The Deep 3 Podcast - The Biggest Winners & Losers Of The NBA Playoffs | Ep. 142

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

The NBA player that have benefited the most and least in the NBA playoffs! #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 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 0:00- Intro 2:42- Knicks vs Pacers reaction 26:55- OKC vs TWolves reacttion 1:03:36- cavs (losers) 1:15:00- haters (winners) 1:16:15- Shai foul baiting convo 1:36:16- David Adelman (winner) 1:39:42- Gobert & Randle (winners) 1:43:08- James Harden (loser) 1:45:03- knicks fans (winner) 1:49:30- Pacers GM (winner) 1:55:18- Pat Riley (loser) 2:00:30- tiktok time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So we've got to open today's episode by talking about the elephant in the room. Donovan, what has Aaron D. Smith done to you in your life? What has Tyres Halliburton done to you? How has he impacted you in your day to day? Man, first of all, let's get something out the way, right? Last night, last night was awful. That's like, it was actually insane because we left, right? We went to a Knicks bar.

We watched everything. Also, seeing this picture, my eyes look as big as they. Look like you've seen a demon in human form. They look as big as they ever look. Afterwards, right? Isaac had posted a picture of me. I had left. I went to the train station.

I was taking the train home. And normally, if I'm on the train or if I'm anywhere, I'll put headphones in. I walked. I sat on the train in straight silence. I walked home straight silence. No headphones. Nothing but street torment. I got home.

I got home. Open the door. Didn't even say hi to pay. And I went straight to the couch. I sat down like this for like 20 minutes. Straight silence, nothing. I could not believe what happened. And listen, there's a lot of things that I need that I have to talk about.

So please indulge me for a second. Okay. Isaac, I'm not going to lie. For all you guys who haven't been tapped into our Twitter, if you go on to your feed and see what Isaac's been posting, you won't know and find out what I've been new. Isaac, you're a sick motherfucker. But you're my type of sick. I appreciate what you were able to show all of us because I wasn't able to go last night,

but I got all, I felt, I felt like I was there with. You felt like you were there. We got Donovan's live reaction. Yeah. So obviously you guys are watching this on Friday when it comes out. We're recorded this on Thursday, the day after game one of Knicks versus Pacers with the Knicks choked in hilarious fashion. We're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about the first two games of OKC versus Minnesota. And as you guys see about the title, after that, the main part of this episode, we're talking about the winners and losers of the playoffs overall so perhaps I will have something to do with the conference finals but we'll also zoom out talk about the playoff experience at large

who came away better for it player wise team wise coach wise whatever it may mean to you guys we're gonna get into all that whew yeah man cue the intro music let's let Donovan get some shit off his chest I just burped and it was the most disgusting

get wrenching smell ever I haven't played the intro music yet I know there we go playing now the cranium is crazy oh my god i mean i don't know what to say pray on eaters rejoice all right don't tell us tell us what is going through your mind 12 hours after aaron knee smith put on the greatest shot making performance

i have ever goddamn seen in the fourth quarter of a game to snatch your soul out your Okay, again, a couple things. First things, shout out to Pierre. I listened to his pod this morning, right? I was just trying to get any, any Knicks content, right? Anything from a Knicks fan that I could get. And he was actually mad calm about it. And his calm, I needed that calm. So shout out to Pierre, shout out to, you know, T-Dup podcast, everything. He said one thing, though, where he was like, you know, it was good basketball. I'm not a salty fan. I disagree with that. I am salty as hell. Hell today. I'm so salty. That's one. Two, I'm announcing today for the rest of the playoffs. You and I will never watch a Nix basketball game. We're not watching a game.

We started the season. We were in the car watching a Nix game. You've reported me in my trouble and in my trying time. Last night, I was like, yo, you know, me and a homie. Let's go out. Let's watch this game together and let's see what happened. And as it keeps saying, I need you guys to understand. He's lying to your face because he keeps saying, I, I want,

I want the Knicks to win, like, it'll be fun after the second Niece Smith three. I look over and I'm starting to look around and I just like, oh, this is crazy. He's just getting so jolly. He's like, oh, this is going to be so good. And I was like, I, I told him afterwards, top three, most mad I'm ever going. So I want the Knicks to win because I want the Thunder to beat the New York Knicks and make their fans upset. I want the clout of that victory to go towards the Thunder when they win the finals. Obviously, I want the Thunder to win.

So I want the Knicks to win for selfish reasons. But if you're telling me the Knicks lose and I get to watch you have the worst sports moment of your life, I'm telling you that is going to be equally as exciting to me. That would be just as fun. And I'm telling you, you're never getting the opportunity again. That's never happening. That was two. Three, while last night was wildly disappointing and wildly crazy, right? Afterwards, you see the stat.

It was like 970 teams have been in that position before and nobody had ever. choke the lead like that. It is something that is also very predictable because on Tuesday when we were predicting this series and I was like, yeah, Nixon 5, but really Nixon 6 because they are going to be unsurious in a moment. And if you watch them throughout this playoff run, they've been walked down, they've been unsurious, they haven't capitalized on opportunities before. And so last night, while it happens in the absolute worst way possible, this game and

that like moment is something where if you told me, hey, the Knicks are going to have a 16-point lead and they're going to blow it in one of the games, I would have believed you, right? At the bar, there was somebody, as the Knicks were taking control of the game, there was somebody behind us that was like, he was talking to somebody else. And he was like, oh, like, we're going to get it done.

And he's like, no, like, I'm not, he's like, I'm not going to feel good about the game unless we're up 20 with five minutes to go. God damn. And I'm telling you, I'm not going to feel good for the rest of the other playoffs unless we're up 20 with two minutes to go. That's the amount. But the Knicks throughout this year have been able to be walked down plenty of plenty of times.

If you look across the year, they've had big leads on Cleveland, on OKC. They've choked those away. They've had games against Chicago and even Brooklyn and had those leads wither away because they get into stretches where you see multiple defensive miscommunications. You see times where they are playing with their food. You see times where offensively they look so stagnant and if Jalen isn't doing anything or if OG's having a weird night, which last night was one of, it was one of the worst offensive performances that I've seen from OG in a while. And so all of that's going out of the eight, yeah, out of like the eightish playoff teams, I'm not talking about like playing, but if you look for the season, the only team, the only playoff team to blow more 10 point leads is the Orlando Magic. After them, it's the Knicks.

If you go to just overall, like, fourth quarter leads, the Knicks don't really do that. But even then, it's still a lot of, a lot of, like, bad, bad teams are the ones that are blowing fourth quarter leads. And then you get to the bottom. It's like, okay, the Knicks are one of these playoff teams that you can't walk down. And Aaron East Smith, damn, damn him. Damn him.

Because he walked us down. And after the second three, after the second three, it's like noticing right the third three goes in and you're sitting there and you're like nah

right and then he hits the fourth one and I'm just sitting there and I don't think I said anything for like the last 20 minutes you were silent you were right right

after the fourth one in my mind I'm like somebody has to punch him in his face because you clearly not going to stop him playing actual defense they let him walk into every single one of those threes. He was wide open.

There is nobody there in front of him contesting. Josh Hart fell on a three. On the last one, Josh Hart fell and Neesmith was able to come off and get a wide open three. And so you're just sitting there like, I can't believe that I'm witnessing the Aaron Neesmith game out of all games. Given the stakes, this is the craziest thing that that has happened. And so we're sitting there.

Everything's happening. And then the Hallibur and three at the end where, Crazy. Tyree's Halliburton, you are all my hate watch list. For the rest of 2025, we have, we have sat up here and given him all the praise. You guys can continue doing that for the rest of the season. I'm not. I hate this so much.

He ruined my night. He's about to ruin my summer. I can't stand it because the three, the three was in itself. You see, you see so many times, Halliburton, and this is where his game has. grown exponentially he was finishing tough layups and he was getting downhill he was scoring at where he's taking advantage of everything that that the nicks were doing all of that his passes no look he's he's he's bending the defense every which way and he's in control and then and then out of all of this to have the wwee mindset of having the script written where it's like yeah i'm going to

hit this three and then immediately i'm going to i'm going to do the choke side all of that was plan. He is a true villain. He has stepped up. And in every playoff series, I have found somebody to hate, because that's just how the playoffs goes. Tyree Talibrand, I hate you. This series, I hate you. And I can't stand you right now. Yeah, man. That was awful. What a rant. That was awful. Top 10 rant. That was like 10 minutes. He just went. Shout out that. Yeah, man. Here's the game chart. The Knicks had a 17 point lead. We survived. They didn't miss their first nine shots. And so, and they start the game and you think like oh wow this is going to be like Pacers magnetball game they're not going to miss i guess it is what it is and we still leave the first quarter with the lead you go

in the halftime with the lead you go into the fourth quarter with the lead and you feel decent because you've withstood a lot of the a lot of the uh the punches a lot of the runs that they've thrown at you and you know obviously what have it happened so yeah last night was today's a great day i love it was awful i bro i love life right now whenever the nicks lose it gets him like this You have no idea how much I breathe better, I eat better, I see better, I weigh a little less, bro, I lift heavier, I jump higher. I don't know what it is, but it's like plus 10 attribute points everywhere, bro. My hair is looking real volumptuous and nice and it's all silky. Like, I, bro, I love life right now.

I love life. I hate that it has to come to. No, you don't. Don't even say that. Don't even lie. When it comes to you and the New York Knicks and just the, this is one of the greatest New York Knicks. And catastrophes of all time. You guys literally made history.

Nothing in New York has ever collapsed like this. Oh, my God. Wow. Anyways, yeah. Fun fact about Aaron Neesmith. Did you guys know that his college? You're funny because of that? Did you guys know that his college compare,

his NBA comparison was fucking Clay Thompson. And everyone's done that to fucking death. He played like Clay Thompson for 14 games of his second year. in college for a second year in college in Vanderbilt and he shot like 50% from three bro. I think he had to go because blue's going crazy right now. Yeah, but he shot like 50% from three for 14 games in his second year in Vanderbilt and he got instant Clayton comparison.

So everyone was saying. And that was the worst comparison of all time up until those five. six a minute span of last fucking night. Yeah, it was, it's ridiculous because if you look at the numbers, um, like for the team shooting, the Pacers as a team shot 40%. The Pacers as a team without Aaron Eastman shot 25% from three and him alone brings them up to 40%. His, I mean, that's one of that, it's one of the greatest like hot shooting moments that we've

ever seen in NBA history to end the game eight of nine. And I mean, the, the Knicks, their free. issues, which have been an issue, you know, this whole run, Kat has to make one. And even after Kat missed his, I still felt good. And even after OG missed it, I felt okay because with like 50, with 50 seconds left, it's a nine point game. And so I was quiet because I'm mentally doing the math. Like, okay, it's a, it's still a three possession game. It's still a two possession game. Even if we go one or two, it still be a four possession game. We got to do all this. Honestly, the thing that bothered me maybe the most about all the niecesmith stuff was not only,

was he hitting the threes but they were instant no time was coming off off the clock and so if you're like if you're making an air nismith work 10 seconds to get these threes off and then you go back and and play defense and play the foul game and do all of that that's cool the fact that it was immediate inbound one action knee smith comes off knocks down the three there's three seconds off and you still have to play the game was just elongated for no reason because of all the defensive lapses The, uh, the, uh, the, uh, Andrew Nemhart had a lay up at the very end of the game. Happens on the Josh Hart back because he gets caught in the middle. And so just like mentally, this team was not all there at the end of the game.

And it, it sucks. And it's, it's wild because you just don't. How many times do you have to go through this? For them, right? For them to, for them to do this. There's been plenty of times in this run where stuff has happened. And they, you know, they lose the game to come back to them. like oh you know we got to be better and then they have a meeting and then they come out with

some focus we're in the conference finals now and it's not like none of them have been there brunson has been brunton has been to the finals OG has a chip mikhail has been to the finals right like tips has coached a team that has won a champion assistant coach whatever yeah but all of them have experience and so for them to be in this position and to have the mental lapses that they've had it's it's unacceptable and so to be down oh one I still think that we're going to win the series. I still feel solid. But it's the same concept as why I felt good after game one against Boston, which is, yes, if you play, like if you play game one 10 times, yeah, the Sussex probably win that nine out of 10. But it's not the simulation thing. You have seven

opportunities to get four games and you gave up one. And now we're down one. Now you actually have to fight. And now the margin of error is very, very low. So we're here now. And so you just got to go back in game two and you got to actually close it out i had never in my life i've heard you have so much to say it was in your next in my life that look wow yeah man listen you got you got 10 out of 10 performance and we're gonna and again and we're gonna talk about it with the thunder but one of the reasons also why the thunder are like elite in that in that uh in the thing that i was saying you about where like the the the nicks have blown you know the most leads yeah the team who has done it the least amount of times is the thunder in terms of

blowing fourth quarter leads, blowing any leads, 10 point leads, because the Thunder understand how to play defense. Exactly. When you have a lead and it's time to stomp on somebody's neck, the thunder will actually grab you by the neck, squeeze it, strangle it, and take your head off. And they're going to completely annihilate you, whereas the Knicks do, they have not done that and they've been susceptible to these things. And so in game two, if they don't win by 30, right, like I'm going to be nervous.

entire game. I think we need the Knicks to get swept because we're getting generation. Oh my God. That'd be so funny. That'd be hilarious. I think we need it to happen. On the stream, I said this is a series similar to Clippers versus Nuggets that I don't really feel comfortable giving you a prediction at all because I feel like this is going to go seven. It can go either way. Truly, both teams are playing amazing basketball. Both teams are fantastic offensively and don't have the strongest defensive personnel in the world. So we're going to see a lot of crazy games that really come down and who executes at the end. That's precisely what this goddamn was. So I still don't know who's going to win this series. I still think it's going to go

seven if it's shorter it's because fumbles like this continue to happen the interesting part to me was it felt like both teams decided it almost watched in the first quarter when you're used to watching a timber world series or a okay c thunder series where there's also a really smart defensive ideas at play a lot of really intricate modern ways to defend stars that you see that across the playoffs everywhere except for this fucking game it felt like these coaches met beforehand and we're like hey we're going to do the most vanilla stuff possible and we're going to score as many points as possible ways. We're putting on a show. Both these teams decided to just defend with deep drop coverage against each other. They both have stretched bigs and both dynamic point guards.

One of the worst ways to stop those guys is to run a deep drop and let them pick and pop you all day, let the guard get to their spots. Both teams ran a vanilla-ass defense. We saw the Celtics have success putting a wing on the cat. Really, every team is a not even a Celtics. That's a common thing you do. You put a big wing on cat. So if they try to run a pick and roll, you switch it, put that big wing on Jalen Brunson. We kind of talked about how the Patriot should probably do that, and the Knicks should probably do that, to Miles Turner, or else he's going to pick him poppy to death like he did against the Cavs.

Neither team did that. They both defended their centers with each other, ran a deep drop. Such an uninspired, like just defensive scheme for both teams. And it led to a shootout. I think the big thing going with the game two is which team is going to try something interesting first. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Talking about our stream or touching back.

back on our stream, TD 3 Tuesdays, 6 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Central time, tap the fuck in. One of the things that I touched on was how I felt like this series is going to be amazing for Carl Anthony Towns offensively, at least, and I think he had like 35 last night or something of that sort, and how he specifically gives Miles Turner issues. And I talked about Miles Turner specifically. I felt like he was going to have issues throughout the entire series because Kat is just not a good matchup whatsoever. And he historically gets fried. And speaking about by a defense as well going back to what you said like every time he is terrible like guarding these screens he's just not built for this type of offense that the nicks have right now specifically

you want ever catch on the floor as well and i think because of that as well he barely touched the ground in the second half of the game and i think when he played like what maybe 90 70 seconds and overtime and so the pace is finding out a way to win with one of the most more important And probably like the third, fourth, most important starter on their team. Just being a zero to non-a-factor pretty much is wildly impressive. I thought that was stupid. He had a great start to the game. And they bailed on him way too fast because, like you said, Cat was scoring well.

Miles Turner fried them in the first quarter. We saw that game chart when the patients were up big. They made their first eight shots, I think Donovan said. Miles Turner was frying cat on the pig and pop. So I think that's something that Rick Carlo probably regrets. That's probably why they went down so big in third quarter. is they really went away from him and benched him. Weird decision.

I think you probably see Miles Turner play the whole most of the second half in a regular fashion going to game too. Yeah. You have to put Kat in conflict. And that's the number one thing because even with Brunson and Kat out there, there's easier ways to hide Brunson to where Cat, not only can you get him in space and scraw on him, but you can always. also get him into foul trouble and I don't know the last couple games brunton has kind of been

in in foul trouble a little bit and last night he got in there and that's why you saw at the end there were a couple jobs that he just had to let go because he had like five fouls shout to him though because he got his fifth foul like the is either late third or early fourth and played the rest of the game didn't get a foul shout out to him right he was still available but that that's something that Indiana can definitely attack and yes the Knicks should have won the game but if you think about all the crazy stuff that

went back and forth if you look at it's like okay everything was really evened out like there's there's obviously going to be a subsection of people that are like oh well if the Pacers don't start nine for nine or if Neesmith doesn't do this well also the Knicks like the Knicks got away

with, on Obie Toppins' last dunk, they got away with the N-1, right? There's things that there were, there were things that the Knicks got away with. There's things that the Pacers got away with. And surprise, that's basketball. That's playoff basketball. So I feel like at the end of the day,

everything evened out. And you did see ultimately two teams, very evenly matched, and Indiana was able to capitalize at the right time and go on their run. And there's that. The one thing that was very, very encouraging was the fact that Brunter

was able to get to the line so much. And that was something that I thought was going to happen early on because their guards like McConnell and Nemhard and Needsmith, because of how physical they are, both of them are inviting pressure and are inviting physicality. And so a call is going to have to be made. And so you saw Brunson, you saw Brunson either have offensive fouls or get foul. And sometimes they just said, hey, it's a no call.

Brunson had seven turnovers last night. And that was a factor of Indiana being so physical, putting a lot of pressure on him. And so that's something that, you know, they do to really everybody in terms of like the full court press and putting pressure on stuff. That's going to, that's going to be massive because if these games are going like this and the mix of median runs into score 40 points, right, to win these games and we're playing deep into the fourth quarter and it's tied and you need him to score, he's going to get

tired and that eventually is going to work out in the patient's favor. Yeah, I need Tom Tibido do something defensively that is smart. Like they're not even switching these screens, which. which is like an easy thing that Tyrie Taliburton isn't the best at attacking. Like they made it so easy on the Pacers' offense

and vice versa. Like I'm surprised the Pacers aren't like helping off of Josh Hart or making him a non-shooter. Like if you, both these teams, if you defend them this straight up,

they have way too much offense. They're going to kill you. Like the Knicks, if you give them a five-out spacing and you respect Josh Hart as if he's like a sniper, you're never going to stop the Jalen Brunson cat attack.

And same thing vice versa. This to me truly comes down to who makes the smart best adjustment that the other team struggles with because right now we're like, that was like a regular season game game plan was yeah I think especially on tibodos part

I saw some Knicks fans are mad I can't believe that they had cat playing a deep drop like that like it was baffling to me in that first quarter when he was getting fried for like five straight possessions to start the game obviously evened out and they got a lead so he didn't kill them because he had such a good offensive game but they really hung him out to dry

and was like hey go out there and do the thing you're worst at that should work I am so happy that you mention Tibbs because ironically enough he's on my winners list for all the worst reasons but macro wise this is the best reason bro he is the first winner on my list arguably the biggest winner because he just maintained job security for going to making it to the eastern conference finals now of course it matters how you go out and if he gets swept or they lose in five

or whatever the case may be obviously that'll be a disappointment it might change the course of the conversation a little bit but all in all dude he in my mind going into the season and knowing how they went out over the last few years he he was one of the few coaches wasn't really talked about that much but he's on the to a certain to a certain level he has a hot he's on the hot seat because of how vanilla basic and boring this offense and for sometimes the defense would feel like and all the time he doesn't do anything interesting exactly and this game right here exemplifies that it it amplifies that that's a popular word that we've been using over the last few weeks.

