The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA Mailbag: Why Luka Doncic & Mavericks can beat Celtics, what happened to Wolves?

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Jason Timpf answers listener questions during an NBA Mailbag segment. Jason discusses his favorite storylines from the likely Mavericks-Celtics NBA Finals matchup, why Dallas can present problems for Jayson Tatum and Boston, and whether Luka Doncic has a chance to compete for NBA GOAT status. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes.

Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith ruling. of two. Listen to Stuff to Bole Your Mind on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Cliver Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it.

Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. The volume. We're this close to crowning a new NBA champ. And with the action heating up on the court, it's even hotter at Draft King Sportsbook,

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amount of initial losing bet. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See dkng.g.com slash B ball for eligibility, wagering, and deposit restrictions, terms, and responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Just going to do a quick mailbag today before we get to game for the Western Conference

Finals tonight. We'll be going live on YouTube tonight after the final buzzer. Make sure you guys are there. Got like 20, 25 questions we're going to get to today. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on our hoops tonight.

And then keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right. Let's talk some basketball. So the first question. What is your most interesting storyline from a likely Mavs Celtics final? Obviously, the Celtics have officially secured their spot in the NBA finals. The Mavs need one more win to do so, but as we've broken down ad nauseum in the show, we're going to get into a little bit deeper today.

I don't see a pathway for Minnesota to flip the script against Dallas. I think it's a terrible matchup for them in addition to the fact that Luca is clearly a better player at this phase of his career. than Anthony Edwards, and so I don't really see a path there. So I think the overwhelmingly likely scenario is that we're going to get the Mavs versus the Celtics in the NBA finals. And so from there, I'm going to kind of go a little bit deeper into a concept I talked a little bit about last night with Colin Coward. What I think is most interesting about this series is the complete difference in the two

builds of these rosters, right? Boston feels like more of a talent accumulation type of roster, right? everyone plays positions that complement each other really well, right? Like Derek White's more of like a skill guard, right? He's also an excellent defensive player and a great athlete, but he's a guy that can, you know, really run a lot of action, excellent pull-up three-point shooter. When they go to late game situations,

it usually ends up being Tatum White two-man game, right? But then Drew Holliday kind of plays that athlete guard or guards the other team's best guard kind of thing, right? And then you've got, you know, your smaller forward, and then you've got your bigger Ford and Jason Tatum, and then you've got that center position with a rim protector and Christopps Porzingis, right? But at the same time, none of those guys are like role players, right?

Every single one of them has at various points in their careers been playing in very large roles. Even like Derek White, who's been a role player in a lot of teams, like I would argue at this point he's become one of the primary decision makers for the Boston Celtics, right? And so that team is, you know, as we mentioned in many of the recent, episodes, all five of those guys that I just mentioned on the open market, if they were free agents right now, would command over $30 million a year. So it's like a very talented, you know,

conglomeration of players, right? Then we get into Dallas and it's like you've got a player in Luca that I believe is better than Jason Tatum. I believe he's at least the second best player in the league, if not the best player in the league, right? So it's more of like a top heavy build where you have Luca and Kyrie and they take on basically the vast majority, they take on the entirety of the offensive decision-making part of the offense. That puts everybody else in a play-finishing role, right? So Derek Jones Jr., it's catch-and-shoot-3s driving closeouts. PJ Washington, it's catching-shoot-three,

driving close-outs, a little bit of work in the dunker spot, maybe the occasional duck-in post-up, right? Derek Lively, vertical spacing. Daniel Gafford, vertical spacing. Every single guy on the team is playing in a play-finishing role on the offensive end of the floor. Then you go over to the defense end of the floor, and every single one of those same guys has super focused and important defensive responsibilities, right?

PJ Washington and Derek Jones Jr. are guarding your best guard and forward on the other team. Derek lively and Daniel Gafford are running deep drop coverage and protecting the rim and Kyrie and Luke are primarily off ball, although Kyrie's done a good amount of work on ball in this playoff fund, right? So it's like, it's a lot of like guys having less talent being focused into very specific roles behind these two super talented offensive plays. players versus Boston where it's like kind of everyone has to do everything because everyone is a star, right? And so like I do find that to be super, super fascinating going into that series. That to me is the most interesting storyline. Another kind of way to look at it is like Luca being potentially the best player in the series versus Boston clearly being the more talented team in the series.

And so it's going to be an interesting kind of, you know, case study in whether or not the best player in the series can elevate his team over more talent. Now, again, but for the record, we've seen many times over the years that not be enough, right? Like, I think LeBron James was clearly the best player in the world from 2012 to 2020. I thought that that was clear. And yet, there were several examples over that stretch where he did not win the NBA championship. He won four of them. What is it, nine-year span? So we lost five of them, right? So like 2014, that Spurs team just had it cooking in so many different ways offensively and Dwayne Wade's knee was kind of bothering

and the team was kind of just getting a little bit fatigued, a little bit old, right? You know, 2015, Kevin Loving, Kyrie Irving, get hurt, right? 2017 and 2018, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, the second and third best players in the world team up with each other and that ends up being enough to unseat him, right? 2019, he has the groin injury. So, like, you guys can see the point. Like there are many times in NBA history where the best player in the series does not win.

