unless you like attach picks to it. That's what it means. Yeah. Yeah.

But like if you're a tanking team, you know that the number one thing that you do is trade for players and then say, oh, he can't play and lie about it. You're not lying if you say, Joel and B can't play tonight. But that's even like, that's complicated too because it's like, that's a lot of money. I have to like go ahead and find under your couch to match. They're tanking.

And so it's like if you're, and so like if the team is blowing it up and doing all this stuff, there will, I promise you, there will be a way. But the, the Sixers,

I do kind of kind of feel bad because they don't, they're, they're in purgatory. They don't have any way, anywhere to go. But if you're in purgatory, how can you panic? Like, your whole life is a shambal. Because you're in purgatory. Every day it's raining outside. You never seen sunshine. Yeah, it kind of is what it is. No, there's no panicking more. You're just kind of accepting of that. But you're always wet. It's like every day is, is rainy, but you've read about sunshine.

And you've read about, and you've read about the benefits of being out in the sun. You're like, how can I get there? You're trying to, you're trying to get there. You had a few sunny days before you got struck by lightning. So like, you've got to taste. Then a hurricane hit you when you were standing outside. the whole time. House, torn down. Damn. You're over there.

The next state over blown away. No fever. You can't walk right back and do it again the next month. That's hard. Another hurricane to the chest. That's hard. Might be an earthquake.

You never know, because there's always something new and different that comes, a new way of suffering. You might invent new natural disasters. It's going to rain fire. Yo, you're describing someone's life right now, relax.

Yeah, describing Joellebee's life. It's crazy. Okay. Last series to talk about San Antonio Spurs. Where's Portland Trailblazers? Who should panic in the series? In which the San Antonio Spurs

was a 3-1, probably would have been a sweep, but Victor Wominyama had a concussion after falling, getting knocked the fuck out by the floor, coming back after missing one game, and they were down, I think, 18 at halftime. Yes. And then they won by 15.

Yes, that's so embarrassing. Crazy third quarter turnaround. They had the league going to the fourth quarter, one quarter turned the whole game around. Bonkers. For the record, I would like to say that in our predictions episode for this series, I said that Stefan Castle and Denny were going to get into a fight. You did say that. And they got into a fight.

I'm taking that as a massive, massive win. And I'm very proud of myself for it. And the insane-assaddy fans are in Stefan Castle's comments of all his videos, spamming flags telling him to go fuck himself. It's crazy. That's crazy. How dare you judge Eddie? It's nuts. I will say, though.

Yo, he did put the ball in his chest. Like, what do you want him to do? To just take that. Yeah. I look, I am okay with Danny pushing back. Me too. Yeah.

But it's like, you know what? Fan harassment is a little different. Yeah. Fair. But this is why you come to the show to know who's going to fight who. Yeah. Do you have another fire prediction?

Do you need the next series to be 100%. Okay. Once you see the alignment, you'll make your fire predictions. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Fair enough.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing that I did also enjoy for like two seconds in this series. Now, I didn't, again, I never want to dive into this at all because it's like, It's just an interesting subplot. But hey, man, it was so interesting seeing School Henderson, like have a couple of games in the series. And everybody would be like, oh, you figured it out, yada, yada, yada, yada.

Just to go 0 for seven last game. Piss down his game. Yeah. Dude, we posted a video. I posted a Would You Rather TikTok we did. And in that TikTok, we talked about would you rather have the five picks in a draft, one through five or two number one or all picks in a row. And I used the example of 2023 when we were just talking about it.

And I was like, that's Winby, Brandon Miller, Asar, a man. And Kaysom Wallace, that's a starting five. That's not comments. had a lot of likes. I was like, you mentioned 23 draft and you didn't say Scoot Henderson. Huh, I wonder why that is. You're on watch.

What's the phrase that used? On watch. What two good shooting games and no assist does to your record in playoffs. That is crazy. Like, congratulations. You turned into Jordan Clarkson. Like, that's not why we drafted you

number two overall. Great showing. I hope Scoot carries out into next year. But yeah, it sucks when. It sucks when that PR is turned, followed by this type of game. He was starting to talk crazy too. I don't know if I'll,

He has beef with players on this team. Really? Like who? I mean, I don't know anything like any juice, whatever, but it feels like something there. Him and Champagne, you go way back? I guess so. Kelden Johnson. Cornette.

