The Herd with Colin Cowherd - LeBron James no Longer the NBAs Best, Seahawks Unlickiest NFL Team and Tom Brady Needs to Retire

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

Doug Gottlieb filling in for Colin Cowherd says LeBron James is not the main reason for the Lakers lose last night against the Clippers but he is by far not the best player in the NBA. If your looking for an NFL team that's been unlucky this entire season the Dallas Cowboys are far from it, look towards the Seattle Seahawks and Philadelphia Eagles instead. It's time to stop asking Tom Brady when he's going to ride into the sunset because Tom himself has no set date on retirement but he sure has earned the right to go out on his own terms.Guest: Chris Haynes Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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 podcasts. What's up, guys? This is Clivert Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her.

What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Wreck, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season, and I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was harmed.

you just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Mark keep coming until he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs.

This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to The Heard podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday from 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Find your local station for the Herd at Fox Sports Radio.com Or stream us live every day on the IHeartRadio app by searching

heard. We're listening to Fox Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in. This is the herd, wherever you may be, and however you may be listening or watching the show. The I-Heart Radio app, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports One. I'm Doug Gottlie, filling in for Colin Coward, live from Los Angeles. Hope you had the very merriest of Christmas, or you celebrate Hanukkah. Hope that's going well for you.

Of course, we wish you nothing but the happiest of New Year's. Dallas Cowboys and why stats do in fact lie. Chris Haynes is going to join us, NBA Insider for Yahoo Sports. Get his take on last night's unbelievable game in Los Angeles between the Lakers and the Clippers. The rockets in postseason form already, right? Losing to the Warriors, things we can predict. The real Joelle Embed stepped up yesterday, but forget about all that. Let's get to the nuts and bolts of it. we live in this really weird polarizing era in which you're either all in or all out I've sat on this in this very chair before at this very desk and gone through my thoughts

on LeBron versus Michael Jordan right in terms of all-time greats and if you don't to the LeBron fan bow to him and say he's the greatest you've ever seen somehow you're defaming LeBron James as a bad basketball player or massively overrated or you're a hater when the truth is if there are 450 NBA players and for the better part of his 17 plus year career he's been one of the top five to 10 players in the NBA for that long period of time including several years in which he was the best player in the NBA you're doing anything but defaming LeBron James. and the hundreds of thousands of NBA players in the history of the game,

if he's in the conversation of being the best, that's actually quite respectful. But I've seen enough to tell you that what we're all seeing last night does not all fall on his shoulders. It doesn't. I'm not putting the blame solely on LeBron James. They had a 15-point lead, and then, of course, the Clippers made a run, and then LeBron goes on a run to start the fourth quarter and gives them space. They have a six-point lead or seven-point lead with six minutes to go. They're at home.

And it's not just home because they both shared the arena. Like, that was a Lakers home game. It's almost always a Lakers home game when the Lakers play in Staples, even when they play in the Clippers home games. Look, they're not getting anything out of Avery Bradley. I don't understand why Rondo plays so much. I think Anthony Davis showed his flaws as, being a great player. They didn't double

team Anthony Davis. They didn't make him pass the basketball. Montres Harrell is not seen as a great defender and he shoot and fade away jump shots instead of attacking the rim. The Clippers won the game because they got to the free throw line and when they missed jump shots they got offensive rebounds.

Whereas LeBron and the rest of the Lakers just settled for far too many jump shots. That's why they lost the game. So I'm not putting the loss on LeBron. But I will tell you that if you didn't have the name on the back of the jersey, and you didn't know that that was LeBron, who some people considered the greatest player of all time,

and he didn't know it was Kawhi Leonard, who was the last year's finals MVP. If you just said, hey, I want you to watch this game and tell me who the best player on the court is, anybody would have said number two in the white jersey. If you go back to last Thursday night when they played in Milwaukee, and look, to people who said that Janus has now figured it out, he's a great shooter, now he can shoot, now he can do it all. Like he was 0 of 7 yesterday. He showed his flaws.