I think just look back at the Denver series. Now knowing what we know about Anthony Edwards now and seeing that he doesn't have the matchup resiliency that someone like a Luca Donchich has, now that we've seen that we can state unequivocally that the best player in the series in the Denver Minnesota series was Yokic and yet Denver lost. And so we're going to see if Luca can reverse that trend going into the NBA fight. finals. Next question. Does Dallas have what it takes to upset Boston in the finals? Absolutely. They're an elite defensive team, right? I think a big part of it is going to be Luca attacking and pick and roll. I started to just barely look at some film. We're going to do a lot of series preview content around this series because we're just going to have a lot of time. Like guys, if Dallas wins tonight, which I think they

probably will, Minnesota's got a shot. If Dallas wins tonight, we're looking at eight consecutive days, days off before the NBA finals. Like I was thinking we'll probably go, there's two Dallas Boston games. We may just do full breakdowns of both of those games. We might spend an entire show talking about the offense. We might bring on Chris Mannix. We might bring on those of you guys who are Dallas fans. If you guys have a specific like team, someone who covers the Mavericks really closely that you guys think is great at it, drop it in the comments. I'll see if I can't reach out and get them on the show. We're going to have a lot of fun previewing this series and we're going to get into all those details.

But one of the things that I noticed in my initial kind of look at some film yesterday is Luca is too big for everybody on Boston pretty much, except for Jason Tatum. And so I think a big thing is Boston's not going to want to put Jason Tatum on Luca, especially not early in the series. I think Drew Holiday is going to get that assignment a lot, right? I think Jaylen Brown and Drew Holiday are going to be the guys that see the majority of the time on him. And like, you know, first possession in the game in Boston, like Luca gets Drew Holiday

on his hip and just. methodically works him down into the lane, waits for Christophe's Porzingis to recover to the role man, and then he just shoots an easy little floater over Drew Holiday, and he turns around and makes the too small symbol, right? So, like, I think that that's going to be kind of like where this series hinges is. Can Luca really strangle the pace of the game and pick the Celtics defense apart in the half court?

Because if you can and keep the game kind of slowed down and intense and high pressure, maybe on the other end of the floor, can your elite defense play boss? into some of their worst tendencies. Now, one of the things that's going to be interesting is Boston is very much a spread you out type of drive-and-kick offense, which is very, very different than what Minnesota does, right? And you're not going to have the luxury that you have in this series of having Daniel Gafford

and Derek lively just spark in the paint because Rudy Gaubert is terrible at making anything other than a dunk. I'm going to actually pull up this stat real quick. I tweeted it out yesterday, but I pulled this up on Synergy yesterday, and I was like literally blown away. So Rudy Gobert is, this stat is like legitimately insane. Let's see, Rudy Gobert is shooting 16 for 35 on layups in this playoff run and three for 11 on floaters and hooks. So like that's one of the things that allows Derek lively and Daniel Gafford to just kind of roam off of Gobert and help in the lane is like, unless it's a clean dunk,

Gobert is probably not going to make it. And so that buys you that luxury. That's not what it's going to be like with Al Horford and Khraspsi Porzingis. They're going to be operating primarily from the three-point line. And it's going to be a lot more about covering in space. Now, this is where we've found out that Maxi Klieba is coming back tonight. That's a big deal for Dallas, right? Like having Klieba back gives you the ability to put lineups out there with Kleeba,

P.J. Washington, and Derek Jones, Jr., all on the floor at the same time. And then you can put those guys on Tatum and Brown and Derek White and ask Kyrie to do a somewhat easier job of guarding someone like a Drew Holiday and ask Luca to maybe be the guy who's hedging and recovering on an Al Horford or something along those lines. Like they're going to have options, more options, by virtue of having MaxiCliba back. But it's going to be much more of a defendant space type of series,

whereas this series is much more of a load up and pack the paint type of series. So it's going to be very, very different, but Dallas certainly has what it takes, and it's all going to come down to Luca just completely dominating the series, and it's going to come down to physical perimeter containment from Dallas's perimeter defenders. And if they can do that and kind of play Boston into their worst tendencies, I think they've got a good chance. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all,

embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Clever Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be.

Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars. fan so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of taun tons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to Stuff to Bole your mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?

Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you're just so, y'all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. So, oh. Thank you for finishing that sentence. And yes, I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Who is the best lob thrower in NBA history and why is it Luca Donchit? I was thinking about this earlier. I think it's probably Luca as well. There are a lot of really good lob throwers that have seen over the years, guys like, guys like Chris Paul. LeBron was always good at it.

He just never played with a vertical spacing threat until Anthony Davis. And he's been pretty good at connecting him with lobs. But the problem with LeBron in AD is they play very similar positions. So teams will typically switch those ball screens. And so LeBron AD pick and roll is not something you see a ton of unless you're playing against a drop coverage big. Right. But I think it's clearly Luca. one of the big things that I think makes him the best at it is he's tall. And like you got to think.

So what makes a lob open? A lob is open when the rim protector leaves the lob threat, right? If the rim protector is leaving the lob threat, that means that a seven footer or some sort of large center type player is leaving that guy to pressure Luca. And so he's got to be able to get that pass over the tall player. I put in the film session yesterday. Do you guys remember that transition post up of Mike Conley where Luca spun baseline and threw the lob up to, I think it was. was Gafford. It might have been lively. It doesn't matter. But on that plate, Gobert left him and double-team Luca and came up arms up. And Luca just happened to get the pass up over the top of him, which is just a kind of like a benefit of him being as tall as he is. I've been saying this for a while, but I think Luca is the only current NBA player that can contend for goat status. Thoughts.