Himming Cornet, bro, be. He loves Magic City. Himal cornet, best with the same girl in high school. That was crazy. like 38 yeah i'm like cornell what you mean that's like a 13 year age yeah he's not 38 how old do you think look at how old is he's the oldest he feels like 32 how old is he how old is he 32 is he not 33 is he not 23 no he's not 33 i thought he was like maybe 30 lookurnet's 30 what

This is insane. It's insane. I thought Luke Cordette was like 33. Luke Rodet's rookie year was 2018. He's a college dude from back up to ice. Yeah. Oh my God. He's not far away from he 31.

He's like 70 days away from me 31. Scoot is like 22. 31, 32. Just a super senior. He failed three times, reclassified. Oh my God. And then hung around town for two years. Yeah, the trailblazers need to panic.

They're going to lose this series. The Spurs are doing just fine. Everybody in the Western Conference around them is folding. The Nuggets are unsurious. Anthony Edwards is hurt. They might walk to the conference finals. Yeah, OKC and the Spurs are just the only two teams handling their business like thoroughly.

Literally, the three contenders that set up a real chance are completely smooth through the playoffs. Everybody else is down, down bed. Yeah. what are the blitz are going to do i i do think that who cares no like long term like long term obviously they're going to lose this series yeah but like i think it's an interesting pivot because they got they have um could you have like the the coaching aspect of it and you got the owner aspect of it too that's so we ain't

talking about your owner's cheap as hell yeah he's he's acting broke and so you have that you you are not giving Tiago Splitter fair contract offers the fans couldn't even get t-shirts

because the owner's like, ah, that's too much. And that's what's unfortunate is like they had this promising season.

They have these defenders, Denny's Ascension. He got better. That's better. No, yeah. Yeah.

It's not going to matter because your owner's like, I don't give a fuck about winning. Like, it's so tough to look them in the eyes and be like,

you're not going to experience anything good after the season. because your owner simply does not care about the product on the court. This is a spreadsheet to him, and we're going to be real broke to turn a profit in the first few years. You just got to deal with that.

That every decision that will be made, you're not going to pay the tax. Don't even think about that. Don't even think about doing a trade or a mock where you think about seeing your team going to the first apron. It's not going to happen. And that sucks. Now, that has to be easily the worst thing to experience as a fan

because it's like, yo, you didn't fail because no player, like didn't meet expectations. Of course, that's a part of the conversation with them or whatever. but when it comes to like just thinking of having any hope for your team in the long term all that shit shut down immediately because it's because of some guy who don't play that's so crazy got like cuss of check doesn't want it bad enough yeah notoriously cheap is crazy notoriously cheap and he said he said he made a statement it's like the fans aren't going to like it but it is what it is that's crazy that's yeah it's some of the stuff he's

no new travelist owner tom dundon is reportedly enforcing strict cost-cutting cost-cutting measures per JW quick. Staff required to check out of hotels by 1230 to avoid late fees. That's crazy. A late fees like 40 bucks. Team masseuse denied a room for pregame treatment. You're going to give massages in the lobby. You're going to like it.

Two-way players not allowed to travel for playoff games that cut cost. Mind you, these are costs of like $4,000 to an NBA team. For a billionaire. That's how much you pay for like a lunch to feed a team. What the fuck? If he says this, it really is. Like Adam Silver, you got I'd send the audit.

Like, do you actually have this brother or not? Like, hotel late fees. Let's say the whole, let's say seven people check out late. What is it late fee? Like, 80 bucks, 100 bucks? If you open up a hotel credit card, you can get late fees. He can open up a Marriott credit card. The whole team will be straight.

What's a late fee? It can't be more than 100 bucks, is it? No. 700 bucks you're talking about. The late fee is not even $100. Yeah, that sounds like the high end. I'm assuming. I don't need.

Maybe it is higher at these five-door hotels. I don't know. But like a thousand bucks max to an NBA team? he can't do it that's crazy too much for me too rich for me like free shirts at a game okay

that's 20,000 shirts if you want to say for game four five yeah and you want to say we're not doing shirts both days but you guys can get one shirt for the for every series okay I'm still looking at you a little sideways but whatever yeah you're still weak but at least I get that's a big amount of money

yeah hotel late fees is nothing what it's like the worst thing that he could like scuff at Other than that, is he, like, not giving these players, like, proper meals and food, too? They got to pay for them Starbucks in the morning? Yeah. There's some, I can't remember. I think there's, like, some, like, NFL team where they were charging, uh, it might have been Cincinnati. But they were charging people, uh, for a gatorade.