And for me personally, yeah, for me personally, seeing him maintain this level of play, a.k.a. being like, getting escape-rotted by just the greatness of Brunton, he keeps his job position for next year, no matter what happens, which is the greatest W that anyone could ever imagine. I can't believe Tyrus Halber made this job, man. This is so crazy. This, we talked about it. Reggie Miller and his choke side

very cool right it was a very much like yeah like you're you're choking your team is choking Tyree Tyler almost strangled him trying to do this his hands were so tight around his own neck it was so OD I hate the fact that he got that he was able to pull this out that's hilarious that's time all right so he's 10 night still nixon six yeah okay I sit on the stream by the end

I don't know which way I want to go I don't have a strong opinion something in my heart my brain tells me Nixon 7 to go with the fourth quarter executor and Jalen Brunson but something in me

I mean Tyrese is executing that's what I'm going to say something in me just says Tyrese is rising to the occasion his offense is clicking on all cylinders their clutch gene is outrageous something in me says

Pacers in 7 again either way I don't feel confident in it but there's something itching in the back of my head that's like the Pacers are going to win the series oh man

no I'm going to listen and listen you can't win six if you don't lose to me so you got you got you got you one if you want to have a glass half full, this is very reminiscent of game one for the OKC versus Nugget series in which they led most the game. And in the fourth quarter, they just collapsed and allowed an inexplicable comeback. And the executions are a little different. I think the Knicks have a little bit more

problems than the Thunder did in that game. But again, the precedent is there for the better team to win most of the game than troll the end and they come back and over the course of seven games show the better team. So, Nick's fans, you know, you're not sunk yet. You're the ship isn't there. but there's some holes being punctured in the hole of the shift that one more puncher, one more Tyree Taliburton's signature moment, it might get spooky. We have to get game two. You're on the precipice of danger. Yeah.

Game two is a must. Oh, absolutely. It's a must win. Okay. So now we're going to talk about OKC versus Minnesota, but we're going to do that tonight after game two because we're reporting this Thursday morning. So right now we're going to do a little fast forward. You guys are going to go towards the future.

Mo is not going to be here. Let's see me and Donovan talking about OK. See versus Minnesota. Then we're going to come back and you guys are going to see the main part this episode, the winners and losers of the playoffs. I want to take a quick second to shout out Coinbase for sponsoring this episode of the show. Coinbase is not only the best and easiest place to get started with crypto. It's also the most trusted. It's the only publicly traded crypto exchange. And right now, if you want to get started and try it out, you can get $20 Bitcoin when you sign up with the link in the description or use promo code 20 deep three.

So once again, shout out to Coinbase for coming on to the show with us this episode. Let's get you right back to the show. well that was fun do you feel vindicated i feel better than you felt watching the nix that was uncalled for that was that was extremely uncalled for at least it's not the lakers yeah but yeah we just watched or we're here to talk to you guys at 10 30 p.m on thursday night night before this comes out because we just watched game two of okayc versus minnesota i don't know why i'm telling you guys i forgot we were to explain to you before the transition But, you know, live reaction too

What was basically belt to ass for four quarters It honestly wasn't Okay Like it really wasn't You're right for two quarters It was somewhat competitive than belt to ass Yeah It was and which really has been

The thing about this series It's like the wolves have been able To keep pace for the first half Yeah And then you go in a halftime And the Thunder look around They're like, you ready They're like, I'm ready, I'm ready, okay

And then they actually go and they play defense they lock everybody up and the third quarter has been this has been the quarter where okay c has been able to take full control they start putting bTA and you look up and it's a 20 point game you're like what just happened yeah i guess i said four quarters because i told you we were watching it i haven't felt worried a single time in this game yeah really since half time of the game one haven't felt worried even a little bit as you guys know you guys saw the game yesterday the Oklahoma city thunder won the game 118 103 which you know 15 point lead at the end doesn't tell the whole story because we look at here, the second half game chart, it's quite a lot of light blue signifying

OKC leads, quite a lot of light blue here. It's an avalanche. The Minnesota Timbul took a couple one-point leads throughout the game, you know, the tour of the first bucket, and at some point in the second quarter, it took a one-point lead. But it was largely domination for the whole time, even though it was somewhat close for the second quarter period. And, you know, story of game one, I guess this is our first time reacting to both of these

games. Last time we talked about the series was our preview stream. in which I think me and you both said okay C and six I think so yeah something like something I know I changed it to the end to say like okay C in seven because I wanted to give I want to give them a little bit of credit I want to give Minnesota some credit because they had they came in and the second half of the year they've been playing much better right you they did disperse of the Lakers and the Warriors in five games dispersed nice so you're like okay fine like we'll We'll do that.

I think Antis ascending, whatever. And then you just get to this series where OKC just has the best collection of wing defenders ever. And is having the hardest time of his life, either scoring, getting into position, and they're just making everything tough. And so through two games, it's like, yeah, this is, this is done? It's not even like, oh, is it going to go seven? Is Minnesota going to get one? I think they'll get one. They'll win one at home at least.

Yeah, that's the question. So I think we'll talk through the lens of what we expected to happen in the series in that predictions episode that a lot of you guys probably didn't see. I think it's pretty much gone exactly as we said. You know, we went with OKC to win the series because, I'll speak for myself, I think what we saw in the last series, you know, there was times in which their offense was really bad. A lot of think pieces are going down on the timeline about, does this, is a team a fraud, do they have it? Is the regular season success not indicative of playoff success because their lack of late game offense? because Shea wasn't coming through, you know, one game, I think it was game three, had the worst playoff game of his career.

There was a lot in the air about this team, mostly relating to their offensive struggles. And the story to me there is the Denver Nuggets did a goddamn great job at implementing defensive game plans that exposed their exact weaknesses. They hit him with the zone. They used the strengths of Nicole Yokic and his size in the paint to really wall off that area and force OKC to beat them with jump shots, and they went cold. So I think we kind of saw in that series really the worst case scenario for what the OKC offense can be. if you slow down Shea a little bit and the role players are bricks because they're not super reliable

shooters, it gets spooky. And a lot of people said, okay, Devere Nuggets defense trash. They do not have good defenders in that roster pretty clearly. So if they could do that, what's Minnesota going to do? What are they going to do with Rudy Gobert and Jay McDaniels? They might lock them down. And one of the retorts ahead of that in the stream was, I understand that talent gap is immense. I will not argue that. I don't think it particularly matters because I think the Denver Nuggets played so above their heads of what they should have been capable of talent-wise you can't get much better defending OKC than they did

so even if the other team is more talented Denver did a great job they had the right matchups they did the peak version you can't defending this team so it's really up from there and I think obviously the Minnesota offense is far less worrisome than Nicole Yokic for the OKC Thunder just because for what you reason you said the amount of perimeter defenders they have

I find it hard to believe any slashing guard or really any Star Guard across the league besides, I guess, Luca, I find it hard to believe any Star Guard is going to lead their team to beat the Thunder. You're going to have to beat them with a guy like Nicole Yokish who can take advantage of their bigs. So all that together, it seemed like the Nuggets had a better offensive matchup and pretty much equal defensive matchup with how they played above their heads. It was hard to imagine a way in which the Minnesota Timberwol would really push this team, barring disaster for the Thunder.

And to me, that's played out exactly that way. Yeah, I think the only way that I saw Minnesota actually winning this series, is if Anthony Edwards ascended to another level. And you were like, is it actually reasonable to ask of him? I was like, I don't know. But like, if they're going to win this series, you're going to, you are going to have to have that. Yeah.

Because of all the strength that they have. And because game six, game six between OKC and Denver was one of the worst games Jalen Williams has ever played, especially in the playoffs. And since then, he has been hooping. He hooped in game seven Especially tonight He was great in game one

He was amazing tonight And so this version of OKC Where you have Shea on MVP night He drops 38 And you have Jalen Williams Being the actual number two This is the version of Jalen Williams That a year and a half ago

We're like that's a top 20 player in the league Right somebody who is not only an elite defender But somebody who can also go in And create his own shot And go on runs And sustain the offense and this is all with a Chet Hongran that is still, you know, coming into his own recovering from injury, all that stuff.

So going into next year, all that is, you know, it's completely on the table. But if we're just talking about this series right now, if Shea's going to be Shea and J-Dub is going to be J-Dub, the Tim Wolves are going to need one of the greatest performances that we've ever seen in playoff history from Anthony Edwards, or this is not going to happen because Randall and, He had a terrible game, too. He had a good game one.

We were giving him all his props coming in. But Caruso can bother him all day long. Everybody on this team can bother him. Yeah. And so, yeah. So a few things you said there. On the Randall part, in the preview episode, I gave him his props. I don't want to say this because he was playing so well.

I don't want to be the guy that's like, it's not going to keep going. But it's not surprising to me that Jalen Williams and Caruso and all the other guys are very equipped to stop a power post player. J-dub is for second team all NBA. I think should have been first that got announced today because he is so good at defending Biggs. He played center for 15 games and they won like nine of them. He is amazing at defending up, defending strong, powerful players.

Zero surprised to me that Randall struggling to create in the post. In game one, he had that stretch in the first half where he hit like five straight threes and had a great game because of that. If the three-point shot isn't falling, that creation being bigger and strong that isn't going to work against his team. And I think that's kind of what you're seeing with Antony. The second half is too. Great first half for this game.

Second half has slowed down. He had a good fourth quarter, but for the third quarter when the lead exploded. He was nowhere to be seen because this team, man, they can just shut your water off in a way that if you don't have a type of player like Nicole Yolkich who can, I can't even think of how to explain that because he's just like the best offensive player of all time. But if you don't have a guy who can create an instant paint touch,

make the right decision every time and just be a mismatch in that way, to a degree very few players ever have, it's so hard to create consistently against the team. You're going to have to beat them with defense and really like make the OKC offense lose them the game. the Timberwolves decided you know like we talked about the Nuggets doing such a great job they triple team Shea at times

they played zone and they ran a zone a two three zone while double teaming Shea every time he touched the ball it was the most gimmicky defense in the world and it worked because okay so you couldn't make shots the Nugget the Timberwolves did something that you can tell me if this is ballsy or if you think it's ignorant

they decided to play straight up and run their traditional Ridigo Bear drop coverage they sprinkled in some zone but it's not their main look they're running and defending Shane straight up, a traditional pick and roll coverage so he can get comfortable getting a rhythm, which he was never able to do because that gimmick defense against the nuggets. And he's shredding them. He's cooking them because he's finally seeing a regular defense that resembles a regular season game and he is doing every bit of MVP performance. So it's kind of surprising to me that they decide to let him get his game off in that way and just trust Jada McDaniels, who has never been

someone who's good at one-on-one locking down strong ball handlers. I don't know how to feel about that. I don't feel like it's a strongest Chris Finch decision. It's not great. But also, I can kind of understand it just because you do want to be in a position where your best defensive players feel comfortable. And especially if you're at this stage like switching stuff up and asking Rudy to do something

or asking the whole defense to really, really shift around everything that they're doing. That's not an amazing idea. However, you are NBA players in the West Conference Finals. You're going to have to figure it out. out like it's Shay you have to like if you want to win a championship surprise you're going to have

to make adjustments you're going to have to try new things and so whether that is a 100% like Chris Finch is doing that just because he wants to do it or he's trying to protect his players from a from a specific thing you really just have to throw all of that out the window and yeah defensively defensively it is it is what it is like I know I know Shay is going to get his stuff off they the big difference and the clearest difference is Minnesota has to work so hard for every single bucket every every action they have to go into the first and second one they have to go into so many options and then you go down like it'll take Minnesota 20 seconds to get a contested layup and then you go down on the other side Oklahoma City comes down one one little

guard to guard screen boom open three and it's going in you're like damn Damn it. Like, I can't, I can't do anything. And so I don't know, obviously we can get to, we can get to game three and maybe the hot shooting that Minnesota has had throughout the first half, maybe that sustains itself for the whole game in game three. Maybe. Because the bench actually did show up in the first half.

And like the role players, they did shoot decently in the first half. Yeah. That's a good thing point out. So these two games, the story of game one was similar to this game in the first half that kept a competitive. second half doors got blown off because the OKC defense took over but you know to color that

the Minnesota Timberwell's role players they have three main guys out the bench Down to Devinchenzo Nikola Alexander Walker Naus Reid gives them elite depth it's big reason why they beat the shit out of the Lakers because that depth is a big advantage

over most teams those guys gave you absolutely nothing in game one they kind of combined was it zero threes or one I think it was like not a lot I don't have the box roll up that game it was something outlandish it was like oh 15 from three

it was ridiculous how ineffective they were, and the other side of the ball, the whole, whole dialogue was around Shay and the Frito shit, because people thought that was an especially egregious flopping game. There were some bad calls. We actually talked about that later in this episode that we already recorded in the winners and losers. So you see my thoughts there. I get, wait, real quick. So I got it between Nasri, Dante and Nicao Alexander Walker.

Game one? Game one. I think it was over 15, wasn't it? They were five for 28. Off in the field. Oh, from the field? No, no, no, from three. Oh, okay.

They got 28 up between those three? Five from 28, yeah. Okay, I'm spreading fake news. It was not over 15. It was five from 28, which is still not good. So the story was those guys were very cold at a high volume. And the OKC offense led by Shea getting to the free-to-line a million times to much chagrin of everybody watching, every non-O-KC fan. Again, we talk about the later in the episode.

You can assume what I think about that. Whatever your assumptions are, they are correct. That was the story game one. Story game two in the beginning was the opposite. Shea wasn't getting to the free-thole line. He was. He ended up with 15 for the whole game. But in the first half, I think he finished, I'll check, with like six or something.

But he was torching them from the mid-range, obliterating them from the mid-range. He did all his work from the field, got to his spots relentlessly, and those Minnesota role players were actually hitting their threes. Did not matter in the end. It didn't. I think also, Ant ended up with a solid game. There were a lot of moments where Ant had wide-open shots. shots where and it's a it's a very very unfair and very like cherry pick thing to say but he's

hitting shots that shade's hitting on the other end and he just has to be better and you look like you look at his game and he ends up with 30 i'm sorry i'm gonna need 45 from you every single night and it may seem taxing but we're talking about aunt like he is one of you know the six to seven best players in the world a lot of people have already crowned it as you know this young ascending star face to the league he's having all of these moments but we've seen in playoff series before that he hasn't necessarily had dominant like consistent stretches and you can you can have games where he's going seven for 22 from the field or six for 19 this and that and so when she is hyper efficient on the other end a wide open three from

in the corner to keep it at at two like everybody else who's playing minnesota you are playing a different game. Yeah. You're not necessarily just playing a regular game of basketball. You are trying to manage the damage in the, in the first half, keep it close, going into halftime, going into third, going into the third and fourth quarter, you're really playing it 12 minutes at a time and trying to stay within reach because as soon as OKC gets a, gets any type of defensive momentum, it's over.

If they get a 10 point lead, they're not blowing these. They have such a high floor Because their defense is so consistent And like people were like Early in the playoff run I guess it's pretty quiet now Because nobody got shit to say But early in the playoff run

There was a lot of like They don't got dog in them They don't have all the They don't have the playoff experience They don't got the it factor Whatever verbiage you want to use To explain having nothing interesting to say And just spewing cliches

People said it about okay C Because their offense is inconsistent And people felt like they didn't have it in them To execute for whatever reason I mean that's a little bit sure that's that's a little bit of like youth and like and like like jada being in that in that position and going through all of this this is something that you get on the road to getting experience and so not like now that he's gone through it you can't look at it and be like oh

you've never had your back against the world i wasn't so i was gonna say people have all that to say about them right or wrong that's about the offense nobody has ever said they don't have the dog in them defensively oh yeah so that that's what i'm trying to say is that even if that becomes true at times and they go cold offensively and you feel like you're watching frauds, they never feel that way defensively. The defensive intensity is always ridiculous. So to the point you made, their floor is so high because of that, that even when they troll offensively and you're in the game because they're not making threes, whatever, all it takes is that because the defensive intensity is never going to slip. And there's no teams in the NBA that can match that. There's very

few that I've ever been able to match that. Yeah. I think, so now, Minnesota, they did a good job in this game getting an um opportunities to go downhill oh way way better way better than than in game one in game one it was very much like okay you're going to get the ball here try and make a move and get by them one-on-one you actually you actually saw them whether whether it be having him having him off ball making quicker decisions having um having who's ever uh setting the screen said re-screens right getting him downhill that was that was a very very good uh adjustment for them to get him in better positions. The problem is you need to have that and you need to have Julius Randall

hitting the outside shot in order for everything to go down. So maybe all of that happens in game three. And maybe we can get a more competitive game three. That's something that I think that OKC is going to be prepared for, obviously, defensively. But at least for, at least for A, it was very, very encouraging that the Timbles were able to set him up in places where now the onus is on you to just do Anthony Edwards things and so going back home right we're going to lean on on this cliche and you know hopefully everybody plays better at home and all that all that stuff I you can you can go into the locker

room and base level just be like hey man like they won their two at home now we just have to go with our two at home and just and just talk series doesn't start to someone wins on the road exactly I think that shit started I think you should be a friend Yeah, you can trick yourself into that, but that's probably what they're telling themselves right now. Yeah, you mentioned Anthony Edwards, game one. He said he was saying himself, way too passive, only got 13 shots up. He averaged 21 for the playoffs. They did a great job denying him.

It's, you know, like Dorisberger, Richard Jefferson on the call would be like, he's got to do a better job, being aggressive and all this stuff. He didn't just decide to someone to take shots. The Thunder defense made it impossible for him to get to the rim. It's so hard for him to get there. And like you said, I think he did a very good job. in this game. For most of the playoffs, he's been horrible finishing at layups. His touch has been off. He hasn't been in a rhythm. And that's been a problem. He's shooting like before the series started. It was like 56% at the rim, which is not good for any scoring guard standards. I thought

he was goddamn impressive at the rim. He had some touch finishes this game that were amazing, a round shed home grin over tough defenders. It felt like he took that first game to heart and really, really focused at the rim. And it was like, to the point I'm like, if you do it every game, look at this running hook he just hit. rewind in this look at this over hardinstein that's a tough finish no it's hard that's hard that's that's very difficult he doesn't always hit this type of stuff he was locked in there problem is he shot one for nine from three best shooting guard in the NBA at shooting threes as soon as he put it together at the rim the three point shot went cold and that's the difference if he would have shot four for nine

from three what is that nine extra points this would have been a 41 point game yeah so it's a good good sign he got to the rim and got that off against his tough defense you you got to do both You can't, you can't, to have any tradeoffs to beat this type of defense. I'm telling you, he has to average Ford. Yeah. He has, he has to do it. And, and especially when, and there's, there's so many things that OKC does well at the very, very base simple level. If Shay's on and J-Dub is on, you have to be able to match that with Ant and Randall.

Yeah. If we're just going two-on-two scoring, and they haven't been able to. able to do that over these first two games and Minnesota is only going to win this if they're able to put enough pressure on on that defense to make them think about anything make them nervous about anything and right now they're chilling they they are they are legit chilling and they have who you know he's not chilling who sorry uh rudigel bear ricka bear is not chilling they are taking him out of the game and I barely think it's his fault but he is he's playing well when he's in his drop coverage,

it can do his normal things. One, these guard defenders are leaving him out to dry. They're dying on the screens. Shea and J. Deppere got downhill and cooked him in this game. Not much you can do there. They ran that zone coverage

where they ran the 2-3 similar to the Denver Nuggets. And it was an immediate flash in the middle of the court and they were hitting floaters over his head. He has no chance to rotate because the guards are not doing a good job denying the ball whatsoever.