So I was looking at, I thought about this for a little while this morning, because I kind of think of like three tiers of young players. There's like the, guys in that like age 27 to 30 range that are like kind of in the heart of their prime right now, there's like the guys that are in that like 25 to 26, 24, 25, 26 range. Those to me are the guys that are just entering into their prime. And then there's the guys that are in their early 20s that are like very clearly just like raw talent that are still kind of getting into that phase. In the older tier, Janice and Yokic, they both have a title, right?

but they both turn 30 next year. And so one championship entering into your 30s, they just would have to go on an absolutely crazy run over the next five years to enter into those conversations. So that feels pretty unlikely. Joel Embed, he doesn't have one yet, and he's going to be 30. I think he might actually already be 30.

But like Embed is probably off of that pathway, right? In Lucas tier, which is the kind of guys in that, you know, 24, 25, 26 age bracket, I put Luca, Chegildos, Alexander, Jason Tatum, and Devin Booker. Devin Booker, I just don't think he has that upside. Jason Tatum, I think, is a really good and maybe even a bit underrated basketball player, but I don't think that he's in the tier of players that can really, like, dominate the league for a half of a decade.

Like, I think he's the perfect fit for this super talented Boston roster, but I think if you swapped him with a guy like Luca and put him in a role where you, he really had to run an offense by himself or with only one secondary shot creator for an 82 game season. I just don't think he's the kind of guy that can really do that at a super high level. Shake with Alexander is damn good, but I don't think he's as good as Luca. So I think Luca is really the only guy in his tier that can do it. But in the next generation, I think there's two guys that can do it. I think Victor Wenbanyama has that potential, and I think Anthony Edwards has that potential.

But it's just completely raw potential with those two. so it's like there's a huge wide range of outcomes for them. And as you get older, those ranges of outcomes kind of zero in between where your current development is and what your potential upside is, right? And so, yeah, I think that Lucas certainly has that potential, but I also think that there are some guys in the younger generation that have that potential. What is it that separates Gobert in the eyes of voters from players like AD, BAM, and Victor Wemnon, Yama? I find it odd that media voters complained about him.

winning just to vote for him year after year. So voters, one of the big things that I learned after I got into this business, a good percentage of voters rely heavily on metrics, which is crazy to me, but it is what it is. And I've had one of those guys explained to me the reasoning. And their whole thing is like the eye test is flawed, but numbers are unbiased. And that's a good way to look at it. I think that that's absurd personally. But that is the way that so many voters think. And there's just a lot of really good metrics that support Rudy Gobert being the best regular season defender. And even though defensive metrics in particular are very flawed, a lot of people kind of key in on that sort of thing. I think the second piece of it is people are

just enamored with the fact that Gobert is like super engaged defensively all the time, which is completely ridiculous when you factor in the responsibilities that Anthony Davis has, that Bametabio has that Victor Wenbanyama has. AD and Bam were both like fulcrum ball screeners in a five-out offense all year. Like they were guys that had to like consistently make decisions and set screens and roll hard to the rim. Not in a way like Rudy Gobert where it's like maybe you'll catch and finish every once in a while. They were expected to score. They were expected to score consistently on the offensive end of the floor.

And Victor Wenbanyama obviously as well is a guy that is a primary initiator for his team. And so, like, I can speak to this from personal experience. Like, when I was in college, when I was in junior college, I was like one of the best scores on my team. I was the guy that had the ball in my hands a ton. Then I went to NAA. And when I was there, I played alongside two All-American Guards. My role fundamentally changed from guy who had the ball in his hands to I stayed on the floor and, like, kept my spot in the lineup by basically devoting all of my energy towards guarding the other team's best player and trying to knock corner threes down. Right. So like, like in that every game I went in like, all I cared about was defense,

defense, defense, because that was how I kept my job while I was playing alongside really good offensive players. And so that's what Rudy Gobert does. Rudy Gobert goes into tonight's game. He's not thinking about anything on the offensive end. The only thing Rudy Gobert is thinking about tonight going into the game is how do I anchor this defense. Whereas Anthony Davis, when he's going into game five in Denver, he's thinking, man, I got to give him an efficient 30 tonight too. You know what I mean? And so like there's just a lot of pressure on those guys to do more. And I genuinely think all three of those guys and arguably Dremont as well are better defensive players in a vacuum than Rudy Gobert. But because Rudy Gobert devotes all of his energy in that

direction, he puts up these crazy metrics and all the voters just kind of glom on to that sort of thing and they run with it every single year. And so Rudy Gober has four defense player of the year trophies, and I think he's probably somewhere around the fifth to seventh best defensive player in the world. And it is what it is. If the Timberwolves, mostly Towns and Ant, were playing like they were the first two rounds,

would they be up three O or at least two one? I mean, yeah, but think about why they're playing poorly. They're not playing poorly. Like so many people want to point to this as like some sort of mental shortcoming. like, oh, you know, Carl Towns and Anthony Edwards just ran into this aura of Luca Donchich and then they just crumbled the pieces. No, like they're playing a very different defense than they did in the first two rounds. They are completely incapable of getting into the paint. All of Minnesota's paint finishes have come off the ball, either through cleanups around the rim, putbacks, or attacking closeouts on the weak side.