It is Cincinnati. They famously don't give anything for free. Yeah. They got to pay for their team cafeteria. What the fuck? There's a couple teams that are like that, but Cincinnati, you don't get shit for free. Yeah, that's crazy. Have you guys heard?

I, um. I'm on a Bermani Jumja show, he said multiple times that like the Bengals back in the day they got caught because they were reusing jock straps. Yo, that's nasty work. That's hilarious. No, I hadn't heard about that one. It's disgusting. Find that very funny. Who's the NBA team most likely to reuse jock straps?

Apparently the trailblazers, but outside of the pelicans. Pelicans, yeah, there's your answer. There's your answer. Speaking of Pelicans, let's transition over to our news of the week and a rapid fire before we close out this show. Rajon Rondo has been considered for the head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans. Yes. How does it feel to watch one of the players that defined your childhood

potentially become a coach? He defined my favorite player of all time. This is crazy. You feel old? Yes, absolutely. This is definitely one of those unc moments. Yeah. I think it's so cool.

Throughout his entire career, everyone's been saying, yo, he's like a coach on the floor. Not a lot of players get that type of praise. like him then there's lebron obviously he's and kid case and kid CP3 those type guys and rondo is like one of those guys who just has a mega mind and he turns into another player whenever the playoff hits playoff rondo was always like a part of the discussion back in the peak of it was maybe like 2017 2026 he was outplaying players he had no business out playing yeah just doing i remember he had a series against the boston celtics when d wade was on the

Chicago Bulls and Smith Buller was too when they went way further than so it makes sense. I like it. I like how you email when the camera's not even on you. Did he? Yeah, he went. They've been playing players way better than he's never going to beat him. He's going like this. He just be emoting all the time. He was even on camera.

He'd be emmoned before he goes to the bathroom just, I need to pee. Yeah, shout out of round. Yeah, let me just be a cool thing to see. Maybe he's, like you said, everybody always said he's next in line. Somebody's smart. I try to save that team, try to make that roster work. Why not him?

Also, he might beat up Joe Dumars too if he doesn't agree with everything that he's trying to do. We might get some franchise stability out of Rondo being the head coach. So I'm with it. Eat it. W coaching process. I like it. What's the next new story, B. Souls?

What's the important thing on your mind? I don't know if this is the most important thing on my mind. But the Bucks. Finalize a new deal with Taylor Jenkins. Yes. This ensures they will not. not be trained for John Morant. No, that's fucking hilarious.

No, let's do it. Renight them. He loved her last time. Actually, I don't think he actually liked Taylor Jenkins for the long haul. John Morant didn't like the new coaching staff, the assistants that brought in the new offense. So Thomas He Solo will not be here. So maybe it could work.

Maybe it'll work. Maybe John Moran does want to rekindle the relationship with Taylor Jenkins. Yes. Where is y'all going outside like the fucks? Milwaukee is where he's going. I mean outside of them. Sacramento. Is there a, wow, man.

Okay, realistically, yeah. Spend the quick second thing about this. I mean, the Miami Heat are always possible. Thank you, Norm Powell for John Morant. Why not? Okay, sure. I would love to say Portland, but I don't know what they're all. Yeah, no, they have too many guards.

Oh, yeah, Dave's coming back. Dave's coming back. Okay, that's crazy. Who else needs? I mean, maybe the sons, if they want to get a point guard next to you. I think the sons are probably like the most likely outcome outside of the bucks if that happens. Yeah, I don't know. My favorite is the sons.

Do you want Jaylon Green for Jail? Yeah. Fuck yeah. Why not? I'd do it? Hell yeah. But if I'm Memphis, do I want Jailene Green? I mean, I probably should ship it somewhere else.

But like, if you do have Jail Green, so be it, you're rebuilding. Yeah. You're probably like doing, you're probably trying to do Jail Wright for the last time. So it probably doesn't matter. Like, you're not doing this. I'm not at this point. I'm not worried about doing Jail right. And I can promise you, they're not either.

They don't go fuck. They try to ship him so bad this summer in this deadline. Nobody wanted him. Exactly. So it's like, no one wants you. It was like, what are you trying to get him for? Just might as well train him where he wants him. They don't have spacing.