And offensively, he had the resurrection he had in the second half of the season because they moved to make Randall the screen setter and Rudy Gober stays parked in the dunker spot and cleans up and Anthony Edwards and Julius Tramando combined and Jamie Dano's that matter

are you able to create pain touches and get the defense rotating where Rudy Gubair can be a finisher. Look at this play on the screen right now. This is the one, Jamie Dano's attacks his close out, dumps it off to Rudy Gaubert. This is the story of how his offense has worked for the whole second half of the season.

He just stays there and catches the duck and finishes. This is the first time that happened to all series, I think. This is the only one. The OKC Thunder defense is in such an amazing job at clamping down. on the rotations and not allowing him to get these easy finishes, even when he does a good job on the boards, there's so little opportunities for him to put it back up because they're so swarming. They've eliminated his offensive value, his threat as a score in the dunker spot,

and they're doing a good job of shooting over him because the shotmaking has been outrageous from the two-star guards. He's playing okay, but he just has no impact. On top of that, whoever is the coach in charge of teaching the OKC Thunder how to play with their hands, somebody needs to hire them and get them away from this franchise they have the best hands I've ever seen yeah we talk about that during the game yeah there's several plays

that the Minnesota Timberwell's guys try to throw an entry pass into the post to Julius Randall and wants to go bare the way that Lou Dort Kaysen Wallace J-Dub and Shea are all amazing at like coming in like goddamn Ed Reed and catching the ball and like intercepting it on those entry passes

because they don't seem rotating from the weak side it's outrageous it is not fair to have this many genius IQ level defenders on one team that also have the best best hands you've ever seen. If you did a measure of the best hands in the NBA from primitive defenders, you rank the top 10. I know for a fact, Kason Wallace is top five. J-dub's top three probably. Lou Doris probably top 10. And Shay first, I mean, for StarGars, he's certainly up there. You might have four of the top. You have certainly three of the top

10, might have four of the top 15 and whatever the number is. It's crazy to have that many on the same team. And that doesn't, that really does not help Gobert, who has some of the worst hands for big man especially offensively that we've so if you can't spoo if you can't spoo feed him the shots because you're getting patchy guy in fortune rotations he's not going to create for his goddamn self against these demons so not a good gober hasn't played big minutes it has not been a go bear series because he's so dependent on the star guards putting him a spot to succeed and god damn they have not so we're saying all this and i'm just like where are they going to get this game like where where and what is going to have to happen for minnesota to get back into the series obviously

You're not going to like the answer. Say it. Shooting variance. That's what it's going to have to be. It's true, though. It's true. We talked, it's been the story of plenty of playoff games, plenty of playoff series in the modern NBA,

Anthony Edwards' entire Ascension is based solely on the fact that he went from being regular, like doing, you know, kind of what he was doing tonight into, I'm going to be able to shoot the ball like Dane Lillard. Yeah. And if you are not doing, if you're not shooting at, forget 42% from, from three. If you're not shooting 37%, 36%, right? Something that's somewhat respectable from three, that's not, that's not going to happen. And you're okay losing Kat in this trade because you say, okay, it's fine.

We lost a shooter. I'm just going to be the shooter. Yeah. I'm just going to provide all of the outside. basing and all of the outside firepower that we have and that hasn't shown up for them what do you think minnesota shot for the three for this game i thought it was a lot better than this it ended up i don't know i'll just tell you it ended up at 28% so that's the answer they have to shoot good they have to shoot very good because you're not going to create the rim 28% 28 they started

so good in the first quarter i didn't check the team averages granted anthie edwards is one for 11 himself so that that fucking tanks it yeah i'm sure if i could filter outside of and it would be decent. Jay McDaniel shot four for eight from three. That has to be the answer. You are only going to beat this OKC Thunder team if you can shoot the hell out of the ball from three or if you have Nicole Yokic beating you up down low. The whole defensive thing is they're going to rotate off the corners and they're going to be incredibly fast getting back on their shooters, but you will have opportunities to hit open shots because they're not going to let you attack the rim. Every defense has to give up something. Three point shots are what OKC wants to give up.

This is awful. If you shoot 28% on those threes, you have absolutely zero chance of beating the Sea Thunder four to seven times. Nazreid 0 for five. Julius Randall, O for three. Mike Connolly, one for four. That, yeah, I mean, Dante, two for six. It's unacceptable. You're not, you're not going to do it.

And if you are the outmatch team, I mean, you're right. You're going to have to win by playing the math and getting these shots up and hoping that, that they go in. and right now they aren't they aren't going in the down to them and they win in the volume game they're getting up a lot more threes or at least they were to me check with the total which also but also that that doesn't that doesn't shock me considering that it's also hard to get to the room yeah yeah that's why yeah actually it didn't never mind it didn't end up being a big great break at the end because okay see lit up in the fourth quarter 39 attempts for the timbrewell

overall 33 for the yeah so like not enough you got to get up more and they have and they have to be Good threes. They have to gimmick their way to wins like the Devere Nuggets did. You have to run the zone. Not even if you don't want to run zone. You don't do that. It's not even, it's gimmick,

but also they have the best player in the world. No, I mean defensively. Like you have to deny, deny, deny, She had to run gimmicks that you,

that feel like they're beneath you. They probably don't want to do this because they say, we got Jamie Daniels, we don't got a double team. We don't got a triple team. We can defend it straight up. You motherfucking do.

She has gotten to the point that he is an instant pain touch, an instant shot creation for himself or others. In the same way, Yonis is, you cannot defend him straight up one-on-one, or two-on-two in a traditional pick-and-roll sense. It is death. They are seeing that. I understand you don't want to have to resort to gimmicks. You have to double team him. You have to deny him the ball, and you have to jack up a lot of threes and try to win with math.

On both sides of the ball, you got to have game plans and adjustments that aren't just, we're going to play our style and do what God is here. That doesn't work in the playoffs, Chris Finns. You've got to make adjustments. That's what all the best coaches do. And not to say he's done no adjustments. I'm sure there's small things. but it's got it's pretty fucking vanilla it's the same thing i said about the indiana series versus the knicks tips don't put cat in a deep drop switch some ball screens to make uh tyrese hallibur and beat you in

isolation at least deny him the ball if you have to whatever whatever needs to be done do something other than what god is here like you you can't just fall back on your laurels to that regard yes all we keep we keep saying we keep going back to to this main core you really just have to play better Like, the on the onus is on Minnesota. You have to shoot better. You have to put OKC in any type of two minute stretch where they're like, hey, we actually have to have to lock in. That's not halftime because if you give them, if you give them half time, they have shown the ability that they can come out and they can, they can blitz you. And once they understand what you're doing for the whole first half, they can go in for 15 minutes.

They can talk about it and say, okay, let's change this, this and this. And then boom, it's done. Like I know why you said that They do have to play better At the end of the day To win the game you got played better So that's not factually incorrect But like Minnesota fans

Cover your ears You're gonna not gonna like what I have to say It doesn't matter They play better This team is so much better That's why I said they got a gimmick Like yeah They're not gonna

There's a level They can just play better Within themselves To beat this team four to seven times I don't think they have the capabilities For that So you gotta gimmick this shit And try to win with nonsense

With hyperaggressor defense Like I said I don't think they can just make more shots play our game plans better and like out-execute them simply out of like playing their game i don't feel like that's possible for this team like this team they're just outmatched it looks like that now it looks it looks like that not yeah yeah i'm always saying that off a game too they could come back and it's a long series we said okay c and six for a reason that they're gonna win some games but listen game three is it's feeling scary yeah it's feeling scary and it feels right now

It feels like a sweep. I'm not going to change my prediction or anything like that just because it is very hard to sweep people. Yeah. But I mean, damn it, you got. It feels like five. We said six. Mo said five.

And I was like, I can see that. I'll give. You said that you felt, you felt better about five than seven. Yeah, I never saw seven. But I was like,

Mo, you said five. I'll get the Timberwolves a little more credit because it's hard to win the short series when your offense is as inconsistent as the, um, thunders are. feels more like five than six now finishing it out of home

and again it's only two games and nothing is over we've seen 2 oh especially when you're winning 2 o at home this happens so nothing's cooked we've seen worse things so that's what they're going to tell themselves yeah it's just 2 o it is what it is

so you know I'm confident obviously being the thunder guy but like if you're a Minnesota guy it's not complete dread there's still as a chance but you're gonna need some some good breaks to go your way you're going to need some Mark Dagnol fouling up three with 11 seconds left selling a game,

Chet missing two free throws. You're going to need Shag going to 1 for 10 from the field in the fourth quarter. You're going to need some breaks to go your way with the thunderself. Well, they already got those breaks. And those breaks happen in the second round. Like, yeah. Their, their version of winning this series would be that they would be playing the Denver Nuggets

in the conference finals. Yeah. And all the stuff, you've, like this Thunder team has gone through, they've gone through the fire already. And I think that, like, now for a lot of people, it was, if they can get past Denver, Chip is theirs, right? The finals appearance is there because obviously, like, Yokech is the best player in the world. And if you can, if you can take him down and make sure that you can stave him off with a bad J-Dib series, with, with Mark Daynott having some lapses and Yok is just taking over at the end of game one, right?

all this other stuff. If you can survive all of that, then everything else that other teams will throw it at you, it's going to be kind of easy. Yeah, like, I remember, so obviously everyone calls me a Glazer for the Thunder. And the main part of that is,

because I think, I forgot what episode it was, the verbiage I said that really made it set in is I said, I'll be more shocked if they don't make the finals than if they do about OKC. And like you said, once you got past Yokic, I'm certain to make the finals.

That was my mindset. You're sleeping. now that the Celtics are eliminated and the calves are eliminated if they get past Yolkage to me it's been like okay they're going to win like I'm not worried like about any of these three teams remaining as long as they execute stay healthy and don't troll and don't sell games like Mark Dagnol and Shade did last series when they should have wanted four or five as long as they don't shoot themselves in the foot

I will be baffled if they don't win the finals I will die on this hill if they do not win the finals I'll go down with the ship as being loud and wrong The way, the way you were talking during the game, it was beyond that. It was, if they don't go back to back, I'll be shocked. So we can talk about a little bit. So this is obviously getting way ahead of ourselves, but I was like, Chet, right, we've been talking about it for weeks. Chet's lower body is so fucking weak.

And he had a good game tonight. But like, you can tell he is so much worse than he was end of last year or the beginning of this season when he took that leap for those first like five games before he got hurt. As soon as he gets a summer to get back, man, no team in recent years has been in a situation to go back to back because these champions haven't been quite as good enough, you lose KCP, so forth. The best team that could have the best chance is the Celtics, and then they fail and now Jason Tatum's hurt. Even though, even when they won, though, they had the best chance going back to back because they were so good and so young, but they had OKC looming

on the other side, getting Hartnstein, getting Caruso. If they win this year, who's looming? I know Chet's going to get better. I know Topich is coming to give them a backup point guard, which they literally don't have right now. Who's looming around the league as like the next super team that you feel like is a championship favorite over them? a team like, like the Houston Rockets, to go out and make another trade. Get KD or get Yonis. And so, like, it's very contingent on that. And then even if, even if the spurs end up, end of getting it, you rarely see teams make

a massive, massive acquisition like that. And then in year one, go and when the chip, it normally takes two years, three years, whatever it is, to not only have the chemistry built, but also to fully build out the roster, I don't, if I, if I look down, it would be someone like, Houston's the best one because it would either be Houston or what if we finally get

this magical healthy Cleveland like what does that actually look like maybe you can get that or if the Indiana patients continue sure sure to you know

to mess around with voodoo dolls maybe they can they can you know be threats and nothing certain I'm not saying to like right off other teams or anything like this is like this is not a real conversation with two

series this is not a real conversation they haven't won the finals it it's not a real conversation I'm just saying like if they do they will be so set up man like I guess the reason we bring that up is so much is at their fingertips right now if they just get through these next few weeks and do what they should do against clearly

inferior teams like obviously going into the playoffs someone like me can be confident saying I think they're going to the finals they're going to call us all all types of levels of glazers Oh, I don't even care anymore. At this point, I'm like a fucking...

I mean, we're talking about a... We're talking about back-to-back in Dynasty before they even secured it. Yeah, but like so, but the point is, going into the playoffs, it's easy for me to say... Do your job. Exactly. It's easy for me to say before the playoffs that I think you should win the finals if things go well and you play to your standards, you play as good as I think you can. It's a whole different beast when you're at this point, six wins away from an NBA

championship with three teams that are not in your tax bracket. they are so they're at the precipice of getting it done you just you're so just don't fucking fold now it's it's at your fingertips just stay calm do your job everything everything else would figure itself exactly like much better now I guess they're halfway through no they're no because two series been played

so way more than halfway now but you know you feel much more confident now than you did before the playoffs yeah so what was that 10 out of 16 yeah 10 out of 16 games 62 and a half percent good math I got you I got you I was turning over the timetables I was like that

I'm so glad that didn't lose the last series I'm so for my mental I'm so glad that he loses the second round I can't even focus on anything they'd do it I've been in mental hell all day

oh with the next yeah and it's so nice that like my favorite team in the Lakers went out sad and it's nice that like sad early

yeah the team I actually think is gonna win is living up to it like obviously I was supporting the leaguers and that's my favorite team so i was excited but like you're not going to find a single video clip of me saying they can beat the thunder like i never thought anybody but the thunder would win the west it's nice at least something who's going to plan yeah if luka and jj went outside at least i can hang my hat on something going well for me again i've spent the last

24 hours just replaying every single every single play once we get to once we get to friday by the time this episode comes out i will fully be in game two mode right you know they tell you, you have the 24-hour rule. I'm taking every second of 24 hours to get over game one, then we're locked in. We're locked in for game two. Okay. And that we said, you has heard our reaction to game one earlier today.

It's Knicks versus Pacers. This is our reaction to OKC versus the Timberwolves. We're going to get you on to the rest of the show. We're going to rewind for us to earlier today when we recorded our two of the show, giving you guys our biggest winners and losers of the NBA playoffs at large. It was a good one. like it. It's solid.

And we're back. It is time for our two of the show, the main block. The winners and losers of the 2025 NBA playoffs. We're going to get broad with this. Actually, I didn't even tell you guys, like, any parameters for this. So it's truly whatever you mean and whatever it means to you to be a winner or a loser, do we want to start with negativity or do you want to start with positivity? I leaked my list a little bit earlier with the winner.

Tibbs. So you want to go with the loser to start? Let's go with losers. The biggest loser of the NBA playoffs so far. We'll go with a player first. It pains me to say this. Ty Jerome, you are the one of the biggest losers of the NBA playoffs so far.

Damn. And when I say that, I mean, Ty Jerome, your pockets are the biggest losers of this NBA playoffs. So much talk has had in the second half of the season of, damn, what is he going to get in free agency? What are the calves going to have to pay to retain this guy?

the one of arguably the best point guard off the bench in the entire NBA, especially for the second half of the season. Other fans of other teams were like, what do we got to do to get us Ty Jerome next year? I haven't seen a single peep about that since the playoff started. The question now is, damn, how much money did he lose himself with that performance? Yeah, I think it was pretty much safe to say. Like, he, I don't know what the thought process budget-wise is, but I think he was looking to easily clear at least like 20 to 25 a year for player like his player his cab but NBA is insane certainly more than the league minimum he makes now

certainly more yeah exactly in my mind I'm like someone like Dionje Hunter makes like like damn near 30 a year he's gonna clear like 25 20 and to see how he went out and just constantly just get I almost said something disrespectful but have Tyrese Hallibor and walk him

down the way he did in those series and not stand a chance on either ends of the courts is so demotivating as a man. Damn. So demotivating, bro. Demotivating as a man?

Good Lord. I just think his shot wasn't falling. And his game is really predicated on floor range and having this finesse game that when a team clearly can sit down and game plan for it and you're not having the best human performance, you're not in your best rhythm. The house of cards falls really, really quickly whenever the one,

not gimmicky thing because it is an immense skill, but it's a rather one-dimensional. foundation to your offense, like that in-between floater range, and obviously he can shoot, he can get to the rim and other stuff, but the main scoring bag he has, like, he shot better from Florida range and he did from the rim this year. That's incredibly difficult to do, let alone

for the course of an entire season. Doing that for 10 games would be crazy. A whole year, like, you are a unique, unique player that gets away with it because you did it for a sample size that we had to respect, but if that between game is taken away, I think you see a little bit more with the player in the past years that was, you know, bouncing around

roster the roster. Yeah, but at the same time teams are desperate and so i like it wouldn't shock me if he still was able to get a pretty decent contract because there is like we've seen people also ridiculous play but we've seen people have bad playoff runs and still be able to recover from it and yes he might have lost himself a couple million dollars he's not making a lot right now no matter what he's coming up yeah so like he's he's going to be okay i i do think that it is very, I guess, easy to thrive in a system where you have Darius Garland and Donald and Mitchell, and that is much different than being lead guard, lead point guard

in another situation. And so I do wonder, like, from to your point, if teams actually look at this and now say, okay, we probably have the full spectrum and he isn't as bad as what he was in the playoffs and he isn't as good as what we saw for the regular season, he is probably somewhere in the but I'm with you like 20 doesn't seem crazy for a title 20 is a lot I don't know 25's damn sure a lot I don't yeah I don't think but like 20 is I don't think but like 20 is there's plenty of role player deals that aren't as high as you think that 20 would be crazy KCP got 20 and KCP is much more established when you got that but either way

it doesn't irrelevant yeah he'll still get 12 15 he'll get probably a mid-level exception which is like 12.5 that's probably what you should get which is a good bag for a player so But aside from the pocket watch And the main reason I want to bring him up is It's really to say The Cavs supporting cast is the biggest loser Yeah You know, stars got hurt

We know Darius Garland once again Played through injury Missed games Probably would have missed the whole series If it was a regular season Demitch had to carry The whole rhythm of the team Was thrown off by Garland being gone

Mowbly missing a game Everything collapsed Because of You pulled a couple of jangle blocks out And the whole thing collapsed Yeah The supporting cast didn't do a great job

Making up for it you know obviously people have been very critical of jared allen channing fry was on on his podcast basically calling jared allen like a fraud it was like no NBA big man respect him he's not a playoff player everything's short of calling him bitch made he said and that to me that was dramatic you know we've seen jared allen perform well plenty of times but he didn't have a great series you know this offense was a lot to deal with the team's defensive infrastructure wasn't there he didn't hold up his end as the anchor but you know deontre hunter got hurt tied jerome disappeared for a lot of the series

What does this team do in supporting cast wise? Obviously, their core four is probably going to stay intact, barring a Jared Allen trade, which I don't think should be an assumption. Some people were saying that, but it shouldn't be an assumption. But they're certainly going to have to reconfigure some of the bench and supporting guys. Yeah. And I also, I had just Cleveland Cavaliers as a whole, as one of my losers. Let's talk about it.