Carl Towns and Anthony Edwards are not consistently getting into the lane because of elite, perimeter athleticism, an elite vertical athleticism under the rim for Dallas. And so, again, like, they're not playing well, but there's a basketball reason for that. Like, we got to get out of this whole, like, oh, they crumbled under the pressure. No, no, no. Like, there's generally speaking, if the basketball conditions are favorable, a player's going to play well. And if basketball conditions are not favorable, they're not going to play well.

And again, it's exposed a couple of weaknesses as we've gone over in this series. I've consistently said Carl Anthony Towns is a guy that if you can flatten out his drives and shut off the lane from him, he's an inconsistent over-the-top shooter. And so you will turn him into a make-or-miss guy, and he's been missing in this series. That's something that can happen with Carl Anthony Towns. Anthony Edwards, his flaws is he's all one speed right now. And so he's got to learn against these super-packed-in defenses how to be more methodical to manipulate help defenders, which is going to take him a few more years of experience.

There's two of these. I'm so relieved that Jason is leaning Boston would have crushed my soul for him to give us his curse. The second one. Please don't pick the MAVs to win, Jason. Don't do it. First of all, I literally picked the MAVs to win against the Clippers. I picked the MAVs to win against the Thunder when they were an underdog. So was I cursing the MAVs then?

In my pre-playoffs contender rankings, I had Denver won, Boston 2, Dallas 3. So, like, I obviously was a huge believer in Dallas all along. I picked against them in this specific series in a razor-thin margin. and then I also laid out in the series preview all the different reasons that Dallas could win, including Jada McDaniels might be too skinny for Luca, including Dallas has real rim protection. That might cause problems for Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns in the lane. I also mentioned, like, I thought Luca's knee might be in rough shape and it might cause some problems. It clearly has not been an issue. So like, first of all, I haven't cursed your team.

Second of all, I've been consistently on the Dallas bandwagon for the most part over the course of the latter. portion of the year. So I really don't know where all that sentiment comes from. Why don't teams target Luca? Why didn't they put him in pick and roll? So first of all, there's a reason why the wolves can't. Because Luca has been targeted on occasion in this series and he's ended up on an island against, you know, Luca or against Anthony Edwards or against Carl Anthony Towns. The reason why the wolves are struggling with it is think about it like this. If it has Derek Jones Jr. on him and he brings Luca into the screen gets a switch.

At that point, where's Gobert? If it's an ISO. If it's an ISO, Gobert's sitting underneath the basket in the dunker spot, right? And who's guarding him? Derek Lively or Daniel Gaffer, right? So Luca's defensive job becomes very simple. Just press up on Ant and make him drive. And if he drives, he's just going to drive into all of this damn traffic underneath the rim.

Dallas has also been helping heavily off of Jaden McDaniels all series. So like it's not that they're not trying to target Luca. It's just it doesn't solve the fundamental problem, which is it can get by his man. That's not the issue. Even Derek Jones Jr., it can get by him. It's the totality of the team defense

and the way they're packing the paint and with Gobert and McDaniels being left open, how they're incapable of consistently making them pay for doing that. But Boston is very, very big on matchup attacking. Up until the point where Tyrese Alliburton left the series, the vast majority of action they were running was targeting Tyrus Halliburton either on the ball through pick and roll or off the ball through

inverted pick and roll where he was hedging and recovering. Boston was going at him every single time down the floor. Boston can get centers out of the paint because they have shooting big so they can like legitimately play five out all the time. Right. And so from that perspective, I do think Luca will get targeted a lot more consistently in the Boston series and it will come down to, you know, is,

is Dallas willing to hedge and recover? Or are they just going to have to double Team M out of those situations? Or is Luca just going to slide his feet and do it well? We're going to find out in that next round. Every Luca play description has you saying, watch how Luca bumps Jaden to create separation, or watch how Luca hits him so hard he goes flying, or Luca gives him a little off-arm creating separation,

or watch Luca bump Jaden with a drop step here, with each being followed by a Luca stepback. This action is never called an offensive foul. How can anyone guard this type of play effectively? basketball is a contact sport. I hate to break it to you. That's just what it is. It's not like every single basketball,

not only is basketball a contact sport, it becomes more and more of a contact sport the later you get into the playoffs. And that's just not even just an NBA thing. That's at every level. Whether it's high school when you get into the playoffs, it gets more physical. Whether it's an NCAA tournament game,

it gets like that, whether it's a money tournament where there's money on the line and guys are playing. Like it just, anytime the intensity and stakes rise, it becomes a contact sport. And so that's why, if you look back through NBA history, it's usually the big, strong guys

who end up playing the best. It ends up being the Lukas, it ends up being the Yokic's, it ends up being the LeBron James, as it ends up being the Janus's in this league, right? The big, strong guys who have the most success. Why are you so convinced that Ant will just learn to be a smart player and game controller? He will improve, of course, but he has an enormous gap to close

with guys like Luka or Yokish. I'm sure he will be a brilliant player for years to come, but I do not really see the signs of him being a great decision. maker consistently. I have the impression that Wemby is more likely to have that type of impact, and he is in his, and he is in his way also a freak of nature like Anne. So if anyone is going to be an outstanding force in the league other than Luka or Yokic, it's going to be Wemby, not Ant. Here's the thing. Wemby's a very different type of player than Ant, but he also has that type of potential. I absolutely think that Wembe could be better than A. He should be better

than Ant, right? Like he's got the best set of physical tools ever in the history of NBA prospects, right? So like Wembe is kind of like a different thing. As far as Ant goes, He's 22 years old, guys. He's 22 years old. Michael Jordan and LeBron James didn't win their first titles until they were 27. That's five years. Five more playoff runs. Like, think about how long ago five years was.