If you can ship out Brandon Ingram, Raptors maybe Has some shooters I wouldn't want him next to Scotty Barnes I think I don't mind that You use these shooters around them But those two like the slashing of Jha Actually it's tough because Jaws sucked at everything right now

Is R Jaws still there? I don't care It's tough right now Because this version of Jha was so bad at everything So I'm assuming he plays better next year I like the idea of a good jaw Next to Scottie Barnes The Grizzlies are probably the main team

That's like you need expansion right now Yeah Facts They're like start the team Start the team Yeah We can get John out of here right now. I don't know if they would do, but him on the Daz Maver,

which would be interesting to say, at least. Okay. If they get a different picking this draft, it's not a guard. Everyone wants them to get A-Cuff in the draft. So if they get A-Cuff, then keep J-Jot away from me. How would Jason Kidd and job mesh?

You're asking questions, I don't care. I've never thought about this. I don't know. I expect good. What do you mean? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't have so much disdain for Jason Kidd as a coach. Yeah. I have no idea. Me neither. Well, I'm talking about job this summer, though, because we'll see where that goes. Next new story, B. Souls. Next up, draft lottery reform.

More news about it. Oh, yes. I'm tired. This morning. You're tired, but at least this might be some real progress. Sam Amick reported on the New York Times this morning that a heavy frontrunner has emerged in the draft lottery reform to end tanking. The current plan that apparently is, like I said, a heavy front runner, whatever that means,

is to change the lottery from 18 teams, I mean, to 18 from 14. So the playing teams also get there. So basically they're encouraging you to try to make the plan because there's still be a part of that lottery to still have a chance at top five pick. The bottom 10 teams have an even 8% chance of a top pick. So instead of the top four teams having the best chance,

the top 10 teams have a best chance, planned it out so there's no need to tank to the bottom four. You can be in the middle and be okay. And the remaining 20% will be divided among the remaining eight teams. So yes, so the top four teams no longer have a huge, I think it's 14% chance they have right now. Top 10 teams all have 8%, less likely to have a shitter get the number one pick,

less more wins can result in an equal chance and making the play in trying to win games in the season you can still be a part of it I think it's kind of positive I like it it just sucks to like emphasize teams who are like seven and eight to not be seven and eight and like have them really work

and fight unnecessary like 10 and 11 seasons that's kind of sucks what do you mean when it comes to changing oh hold on all right they're wrong Yeah, I think basically the impact here is If you are on the fringe, if you're the 11 seed And you are in the middle

And you can't get to the bottom 10 Because you're not good enough But you're just stuck in the middle You might as well try to make the playing tournament Because you're going to have an equal chance Whether you're the 11 seed or if you're the 8 seed You know, your chance in the lottery won't change at all So if you're not going to be bottom of the barrel

Which now bottom the barrel is bottom 10 So no longer any reason to try to get super bottom of the barrel Because 1 and 10 have no difference Every team can float around 20 25 wins that it doesn't make any difference at all. And the team's in the middle, you might as well make the play in. I'm still with the opinion that they shouldn't do anything in terms of making a life harder for the rebuilding teams to get good talent.

But if they're going to go this route and try to solve tanking via lottery, I think this kind of makes sense. My theory is just they're confusing the fuck out of these teams so they don't care about tanking. That's what I understand it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same thing with the in-season tournament. Whatever, dog.

We're just going to play at this point. Whatever our pick is at the end of the season. That's kind of what there's also, not even on a confusing level. does result in, I guess we just got to play. Yeah. That's what I would do at least. You know, they're trying to get back to just roll the ball out. Yes.

Yes. That's what they're trying to. Yeah, what they're trying to get to. So I can see, I can see both, or I can see the positives of it, but also once we start enacting rules and because of the way that the NBA is right now where so many teams randomly jump up and jump down because of injuries, because of a star, once we, we get another situation where a team that probably shouldn't be in in the in the lottery jumps all the way up to get the number one pick how is everybody going to feel then yeah when when a team that is like it's like the

like the pacers has a as a weird year they're in a weird spot all of a sudden lottery works in their favor oh my goodness this team that made the conference finals last year they're going to have the number one pick are you guys okay with it if you are then i mean that already that already happens though i understand I'm just saying like we've had multiple years now of the hawks jumping up, the Mavericks jumping up, the Pacers are not going to be in this situation. I just want the conversation to end and I'm not sure that and I'm curious to see like a couple years down the line how the conversation evolves now that it's going to be here. Are you new here?