Because this is one of, this is the best season that you had in a non-Lebron context. considering like where we are in the NBA and yeah over the last like 30 years yeah right 30 40 years so you win 64 games you cruise through through the first round and then you get here you don't capitalize on any of the opportunities on any of the opportunities that you have everybody falls apart de Mitch he gets hurt at the very end his one not one but like his peak superhero effort goes wasted and now you sit here once again with the entire league looking at you guys and not only Jared Allen but the entire team saying you're all frauds yeah you know they're definitely getting they're gonna get all the slander of regular season doesn't matter

you can't do it prove it and part of it will be unfair because like we said the injuries are undoubtedly a part of it right they probably the series they might have still lost the patients played amazing it obviously would have went slightly different at the least if they were healthy but they also played like shit outside of that so it's not entirely to the injuries so they're like they're halfway fraud because they're not frauds because if we know the regular season production is not indicative of a team that can't win right like it's not to say that none of that matters because you show it that doesn't translate to the playoffs that's not the takeaway to me it can translate to the playoffs if they're whole but you know the last 15 games of

the season they didn't play super well and people chalked it up to regular season malays they lock up the one C they're going to chill you can I said this at the end of the season I forgot who I was talking about it wasn't the Cavs but you cannot as assume every single team could just flip the switch because LeBron used to do it in the East in 2018 and so forth. Not every team has it in them just flipped the switch. I think that's something that probably played a part of it is they took their foot off the gas, never fully got it back. So they're not frauds, but they certainly failed. They certainly are a disaster of a failure. That's fair to say. And I guess it's like, if not the biggest talking point,

maybe the second biggest talking point is Darius Garland. And he's a loser on my list as well. can't stay healthy man it sucks it's the most deflating thing when you don't even get the chance the opportunity to wake up and be like okay like body parts are working who i can go out and play in the most important time of the year whether it be last year did he broke his i think he broke his jaw last year he did that in the regular season he was yeah he was healthy for the playoffs but he lost so much weight through that recovery that he was never 100 percent so he didn't miss games in the playoffs but he was not nearly 100 yeah on the when you had him when he had him as a guess on the during all-star weekend he was talking about how he his mom like whipped up the most

nastiest smoothies and that's what that was his diet for like so many months too many months so to have his big toe his left big toe specifically just go out and fail on and he sprained it just throw off his rhythm entirely which is his game is so it's so weird the way to put it but his game is so toe dependent because he's one of the shiftyest players that the league he's probably the shiftyest player in the entire game is toe dependent yeah exactly And when your left big toe is out like that, bro, half of your swag, half of your bag is just gone. No, you can't move like that.

Mobility is important for him. And obviously any type of foot injury, hamperage mobility. And he's a guy that is not bigger, strong. So he needs to be as mobile as possible. Otherwise, the edges he has quickly dissolve. It's why you see a lot of small guards aren't particularly good at playing through injuries. You don't have a big margin for error

when you're built on quickness and you don't have size to pull back on. Exactly. Like, he was struggling, because his big toe just went out on him, he was struggling on all ends. couldn't do anything right you keep mentioning the big toe it's a big left toe man it's so important but seeing that happen it's just so deflating year after year after year and he's he's he's the damn near the poster boy of this list for me right now and it's sad because he didn't do anything wrong

he didn't even get at a chance or opportunity to show out how much he's improved year to year to year especially when it comes to his chemistry and taking a little bit of a backseat to guys like evan moby and there is donovan michelin so so the whole cast roster is basically are obviously for such a collapse and such a massive disappointment like this to happen there has to be many culprits

obviously Garland is health sucks Ty Jerome disappearing sucks Jared Allen getting out played by Miles Turner sucks everybody else getting hurt

sucks there's almost no winners like even Donovan Mitchell I feel like he obviously had to carry more load because guys went out I feel like there's times in the later half of the series

where he went too far with that and became too ball hoggy for lack of a better word like it feels like at times Evan Mobley was almost iced out So, like, even the guy who was there to deal with it and lose all those teammates and Donovan Mitchell, even he's not faultless. Like, it is a top-down disaster. And now people are starting to notice and realize, like, oh, shit, like, this dude hasn't escaped the second round ever in his career.

I see, that's a part I'm not doing. That's a part of my guy. Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. I know. You don't have to do that, but it's a part of the conversation. It's a part of the conversation. It's not interesting because he's there. He's Donovan Mitchell.

No one even thought he was going to be this good coming out of college. That's why no one cares right now. but it's just an interesting talking point when it's looking at a star player of his caliber. I get it. I mean, he hasn't made the second round so it's factual.

That's the part where I'm like, yeah, but they lost, they had no chance because of the injuries too. So, like, I'm not going to make any grand takeaways about his style of play, not being the playoffs. You can't go deep, but Demich is one option.

Like, that might be true. Like, DeMich isn't a top 10 player in the world, so you could have already thought that if you want, but I'm not going to use the team outcome as anything indicative of Dompham Mitchell as a lead star. No, but. But he does have flaws, so it's not, I get it.

And now it's a race between him and Embed. To see him and B. Who did he into the conference finals? It's just a runny joke. Yeah. Okay, so obviously the calves are obviously big losers. Yes. Donovan, who's your first winner?

Player Hayton. Player hating? Player hating is the first winner. That never went away. That's been winning. And this is why, specifically when we talk about Michael Malone. Okay. Yo, the Nuggets got eliminated and Michael Malone's like,

I'm getting on TV and I'm telling you that. SGA is the MVP. He, like, to go and do that is so shameless and it's so hilarious that a dude that you won a championship with that probably all year you were capable for it's like, this guy does more than anybody in the league. He's the best player in the league. He's the MVP, all this, right?

Shout out to Nicola. And again, as soon as they are at home with you, you travel to Oklahoma. You get on a flight to go to Oklahoma City to tell the world that Shagie, He'll just Alexander is the MVP. He was playing Hayton and it was very funny. And so I think that like out of this whole thing,

I just thought it was a winner. It was very funny to me. Yeah, brother, you get paid a bag. You get a new job real quick and you get flown out. Probably, it was probably a PJ too as well. And you put on, they gave you a nice ass suit. No, no, no, he went on a PJ.

His peer probably flew first class with like, a PJ. Yeah. For Michael Malone. I don't know. Hey, man. They want to get the bars off. And listen, you want to talk about hating. hating is alive and well.

I have not been able to live on Twitter over the past four days since game one happened because I dared to say I do not hate Shea Gildos Alexander and people looked at me and all they heard when I said I like Shea and I don't think he's the antichrist they looked at me and said, oh okay so you like Al Qaeda.

Okay, so you are a Nazi sympathizer. That's the people here because Shea Gildo's Alexander is currently the most hated star we've seen since like Prime James Hardin. And even that, I feel like there was more of a contingent of people who liked hard and defended him.

Shea plays in Oklahoma, and that is obviously not a big fan base. It feels like 80% of casual- And what else? And they're stupid or uneducated. And all this stuff people are flaming them for, but it feels like... Canadian. And he's Canadian. So nobody likes Oklahoma.

He's Canadian. He's alienated there. It feels like 80% of the casual NBA world hates Shea Gatos Alexander and thinks he has everything wrong with the NBA. and to me as somebody who's obviously become an OKC fan at my proxy of saying I think they're good and everybody yells at me because they say I should hate them. So I become a Shay fan.

I love this. I love every second of this. The way that people are so fuming mad that they're the team to beat, that they're dominating everybody, that they're just going to keep winning and we think win the finals, it brings me great joy.

I used to get upset when there's dumb narratives about players I like that just weren't based in reality. Even as soon as earlier this year, I've spent so much time being annoyed by how stupid narratives that take this much of a hold on the public consciousness are, they're just not true

and they're illogical and all this stuff. I no longer get a fuck. My third eye has been opened. I have reached Zen. I think it's hilarious and I love seeing this villain arc. Thank fucking God, bro,

because you would talk to us all the time about how you're constantly getting harassed and your Twitter mentions by these random ass fans. They still harassed me. They still harassed me and they're so mean to me. It's hilarious. It's hilarious how mean they are to me

Because I like shit. You guys are mean to me. But I love it. It's got the point now where I'm like, it's so stupid and it's so. And because they're winning, if they were losing, it would drive me insane. But because they're winning, I just take it in. I'm like, yeah. I'm so happy that you said that.

Because these SGA haters specifically, great word. These SGA haters specifically are the biggest losers for my list as well. Because they have the stupidest talking points. And you're right. It's just derived straight. straight out of hate, which is emotion, and they just say the most illogical things possible. Specifically, over the course of the year, they've been talking about the free throw thing. The free throw thing is not a new conversation.

It's been happening over the last like 10, seven to 10 years or so based off the James Harden stuff. And so many other players have, you know, taking a couple pages out of his book. And people see someone like Shea who's averaging like eight, nine free throws a game and swear that's all his game is. And we just hear constantly the stupidest things ever. Yes. And all of all of our points aligned well, right? So one, like winner for player hating, a loser for, you know, Shea haters, whatever. Another one of my winners is 2000s legacies. Because the fact that everybody is out here hating on Shea and saying like, oh my goodness, like he's, you know, unethical hooves, foul bait or all this stuff.

This is literally a big part of Dwayne Wade's game. He shot 10 free throws for like five straight years. It's a very similar fashion to the way she gets in line too. No, it was, no, not even. It was more egregious. Like, Dwayne Wade was literally pump faking, throwing his body into a majority of mid-2000 stars and people who are playing out of the mid-posts and mid-range. A big part of their goal is like, if you are too close to me, I'm going to get you off the ground

with the pump-fake. I'm going to throw myself into you and I'm going to get to the free throw line. Everybody knew it. Everybody accepted it. Dee Way did it. Paul Pierce did it. Kobe did it a lot. Michael Jordan did it.

Like all of these stars throughout the entire history of the league did things that at this point, two years ago, the NBA got rid of. They got rid of. That's how, that's what all the stuff that people were saying,

you know, foul grifting. All that has been a hundred percent in the fabric of the NBA. And now, but nobody's going to hate on Dway, nobody's going to hate on Kobe. So their legacy is safe. And Shay is the one

that's going to die on the cross for all. Let's talk about this, though, because obviously we think it's silly the narratives around Shea. We don't not think Shay is the worst thing to happen to basketball. We don't think he's the worst to watch superstar in the world. But there's enough people that do that I can come up here and say it's nothing. You know, like this many casual NBA fans, or not even, I shouldn't say casual, this many NBA fans, even hardcore, hate watching him play and feel as if he's given an unfair advantage to the point where even if I think it's mass psychosis and it's not based in reality,

there's a reason these people think these things. So it would be unfair to say that they're pulling it out of thin air. like we talked about my mentions being outrageous let's go through it and see some of these talking points I made this tweet where I was talking about how Shea had a bad second half I mean first half but you you saw how you can't defend him one on one or also get to the line consistently and just beat you up right

he fouled Jamie Daniels out of the game who's somebody that people consider an elite defender I just pulled this random tweet not to single him out he said bro you can't fucking touch him nobody will last against his whistle I will never respect him after this and then I replied this with saying why do y'all think he gets a good whistle because the refs just like his vibe

or because he's incredibly hard to stay in front of which leads to fouls and this led to an eruption of people saying I'm being naive and pretending that it's outlandish that refs give special treatment to some people and it's like answer

why the fuck would the refs want somebody on the Oklahoma team to get special treatment and somebody's like so you're saying Steph and Jha and all these other guys who don't get fouls are hard to guard you really think the rest would favor

an Oklahoma City player over Stefan Curry They really think the refs are boomer Sooners. Like that is insane. Like, why would he get special treatment? Like, people really believe that... I hate that, too. Don't never say that again.

It's a hard. So I guess my question is like, we had to talk about why he has a good whistle. What is a good whistle? Because some people really think that a good whistle is just decide on like whether the refs decide they want to give you fouls, that everything is equal and some people have special treatment and some people are disliked by the refs.

That's how they think it works. And I think, so like part of it for me and even some of the, of the people that I kind of look at and like know that they are like watching games on are you know really involved in it. One of the major points is like yes he is getting fouled. However, so is everybody else in the in the playoffs. And so obviously we talk so much about how how physical these playoffs have been. And so part of it I think is you look at other games and you look at other stars and some people feel like other stars are, you know, playing by whatever new rules that that we are playing by.

And then when it comes to Shea, some of the files that he's getting feel like regular season calls while everybody else is getting full-time playoff whistle. And so now you have three, four times a game where he's getting to the line

on a call that is soft or wouldn't be called on the other end. And so that's not outlandish to think that, though I think it is lazy. Because, okay, so we'll use a comparison to Anthony Edwards. People compare that and they're saying, why isn't he getting to line?

He's also a great driver. You also can't stay in front of him. There are tangible skills on why Shea gets these calls and your other guys don't. Look across the league, there is no other star right now that is as good at drawing fouls as Shea. So this specific game, game one, there was a few questionable calls that were tiki-tacky right that you could say were just one of them got reversed even. So I'm not even here to tell you every foul he got was 100% in the right, whatever. Like there's going to be bad calls in a game. I'm here to tell you that shit is not indicative of some grander picture that explains every single call he gets.

The reality is, I tweeted it and explained it this way, I said, he's the best in the NBA at creating really low driving angles that are hard to slide in front of because so little of his body is open to the defender. So people have to create contact with his arms because they can't reach his chest. And he's really, he has a great feel for generating all this. That's what it is. He is simply amazing as a driver and has a very specific skill set of generating these, like I said, low driving angles that you can't beat him to a spot because he's quicker than you and has longer strides than you. So you're trying to recover as a defender and you touch him. and he is amazing at doing the hardened thing that as soon as he knows you're about to touch him

he goes into a shot motion if you want to say that's unethical hoops whatever it's like on purpose it's a skill that he forces people to foul him like it's so different if Anthony Edwards had that same feel that same skill as a driver

he would do it as well he doesn't have the footwork he doesn't have the technique doesn't have the feel just because you're fast and hard to guard does not mean you have the specific skill sets that lead to lots of fouls I think I think it has the skill set he just doesn't go to it very much that very well i think it's a mindset thing as well yeah one of

the greatest cheat codes to life is find something that you're goaded at find something that you're that you just can spam and once you do that life is so much fucking easier for you bro in general and this exactly applies to this goddamn game and shay's game specifically like you said all those words that you put up on your on your tweet make so much sense and it's the it's the best way to break it down, but for people who just can't really digest that, he's just elusive as fuck, bro. He's so swift and it doesn't make any sense because his

game isn't predicated on necessarily explosiveness, but he's just, he's quick and he's super decisive with those moves. And with the way that he yeah, Ed does. No, he doesn't. Statistically he does because when it comes to getting, when it comes to the

amount of drives that he takes or blowbys, he's so good at blow buying any be player in the fucking world. That's not the same thing. But it's what he does after the blow by. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's not the same thing. People will see that and they're like, so he can also get by guys, right? That's not the same thing. He's incredibly fast. He does not have the same maturation as a slasher that Shea has. Like, the footwork and the angles and

ability to specifically get the defender in that spot and know how to make them foul you. It's not the same thing as being going to blow by a guy because you're faster and more athletic than them. That's an entirely different skill that does not translate to drawing foul. Like, people think like you can't be guarded. You're good should equate to drawing free throws. It's been the same thing with Curry forever. Curry is not as good at getting guys on their hip and getting into a free throw motion like that.

Stephans forever have been complaining about his whistle and why it's bad. Man, because he was for the longest time. I'm sorry for the longest time. And you can see it specifically on off ball stuff. And there is a certain part to this where for every player in the NBA, stars, role players, benchwaters,

bench warmers. If I call every foul, we are not going to play the game. Yeah. Right. Everybody's foul on every single play. There's always some level of physicality that you can look at and say that is not in the rules. You cannot do that. Right. And so you, so like the rest are in a position where they do have to also manage the game and make sure that like it's watchable, right? And that is watchable and that you're putting yourself in a position to where you can be consistent at least within that game. Right. So you can't like. Like if you're letting people play, then you let people play. If you're not, you're being tiki-tack.

People do adjust to that as the game goes on. Like that's something that is like very, very real with the foul drawing stuff. Yeah, and even for Shea, like someone said, like your point, people would say everybody else gets played through it. He gets at a higher rate is what they'd say. She gets fouled all the time too. Like he does not get every call in the same way other people don't. He gets more of them because he drives the most. He has the most attempts there.

So he'll get the most amount of foul. But in the same way that you see Ant play through fouls, there's a thousand plays where Shea does the same thing and plays through a foul doesn't get it. There's just a lot more of a sample size that you're going to see more and feel like in some kind of psychological bias that he's getting a higher percentage. He's not. The whole Denver Nugget series, they were harassing him. Christian Brown and Michael Port Jr. were allowed to hand check him all the time. Constantly, he is playing through the same amount of physicality as everybody else.

He, like I said, is just that much better at drawing fouls and it's perfected that skill set more. So he's going to get more despite that. But he's also playing through more physicality than he did in the regular season. I agree to that. I also think another thing. And listen, my star, does he do it sometimes? There's this egregious ass clip that he, you showed me this upstairs. You shouldn't have done that.

Jalen Brunson literally took, I think it was Aaron Neesman and he took his own his, he took Aronizan's hand, and he slapped himself with it. I've never seen that before ever. It is egregious. What I'll say is, and with Brunson, and part of what I think is happening with Shea is the degree to which you sell the call is also another thing that that elevates the hysteria around, around foul calls, right? Every time you see Jalen Brunson drive, you see him, you know, snap his neck back and people are like, oh, like, stop doing that, stop doing that. You're trying to bait for the foul. Shay, there were screenshots where as soon as as somebody's hand was on him, he's making faces, right? His head is going one way.

He's acting demonstrative. He's playing a game within a game. You've seen it with Embed before where he's done it. You've seen it with Harden, all that stuff. Yeah. And so selling the call is also something to like that I, even myself, I'm like, I don't necessarily like want to see that all the time because there is a certain part. and this is a very fine line and I think when we talk about it all the time

where you're like foul baiting is a skill and you should use it and it's walking on that line and saying like yes it's a skill but also like come on man just play just play the game you know like that's the that's the line where you are walking as a star

when you are going for calls and doing that's precisely it I do not give a shit if you don't like watching it you're more power to you to east their own I'm not asking you to stand Shay Gildos Alexander, I'm not even asking you to enjoy watching him. You can dislike watching him actively. It doesn't matter me.

Like, that's completely fair and valid. If you are the opinion that you do not enjoy watching someone who sells calls, I get it. That's fine. Like, if that's your distinction is he's a foulbator that's not fun to watch, I have no argument for you. That's so subjective. That's perfectly reasonable is the people that seem to think that it's for no reason and like the league chose him to give him fouls.

And they seem to think that, like I said in the beginning, this whole good whistle thing is simply whether the rest decide you get a foul or not. and it's not basing anything that's like having to do with the player in the specific skills. I just feel like you can hate them, but like understand why you hate them. You know what I mean? You know what this is this whole conversation has told me? Mathematically, the United States of America is behind. This just doesn't make any sense, bro.

If he goes to the rim the most out of everyone in the entire league outside of Yokas and Yokicinianis, he's going to get just as many calls, if not maybe even more, bro. That's all this tells me. And then another thing as well, that's just a funny caveat, going back to the foul baiting stuff and how you decide to fabricate that you've been filed or how you're just like, you know, playing the game within the game and anticipating it. One of my favorite, I guess, motions is back in like maybe 2017, 2016, I think it started with Russell Westbrook.

And then LeBron saw that. He stole that shit and he got caught for it a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, is when they would just hold their face on the ground, just be like this the entire time. Russ started that shit. And LeBron, he carried that shit And he still doesn't until his day And he got exposed for it When he was like this

But Shade That was a leaf Doesn't have a lot of He's not that egregious He's not that egregious On that drive specifically He did He did like make the face before

But also there's at least in game one And we're watching together I just can't point out He's like how like you can't even say anything Because he's making the end one Yeah Like he's making the shot anyways. And so if that's going down, that's fine.

I personally, I love shit. I have no problem with him. I don't think that he is an unethical hooper because even if you take away all the free throws, he's still averaging like 24, 25 points a game. It's elite. That's the part where it's just hysteria that people are mad about the aesthetics because it's not logical at all to think that like either A, the team wins because it's free throws, B, he's a scoring leader because his free throws.

See, he's only good because it's free throws. None of the outcomes make sense outside of I just don't like them, which more power to you, right? And the funny part to me, as a Shay fan, as somebody who's watching this hysteria breakdown, is what did I hear in the regular season? None of that free throw grifting shit is going to work in the playoffs. He's going to collapse. They're not going to make the conference finals again because he's going to not be a good score because he can't make the free throws. He relies on that. Now we're here.