Five years ago, Kauai Leonard was playing for the Toronto Raptors. Five years ago, Kevin Durant was still wearing a Golden State Warriors jersey. Okay? Like, that's how far we have to get for Ant to be able to win a title on the same schedule as the LeBron James, Michael Jordan, tier of guys at the, top of the league in NBA history, right? So like, I wouldn't overthink that. And most importantly, I've seen encouraging signs. And having that disastrous first half in game seven and then figuring out how to be deeply impactful in the second half, that was a huge sign of adaptability from

Ant. Even in this series, I know every Mavericks fan is just convinced it was because of lively. I thoroughly disagree in terms of his overall approach, he was much smarter in the second half of game three. No, it's not going to be enough to turn the series around. But he is adaptable. He is learning and he is rapidly improving. Give this dude five more off-season, five more 82-game grinds, five more playoff runs. He's going to be so damn good, guys. He's going to be so damn good. It looked like he might be ahead of schedule.

Turns out, still needs some more time. But that doesn't mean we need to pretend the dude is incapable of reaching where he wants to get to. Need the Boston versus Mavs breakdown. Like I said, obviously we're going to wait until after the Mavs series ends. But we will do many, many layers of series preview content for this matchup. A ton of film. Probably going to have some guests on as well. We're going to have lots to get into over the course of the coming week.

How has Ant's potential changed zero after the series? You just said in this video that he will need considerably more time to reach the peak. So that's considerably less rings for him. He potentially could have started winning championships starting this season, but now it'll take him a couple more years to get his first. The potential does change. no it doesn't. LeBron James and Michael Jordan didn't win their first until 27 and they've combined to win 10. He was on pace to be way ahead of schedule. It looks like he's a little bit, he's got a ways to go.

But guys, he's 22. He barely can order a beer, okay? Jason, I love the channel and have improved my understanding of basketball measurably thanks to your logical and insightful breakdowns of the game. I use the logic you taught me to predict that the Mavs have many advantages in this matchup. And that should put them as considerable favorite, despite what the overall narratives were surrounding the series. Looking back on your coverage, I believe you have the basketball IQ and experienced to have gone against the majority of your peers and predicted the shape of this matchup before game one. But you allowed yourself to be moved by more narrative-based statements such as Edwards is playing like a top five player in the league, or that either Denver or Minnie could easily beat Dallas or Oklahoma City. Do you think this is a fair assessment and that if you followed your own processes more strictly, you could have predicted this series, more accurately. So first of all, I really do try to look at the basketball before going into

the series. If you guys go back and listen to the series preview and you'll hear a lot of the same shit that's happened in the series. I specifically brought up. McDaniels might not be able to guard Luca. I specifically brought up that the rim protection might be an issue for Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns. I specifically brought up that Derek Jones Jr. was a freaky athlete that might be able to have some more success keeping Anthony Edwards in front off of the dribble. I looked at all those advantages. I think where I specifically made a mistake was I knew Dallas's rim protection would be different than Denver.

I just thought Ant would have more success against it. So like honestly, like, this series should be a little closer than it is. It shouldn't be a sweep. Dallas isn't 4-0 better than Minnesota, but Anthony Edwards is having a really, really rough series, which can happen sometimes for young basketball players when they run into a tough matchup. And so, again, like, the way I look at it, like, I was wrong, but I had it close. Go look at, in the preview, I've specifically said, like, this can go either way. Dallas certainly can win. I'm picking Minnesota. I thought Minnesota's defense would have a little bit more impact

on Luca. And I thought Anthony Edwards would have a little bit more success attacking in the half court against this team. It won a different way? I was wrong. It happens. I don't know what else to say. But at the end of the day, guys, like, like I, guys, Minnesota beat Denver. Minnesota beat Denver and Anthony Edwards went toe to toe with the best player in the world and like played more or less at his level over the course of a seven game series. Like Dallas flip the script. Good on them. Tip the cap. But like, let's not sit here and pretend like Minnesota was a bunch of bums and we all foolishly picked bums because of narratives over the Dallas Mavericks. That's not the way that I see it. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media.

Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrate.

One week I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford. and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away,

such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith Rule of Two. Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim?

Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack.