The conversation will never end. Whenever something changes, we will hate what it changed to. I want the old one back and will continue to oscillate back and forth because social media will never be happy. I need Adam Silver to just be like, yo, just solve humanity, solve discourse. No, dude, just solve the NBA. This is a conversation platform. Yeah.

I don't think like, so I think, yeah, it will be built in that you will get teams jumping up. Like, that'll just be, but that's, people will get pissed off because that'll happen a lot to your point. But I think the point Adam Silver would say is like, tough, that's the world now is that the bottom teams don't get the top players. We're just not the type of league anymore. We're not the NFL. Being the worst team doesn't ensure you get a franchise quarterback. it is purely the bottom 10 at any random order. There's no benefit to being at the bottom anymore.

And it's all about making the most to every pick, doing proper team building, maximizing everything. I suppose I won't have a negative effect on the NBA. Besides, shitter teams will stay really shitty. But I guess they're just saying, well,

skill issue. Yeah, I think as long as Sacramento was in the gutter for 17 years, I don't think the league can't do too too much. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I do respect it. This is much better than the,

than the round of, of ideas that we got a month and a half ago. Yeah. Where they were, it was like 22 teams and there was so many stipulations. This is better than that. Yeah. I, again, I still think from a general just like sports logic perspective, if you're trying to be a league of parity, you should give the worst teams of best players to like

promote parity, you know. But I do understand that they are in an impasse where especially young fans caring about watching regular season games in six years from now will probably be a legitimate crisis as it will be for most sports leagues. so I do understand that they're trying to do anything in their power to make the games at the end of the year specifically matter, this will accomplish that. But you know what it will also accomplish

if I'm one of the worst teams in the league and you're not in that conversation, you have to double down on being ass, triple down on being ass and be unbelievable amounts of ass to make sure that you go ahead and secure a pick. Top to your pick. That's a thing though. Being on a little bit of ass doesn't secure anything.

Oh, in this situation? Yeah, in this situation, it doesn't secure anything. So teams can't think that way anymore. But no, but I'm, but I'm saying, saying like even if you were like teetering in between like what the 11th or 10th seat or whatever like what is the point of being that I think you'd want to like I think you've you'd see teams later down in the long and in the season just throw off the boat and want to like hire up those odds and try trying to get into the bottom 10 exactly yeah bottom 10 rather than like which is the same thing now

except it's uh I think most years though you'd see that there's 10 teams that are just like not good and it's probably when you're a middle team it's probably going to be kind of hard to break into that. Because we're full of tankathon now. And it's not one to one because, like, teams are tanking harder right now. Yeah. But the bottom 10th 10th best odds is Milwaukee, have 32 wins. 11th best odds is 37 wins and 12th best odds is 42 wins.

So the clippers at that team that were like the 10th seed, they have no chance of catching the top 10. They would have had to start in like December. So there might be like a lot of practical reasons why. The clippers did start. Yeah. Yeah. They did start and went the other way.

It's like there's eight shitty teams this year and then two teams in Chicago and Milwaukee that were like scrappyish and fell off. That there's room for like two teams to tank and do that. The rest of these middle ground teams just kind of have to take their best chance in the playing. So I'm saying, bro. Oh no. You have to win games.

I'm going to figure out. I'm going to figure out a way to be one of those two teams way early. And that'll be right. That'll always be a thing. Where there's a line to have the best odds, there will be some team trying to get over that line. But perhaps in this instance, there's less teams able to.

Yeah. I won't be mad at it if that's a decision they make. Next story, B. Souls. All right, next one. The decals coming back. We should be able to play this. The NBA finals, we will have the Larry O'Brien decal on the court.

No more decal. Well, we're painting it on. Okay, all right, that's fine. That's fine. The decals, we had the decals. The decals were slippery. The guys didn't like those. We then started putting them on virtually

through all this technology. And then the people in the arena said, where's the branding? Where's the finals fanfare? So now we're back to old school painting those logos on the floor. They're safe. They're there. That's, yes. We're big believers in that.

The NBA finals should feel special. Decal is back. Cool. We learned about this last year. Now we get confirmation. Decal is back. Ores back and we're nice. Or is back.

Yeah, man, we just have to bully this guy into anything. Shout to you, Adam. So finally. For doing this. Could have been done. This makes things more memorable. See, you do the right thing that's don't match you for not doing it sooner. There's no winning.

Could have been there. It was just, it was, I realize, you're right. You're right. I was right. I was right. What are you on here? You know what? You're right.