Now it's, oh, he's the devil. He's still getting these free throws. He's still tricking the refs. So first it wasn't going to happen. now it's immoral. I don't know what the next evolution is when they win the title. But I'm assuming it's going to be like asterisk ring. He only got it because it's a foul vator.

Somehow they keep changing whatever the takeaway is on these fouls. And I love to see it. I have something to admit. The stupid part of my brain actually enjoys a little bit of the conversation because it's fucking hilarious. Anytime. Sometimes I'll be on Twitter. And then someone would just be like, I just turn it on the game.

Guess for Shay's that. And it's just fucking. fucking hilarious. That's the They did that during the all-star game and it was funny.

Yeah. And again, part of, again, I say I've much more Zen now to this stupid stuff but doesn't bother me

as much anymore. End of the day, part of sports is haters and like people got to root against the people that some people

support. So comes to the territory, you're one of the best players in the world. People don't like your style. It's fine, right?

It doesn't actually matter. What I do think is whack is like Doris Burke being on ESPN and like talking about the foul merchant jokes.

I grew so fucking that was so unfunny and just like adding feel of the fire in a way that wasn't like even funny. So I think it was just lame. Yeah. So that that's where it becomes a little iffy is whenever these things get like propagated to be like the actual narrative around a player and in a way that like takes away some of the props they deserve.

Still doesn't really matter in the day. But overall, people are going to hate and that's fine. I love what Donovan said about the early, a ton of the early 2000s players literally De Wade, Kobe, Shaq, T-Mack, whoever you want to mention, they were getting into line and doing and all these types of things. What we have been blessed with, but also like damned with at the same time is just how over-analyze

and how overly exposed certain things of the game have came to be. Like back in the day, we wouldn't see or be able to like, like 10, 20 years ago, we wouldn't be able to 15 years ago. We wouldn't be able to see the, we didn't have the ability to rewind games

with our own free will. We could do that obviously, but it takes a couple more steps I would go 10 years ago but yeah I know your point At a certain point you couldn't see the sausage was made

and there wasn't as many people talking about things as granularly and understanding these things at this level and like having these hate trains develop because of that there just wasn't the education

there was back especially 2006 Prime D-Wade you want to go 20 years ago people would hate him now if you play today they just were ignorance Yeah exactly If we had Twitter

after 06 where you have this young star who got to the line a million times a game He would despise. And then it came out afterwards that the ref was betting on the game. Oh, my goodness. D.A. would have no respect for the rest of his career.

Like, we spent, we spent like 30 minutes last week talking about how the draft lottery was rigged. If it came out legitimately that a ref was gambling on games, that that's something where it's like, yes, the guys from the 2000s completely protected. Yeah. Okay. Next winner I have, David Adelman. Okay. David Adelman is a gigantic winner I think there's a general trend

of this year especially we saw like four interim coaches get hired without their team doing any type of coaching search which in general I'm not the biggest fan of like I'm not against you hiring a interim coach you want to hire Mitch Johnson go ahead but I would

if I was a part of organization I'd probably want to see them do their due diligence first and look around see who else is out there vet candidates do an interview process compare them to the interim If your end decision is, the interim is the guy, great, that's ideal. He's in the door.

You have an existing relationship. Everything worked out well, but at least do the process first. A lot of teams haven't been doing that yet. The Kings hired Doug Christie without doing that. And I was like, really? Like, you're that inspired by the second half of the King season that you're like, Doug's the guy? All right, I guess. I think David Adelvin deserves that.

I think he is the instance where he proved in the playoffs, the defensive game plans he can instill, the buy-in he can instill in Nicole Yokic, that trickles down to the rest of the team, the chemistry that he got out of them that Mike Malone clearly was not capable of, the effort he got out of them that Mike Malone clearly was not capable of, the fact that he was already a highly sought-after assistant

that was doing interviews in previous years to get head coaching opportunities. He should keep his job, and I think he earned that in the second round. Yeah, he definitely is one of the biggest winners. I'm with you. I'm always kind of worried about just hiring the interim because people are firing coaches a lot of times

to try and create a spark. Sometimes that spark works in the short term. And then, right, like, players are listening to the assistant because it's a different dynamic between them and the head coach. Yeah. And you have this running and like, man, I'm glad Mike's out of here. And then we go through an entire offseason and now we're in December of next year. And this is actually the boss now.

And you have a different relationship with him. I think so necessarily go the same way. What was that guy for the Nets that they did that with? Jacques Vonn. Jokvon. Sometimes he got a Jacques Vonn, where it's like he was great for an in room at that moment. there's a reason he wasn't a head coach after that. You know, in previous years, when you don't have that spark, you kind of, you lose the appeal.

Yeah. But I think, I think in the Nuggets case, I'm with you. I think the fact that you were able to see Yokic elevate to another level. And at least outwardly, we were able to see rises in leadership and all this other stuff and hear that reporting, you know, coming from Denver. That's something where it's very, very positive. And you also don't fire a coach. overall, I don't think that Nicole Yokic had no, you know, knowledge of Michael Malone being fired.

And so you don't make a move like that without any, without notifying Yokic in any way. And so the fact that we're here and the fact that Adam is the guy now, I think it's okay for the Nuggets. And so, like, shout out to him. He's bredded. He's about to get, you know, this paper. And I think, I do think it's a good move because the Nuggets, their issues are much more. roster construction especially at this point rather than coaching yeah yeah i i definitely agree with all the things that you said he's easily one of the one of the biggest winners of the entire

playoff run it's super impressive to see how much in turmoil this team was over the last what week two weeks of the regular season and they could if this feels like a night and day team damn there and run along the same breath another winner that i want to talk about that i have on my list is fucking Rudy Gaubert. Okay. We all know Rudy Gaubert is easily one of the, he's consistently one of the most hated people that love to call him overrated NBA players. And specifically in the playoffs, that's where all the eyes and microscopes on them.

Everybody got their cameras out. Everyone's ready to press rerun, rerun, rewrite, get that on the camera, post it on Twitter for any, anytime he gets like burned offensively or defensively. And so far this playoffs, this is the entirety of the playoffs, he's been so good defensively. he had a couple moments like every elite defender does where they just like you know they don't either shift quick enough or they just get burned you know that's what that's just the nature of the game these days and for him to have plenty of highlight worthy plays like peak like this is what rudy go bears about plays whether it be it's versus the um los angeles lakers

or whether it be versus the the golden state warriors and we've even seen a couple of plays in the series that you guys are going to talk about later between okay c and them he played he was so important and he was one of the biggest reasons why the minnesota timbrews were able to remain in that game because of his just simply like presence and instincts when it comes to deterring shots he's one of the greatest of all times at that and this although like offensively he's so wildly inconsistent these days and i guess statistically too it's it's worth mentioning he's not inconsistent at all so he's pretty bad all the time

but all this season specifically he's this postseason specifically this is like the worst that he's been statistically and his efficiency's dropped like all around but if there's one thing that remains the defense is as strong as ever and that's all

that matters on the court I think we're recording this before game two of OKC versus Minnesota so you guys will have already seen our reaction earlier at this record before that so don't know how game two went but I'll also throw this out there, hoping that he didn't have a terrible game too. Julius Randall is also obviously a big winner of this postseason.

He's also on my list as a winner. We talked about this last week, so we don't got to spend too much time on it. Julius Randall had the reputation of a playoff dropper. And I'm kind of the opinion that a playoff dropper is like an over-dramatized idea that barely even actually exists. It's often just a label given off small sample size

that doesn't actually mean they're like systemically incapable of succeeding in the playoffs. But we have seen nothing but disappointment from Julius Randall in the playoffs. So I completely understood why people had their doubts. At the very least, you didn't feel like he was a guy that was going to elevate come playoff time.

He has played exactly as good as he did in the last 20 games this season, which he was dominant. Game one of the series against OKC, he had like the first five threes he took. He had a dominant first half of a three-point shooting. It was amazing. He played bully ball in the past rounds. He beat the shit out of Draymond Green. Draymond Green won his podcast and was like, yo, he got it.

I lost my matchup. Second time of my career, first it was Yakum in the finals. Now it's Randall. They kick my ass. And it was true. Now he did well in game one against OKC as a shotmaker. He's just a versatile player that we've talked about that. Like the trade is working extremely well for the team.

And shout out him for proving haters wrong. Please have a good game too. Maybe you guys are seeing this after game two. And he got locked up by Jdub. I don't know. But oh, even if he does have a terrible series. Overall, he's been great. OKC might be the greatest defense in modern area history.

So even if he does bat against them, I will not fault him for it. He kicked Jeremiah Green's ass and that alone is worth it. Thanks. All right. too much positivity We'll go with the loser James Hardin Okay

James Hardin has You're the only one who You didn't even ask for it I bet you didn't even have James Hardin on your list Who the fuck is talking about 36 37 year old Hardin Just beating a dead Leave him alone He's dead

He's in LA Damn you're getting ready for vacation Stop shooting I'm just He's emptying the clip right now I know Fuck We're talking about the

Stop t-bag in the body We're talking about the playoffs As a whole And James Tardin T-back T-T back T-T bag He's a little identified himself as one of the worst big game players in NBA history and it is it is kind of tragic because you did like over the last like year and a half you've seen you've seen the

revitalization of his career yeah and everyone like going from how it ended in philly to like wow he's exactly what the clippers needed and he can be this distributor for their for their two for their two wings paul george leaves and everybody everybody everybody says you know this team is going to go nowhere and he played he played well this year and had them as the fifth seed going into the playoffs and then it all just comes comes crashing down and i think like this this was a year where the clippers had an opportunity to not only get out the first round but really start to change the tide of how people thought about the the team and the organization as a whole new building new jersey everything felt kind of fresh and everything

just kind of fell back into old Clippers Habits and he was a big part of that and so it sucks but if you are talking about the macro ideas that we're taking away from these playoffs James Harden being one of the biggest losers it makes sense yeah I so yeah I mean that's it

we'll have to spend too much time on it but I just it just had to be said I can't I can't name him a winner of the playoffs but if you just had to spring that on go ahead go for it other biggest winner of the playoffs to me New York City TikTok The guys who go around and film Mad on the Street videos farming views off of the insane people that live in New York, they're eating well, this playoff run.

The amount of like sidewalk talk and sidewalk talk adjacent ripoffs I've seen around the most insane people in New York. These motherfuckers are crazy. And if you're a person that does man on the street content in New York City, you're probably paying your rent every weekend right now. You're probably having the most profitable month of your life because these motherfuckers in New York are going. crazy the first conference finals in 25 years i've never seen the energy on tick in the way that i'm seeing it at this city i'm not going to lie this is the most since i moved out of new york last month i've never missed it more than now because i'm not going to lie i wish i could sit down and just experience the madness of new york nick fans feeling

joy for the first like genuine joy for the first time over the last i don't know how many years i like it better when they feel despair personally all right anyways so yeah but even outside of your TikTokers. New York Knicks fans in general are winners of this playoff run, obviously. They, uh, it's kind of hilarious. I've never, especially if they make the finals if they win this Pacer series, which is in the air, still very possible. I don't think I've ever

seen a team whose fan base hated their team in the regular season as much as the 2025 Knicks fans hated the Knicks. I've never seen a team with that much disdain for their products, make the finals. So it will be like the new poster child for a Cinderella run for a team that only talking

point for the whole second half of the season was team's cool they gave up too much for mackale too much for cat the team can't beat the celtics they went all in for a good not great team it's not going anywhere fast

they can't beat the top dogs in the east and they just beat the shit out of everybody if they make the finals it will be an inexplicable Cinderella run that I'm pretty sure

zero analyst across media besides nix fans predicted following up with that and that's why I have Leon Rose as also another winner on my list

because as an NBA GM, all you have to do is give your team the opportunity to win. Give them the best opportunity to win. Sometimes things ain't perfect. It's all about timing and genuine luck when it comes to certain things. And Leon Rolls, like, rolled the fucking dice. And he saw someone like McAlbridge is available in the market. And he unloaded the clip, did whatever it takes to land him on the roster just so the Knicks could have a chance up against the Meglodon at the time in the Eastern. Yeah, which was, with the way that he would describe in the Boston Celtics, you would think you guys are fucking the mafia, bro. You know what a Meglodon is? Yeah, it's a big ass shark, what you mean? It's dead now, but yeah. They keep him trying my gangster right now, man.

It's crazy. He really did try you. Yeah, you did try me. You were nicknots the fuck up. Anyways, going back to Leon Rose, he's one of the fucking biggest winners that the league has to fucking offer, bro. Bro, I watched the movie. Fuck out of here. anyways you watch the meg on HBO max 10 out of 10 you know how I am sometimes man 10 out of 10

you know and I did watch it during the day too you know you know my mind has changed but seeing what Leon Rose did and the gutsy move of not only trading for macao bridges but also like doubling down and getting cat last minute it's gutsy he's doing what it takes to win this move could have easily like fell on their fucking face completely I felt like that at times during the regular season when there's this infamous stat of, you know, they couldn't beat any team

that was one of the top two seats in the East or Western Conference. So embarrassing, but for things to be working out in his favor, worked during his favor or not, he's the winner at the end of the day because he did what he could do and he tried his best

to maximize their potential. And I don't even like, nobody was wrong for doubting the Knicks in the regular season based on what we saw in the playoffs. It just shows you that, you know,

end of the day, you can make all the assumptions you want. What matters is the outcomes, and sometimes it has so little to do with preconceived notions. It's who executes. These motherfuckers are executing. So they're playing who's in front of them and they're winning. So it's not even like a takeaway like, we've got to rethink how we think about these teams.

No, they're just getting it out the mud and they're finding a way to win when on paper, maybe they shouldn't. It does not matter. You play the game to win and they're doing it. Exactly. At least they were doing it. On a similar note to Leon Rose, one other one or a half, we can spend a little bit time on. Kevin Pritchard, the GM of the Indiana Pacers. this team is a poster boy for never tanking

they are exactly what the Chicago Bulls wish they could be and their back-to-back conference finals could be in a finals this time next week zero tanking years zero top five picks they're only top 10 pick in a long time I forget the exact amount of years is Benedict Matherin whose ass is glued to the bench

actually no he's playing now but you know is coming off the bench for them so they get a couple big picks they do not really contribute to why they're so great and they're still doing it, still getting out the mud. The Tyrese Halliburton trade was obviously when the best trades you've seen in a long time. There's a little bit of time where people were like, win, win,

the Kings are, they're also good. So bonus is also just as good. No, it was always a insanely stupid trade. The Tyrese Halliburton side of it is the winning side of it, no matter what, no matter what you get from those few years of the Kings. That was a stroke of genius. Getting Niecemith was a stroke of genius. Getting Siakun was a great deal we all liked at the time.

They had some rocky bouts. Started this year when Tyreys Halliburton was on fraud watch when he played really bad because he's dealing with injuries. it got spooky it was like damn damn damn that's all you can really say but now they fought through that everything's working it is just a master class of how to build from the middle and operate as a small market team it has to be smart because you're not going to get the luxuries that other teams have team building wise you'll never get number one pick to give you a star you'll never get a star in free agency you got to figure it out by doing all the things you can the vehicles at your

disposal to find value they've done every single one of those and it's worked that's why and that's That's why Tyrese is on my list as a winner. Again, this is the last good thing I'm going to say about Tyre's Hallibor for the next week. Okay. But Tyree Taliborne and the way that he has completely silenced everybody this year. And to go back to where he was a year and a half ago, leading the Pacers to the championship game of the NBA Cup and the in-season tournament and all that. and him ascending during that time and then to come out after the playoff run last year

after the start this year and now fully leaning into yeah you guys hate me I don't care right like I am I am one of the best point guards in the league I'm one of the best clutch players in the league this team operates with a whole bunch of guys that on any other roster

like you'll look at Nemhard and be like oh he's good but you're never thinking about about Nemhard in that way Aaron E Smith was a throw in right in the trade with traded his ass from Malcolm Brogden yeah right he who just he was just a piece and now he's with this team that is fueled by everything that Tyrese Halliburton does legitimate legitimate pieces he elevates everybody around him he's elevated himself and his game into now like you can say whatever you want about about Tyrese about his standing in the NBA

you know top 15 top 20 whatever you have to like you said it's about the outcomes and it's about winning and the Pacers are winning games and they're winning series and the fact that they might be in an NBA final the Indiana Pacers might be in an NBA finals with Tyree Talibran and Pascal Siakum who are good players great right all-star all-star caliber players but not the typical setup for you know best player on a on a championship team or best player on the finals team like that doesn't really happen a lot and to have this type of consistency and winning and success Shout out to him, shout out to them because it's amazing. Dude, going back to what you said, again, shout out to their GM because their GM

and their entire, like, honestly developmental staff as well. They've done an elite job just continuously putting the Andrew Nemhards, the Miles Stern, who's been there for a thousand years, it feels like Bennett and Mathurin, they just know how to get the most out of every single player on this roster. And, of course, I'm giving a lot of credit to someone like Tyree's Halliburton as well because it starts at the top in his style of play. It's so wildly infectious. How I view him, like, he's, he doesn't have, like, the, it's hard to say what Tyree's

Tylerburn can do these days because every single time you say something like that, he goes ahead and doubles down on it. But when it comes to how a lot of people view him, he doesn't feel to the common eye, like an otherworldly threat, like a Steph Curry or Shagos, Alexander, and guards like that. But he is, like, the ultimate, like, oiler. for a machine in my mind. He's just continuously, like, pumping up his squad in every way imaginable.

And when he can give you something, which he had a lot for the New York Knicks the other night. He does that. A loser that I had on my list was the 14 players who voted him as the most overrated player in the NBA last month. That was such a blown out of proportion poll. It was absolutely ridiculous.

You said 14. I heard nine was probably the number. I heard it was not. I think it's so stupid because it's anonymous. We don't even know who voted it. It's not even like, it's not like LeBron and Kevin Durant. We're like, yeah, Tyrese is overrated. Like, it might be some benchwoman.

Like, and it probably was. If we really wanted to, we could sit down and bust down a investigation on who voted Tyrus Halliborne as one of the more overrated players by just looking at Tyre's Halliburton fights, bro. And I swear we don't see it. We can't see it. We can easily scope him out that fast, bro. But those, seeing what Tyrus Heilberg has been able to do,

throughout the entirety of the pro season the hell dating back to last year it just goes back to what you said vindicates and I bet like Kevin, Kevin Pritchers is name correct yeah he feels like the man right now going back to the Pascal Seaccom trade making all the small moves

drafting right with Andrew Nemhart and all that like on a similar guy let's flip it last loser I want to talk about today before we get to TikTok time Patrick Riley of the Miami Heat is one of the bigger losers of this playoff run because

obviously the Jimmy Butler fiasco he won the power struggle they got Jimmy Butler out of there they said we're not paying you you're acting an ass we don't want you in a part of our organization we're going with Pat Riley and he culture guys

we're betting that we have the infrastructure around you that we can empower Tyler Hero empower Bam out of Bio they'll carry us just as far and we'll figure out the rest later does motherfuckers carry them exactly nowhere the Pat Riley style the Pat Riley guys carry them exactly

nowhere they lost their defining star of the last decade because this old man alienated him because he single-handedly ruined the relationship of Jimmy Butler and made it a dick measuring contest to see who would win the power in the organization and Pat Riley won

but he also goddamn lost because that new direction leads you nowhere fast and I don't see how they're going to find the next star that sees the Jimmy Butler thing and how it put out and says yeah I want to be in those shoes I will say I get it though

if you granted he was hurt but if you see the way the jimmy butler played towards the end of the playoff run and then you say we're going to add another year right onto onto what it is we we would have looked up in two years and they're like i can't believe jimmy butler is making this amount of money in miami and so on that principle i'm like you know what pat you got it because i don't think that jimmy butler is a guy that in two or three years you'll feel good about having as your number one star making you know 50 60 million dollars a year and the heat they've done it before i think all of this i'm trying to figure out the nice way to say it yeah but all all of this it just depends on like how are you looking at pat riley's timeline and how are you interpreting it

and if you think that he has a good sense of the timeline for the future cool if not then that's probably where you disagree but outside of that I think the decision was kind of sound I mean okay so I think in general the decision to not want to tie yourself to Jimmy Butler long term I guess is sound

if you have a viable alternative they do not so it's alternative is you'd be nothing for two years and you're too good to tank but not good enough to do anything of note you'll probably keep Jimmy Butler I think but that I understand that's debatable I understand that that's a debate

you could argue the quibble with the age of Jimine and whether or not this year was indicative of who he is for the future versus the injury, whatever. That's fine. If you don't want Jimmy Brother, okay. You said they've done it before. They found a way to retool. That was because Jimmy Butler wanted to play for Pat Riley and wanted to play for Miami. I have very little faith that a star in 2025 will want to play for Pat Riley.