So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Then you're finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. First you were on Denver, then Minnesota, now Dallas. Do you have pick integrity? A couple things. I hate this part of the job, but it's something that we have to do, right? There is no such thing as like a basketball analyst out there. If there is one, show me, who year in, year out,

just picks every single series correctly. It's not a thing. I remember when we were talking with, when I was talking with Ethan Strauss on his podcast, he said something that I thought was fascinating. He goes, humans on a deep level are, are addicted to variance. And what he meant by that was like,

we want to go into a situation and not know what's going to happen. Right. And he was referring to it with JJ Redick wanting to get back into coaching. And essentially what he, the way I interpreted that and what I thought was super fascinating is like that's what makes sports fun to watch guys is we don't know what's going to happen if we knew every single game clearly who was going to win no one would watch where's

the fun in that like at the end of the day like that's what we love about sports is you tune in for game seven Denver Minnesota and it's like man what's going to happen tonight is Denver going to their championship muscles and get this thing done? Or is Minnesota on the strengths of this 22-year-old kid and a great defense going to beat these guys? And you're like, grab your popcorn, man, pop a nice cold beer. Let's watch what happens. Like, that's what we love about sports. And then guess what? We turn it on and it's like, holy shit, Denver's up 20. Oh my gosh, they haven't scored in like five minutes. Now Minnesota's back in the game. Uh-oh. Nass reads. making shots, it's, oh my gosh, Minnesota's going to win. That's why we love sports. That's why we love it. I said this on a mailbag like a week ago. There's nothing that has surprised me more since getting

into this industry than how obsessed people are with like my ability to successfully predict playoff series, which is like completely absurd. It's completely absurd. Secondly, I was on Denver because they have the best player in the world and they have a damn good basketball team. They barely lost in a series where they led by 20 in the fourth quarter. Dallas was third on my list of championship contenders this year. I picked them over Minnesota to start the playoff run, right? Obviously, I became very optimistic on Minnesota after they beat Denver. Also, I picked Dallas to win in the first round.

I picked Dallas to win in the second round. There's no such thing as picking... Honestly, whoever wrote that question, I want another mailbag answer. What do you mean by pick integrity? What does that damn mean? I just don't understand. Help me understand what you're expecting in terms of picks.

It's so confounding to me. In retrospect, do you think that the fact that Minnesota took all seven games to beat Denver was an indication that they were not ready? They went up 2-0, and honestly, I think it should have ended in 5 or 6 max. The matchup was literally perfect for Minnesota. I'm curious to see what you think about this. I don't think it needs to be overthought. I thought honestly just Denver is a championship caliber team that flexed their muscles

and was able to kind of regain control of the situation. But at the very last minute, Minnesota kind of dug their heels in and they were able to kind of drag it back. But again, guys, like they were up 20 in the second half of game 7. Some of this is just the weirdness of sports, right? Would you consider doing off-season film breakdowns of some of the all-time great players? Specifically, their moves that changed the game, a laudea the Iverson cut. Love the channel.

you've helped me on my journey to love the game of basketball again with your great analysis. Thank you. First of all, I bitch and moan a lot about the people in my comments that are complaining constantly. But the overwhelming majority of you guys are positive. And I want to make sure that I let you guys know that I'm aware of that. And I'm super thankful for it. And I appreciate all of you guys' support in the kind words along the way. As far as the offseason, this is our first offseason having film. And I'm really excited to see what we do.

When we do player rankings, going to include film. When we do all-time rankings, going to include film. When we do series season previews, we're going to include film. So like draft stuff, we're going to be able to do film this year. So like, I'm excited to see what we do. We'll probably after the finals do some sort of like strategy meeting internally to kind of come up with some ideas. But we're going to do a lot of stuff with film this summer. Jason, mailback question for you.

What do you think is the hardest part regarding prepping for these reaction videos you make? Or even going into a series where it's so evenly matched between both sides, huge fan of the show. So reaction videos, easily the hardest part is the close game. So you can imagine I'm writing notes. Watching the game, I'm writing down all the interesting tactical stuff that I'm seeing, right? But let's say it's 100 to 100 with four minutes left. Everything about the narrative of the show and the flow of the show hinges on who wins the game. And often I feel like a certain team's going to win or I write a bunch of notes about one specific side.

And then you have a massive comeback, like a 20-point comeback in the second half of Game 7. and suddenly the entire show flips over. And so instant reaction shows are kind of interesting and unique challenge in the sense that like it's just you never know what you're going to have to say because things can change so quickly over a few minutes at the end. As far as like series previews, like the hardest part is like I go through the film and I see, oh, this team has this advantage, this team has that advantage, this team has that advantage.

And it's really difficult to predict something that's wildly unpredictable. The vast majority of the series in this playoff run were between relatively easy, matched teams that could have gone either way. Even just look at Thunder Mavs. If PJ Washington, let's say that Che gets a clean block on PJ Washington on that corner three and they win and they go home and they win game seven,

the entire NBA finals could be different. Like, we would have Thunder, Minnesota in the third round. So like, again, all of this stuff hangs by a thread and so many things could have gone differently. And so like that's the hard part. And like, honestly, when it comes to doing series previews,

like half the battle is like, matter what I pick, I'm going to end up getting slandered for it at the end of the day anyway. Do you think Luca has hit his ceiling as an overall player, or does he have areas to improve? I think obviously with Luca, it's mostly going to be about physical fitness. I think he's obviously a good athlete. I'm not trying to sit here and pretend like he doesn't take care of his body at all, but there certainly is another level he can get to on that front. And I wonder if you will ever get to that in his career, because if he does, that could

unlock an entirely different level in terms of him, both defensively and in terms of his conditioning level over the course of games, which is already really good. How do you see the matchup between the Nuggets and the Mavs? Barclay had a short comment that Denver would have beaten Dallas if they had managed to go through Minnesota. I probably would have picked Denver to beat Dallas had they met in the conference finals. It's really the simple Denver, in the same way that Denver has the personnel to guard Anthony