You're right. It's all that time, pussy. So watch your stupid ass not do this a decade ago. That's all right. Good job, battle. Good job. All right, next story on some fashion shit. The Jafors.

Hey, man. He's having a run. Yo, this is crazy. The J.A. right there. Yeah. That's incredibly tough. I'm not going to lie. This man was not a delinquent.

Oh, my goodness. The three and the fourth, I'm having some of, like, these two shoes back-to-back is a fantastic back-to-back shoe. It's a great run for him. I just wish that we could see it more from actually John Moran. Because there's a lot of players who do wear Jaws. Yeah. But obviously having the guy wear his signature shoe in a lot of high-pressure moments,

high, you know, highly memorable moments would be very, very fun. I just hope John Moran can get back to being John Morant. We'll see if that happens. I was going to say, you talk about some, he wish he wasn't delinquent. I wish he could jump. I'm worried about that. Yeah, I just need one more year from him of being an all-star. one more year of wearing him shoes,

I can talk about him come summertime. Because, like, he's such a weird spot. He's poorly, yeah. There's no reason to think he'll ever be an All-Star again just off his play. Like, he wasn't dealing with, like, a chronic injury or anything like that. He just really sucked this year.

I don't know what to do with that in terms of, my hope for going next year. Like, can I be optimistic about John Morin? It depends on what the team situation is like and where... Does it? What team he's on? Does it, though?

I think a little bit. Was he bad because of a team situation last year? I think it's... It's a combination of things, I would say. I think the combination of things, he can't jump. He's not as fast anymore, he can't shoot. Yeah, I think he was. That's the combination of things.

Yeah, he would rest. And then on top of that, too, there was like just weird beef going on. He was super lackadaisable. And generally, he gave up on so many plays. So it's like, I'm sure if he really wanted to jump, he could. But it makes it so much, even so much worse. Because his attitude, like, has like a 10-pound anchor tied to his ankle. So it's like, okay.

Yeah. And we've seen job be very. very moody in the past and so if he is in a solid situation maybe that does incentivize him to just be like regular John Morant. Yeah. Okay. I'm just trying to work out my idea of how I'll sell myself on when he gets trade to a team, how well

convince myself it'll be good. I can find a way of optimistic about like any star. I'm struggling to tell myself to talk him for John Morant right now. If he's gone from cheap, cheap, you can talk yourself into it. I don't know. He was really bad and I don't think we can say it was because of anything outside of him. He's one of those plays that needs to be a first option to be

effective. And those are just kidding. I'm not sure. I think he's physically not good anymore. Yeah. So, like, I don't know if any option matters. But I don't think he has, like, the tools to be, like, a secondary. Yeah, because he can't play off ball like that. Yeah.

Those are the worst situations. Worse are the worst. Worse any of the least. Well, he was any trade for him, man. Sure. Why not? Hell yeah. Just for the vibes.

Take another chance on. Hell yeah. On a guard. Gideon Jod together, scary sight. They haven't had a lot of. That transition. That's just that recently. Chess passes back and forth.

Nobody shouldn't lay up. They had all those guards. traded the wrong one. Rob Dillingham to John Morant Lobbs. Beautiful. Tough, tough. That's what I want to see from my local team. Another point guard.

Hell yeah. What's next? All right. Sorry. Wemby. Unanimous DPOI. Salute. Well deserved.

Salute. That's it. How do you all feel about a obvious one? Posted that short where we're talking about him versus other stars of the last 30 years at the center position. Thinking back, I don't know. feel about him versus Dwight Howard has he left Dwight yeah i think i think so obviously you know young people with dwight just think he's shack they have this weird perception of he's just like if you know ball you know dwight was underrated so he talked about him like he literally was like

diet shack and had this crazy offensive bag yeah the idea of dwight is very twisted right now by young people which is hilarious because dwight and offensive bag were two words you're two phrases that were just not together and it was the it was the crux of why shack hated dwight the most because he's like you I see you can average 20 easy you you can jump over everybody you're super strong you have you have a small little jump hook you can throw your shoulder into somebody see two more post moves yeah and you can go from 22 to 26 and now we're actually talking about something and that just never developed yeah I feel like the conversation around Dwight is like feels somewhat reminiscent of Rudy O'Rue Ruehbert in terms of how people

how much like hate people have for him at that point in time because with Dwight Rudy Gobert he never had it to everyone wanted him to at least gain a little of a something but Dwight had the obvious like potential to do so it was always not there necessarily but if he's already in like we'll average like 18 20 a game off of just doing the most regular stuff ever like the ceiling is sky high and it's more irritated to see that versus Rudy Gober who just like can't make a pancake you know yeah yeah so won't be clears Yeah, I just need to see him in one playoff game and he did that. So yeah, it's over.