You know, I don't know the guy. I don't know the inner workings the organization. I don't know what free agents think. So all it takes is one guy to prove us wrong. Last time we counted them out, all it took was Jimmy Butler to prove us wrong because he decided he want to go there and make it happen. So same thing could happen, I suppose. But I find it hard to believe that if you put the next 30 stars and become available and you pull them on do you want to play for Pat Riley, I bet more would say no than yes. And I don't trust the ability for them to

feasibly make something happen again. Overall, I agree with you. I think you are correct and I lean towards your way. But hey, Yannis did do a Q&A the other day on Twitter and he did say, I think his favorite city to play in outside of Milwaukee, whatever, is Miami, so. Now, he said New York. Did he say New York? He said, he said New York. He said, he said New York. And Miami. He said, he said, like, the big markets. Yeah, yeah. I will say, as somebody as somebody who has heard this story before, I don't give a damn what they say

on Twitter. They can say New York. They can say Miami. Yeah. They're not going. And again, they will lie to your face. And if he does, and if Yonis does say, I want to play for them, they shut me up. They fix all that, right? All it takes is one guy deciding he wants to play in Miami and Pat Riley's you're willing to deal with it right so it all it takes is one I don't feel great with the chances for them to get that one in the next 18 months or whatever it would take to make this make sense he has one of the everyone has like some level of stink in the NBA and Pat Riley he fucking reeks right now damn and it's disgusting because he's like it's an old reek to just stuck up in his ways guys like D waiting you D

D Donnas has him over here like yeah bro he's just stuck up in a way he's like Pat is just like that. DeWay was over there on his podcast talking about how I think he was back in 2017 or something like that or 20 it was yeah 2017 or 2016 I don't know but he was talking about how he had to leave Miami just for a quick second because Pat was fucking tripping and didn't want to pay him what he had to pay him and that's why we got disgusting era a disgusting era of dwayne wade over there with the bulls so I just I just think that he he needs to probably retire soon yeah well we'll see we'll see and uh I as I sprinkled that in there for the he fans who say we never talk about them let me tell you how we feel you're paying attention

he cares about you with that being said that is our biggest winners and losers of the playoffs so far i think i think soldier arm up i don't want that i think you want a green one nope i don't want to even oh he's going on armed i got you guys we move welcome to tick talk time today we're going to begin by showing you horrors that are beyond your comprehension what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you two NBA players faces combined and I want you to guess who the players are just two just two we've done similar things in the past where we combined entire starting fives it works a little bit differently this is slightly different these are ones that

we made we didn't get them off the internet sometimes there's famous ones back in the day off like Twitter and stuff these are ones that we made that our graphic designer in-house Andrea made so all I'm going to say is so let me know what you think Let me know who the players are. I'm terrified. Name the NBA player face combo. First off, who are these two players? Oh my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay. There's a couple. There's a couple things that come to mind. It kind of looks like, but I'm sorry to say this. I'm thinking. You know who he looks like.

Is I not of it? Yes. What the fuck? Come on. It looks like you. Come on, man. Look at the eyes in the eyebrows. Come on.

Literally take your finger and just look straight at the eye. Can you play the game the way it's, I'm sorry, Mr. Smoot, this might be you. I'm guessing Carinthe Towns and Donovan Mitchell. No. Incorrect. This is not Carinthetowns.

Andre Jumman and Donovan Mitchell? Incorrect. I'll say, this is Carleton's. Yes. I think this is Cat. And then I also smell some stink also. When it smells like the smelly streets in New York, I think this is Carmelo Anthony as well. This is Cat and Carmelo Anthony as well.

This is Cat and Carmello. Ew. Ew. This is Cat and Mello. Y'all see it now? Yeah. I see the kind of like neck of beard. Someone on Twitter the other day did they call so much like.

Yeah, they called his neck beards for defending shade. Elite joke. There you go. Cat and Carmilla. That's an easy one. We started with one that was rational. I think you could see that and see the faces.

We start on the easy note. You know, we got to get you guys his blood flowing. Who is this? Bro, this man, handsome. What the fuck? Hold on, wait, Andre. You made a cook just now. First of all, there's this TikToker

that looks just like this. I forget his name. What does he make TikToks about? Bro, this is handsome Squidward. This is Yossify. This is, okay, so Kobe's in here. Yeah, Kobe's one. Look, this is Tupac.

What the fuck you're talking about right now? Word two, what the hell? So we make Kobe more handsome. What does that sound like to you? Shit. Jeez. My girl, my mom. What the hell is?

going on, man. All right, man. He's a little too attracted. Let's go Kobe and Shea. This is Kobe and Shea. What the fuck? We made Kobe have aura. No, this is our reaches.

This is like some actor, man. It looks like he's yosophized. Like, you put a filter on him to make him handsome. Yeah. It's hilarious. It looks nice. Dude, what the fuck? No, it does look an actor.

It definitely looks an actor playing Kobe. Yeah, exactly. Shout to my East Africans. who is this player oh he looks like he's been stripped of all kind of things who are we looking at this is tough this is just a new person it doesn't look like anybody combined this is just a guy that could exist he looks like one of them ambiguous calves players this one this one is hard I look over and like at first dance I see it and instantly thinking about like j jreddick but it's not jay jredic and then for some reason i feel like

michael carter williams that's the outcome but it's not michael carter williams or jriddick i am genuinely like lost this is the hardest one to me in terms of getting it right yeah like he literally looks like it's kind of like a joe keem noah type of it's jokeyed noah austin reams yes yes that counts that's a dub is i got one yeah i was about to say yeah it feels like joe keem noah but But I couldn't tell with Austin Reeves face. This is insane. This is just another guy. I wouldn't, I would never have guessed Austin.

This is a game stop employee. This is a good dude. Looks like one of the 30 draft picks of the OKC has right now. This is like, we say this joke a lot. This is the definition of a 2K generated player. Yes, it is. Not real. Who is this?

Forget this mutant out of my face right now. You look like he ate fruit with. Peeling it. I should have said that song. He looks like he went through to accidents. And we try to stitch him back together. The NBA Frankest guy? You know that motherfucker just eat straight tubs of mayonnaise, man.

What is wrong with this guy? Oh, my God. All right. one of these people is Jemont Green. For sure. Correct. Yeah,

is Dremon Green chinless man. What do we add to make him fucked up? Okay, I'm gonna go Dremont Green

and oh okay. I'm gonna say Ben Wallis or something. I didn't mean to reveal it. We got Dremont Green and Dennis Rodman. Oh, man,

this is so bad. Whose beard is that? Is that a Dremon beard to pass? That's neither of them be it. Yeah. Just do that on there. The picture of Dremont

on left isn't the one that was used to combine them. It was a different, different picture of Dermonon. So it's Raymond's beard That's hilarious His ears of this polka Like that got me dead

It's like Shrek It's so misplaced Little balloon nodded ears Oh my god Like a cartoon piglet Oh my god Oh my This one is no words

Dude I'm crying Who is this player Don't do my goat like this Don't do my goat like this Wait he looks like he belongs On Dr. Seuss literally What are them dudes Are there with no lips

Oh my God, he looks like a wannabe Telly tubby in the face His eyes are so glossy He looks like an anime character Yeah, he looks sort of Steph Curry and Derek White This is Steph Curry and Derek White Nightmarish

Holy shit man This is the monster that was under my bed When I was younger This is hilarious Nah, this guy said to me The finest assurmas The finest White sauce all day, brother

Keep on going That one's You guys got that one easy Okay Oh shit Who is this Oh man he looks like an NFL I swear I've seen someone like this

Who? Right That's like Kenneth Walker He looks like it Oh my god Man the legs on that boy is crazy It looks like a cornerback What was his name?

He's playing the Steelers Back in the 2010s Oh that looks like so many I can't I can't remember I'm trying to think obviously father son Brian and Bronny

This is Braun and Bronny I thought that was D.K. McHap What the fuck? This looks hilarious. It's brawny with like wider eyes and a big nose. Oh my God. So Bronny got his mom's nose.

This is him with his dad's nose. Yeah. That's his Bryce. Exactly. This looks like in those two game videos where they fast forward, a league and you see like a four year old version player. This is 40 year old Bronny.

Oh, man. Look, that's a more tame one. You know, we kept it in the family. That's cool. Who is this? Yo. He'd be repelling cars all day, man. I know this kind of guy.

He looks like, Akim. South Beach, Tofo for him. South Beach, so for sure. Hakeef is crazy. I can all, okay, I feel so good because I keep getting one, but not the other. Yeah. Base, we're going, Anthony. Edwards. Correct, obviously.

Yeah. Let me shoot first. Is this Joe Dumars? No, it does look like Joe DuMars. I was thinking Joe Dumas. Yeah. Damn. That definitely looks like Joe's horse.

But the size of his head is so absurdly small and skinny. He definitely, his face is definitely like giving 1980s for some reason. Exactly. Like Clyde Drexler is a little bit. I don't know what it is. He's a military cut. And they weren't allowed to have hair in the 1980s. Is it Wooten?

Is it Dominique? No, it's not Dominique. Is it Hakey? No. Is this old Doc Rivers? This is Kevin Garnett. Devious picture of Kevin Garnet. So it is a devious picture of KG.

I was never going to get that. Yeah, I was never getting. I forget he had hair, bro. That's great. This is, like a year. This honestly is, this is the most real person. Yeah, that's another guy. No, this is Joe Dumas.

Like, this is him. Yeah, exactly. Who is this? Oh, this is evil. Earl's shirt. That's the same thing I said when I saw this. That big ass mustache. On his thieves, man.

Holy fuck. That is an un-nationally large mustache. He got Thrax ready as all times, bro. Holy shit. Shout to Earl. Fuck. Shout to Darius Garn. That's obvious for sure.

New father. coming up. Yeah, this is Darius Garland. And who do we combine him with? Who got that big has mustache? It's just so absurdly thick. It's Velcro. It has to be, this has to be somebody completely old school.

Nobody has mustache is this thing anymore. You'd be surprised. You'd just be like, I'll say, you wouldn't be surprised as a modern player. Is this like Jimmy Buller in 2020? No, no. Spencer Deenwitty? No, no, no. That's a great guy.

Look at the eyebrows. This is a famous player. Quite a well-known player. famous player quite well known feature him in videos all the time I'd say he has aura and he has aura I'd say he's like an aura originator maybe

fucking originator you're saying Anthony Edwards the fuck now no no I'm not this ain't she think back an originator of the modern aura trend uh magic this is Kyrie Irving

oh Kyrie man I forgot the ACL Ter is beating his ass bro I just saw him streaming the other day what happened this is definitely just Earl sweatshirts yeah

no this is just straight up Earl sweatshirts that is Kyrie too damn man why do you make that one song

why do you make East why do you make East how does it sound like it's a it's like deep ride it's like clown really

it literally I'll play for you after who is this player he can smell everything man holy shit again I can get the first part I can carry the first part

Ray Allen oh I got you okay you got that part yeah this is Ray Allen who's he can learn with Ray Allen's cool I know who this is but I just hate that this is him I don't want to believe he looks like a marathon runner in the Olympics for another country I could just imagine his chest all the way out bro he has a bird's chest if I see him for sure fuck man you got it this is Ray Allen yes

who's the other guy I've been in I've been in I can literally smell who this is too This is an African This is an African Got your radar is going crazy I see my radars are going off This is Janus Athenna Cuma This is Janus and Ray Allen

This is I smell him This looks like an Olympic Distance runner Oh god it does This looks crazy Again another real person This looks like another guy Yeah what's his mild time

What's his mild time fucking small so racist you know I actually looked up why they're so fast it's crazy stuff man I don't get into eugenics

I'm not doing next book who is this what the hell it's one of your cousins that's good you know what this is you know what this is this is the count

off a Sesame Street and that's a vampire you know who this looks like a goomba Thomas, what happened? Oh, my God. Our friend Thomas? Yes.

This looks like him. Thomas G. I won't put his whole government out there. No, this is a Gumba for Mario. I could jump on his head and bounce up. Oh, my God. All right. We either got the Giants together or we're putting a big and a tall.

This is Boba. This is Boban. This is Boban. It's either Boban with Peyton Pritchard or Boba or Boban with Zachie. This is Boisle-Dade. Yeah, Bob won look so weird without his neck, his long neck, man. His face is so devious. It's a puppet.

Like, it's a cartoon character. He's a Muppet. Dude, he literally looks like an IRL version of the evil dude on despicable me. No, I was going to say he looks like an animated character come to life. You've ever seen a Pixar character and they put like a filter on if he looked like that in real life. And the proportions are all fucked up. That's what this looks like. Like he's the grandpa from up.

Go back to your universe, man. Please. You're not welcome here. You are a hand-drawn And that's the last one Oh man Those are good Diculous

What the hell, man Horrors A little like he's selling some I can sell he I know he just has the finest Line of illegal stuff Under his coat I didn't know

Where you were going with that He didn't know either No I did I just didn't want to use the words Next thing we're going to do I'm going to show you Some NBA stat lines And I want you to guess

Who the player is And what year So they're not from just this year It's from across NBA history So it's a little bit difficult It's not terribly hard I think I gave you some hints for each one So it should be possible

If you guys have a bag Keep your confidence up I got to you Keep your fear to yourself First off Who is this player We have the stat line in front of you The hint

2010-2011 season Nine points Five rebounds 0.0 or 0.7 assists 37 games played 15 years ago You suck 15 years ago

They played 37 games You want me to guess this He was like oh it's not bad Shut up It's really not that bad Honestly The Is that Derek Rose

Derek Rose in 2011 Is 9 points 4 rebad? Well I'm saying because he like got hurt But I mean 37 games Point 7 assists Okay It's a big 55% free throw rate

0.5 Assisted turnover ratio This man was not a playmaker Good man One block a game though This He left here with something One block

He got his ass on the stats Who's that's old 6-5 center Chuck Hayes? Is this him? No, it's not Chuck Hayes What? Oh my goodness Only 37 games played

What was the damn There's signs here I don't know man You guys aren't trying hard enough there's signs here so yeah he's bad at fritos he played 37 games in 2011 his ass is not a playmaker he gets a block it's

it should be coming together is this shack this Celtic shack oh shit I was gonna say it's not that hard don't sell right away okay I'm showing you the pinnacle to wash you gotta get this right

this picture's so crazy he is humongous at that time man you see that picture personal. I don't, right, right, right, right, right, right. I thought it was fair. Next up, who is this player? Okay.

The hint is 22 assists in a game that year. 18 points, 10 assists, four rebounds, and so forth. Ah, okay, okay. Yeah, 22 assists in one game. Walking double, double, 18, and 10. 55 from 2.0.2. Okay. Point eight steals.

See, instantly, I wanted to think of Chris Paul, but the point eight steals is a little bit low for for Chris Paul he was a steel leader yeah during peak years 43% from three is like sniper yeah who is they who has the assist record in the league it's a old uh scott scott scottles yeah okay well that was that was 30 yeah his record not 22 it was different beast i just had to i just had to lay my head along like has tray had 22 in the game he's never averaged 18 points whoa that's too low for tray Yeah. Has Tyrese done it?

Is this Tyrese Allerton? This is not Tyrese Allerton. Okay. See, it's too many points for Rondo. I'm trying to think of- Hell no, it's not Ronno. That's what I'm saying. 22 assists.

Also, the four rebounds would be too low. 43% for three has to. Is this Steve Nash? This is MVP Steve Nash. Okay, that makes sense. See, the steals threw me off too, because I always thought of Steve that's still being like a one-steal game type of guy. Not no six.

Yeah. He's running around on defense. who is this player the hint 9th in DPOI voting 33 points per game 3 50 point games 11 fritos per game 33% from the 3 point line

33% that lets me know that lets me know kind of what era we're going Kobe Bryant here this is not Kobe Bryant damn 3 50 point games

getting 9th and DPOI voting that's your hint in what in what year so like obviously 9th and DPOI he kind of he has to have some type of like reputation for being a good defender but 350 point games doesn't just happen that's a lot it's hard to do that's so many ninth and d p o why it's so crazy maybe to lebron is he honest nope not yonis lebron never did

is joel and b good this is MVP joel and b there we go he shot that low from three yep yeah he was gunning 11.7 free throw attempts i'm surprised you didn't see that and Yeah, in media, I'm like, you're honest. We were having a conversation earlier about how the old stars like kind of, you know, got to pick those up. So I was thinking more there. Yeah, but 350 point games sounds crazy. And he had like 11, 40 point games. That year was ridiculous.

I remember he would have, I remember he eviscerated. Did he go for 70, the year he got MVP? No, it was a year he would have wanted him got hurt. Yeah. Yeah. And he gave Wemby 70. That's such a story game. Crazy.

Next up, who is this player? 158 and 8. Your hint is 11. Three point attempts. total this season huh this for this year or you mean that season

no like that that season so yeah you got to tell me the player and tell me what year it was 16 8 and 8 is like see I've been making easy I haven't been telling you guys to pick the right year two steals that is 16

two steals one block they do everything they do a lot they do everything 11 3 point is this like 2015 Dremont green no Dremont green shot a hell of a lot more

than 11 3s in an entire seat That's like 90 stuff. That's like nothing. And so like, 0.1 a game. See, and I wanted to go Scotty, but like maybe Scotty scored

more than this. Um, 113s total? And they do everything. This is a, this is a big guy is tough. 158 and 8. This is a big guy.

It's a large man. Not the biggest man. Eight and eight. He's got some size to him. Two steals. Some lengths. Some length. Yeah,

yeah, not as much girth as he had at one point well actually yeah it's a similar amounts of girth but he's long two steals is crazy I'm lost in the girth in Thomas I have no idea this is rookie Ben Simmons

fuck damn I was thinking way back in time this was not a hard see that's what I'm saying we could not fathom the amount of yeah

he was like he couldn't have been anybody in 2018 do you know how good you gotta be In order of your fucking All-Star taking 11-3s a game and not being a center. As a point guard? That's crazy. You are so fucking good. Next up, who is this player?

31 points for games, six rebounds, two assists. The hint, these are stats from August 2020. August 2020 is, that's bubble time. Yeah. So. Is this Tyler Hero? This is not Tyler Heroes. Okay.

One, TJ Warren? This is Bubble TJ Warren. Damn. I just had to draw on him. Lange's name you threw out an even crazy one. Good. Bubble T.J. Warren was a different animal and the same beast.

God damn. Yeah, August 20, you should have got that. This is one week, average. He went absolutely berserk in those seven games. It's insane, bro. 52% from three. His ass was not missing. Bubble hoops was at the same time.

The realest hoops and the faking suit. Simultaneously. Okay. Who is this player? Five points, six rebounds, 1.2 assists. hint 2012 season started every game scored 15 one single time

I told the single time I thought it was Ferdinckin That's big part Is 2012 Catching Perkins This is a This is a Ken Perkins Shout out to Kevin Reyes tweet

This is like bro You average two points I hope to me This is regular season stats In 2012 He scored 151 He was there every game though He played 65 games

Started every single one Best Availability Availability Iron Man So even better than scoring points. Who is his player? 15, 7, and 6. Hint, he made $45 million this year.