Edwards, they really don't have the personnel to deal with Yokic. They would have to double and swarm him the entire series, which would have led to a ton of open looks. The other part of it, too, is Dallas, Denver is more. capable of handling Dallas's loaded up defense with their ability to move the ball side to side. They play more five out. And I think they would have just generated a lot more quality looks. Also, Denver has a player that's big and strong enough to kind of sort of hang with Luca and Aaron Gordon, which is something that Minnesota does not. And that's just fundamentally

different. Like, Luca wouldn't be able to put Aaron Gordon in jail on those ball screens and manipulate Aaron Gordon the way he does Jada McDaniels. That said, Dallas certainly could have beat Denver. I would have probably picked Denver on like a 60-40 basis, which means I would have given Dallas like a 40% chance to win the series, which means I certainly think it could have gone that route. I just would feel like it would be more likely that Denver would have won. This was an interesting comment, not really a question, but a comment that I got. Luca versus Yokic is interesting. Obviously, Yokic has certain advantages with his size, but I believe Luca also has a few advantages by virtue of him being a perimeter player and a great ball handler.

For example, the best closers usually tend to be guards, and Luca is probably the best closer in the league today. On the Nuggets, too, Murray is typically the one closing games more often than not. Also, because he is a perimeter player, I believe he is able to control the pace of the game more so than Yokic. Having said all that, if there was one shot to be taken, I'd run Yokic post up over any other play in the league. There's just a feeling of inevitability with Yokich that isn't there with anyone else. When it's all said and done, I do expect Luca to end up higher in all-time ranking simply because he's younger by four to five years. Also, to be fair to him, he's been a superstar basically from day one of his NBA career. That part at the end, I agree with. Like,

Luca probably has a better chance of ending up higher all time just simply because he got started younger, right? I disagree in the sense that I do think Yokch can strangle the pace of the game. I do think Yokic can operate as a closer. He chooses to go through Jamal Murray often just because of matchups. And it's also just Yokic is one of those guys too that like he doesn't give a fuck who makes or takes the shot. He just wants to win. But Yokic is certainly capable of operating as a closer. I actually think Yokic and Luca are very similar.

They are two offensive engines who consistently generate quality shots to their team either by scoring on an island and they're pretty much unguardable. There's only a handful of guys in the league that can guard both guys. And then the consistent making of good reads when they draw double teams, right? I think if there's one thing that Luca has kind of gained ground on Yokic on as of late is the jump shot. Just Yokic didn't shoot the ball well this year. Luca's shooting it much better. And that ended up being a problem, especially in the Minnesota series when Yokic couldn't hit pick and pop threes. but I think that they're both remarkably similar.

The only real difference is they play different positions, and Yolkich operates more in the flow of the game as a five-out guy versus Luka being like a four-out, you know, heliocentric type of guy. As someone in what I would consider to be the new age of sports media, what is it going to take to get away from the clickbait headlines that currently dominate old slash traditional media? I understand that the Celtics have had a far easier road than the wolves, but the Ant and Tatum narratives are so bizarre to me.

So again, guys, this is, I don't like watching shows that have overly, you know, critical clickbaity type of subject matter, right? But I don't have to watch them. Like, this is the beautiful thing about the new age of sports media. Whatever it is you're into listening to, you can find. And so, like, my thing is, like, those things will continue to exist as long as people watch them, and people still do. Like I, like I, I, I still to this day see, you know, ESPN clips with relatively clickbaited topics that perform extremely well. And so, like, people still like that kind of content.

It's like, if you're not into that, go listen to something different. You know what I mean? One other thing that I wanted to hit here, I get criticized a lot for, like, my thumbnails and my titles. I don't write the thumbnails of the titles, guys. Just to make that clear. I record the show and I submit it, and then my team does the rest. And so, like, again, like, it's, there's a certain business element that we have to be realistic of. Like, if it get, if a click baity headline gets you guys to click, but then you like my show for being what my show is,

then I'm going to take that as a win. Even if there was a little grifty thing we had to do off the top to get you to come through the door, right? But like, once we get the door swing, it's really about whether or not you like the show, right? But again, like, if you guys don't like the stuff that's out there, all you have to do is not watch it, you know? I don't think it's really that complicated. Damn, after hearing all those stats, how does Minnesota even keep it close? Turnovers. I know games one and two, Dallas shot poor from three, but still, in game four, should Dallas not push it, protect the ball, and just run half court sets every possession

since they're so much better at it. The main thing that's kept it close to second chance points. The Timberwolves have been much better at converting offensive rebounds into points. They're up 39 to 25 in second chance points in the series. That has closed the gap on some of the half court execution stuff. I'm having an argument with my friends, and I said Tatum has to be the one to guard Luca in the finals. Do you agree? Yes. I think that's where the series is eventually going. So if Luke is picking on matchups and just barbecue in all of your smaller perimeter defenders, the only thing you can do is put Tatum on him. Now, how does that work in different coverages? So what that would mean is in ball screens, you have Tatum on Luca and you chase over the top. And that way when Luca tries to put Tatum in jail, Tatum's big and strong and long enough.

actually bother a Luca there in a way that a guy like Jada McDaniels can't, right? From there, Luca will probably start trying to run guard, guard screens to try to get, to try to get Tatum switched off of him. From there, you run hedge and recover and you rotate. But I think that would be the goal because that's the best way to get the ball out of Luca's hands and actually make other people try to score is like if you have it so that he can't attack and straight ISO. Because one of the things that Dallas would do is if they're blitzing ball screens against Minnesota, Luca will just attack Jada McDaniels one-on-one because he feels comfortable. He won't be able to do that as easily with Tatum.