I put it up to like 35. I'm like, yep, it's over. Yeah, his playoff debut was kind of nasty. Yeah. Different level of player. All right, next. Bill Simmons admits that the playing games impacted his awards voting. Hilarious statement.

I think, yeah, I did it wrong on purpose. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? Pussy. He said they should have made the, made his vote before the playing game. How am I not going to think about it? I don't know, just like being adult. It's fair.

Just don't. What else? Yeah. You know what you thought two days ago. Write that down. Pretty fucking simple concept. You didn't have to say this man at all. Yeah, that's my potting goat.

He was looking old because he was going back and forth on everything. He switched his MVP at the last moment. He switched his sixth man of the year award. He was going back and forth. It's locking in bill. Yeah. Who was his vote for rookie to year? Do we know?

Con. Had to be. And he said he switched it to Cooper. flag because of the playing tournament. Wow. Wow. No more Uber rise for Mr. Khan, man. Tough.

All right. Next story. Billy Donovan is exiting as head coach of the Chicago Bulls after six seasons. That's crazy. I'm surprised it was six. It's been that long. I felt longer on it. Yeah.

I'm not going to lie. I felt longer. Yeah, a bit surprising. You know, felt like he could stay there as long as he wanted. Maybe he no longer wanted. Yeah. Good for him. We're building things in Chicago.

They're starting to get people out of, out of position. positions a restart we've seen them do this before though we seen them get people out of positions who who's who's their last coach at the head for uh right of hoiberg and then they had like they survived jim boiling and all that too dumb long ago just to bring in the same guy so it's like yeah i've seen this story before but what you're going to do now you're gonna go get you're gonna go get joe you're gonna go get doc rivers like they've i've seen them like get rid of the bad just they bring in not worse but something that's just like also Right now, Joe Zion.

Who would I rather have? Zion. Yeah, the Bulls trading for it. Zion. Zion. For the Bulls specifically, that's an easy choice for me. Other teams, maybe it's a harder choice because they don't have a million point cards.

Yeah. Like, I'll be damned if I trade for another point card. Like, that's crazy. That'd be hilarious. That'd be ridiculous. But, yeah, for them and Zion, you know, for most teams of Zion, I think Jaws, like, doesn't have it anymore. So it'll be, I don't think I would trade for Jod in any circumstance if I was a GM.

This gen's D. D. Rose being on the Chicago Bulls would be. Trumpy. Don't say that. That's, that's, that's, it would be tough. What do you mean? This gen, just because of the athleticism. Yeah.

That's, that's how they talk about. Why he's so offended by that? Yeah. Don't say that. That's weird. That was weird. No, I thought I was going to say like the injury part. I mean, I'd get that a little bit more, but.

I don't know. Just exciting young point guard is like, you can jump out the gym. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't laughing. Don't say that. It's not funny. Is that a bad cough? No, everyone says that.

You didn't make that up. Like, that's a very commonly said thing. I just don't really like that. Okay, okay. I bet OG. All right. Let's move on to the next one. Kansas pocket for a reason.

Brooklyn Nets have signed head coach Jordie Fernandez and the entire coaching staff to a multi-year contract. Much deserved. He deserves to be one of the coaches that is there for the rebuild and gets to see it through until they're good. Yeah, I agree. I don't know what else they're supposed to do. Can I have them there for 20 years?

Maybe. What? Seems like he's worth it. That rebuild is going to take forever. I think they had five first round picks last year. None of them. Like, you don't feel good about any one of them. I think this year, most years like, they deserve at least the second pick.

If we gave the Nets five first round picks every single year, how many years would it take? And the most loaded draft two that we should in a minute, they just, how many years would it take for the Nets to win a championship? Oh, my fucking 30. They wouldn't win it with. To win a championship. We give them five first round picks. It's not all at the top. It's like kind of dispersed the same way that it was last year.

But are we talking 10 years to win a chip? No. 15. Didn't everyone work? Maybe 70. 70. Okay. Yeah, not on my lifetime.

And that's it. That's the last story. I'm surprised by you. What do you mean? I know. I thought we were going to pause, but okay. I'm surprised at the restraint you've shown. Oh.