Ooh, man. $45 million. Agreed. It's a lot of money. It's so agreed. For 31% from 3, 48% from 2. See, initially I want to be like, oh, this is Aaron Gordon,

but he didn't average that many assists. He did not do that. He is getting paid up back, but still not him. Who are the biggest deals in the... in the in the in the in the in the league start pocket watching please this has to be a newish player he's not he's not the greatest three-point shooter

he's all over the place that's calling it lately scotty barns no no no no no not scotty barns this is not franz wagner he averaged way more than 15 45 million is insane it's a lot of money y'all name in young players 45 million is outlandish okay

you don't get the shit on your second contract yeah Third contract, over the hill. It's an over the hill kind of guy. We kind of got to name it. But come on. If you think about the old players in the league, the people who are at the tail end,

not even the tail end, because you wouldn't get 45 at the tail end. But like, who is getting this? Is this some of it? But like they're kind of all around. It kind of feels like it's like a Jimmy Butler. This is Lakers Russell Westbrook from 2023. The last.

Last year on the Lakers. Yeah, I wouldn't have got that. Yeah. I was not thinking 20-20. I'm not going to lie. That three-point percentage fooled me. It was too high. It was too high.

I was looking for the 20. If it was 20, if it was 20, I would be for us in the city. Something like 30% sniper. This guy's killing it. Next up. Almost 30 points. Almost 10 assists. 36 points in an elimination game.

Hints, this is their playoff series averages in their playoff series debut. Who? uh uh aunt is this this is not anthie edwards tennis is come on his first playoff series oh i'm tripping i'm tripping i'm tripping see i would be like oh this could be pile up but the assists are a little bit too high a little bit it's nine point a is tough and this is their playoff series debut damn this dude was fucking diamond shit the first year he got to the playoffs he did this in a series this is donovan mitchell this is not don't michtle tennis is per game get your head out of your ass man was trade doing this in

this first year. This is Trey Young against the Knicks in the playoffs. He was killing. First time he made it, he eliminated them. He looked so different in that picture. It's the beard, man. It's the beard. He was cooking the Knicks, 29 and 10.

Wow, this feels like it was 10 years ago, man. Bring you back to those days. I haven't had to think about the Hots for so long. He's made my day a little bit worse. And he was going up against Alex Birx and Reggie Bullock, man. It is what it is. And guess what in that series? We were voted against all the way, bro.

We were the four seed out east. And y'all got embarrassed. Correct. Bye-bye. I'll never forget. 35 and 13 and 5. Hint, this is a playoff series average. 62% below percentage, 20% of 3.

Janus. This is Yonis. He saw 20% not Russ. Yonis. This is 2021 finals averages. Yeah. Yeah. The five and six is like, good enough play manager.

Yeah. but 35 and 14 13 and 60 that's shack numbers exactly yeah what a ridiculous ridiculous hell blocks a game he was like god 20 points on a hyper extended knees and that 25 and 5 the hint this is the 2003-2004 season

you know 20 points 5 rebounds 5 assists 30% percent 20% 20% 42% from 2 2003 2004 who is this player 43% for 2 is tough it's not good it's not good all. I need the wildest inefficient shot checker.

Is this a bad Alan Iverson year? Nope. Huh. This would be an egregious Alan Iverson year if it's 2004. Yeah. He's not yelling at this point. He might be killing me.

The 1.6 steals is killing me. 2003, 2004. The player wants to be washed at this point. I think so. Oh, this is Michael Jordan. This is not Michael Jordan. Hell no. Fuck.

1.6 steals is still like kind of crazy, though. Inversely, this is rookie LeBron James. Ah. These are fake stats. Makes sense. I need you to wipe this way from the internet. Yeah, he was a rookie. He was a rookie.

I thought you were going to, uh, I thought it was going to be rookie mellow. Oh, no, no. Rookie LeBron. Ricky Mello, six assists a game. Yeah, that's all right. Yeah, right, buddy. He's on his best day, man. Is that, what was his highest season versus?

I don't even know. I guarantee you is. no more than three. It's definitely hard than three. It's probably a 4.8 or something. No, for mellow? Three? Useage rate-wise, three is outrageous.

That's crazy. You think he's Microportar Jr. All right, we'll see about that, buddy. Pull it up. I'll pull it out right now. Hey, yo. Yeah, the most he's ever gone is four. 4.2.

But his career average is 2.7. There's not three. His career average is 2.7. Well, it's held down by some pretty bad years at the end. So even in his prime years, it's like no more than 3.0. The Bucky Gitter extraordinaire, correct. You're not correct. You literally weren't correct.

I had two, we won again, and I went. You weren't right. I was correct. But by definition, you were not correct. I was literally correct in its prime years. You said, couldn't have been more than three. You used the word literally, and we need to get back to words meaning something because you literally were incorrect. Oh, wow.

In this 07 here, you average like 3.8. That's a second career high. Yeah, we've already said career high is four, so you already lost. Thank you. All right. Next time. Move on. next thing we're going to do

let's talk about Jalen Brunson I'm in a name some NBA players and we're going to see who was better them or Jailen Brunson right now at his peak so we're going to cross NBA history and compare him to other guys, other point guards and kind of gauge how he is we're here

level one is he better than Darius Garland's hands down don't disrespect me it's not a conversation yeah this is a sweep I'm sorry listen we gotta start somewhere easy I understand he's just not even a conversation Yeah level two prime John Wall. Yes, he's better than Prime John Wall. This is a conversation, though. No, it's not 2017 John Wall. It was a better defender, obviously. Better, better passer, better passer. Better rebounder. He wasn't the better shooter. He averaged like 35 in a playoff series. John Wall was not leading his team at Easter Conference finals. We'll say that. Come on. I agree with you. Thank you. It's Jaylon Brunson, but you know, we had to up the ante a little bit, I guess. But Janelein, obviously, what he can do is a score. in the playoffs next level different tier level three jaylon brunson or donovan mitche he's better than him right now and it's like yes de mitch took a step back in the in the regular season

to let everybody else see and yes we did see him score 48 jlin brunson went on a run last he just had 40 the other night like don't act like don't act like all the jala brunson stuff is just made up this is pretty tied he's out here stop it this is pretty tied this is this is the closest one, obviously, it's level three. I think Jalen Brunton is like the ninth best playing in the world right now. And I don't think Donald Mitchell's ever been that high. I think he's been like 10th, 11th, 12th.

He hasn't quite broken to like solidify top 10. I don't think it's crazy to say Jalen Brunson. They're both scores. Jalen Brunson has been consistently a better playoff score in the last few years. Passing is not a big difference. Set him home three years ago too. There's that. Back to back Eastern Conference finals says something.

I'm actually no, he's not back to back home. Over the last, because of the year that he's had again and also making it to the what, Eastern Conference Finals, I'll give it to Daylon Runyon. But it's not an easy conversation at all. No, it's definitely tough. You have to think about it. It's not so easy. No, I actually don't have to think about it.

I don't think about that much either. I definitely think Jalen Brunson, but DeMitch deserves consideration to stop and think even though the answer is Jalen Brunson. Level four. Tony Parker, do you think Brunson could have been as successful playing next to Tim Duncan? Do you think Tony Parker could have led the Knicks of the conference finals? 100%. That's a great question.

It is, it is like a different thing because, I mean, listen, Tony's been a final MVP. Yeah. Like he's been, he's been that good. But I do think having Tim Duncan and being able to play off it, I think Janea Brunson would be able to play off of Tim Duncan. Yeah, I definitely agree to. He would drive in that role. That would fit very well. Yeah, Tony Parker, his shot diet was so base and centered around getting to the rim.

They're kind of similar. Tony Parker's easily, this is the most. under talks about thing and damn near an NBA history for me like he's one of the greatest mid-range shooters ever and Jim Brunson he's not that obviously but he's very very good at that as well he could be in those conversations in the playoffs he's damn near like he's his in between the game is outrageous exactly so I'm gonna go ahead and say yeah he's better than 20 yeah and this comparison is kind of like a two a two part comparison because of what what Manu was able to do because like Manu was also

on the ball, the creative one in that offense. And so seeing him being able to be a craft, you know, very basic level comparison, but like a crafty lefty who can score off the dribble and do all these things. Yes, Jalen Brunson can also fill that role and be good. Dude, he's eating so much. We didn't talk about Mono Ginoble. What does he have to do with this?

Tony Park can move on. God, we get it. It is Brunson, though. This is close. People are going to be mad at you, but I understand it. Jalen Brunson, I think we can feasibly say would be just as good of a second option next to Tim Duncan. We're seeing him do it as a one-off.

in ways that a lot of superstars that we big up haven't succeeded. Jaylon Brunson is succeeding. So it's not crazy at all. Exactly. Level five, is he better than Prime Damian Lillard? These are real conversations. This is where stops from me. I think Damien Lillard, 2020,

Damian Lillard is different. I'm going, Dame. Just to see how Jaylen Brunson time and time again, in similar-ish situations when it comes to the role offensively, dame here you go give a get us a bucket dice people up in the pick and roll james brunson he can get his buckets on his own no don't even do that don't even do that don't even do the playmaking gap it big and don't even do the jaylon brunson he's succeeding he did not have to go to war with c jim mccullum against the prime golden state warriors the level of competition they face is

different dame had to see the buzzsaw that was the 2010s western conference i don't think that's the greatest angle to look at that's the right and That's the only angle. Just the competition. I'd rather talk about, like, the players with themselves. Well, yeah. Obviously, I think he's a better player. And the reason he doesn't have a success of Dylan Brunton is because he had to face

the Warriors. He went toe to toe with the Boston Celtics. They were up three one. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. If you want to hold the Celtics to the same regard as the 2018 Warriors, go for it. For now, I'm going to lean towards Damien Lillard. But I think his, the best version of Damien Lurd is literally one of the greatest players of all time.

And I'm withholding that for now. now when it comes to Jalen Brunson. Dame Miller was in, was he ever in an MVP convos? Like fake MVP combos? Yeah, yeah, a few times. In 2023, it gets forgotten about because it was the last year on the Blazers.

He had like a 63% true shooting, averaging over 30. Like, it was one of the best offensive seasons from a guard ever. The team was just not good enough to have it mean anything. Yeah, exactly. And because of seasons like that,

Brunson just hasn't had that just yet. So I'm a lean towards Dame. I'll take Dave. I'll take Dave. Hey, if we had to, the Glaze had a stop. somewhere. I understand you on top of the world. I didn't give you Halliburtings. I know Taliburton's obviously better. Yeah. Stop that.

Is he? I'm not. I just want to raise him. Okay. Next thing we are going to do. Let's talk about the best NBA white boys in the league right now. We're going to put the top NBA pasty princes into a tier list. Fun fact. The other day, I did a ancestry.com thing. And I found out I'm 99.9% in West African, but there's a point zero decimal point in there that showed that I am English too. Oh. Word to Meredith. Shout out to you, paying homage.

Who the fuck is Meredithus? It's one of my great, great, great, great, great, great, great area aunts. White woman? Yep. Word to Emeritus. She's English. Word to Meredith. Yep.

Shout out to you. RIP. We shout out Slate Masters. That's crazy. We were going to put the top white boys in the NBA in the TV. lady and we are going to do this with only american white boys in the past we've included european guys if they're not in the conversation today it is Caucasian males american players only so limited pool obviously the best white boys in the league are from europe we're not talking

with him today we'll talk about them in the future yeah you know so s through f you has know how this works let's take a lay of the land and see who the best are in this lane okay number one let's start austin reeves where we're putting him esther he's damn near um there's no all stars here just yet, I believe. Austin Rees is the closest thing to that. Okay, so like Chet's on here. There is All-Stars. There is a All-Star on here.

But nevertheless, Austin Reeves is comparable to the All-Stars on here that we'll get you later. So I don't think it's crazy. It sounds insane to say Austin Reeves S-tier, but the talent pool of NBA White Boys are now, not counting Europeans, is quite light that he might be in the top two or three. Cooper Flagg, save us. Us? I could say us now.

I don't know about you, but me, I could say us. dude i'm okay putting awesome he's an a tier or s tier i think he belongs in s yeah okay that's a hilarious way it starts the list but it might pan out Alex crusoe very good right if you ask me right now i say s t alex cruzsos is on top of the world one of the best role players in the NBA to me it's an a tier i agree put him in any situation if s is somebody that you think could make an all-star game one day and a is right below that al-sarus who is as valuable as any non-all-star i agree and that value makes me want to say No, we don't got to go that for

Come on now That's crazy I mean, it's not crazy at all For Alex Caruso I'm not No, it's not correct Because Austin Reese's S tier It's not that insane

But They do They do The pool's not like Yeah But in terms of stardom In my mind White boy stardom

I think Alex Crusoe Well yes I mean he's on He's on like The Lakers But like If you If you

If you take If you take either one of them And put them on like A random What like 45 win team you might see the same like bump. No, Austin Reeves is better shooter for that. But if you put them, I think the real point for Austin, Alex Furuso is if you put both

of them on like a contender, Alex Ferruso might be more important to winning a championship. I don't know, man. Would O.K.C. would be better be better be better? Well, actually, they really could use Austin Reeves. They would be there in my life. But that's different. They're devoid of offense of talent. That's a different conversation. But not everybody has that set up. So like if you just put them on a team, If you put on the Milwaukee Bucks, do they have a better outcome?

You're naming teams. I guess that's a better. On the Timberwolves. Austin Reeves or Alice Crusoe? Okay. We're naming a lot of teams, but I think Austin Reeves my foot better. So maybe Austin Rees is better. Fuck that.

Let's move on. Dante E. Mchenzo. He's stinking this bitch up right now. He's not having a strong playoff run. But obviously, he is still a really good role player. He just hasn't been good in the playoffs. But we've seen a lot of good days from him. If you asked me last year, he probably could have been in the same tier as Caruso

because he was shooting last year. It's not the case this year. we'll drop him down to B tier. Okay. That's still generous. We'll give Devin Chens of the respect. We've seen him have good years. He is still one of the coldest white boys on this list, but he can't be top two tiers.

I agree. Walker Kessler. Defensive extraordinaire. You asked Danny A, he's worth like five first round picks. Do I hear about that? He could be an A. No, he could not. No, he cannot.

Fuck no. No, he cannot. Out of my mind. Out of my mind. Out of your mind. Out of your mind. The way his name has dropped in the NBA world is crazy. He's teetering between B and C.

I think he's firmly B. I think C's too far. He is a great young player. That's fine. That's the class. Those are the two levels where it would be any type of acceptable. And like you said, C's a little bit too harsh. I'm going B.

Yeah, just Alex Caruso A is for one of the best role players in the league. Walker Kessor could become that. Let's see him earn that first. Hopefully be on a competent team one day. Surprise, surprise. I was projecting. Yeah, what do you know? Donovan Klingin.

Another similar player, no big rim protector. Shout to him. I like the promise of Klingin. He's a C for now. He's a rookie. I go, I go D. Yeah. I think D is like, oh, you're actually like,

he's a really good defender already. His hands are just made a stone. He's not good offensively. Yeah. I feel like C continue down is a good way to go, but he could be lowered. Yeah, I think D is like, yeah, bro, it'll be tough for you to get like any real minutes in the week.

Yeah, D is like. Put him on any team in the NBA right now, even right now, even right now, he's getting minutes. F is you suck, D is like, you got to prove to me you deserve to play in this playoff series. C is like, you're cool. You're fine. You're a player. You're in the rotation.

Yeah, you're like the 11th, damn near 12th man if you're D. Yeah, yeah. D is a little tragic. Grady Dick. Hmm. He's so hard to gauge right now. Yeah, he got hurt. And he had a really strong start to the year and then kind of fell off.

Grady Dick can be D right now. Is that D? Is that like you should have to prove it to me? Yeah, Grady Dick, he's young. He still has to prove it to you. actually maybe he should be neck and neck and clinging they're both young now but i feel better clingin's defense is more tangible than what grade yeah yeah i feel good about gradi dick's future

but for this season i think clinging's defense is better than dick's offense he did start off the season really well i think he was average in like 1920 yeah it was like seven games and it fell off was seven games actually i don't know about that one well i mean the average would probably lasted longer but like he had like 10 games to be really good i remember his seeing his efficiency dropped like a mother yeah because after those first 10 games he came back to earth damn is d really like feasible i don't think d's right we have he's very much

a part of like the future for all he could be part of the team in a couple years we can move yeah who cares about the future it's how good he is right now and he's not that great right now is he better than don't so don't mccling is like that much better i think so a whole tier better yeah no good if he if grady dick

was on a contender he wouldn't play right now wouldn't play yeah if he put him on thunder he wouldn't play Isaiah joe barely plays Isaiah joe is better than grady dick right now. Thunders. Wow. Again.

We got a cause he's a bad gauge for sure. We keep doing that. T.J. McConnell. Oh my God. I love this guy.

T. Jim McConnell's a goon. T. He has all the dog in the world, all the cachet in the world. What you want from an NBA white boy?

T. T.J. McConnell checks all the boxes. He presides hard. He tries hard than everybody. He plays the game the right way. Sneaky athletic.

Has the IQ. He's not A. Is he? I'd probably rather have Don't Vincento still. Yes, but he might be A for me, man The fact that you are, listen, the fact that you are just

The perfect mascot and embodiment of NBA white boy Whatever you are, up a tier Okay, so he's probably C as caliber players We're going to be because he has the cachet of the white boy I'll do that. Okay. That dude is so dirty right now. He still has the belt of the white boy.

Okay. I agree. Okay. The belt. Ooh, I love that. Kevin Love, still on a roster. We need to do that. We need to make sure like we keep.

track him who has a whiteboard dog yeah who you said uh Kevin Love still on a roster still kicking still on a roster but you are an assistant coach sir I'm can put it being damn their D or F okay we'll go D this the assistant the veteran leadership means something it does it does you're right F is me you know what I appreciate what he's been doing on Instagram I don't know when it comes to the veteran leadership I don't even know about that because that team is fucking in the dumpster so I don't know how much that is valuable but the amount of laughs and chuck was that he's been able to Get out of me on Nitziram, 10 out of 10.

Even through the most serious of times, 10 out of 10. Brandon Pachimski. See, he had a rough start. Yeah, but a great second half of the season. He's back to being the player that they thought he could be. He can be a starter for you. He belongs in B if you ask me. Yeah, I think I think B.

He has so many valuable and tangible skills. He can put him in almost every scenario situation in the league. And he's going to be useful. Yeah, he's not one of the best role players in the league, but he can be a starter on a good team. He showed that. Not everybody on here can. Yeah, whether it be the defense of self-creation.

Yeah, he's just an all-around dude. He does have some dog in him too. Let's talk about somebody else who is a contender for White Boy of the Year. Christian Brown. His come up was massive. At this point, the dog in him is outrageous. Damn. One of the best.

There is a Labradoodle in that chest. Labyrinth. There's a golden retriever barking. No, no, no. You don't want the golden retriever. Why? Because they're too friends. Oh, okay, that's that

What is he's a black lab then? Yeah, like black lab Why gotta be black? That's the opposite of golden retriever Trying to say the black lab is more aggressive? Yes 100% Listen, I

I don't do the breeding Is that actually true? That's not me But Christian Brian But Christian broad He'd be at the lowest I Okay

I'm going to put him in the low He really really did step up and the nuggets when we talk about like do you have three legitimate players it wasn't micha porter junior christian brown was one of those guys like he he probably could be a but how much of it is yokech tax how much of it is he's really good playing off of yokech i can't i can't blame him for his situation i think he deserves a he's a better role player than these guys in b he he contributed more to winning this year than the guys and bese let's go that's fair he's definitely closer to a rousseau than he is to brandon pizmsky i think yes watch i don't know no no probably not but

I don't know. He just gets over A. Yeah, he had a great year. Yeah, he's deserved A, but it's your chain. We're diamond testing it every year. We'll see what you fall next year. Yeah, next year, you could very, very well be in B tier. Payton Pritchard.