So I think Tatum on Luca is probably their best strategy in the long run. Also, Boston has enough offensive talent that if you went to Tatum and said, hey, I need you to devote 80% of your energy to guarding Luca Donchich. Boston would be fine because they have enough offensive talent on the other end to make up for it. All right, we have four more, it looks like. Hey, Jason. In your opinion, what has made the Luca-Kairi backcourt works so well compared to other teams that have tried using two-star guards like Atlanta and Cleveland. It's really this simple.

Atlanta was Trey Young and Dejante Murray. Cleveland was Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. Dallas has Luca Donchich who might be the best player in the world. And Kyrie Irving, who's better as a number two than Garland or Dejante Murray. I don't think we need to overthink it. They just, the stars are actually just really, really good. And they've got really good role players doing all the dirty work for them. didn't you say that Ant Man is clearly better than Tatum?

So I had a mailback question that said or someone said, who would you take right now, Tatum or Ant? And I said I would take Aunt right now, no questions. And here's the thing. When I, that was just a quick response to a mailback question. The way I really feel about it is that I do think that Ant Man is going to be better than Tatum sooner than later. If I was a GM, I'd rather have Ant Man on my team than Jason Tatum.

but right now for a playoff series, I think Tatum is better. And I said that in our player rankings when we did the top five like a week and a half, two weeks ago. I had Yokich 1, Luca 2. Did we remove Yokic? No, no, yeah.

It was Yokich 1, Luca 2. I had Tatum 3, Anthony Edwards, 4. So, like, that's how I feel. But I do think that I would be stunned if 18 months from now, if Ant wasn't at Tatum's level, and if 36 months, from now he wasn't just clearly better.

Two more. I used to enjoy your pod with Raj, and then one day it seemed like it was discontinued. Can you elaborate on what happened there exactly? I know you explained some of the overall journey recently, but I really liked State of the Lakers. So it's really the simple. State of Lakers was only half the podcast.

It started as the Jason Timpf podcast, then it became State of the Lakers, but half of the show was me doing instant reaction shows with Raj at night. The other half of the show was me by myself covering the rest of the league. Raj and I had very different goals. My goal was to cover the NBA at large. Raj's goal is to be a credentialed reporter that covers the Los Angeles Lakers.

When the volume reached out to me, they wanted me to cover the league as a solo guy like I was already doing for the other half of the state of the Lakers pot. So that's really all it was. They were essentially just trying to build a new show around what the Jason Timf podcast was before I started working with Raj. but Raj and I had different goals. Raj doesn't want to cover the entire league and wants to cover the Lakers, and that's what he's doing right now. But I loved working with Raj,

and I think he's one of the best people that covers the Lakers. It does great work. I think he's doing a show right now with Vinay Kila Walla, and they do a great job. Seems like Luca jumped Janus for you and the best player in the world rankings.

How and why? Very simple. I think the most important skill that a basketball player can have is the ability to consistently generate quality shots first team in the half court. And I think Luca's awesome at it, potentially the best player in the world at it.

And for Janice, I think that's actually been one of the major issues that has played to him over the years. Like, yes, he got hurt, but when push came to shove against Miami last year, he couldn't get a shot, like he couldn't make a quality shot over the top of bam. Like he can't even get like a left shoulder hook, right?

Going back to the, um, uh, 20-2 season like his, I actually thought he was really good in that series against Boston. But still, there's some limitations in terms of his ability to get shots off over the top when he can't just penetrate into the paint. And then obviously before that, before the 2021 season when they won the title, that was consistently what was his issue in 2019 and 2020.

2021 in particular too, like a genuine championship. Don't take anything away from it, but it was a weird season. And he played some limited competition along the way. And I do think that that was one of the things that allowed Janus to overcome that specific weakness of his. second part of the question the wolves exposed how bad Yokic is as a rim protector. How has that shaped your view on him

relative to Janus and other great bigs in NBA history? So the thing with Yokic is he demonstrated last year that he could defend the rim well enough against like really good competition too, against LeBron and AD against BAM and Jimmy, against KD and Devin Booker. Like he demonstrated

that he could do that last year. I think in a lot of ways Minnesota just drove him into the ground with their overwhelming physicality and I think he got tired and I think he fell apart there. So obviously there are some things that he has to improve on in that regard. But I still think, to put it simply, if I had to build a team that could win a championship, I feel it could be easier to build one around Yokic than Yonis, simply because it's going to be easy for me to get defensive personnel that can thrive offensively off of what Yokic does,

then vice versa. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We're going to be back tonight live on YouTube after the final buzzer of game four between the wolves and the mass. I will see you guys then. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tontons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith Rule of Two.

Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your mind. podcast. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. I mean, it was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to Look Back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you give your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.