I thought we were. pardon. I thought this was a discussion-based platform. I mean, if we want to have the discussion, we can. I saw it. I just, you know, I didn't think it was appropriate for. All I'm saying is I saw your doc and it was the first thing on the dock and now you're pretending it's not on there. I saw the document. I saw the notion it was you put the links you want to talk about and the first one on there that you thought about and you put on there at the very tip-top headline. Yeah. You didn't speak on. And it didn't even shock me that

it was on the dock because I was like, oh yeah, like we're obviously we're going to address it. Okay, well, B, I thought this was a basketball platform. wanted to keep a basketball. All right, let's keep a basketball. You're not about it. Yeah, okay. No, no, no. What is it?

We can pardon, man. Listen. Listen, Clay cheated on Megan the stallion. The stallion. And what do you think? How do you do that? How do you feel? How do I feel about this?

Yes. It was the number one thing on the news doc. That was legit the first. We did it. Would you rather TikTok? Which I said, would you rather have Clay Thompson's career or James Hardin's career? And you said your deciding factor was that Clay got Meg. Now that he don't got Mac.

How do you feel? Oh shit, that's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm going to blend with that one. Fuck. Clay, we're going to make a Thanksgiving meals now, man. That's tough.

He got options, though. He's going to be fine. That's the real conversation. Everyone's like, oh, how can you cheat on Meg? How, how? You heard Clay? I can tell you how. He's all on Clay's roster?

Hey. What does his roster look like? Oh, he got like a Jenner on there, a Kardashian on there. A couple other pop stars on there. Clay's good. I'm telling you, if we were Lord of Pod, Clay, unfortunately, it is good. He'll be a right.

He can find another stallion. Okay? He's going to have secretariat. You know what I'm in the back? He's straight. All right. If we were on the pot, we can find. He's getting real out.

He's going to go. This is the most passionate you've been. Keep going. Say your peace. Wait, is there like an argument back for this or what? Basically, every, every woman that, that you have ever known is upset at Clay Thompson. One of my, one of my cousins who was like 18 knows nothing about basketball. Texted me yesterday and was like, yo, so like, is Clay going to be off the map now?

Because like, you should get fired. What? Did you see next story? Yeah, I saw the story. She said he cheated on me. Yeah. I had the nerve. I dealt with it.

I'm okay with it. She said she, she dealt with his mood. swings. Yep. Which makes sense when you're a washed up star living in Dallas you're there

and you're mood swings. So I could deal with the mood swings. I could deal with the cheating. And now he says he doesn't want to be monogamous.

You know, you know, when things got really awkward, my girl's seeing the news. Oh shit. She said the same thing.

How can you cheat on Meg? Me? What? You, wait, why you look like that? I said,

I said what I said she goes. So you're a condoty cheating? No? No? No? I'm just the reality.

You know. Wait, what's the reality? That Clay got options. Okay. So you don't condone cheating, but you understand it in this instance. Yeah, I just understand the circumstances that, you know. You're not naive to the reality. Yeah, I'm not naive to reality, man.

Well, real is, you know, real is real. Well, why couldn't Clay be real from the jump, though? That's what it's problematic. I don't know, man. It's like reality, but it's like you sold me like some facade. Yeah, she said, you had me in front of your family. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. All of a sudden, now he knows he doesn't want to be monogamous.

You know that a year ago? Yeah. You just found out, you just realized Eureka. You got a shot at the stallion, man. He was out there picking up sticks on a beach. You knew good and well. When you were like this that you didn't want to be. That was a non-monogamous stick and you knew it.

Stick had multiple branches. You knew. That was a noncommittal piece of wood and you were well aware. That was crazy. Yeah, man. Shout out to... Shout to who. Who are we shouting out today?

Choose your next word, very wisely. It's the last one in the show. We're all going to be quiet up here. You're going to send him for shouting out. And we're going to end the show there. Be very careful. Shout out to Meg the Stallion. Hope you find love in your life.

You don't mean that. Clay does not deserve you. Wait, you don't deserve Clay. Oh my God. I told you didn't mean that. You don't deserve. No, no, you mean clay doesn't deserve you. Wait.

Can we know what's on. My mind to the blender. You got you, don't. You deserved it. He's much better than you. Hi, yo, I will be posting this video. Go to the bottom description. Be Souls' address will be there.

Send whatever you want as Megan Estabeling fans. I'll give you guys his address.