This is a guy that everyone says, give him his team. He can get himself to A tier. But as a bench player on the Boston Celtics, where do you put him? He just won six men of the year. You did? You kind of got to give him A. I think you do. Yeah, easy.

This is the easiest A ever. And he embodies everything you want from a white boy, like you said, with T.J. McConnell. He might. Really? He don't. He's so like Too swaggy

Do you see the way His journal packages He is a little He's too cool He's too cool He's too shifty He has a low cut He listens to too much rap

Yeah he got earrings Yeah Very very fat five coated I'm gonna go He dropped like 92 points In like one of them Random offseason leagues In like a Drew league or something like that

I've heard me say bro before Yeah it's not Can you even make this list Who? Payton Oh he's Can you make this list? Is he a...

Are you asking me if Payton Pritcher has two blacks to make the white boy list? Yeah. Oh. I think eight years fine. Eight years fine. Eight years is five.

Kavan Herder. He's been so fucking bad over the last year. He had a good second half of the season with the Bulls when they made a little run. Kevin Herder was hean up a little bit. Guess what?

That second half does not enough. Nobody believes in that second. His name is not Kavon no more. You are Kevin. Yeah. You are Kevin. I'm going to see. See is.

Great with me, man. Yeah. I thought you all are going to say D. No, we've had, we've had a long. He could be, yeah. Okay. Duncan Robinson. I love the podcast.

Shout to you. He's like in and out of the rotation all the time. But a lot of times when he's in it, I'm like, oh yeah, Duncan Robbins is pretty good. But he's so inconsistently in the rotation that I'm like, there's probably a reason for that. Sounds like F2. No, no.

In and out the rotation. Don't really play. There's nothing consistent going on. Listen, we, we, we, We can move some people down. I don't know how much different Duncan Robinson is than Kevin Herder. Yeah, no.

I think he belongs in C2. We can move some people down. Who do you want to? At this point, we're just picking on Grady Dick for no reason. But I think we go CT here for Duncan Robinson. Grady Dick's just D for no reason. You guys just don't like Grady, man.

That's crazy. No, I'm just trying to get an even distribution. There's nobody in F. I feel like we should put somebody. I didn't put any of the bad players on here. I should have. I should have included some bench players. Okay.

Tyler Hero. The All-Star on this list. Oh, he's S-tier. Only all-star, S-tier. Currently, he has a title for Best White Boy, I suppose. Yeah. Well, actually, Chad Holmgren,

not an All-Star. One of the best defensive players in the NBA. Yes, but offensively, Chet Holmgren, he's getting his chain tested every game. You would think, but the average just the playoffs, like 15 and 10.

So it's not as bad as it looks. But, man, when it's bad, you see how weak those legs are post-hit break? It's ugly. But also, he's still a great defender. We know next office. season when he comes back without the broken hip he's gonna be fine again his lower body strength is so it's so bad comical at times it's like a gust of wind could just take him out any time

there's just so many times where he goes to dunk and he just can't jump high enough and he can't finish an easy dunk because you can tell and it's like you're seven three yeah but like don't he broke his hip and came back in the season there's no chance he was doing any lower body exercises for like five months his shit is going to be so much stronger next year yeah yeah we'll go s too is he currently the best white boy in the NBA. Yes. I will give him the crown over Tyler Hero. Yeah.

But let's have some fun. Cooper Flagg. Where does he walk into day one? I'll put him on the list. See, now he walks in... Day one, okay. He walks in with a lot of expectations. Yes.

He walks in arguably as... Not even arguably. He is the great white hope. Yep. Right. The main event. One of the dopest nicknames also, too. There hasn't been a white star that has had,

like white American star that has had the pressure of a franchise quite like him like he could be kind of the first one since Larry Bird to really be carrying a franchise like that. I think he probably is going to walk in esteer. Walk in esteer better than Caruso, yeah. Yeah. I think he'll walk in

somewhere around as good as Austin Reeves. That's impressive. You know what, let's do it. We can put it in this tier. Let's put Cooper flag in this. He's going to be an amazing elite wing defender that's going to be a great weakside shot blocker. It can be a three or four for you. I think his shot will be fine who'll be a good rim runner cutting off of Anthony Davis post-ups I think we'll be an elite role player as a rookie as sound like the ultimate connective piece at just 18 19 years old

yeah I think it'll give you like the the prototype of what Caruso brings but with more juice and a six nine body obviously he won't have the like genius IQ defensively as Caruso but I think he'll make up for it offensively okay reminisce and now we have a good distribution we got four S tier three A tier four B tier three C tier two D tier it's not bad is there anyone last minute that we want to put in F? Nah, I just want to just pick a shitty role player that's white. Who's the worst player here? Kevin loves 90.

He does nothing. No. Okay. W cheer list like this. Shout to F and TILUS. That's the end of that. What do we got left to do? Oh, okay.

I want to do a little bit of number association. I want to name an NBA number, and I want you guys to tell me the first player that comes to mind. Gotcha. So, you know, just who pops in your brain when you hear this number? Who wore it, whatever, it means to you.

Number zero. Russell Westbrook. Tyrese Hallibburton. Jeff Teague. Really is Jeff Teague. I don't think Jeff Teague thinks of Jeff Teague first when you hear number zero. So Jeff Teague, if you don't think you have fans,

you're wrong. I'm one of them. Okay. No, I think I'm going, it's either, it's Russell Westberg, and then the second name that I thought of was Gilbert Arreus. Jason Tatum hopped up for me. Nobody else thinks about Jason Tatum?

Not at all. Hell no. When I close my eyes and I picture Jason Tatum, I don't see anything. Okay. Number one. Derek Gross. Ooh, number one. Who do I think of?

Who do I think of? Listen, whoever was wearing the number when I was 12 years old, that's what I'm going to associate with. Is Zion number one? Is who? Zion. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's on.

Okay. You didn't even know. I don't know about number one. it's such a weird number it is i have a hard time picture number ones as well yeah i feel like i just think of kubes one i think of number one is kam new yeah of course it's only that's the kubes you know immediately trying my gangst always man come on man no i'm saying i couldn't remember number one as a kuby no you said that's the only qb i know that's where you try my gangstead no no that's the one that you love to talk about it's your favorite kuby that's the only way i know

you know who tom radio is who's that no no but you just love cam newton that's what i'm saying I got a new Jayla Hertz You know what I'm saying I got a new QB Who's my favorite But we can discuss later Who Michael Pennix?

No Charged Fuck no That's so charged What the fuck I should beat him over there With a thousand To death

By a thousand crayon lashes What the hell I think he's gonna have I'm standing in the year Next year But god damn Have you seen the arm on him But god damn

I'm still not a fan I said it because of Atlanta But it also was funny I seen him play like two years ago in college or three years ago in college when he was in, never mind. Yeah. I actually like Michael medics. Okay.

Number 23, Michael Jordan, obviously. LeBron James, you hear me? Yes, I heard you. Yes, I heard you. You see the way he's stuck on his tongue. Did I remind the tag that statistic? I don't even know if I did. I don't know if I did.

I don't think I did. I don't think that is. But I'm going, it's, it's Michael Jordan. It's not Michael, Jordan, it's LeBron James. No, Michael. No, Jordan's 23 in red jersey. That is the most iconic jersey. No.

In NBA history. No, it's not. Yes, it is. Can you prove it? Yes. By what measure is it the most iconic? Let's go outside. Let's ask some people.

No, uh. Okay, let's go outside. But this is the wrong city to do that. We can, if we went outside in this city and asked people what the most iconic, Why would you choose this city? Because that's what we are. That's exactly. You have the advantage.

You have the home court advantage. We're in Chicago. Either way, LeBron has moved jerseys several times. So that's what I'm saying. Like, you can look at Miami number six. You can look at Cleveland, 23. You can look at the Lakers, his number six before.

Like, Michael Jordan is 23. Sounds like LeBron has more gravity when it comes to his 23 if you ask me. It's Michael Jordan. And it's not, it's not really close. Okay. Number 34. Shack. Hakeem Olajuwarn.

I definitely think of Shaq first. Yeah. In terms of branding, I definitely think of Shaq first. Yeah, Shaq easily. And then I think of Yannis. No, Hakeem. No, no Hakeem for some reason. He just froze.

So you're not going to say this? Just no. I mean, Hakeem is the third most famous of that group. So, I mean, it's not crazy. He's probably second. No, Janus is definitely. More famous? I mean, these days at least.

I mean, yeah, that's fine. Shaq, Shaq, yes, I think of 30. Shack has the whole spectrum of like 32, 34, like 33. And even, even aside from these days, I think Janus, part of it is because he plays today and there's more media coverage. He definitely has more coverage as a superstar than the team did. For now, yeah.

I'll, yes, I'll say that. I just don't think of Janus when I think of 34. Okay. That's crazy. Number three. Dway Wade. Yeah, Dwayway. Yeah.

That's my number three. It's like, in my mind, it should have been someone like Chris Paul but because of all the disappointments and he's been to the finals zero rings yeah he's got like me thinks of Anthony Davis the fuck out of here you're a sick girl you're a sick guy

nobody everything you're a sick guy don't invite him ever again stay at home guy like me Anthony Davis I definitely thought of you win number double zero see that's very

that's very hard has Lillard worn double zeros no or is he's oh off the time about mellow when he was with the blitz i thought i thought i i thought iaron there was a nasty number it is disgusting it does not look good at orlando you're right he did he just changed it oh no no he never wore it for Denver did he or did he no what he changed the number this year what did he wear before this year 50 50 that's what the fuck in orlando he wore double zero yeah but yeah i'm i'm going mellow uh blazer's mellow okay Yeah, I have no thoughts No, that's sick

It's nasty Blazers Mello versus magic Aaron Gordon Yeah, no Don't have like magic Aaron Gordon He's like some all time No, that's what I'm saying They are both hilarious boys

Oh, that's the best thing You're making fun of me I was like no I'm just like this The number is in the pits Number seven Carmelo in New York Kevin Durant

Oh yeah he did wear seven in Brooklyn Kevin Durant Yeah I think of Mello I think a mellow immediately that that's so interesting because it only lasted like two and a half years yeah i don't know why he pauses my head is very very it's an extremely memorable a few years so it's fresh a lot of carnage in those few years yeah i think i'm mellow as well i think i think of kd because it was such a big deal that he changed the seven that it was so memorable because it was what he's number 35 what do you mean

he switched yeah what is he where now is he back 35 i think he started getting 30 i do i have the worst recollection of numbers ever same i have i do not pay attention to numbers whatsoever it's mostly relevant parts of the game but most people do I do not at all yeah unless they're wildly ugly then it screams number 11 Trey young Kyrie Irving Clay Thompson

interesting see I can I can see that I cheat is it Clay Thompson posted behind you yeah I think it's the like it's the same thing like Kyrie changing his number from 2 to 11 and the fact that it's like that's been his number that's been something for me where I was like

oh that's like that's different now so i've always like paid attention to it yeah i think most people would probably say clay though simply because the history behind it and how we just had the craziest games imaginable with that jersey on his face okay on his back next thing we're gonna do brunson we're gonna fill a blind tier list oh yeah it's weird i i i never know with brunson i'm kind of the same way where i've never uh like noticed his number or like thought about him in the context of like one of the greatest everywhere like 11 or anything like that it's literally just like Brunton

Nick and like that's it yeah okay we're gonna flood a blind tier list going back to hoopgo.com haven't been on the site a long time we don't know the category all we know is with the player in front of us we're gonna put them into this blind tier list first name up Rudy Gobert this is the worst name to start with

you don't know where we're going at for this because it's either great centers in which he's the last tier or it's defenders and he's at the top sounds like we should be safe and put in tier three to start. I agree. I mean, it's defense. We have like four DPO lines, I believe.

Tier three, there's enough other guys in tier three that we won't feel horrible about it if we have to put people better than him there. All right, let's go. We could definitely argue about it, for sure. Next up, Kevin Garnett. Okay, well, it looks like we're going big man. He has to be, he can't be in the same tier as Rudy Gobert.

He can't, but what if there's like Shaq, Khikim, Wilt. I'm sorry. He just can't be in the same tier as... You're going to have somebody good to the same tier as Gobert and regret it. Okay. I'll put Wilt there. Okay, Kevin Garnett. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I kind of lean with you. I think it's more defensible if KG. Kevin G. Go over there. All right. Meta World Peace. See, it is Defenders. Okay.

So, if it is elite defenders, what we're seeing, don't know yet. Meta World Peace is Tier 3 or Tier 4. Probably 2 4. It's probably safe for you go Tier 4 and save those spots in Tier 3. For Biggs? Yeah. And we also don't know if it's only defenders. But he's also a monster.

He is also. scary. So there's that. But tier four, definitely. I think he's fine. Gary Payton. Ooh. Okay. So he's probably closer to Kevin Garnett, the Rudy Gaubert, but I do want to save tier two. So I think tier three. We can, we can do that and just say it's positional attacks and just be like, listen, you're a great, but you're also a guard. So no, listen, he's, again, he's the best of this tier, but I don't think he's in the same tier as Kevin Garnett. He's not far off. Prime Gary Payton is underrated, but Kevin Garnett. Didn't you want to DPOI as well. I can't remember.

I'm pretty sure you did, yes. Yeah, I think it was MJ. But I think Tier 3 is good. Marcus Marge. You guys agree? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. I can do that.

Michael Jordan. Tier 4, there we go. Yeah, he's not, he's not, Gobert. He's not Gary Payton. Like, when you do, he doesn't have 4 DPOIs. He just doesn't. It's simply a fact. Tier 4.

Listen, he might not be met a one piece. Yonis Antoni Koumbo. See, that's why we save the Tier 2 spot. That's why we do. That's why we don't put Gary Payton there. Wait, you put Mike in Tier 1. I thought he was tier four. Oops.

Okay. Yanna's obviously 2-2, right? Yeah, he won a D-P-O-I and an MVP in the same year. Incredibly tough to do. Joe Keem Noah. Tier 4.

Tier 4. Damn. We only have one spot left in tier 3. We've got to be safe. Oh, hell yeah. Tier 4. Don't even say his name, let's put him there. Tier 4.

Ben Wallace, that's that's the closest you can get to where to go bare. They're damn near the same player. Tier 3 feels fair to me. Ben Wallace is just. He's really Goberra, but like people like him. Yeah, he's cooler, more mad, more angry. I like him.

It's crazy because Goberra has a higher free throw percentage than Ben Wallace. But he has a way lower dog percentage. That is true. And last one, at least, David Robinson, tier four. Fuck me. Damn. Well, see, mentally, I know that Michael Jordan is in tier four and Dave Robinson is up top. So it is what it is.

We should have put Ben Wallace in tier four. I kind of considered it, but I was like, eh, we'll be fine. We were not fun. I'm fine with Ben Wallace and because, we need someone to level that playing field. I'm not fine with David Robinson Tier 4. I'm not fine with that either, but God damn, MJ's that one, so it's like...

Honestly, if you flip Ben Wallace and David Robinson, we did a perfect job. We were very close to perfect. Did we? No. Yeah. Might you doing that at 1? So are you doing it off of just defense? Is that why you keep saying that?

Yeah, isn't that what we're doing here? No, there's just players, and we're... They're just players. I was operating like it was just defenders. No, these are great defenders, but we're engaging them as players. See, I was gauging him as just No, no, I mean, overall It's still worked out, like

Okay If you flip David Robinson and Ben Wallace, it's absolutely perfect From that aspect, from that aspect, yeah, it's fine I mean, I guess, yeah, I think Obert Pauvey deserves me above Ben Wallace, but if you want to flip them Flip one of those, no offense having motherfuckers with David Robinson and it's a perfect list Don't disrespect, don't keep knowing, man

forces back in like 2012 He's perfectly fine with this. Four triple doubles, led the league. History. he was different MVP ballot Joe Keene Noah don't play his name talk to me okay last thing we're gonna do today

I'm gonna name two NBA players you let me know who is more fun to watch just off of how fun they are to watch okay straight entertainment Shea Gilders Alexander or Tyrese Halliburton I told you guys an hour ago that was the last good thing I'm gonna say about Tyre's Halliburton

Shay Gilles Alexander is more fun to watch Yeah I agree I don't have a problem with the fritos I love watching a mid-range matcham Oh yeah I mean it does But Tyreys Halliborne just feels so He feels so goofy Watching him play basketball sometimes

Because his shot is unorthodox His bag work is unorthodox It's just sometimes like funny And also wildly like how the fuck Every time he shoots the ball I say how the fuck did that go in And that makes it pretty fun though Tyrese Halliborne is extremely fun to watch

I'm gonna go with the MVP I love watching one of the best scores at his peak Tyreys Halliburins is my vote But that's because I'm into a different type of fun. Okay. You know some different shit? Yeah, exactly.

I just don't expect y'all to understand. Okay. Did She go to us Alexander or Joellen Bede? I'm gonna go to Shay because yes, yes, you can look at both of them and be like, oh, they're foul baiting. I hate it less when it's the 6-5 dude rather than the 7-1 dude. You rather watch a small guy fall than a big guy fall? Yes. Okay.

But seeing Joel and B. get off his bag work at that fucking size at times. It's incredible. Yeah, but does he aura farm like Shea Orifarms? John B's not really into oral farm. I know, that's a difference. He doesn't tell his teammates to shut up. Oh, I got to watch the post-game interviews with Shea. So yeah, you're right.

I'm Lee Shea. Shea or Jason Tatum. It's Shay. It's Shay. I pause just because, you know, we'd be nice. But, like, no, it's shit. It's cool seeing Tatum defend fives and rebound and- You don't like ethical hoops?

You don't like doing the small things, doing the role-player skills, putting your face in the dirt and doing what's necessary? I will say, when Tatum is going off and it's not against your team, hey, listen, sometimes sometimes I step back three, when the setback three is falling, you're like, you got it. Yeah, you got it. But, I mean, sometimes it don't be falling. A lot of times it will be falling. So I'm going to go with Shay.

Shea or Jalen Brunson. I mean, he's Jalen Brunson. What the fuck it's, hey, if you look at, if someone looks at Shay goes to Alexander and says, I don't like him, he flops too much. I got a guy in New York for you. If you pay a little bit of attention, you might. him to that brother he took someone else's hand and hit himself with it yeah that's so embarrassing if we're going flop for flop shay is not the biggest offender in this comparison jalen brunson

first of long he might be no jailen brus is way worse he's so much worse jaylon brunson is a fake six three and is the king of new york and zahi dropping 40 dropping 30 getting to his spots you don't like footwork i see that i also don't like you don't like you don't like kick his neck back and do your star players Tre Young. So? They changed the rules

because he was committed. What is that? Sounds historic. He's hacking what does I got to do with anything? I know your ass

ain't laughing. What I got to do with anything? I know your bitch ass start not talking to you. 100%. They live, because they change the rules.

I know a trade young is talking to me. What does that do with Shay being better? Because you were saying that you don't like watching it. I didn't say I don't like watching

summer salts compared to Shay. That's what it is. All I know is that Jaylen Brunson be out here doing stuff undersized, getting to his spots scoring in every which way floater step back, three

getting to the free throw line showing off his all around efficiency I'm going with Jailen Brunson. If only there was an MVP guard who did all those things and won 68 games because of it if only and if only he was also nice at defense maybe that'd be fun. I never seen

Jaylen Brunson go ahead and get a get a block from behind pinning against a black the backboard the blackboard yeah he's never done that yeah speak properly it's shame what are we doing and with that being said that's the end of this episode if people were still here what should they comment what should they comment shout to meredith shout to meredith shout to michael pinnicks i will see y'all next week