But against Janice and the Bucks, he was at best the second and really the third best player on that floor. LeBron James has a lot of tread worn off those tires. And yeah, he's probably dealing with the groin injury. I'm not saying that he's not banged up. But you can't go load management on me when LeBron didn't play the previous game for the Lakers in an effort to rest up for Christmas Day.

he wasn't the best player on the floor. In the last two games combined, made for TV, prime time, real NBA, playoff caliber games, shoots 39% 26% from three-point range, 22 points a game, six turnovers. And then it should be pointed out he continues to struggle to make end-of-game free throws. Is that the reason they lost? Nope. Nope. He makes that free throw late. They're still down two.

not the reason that they lost. But LeBron James is not the same guy at 34 years old. Is it because he's in L.A.? I don't know, maybe, right? Traffic two in front Brentwood does seem to back you up, and so maybe you're not spending as much time in El Segundo as in the gym. The stronger likelihood is he's 34 years old.

Can't get his body to do what it used to be able to do. There's some Tom Brady to it. obviously the difference with Tom Brady is Brady can fake it because he doesn't have to play defense. He doesn't have to match up with the athleticism of others. Whereas when you're in the NBA, you're out there on an island. There's also, if you look back when the Ravens won their last Super Bowl, here's a huge difference. When the Ravens won their last Super Bowl, remember the Niners made a big comeback in the second half?

How'd they do it? attacked Ray Lewis. Couldn't play anymore. Now, LeBron's not there. He's not, I can't play anymore. But instead of what the game plan always used to be against Ravens, which is go anywhere in which Ray Lewis is not. What's changed in the NBA, you're not avoiding LeBron James the defensive end.

And you're not all that scared of him at the offensive end. If you have the number of bodies that you can throw at him to just put a body in front of him, he won't get a step on you he'll shoot a jump shot and there are nights like last night when he's not making them what's what's helped LeBron become

the superstar that he is is not just the body that he has the downhill game in which he plays but also the trend in the NBA which is you've taken power forwards are no longer going to exist they don't really exist LeBron James is the build of an old power forward

yet he has the game of you know a new age Magic Johnson so you take a power forward out of the game and then you take a center, and many of these centers are now shooting threes, and you open up the lane. And oh, yeah, by the way, the defense can no longer hand-check you and keep you from driving downhill. All of these have helped him get to the rim.

Now when he loses some of that step, and he can't get to the rim, in addition to which he doesn't have the necessary volume of shooters around him, LeBron does not look, Jason Kidd, end of his career, can't make a layup washed up. but if you're operating under the assumption that LeBron James is still the best basketball player on earth, you obviously did not watch last night's game. And you obviously did not watch last Thursday's game.

It doesn't mean that he's a terrible player. It doesn't mean that he's not a top 10 player in the NBA. It doesn't mean that he's not the Lakers MVP. He's still the Lakers' most valuable player. Between his intelligence at both ends, his passing ability, his scoring ability, his size and versatility, his leadership. Look, the Lakers have had a great run here in the first half of the season. But if you hadn't watched basketball all year,

or you didn't know anything about LeBron versus Quine, just said, hey, I want you to watch this game, you tell me who the best player is, you would have said number two in the white jersey, not number 23 in the gold jersey. That happens. does happen. We deal, we try and adjust on dated information.

And if your information is that LeBron is the best ever, and that never changes, well, then you're not dealing with reality. Look, this is what happened in the NBA finals, going back two and three years ago. I get it. Game one, two years ago, he's unbelievable 51 points. J.R. Smith doesn't know time and score and screws it up. But throughout the length of that series, as well as the series, before, and the series before is even more telling because you can't make the argument about

LeBron not having a supporting cast. He had Kevin Love. He had Kyrie Irving. He had Tristan Thompson. He had the whole slew of guys. But he was matched up with Kevin Durant, and Kevin Durant was the better player in the second half of all the important games. And the Warriors won, and he was the MVP.

Kevin Durant was. Kevin Durant, if you didn't know who LeBron was, you didn't know who Kevin Durant was, you'd say, I think Kevin Durant is actually the better player in these particular. their games. And big games do matter. Like, look, I don't care about the, we're going to talk about the Cowboys in a second. It don't really matter the rest of the Cowboys season. Make a determination based upon how good Dak Prescott is on the road against a depleted Philadelphia Eagles team against a guy who was selected ahead of him and got a bigger contract than him. You want to tell me that he's better than Carson Went. He had better wide receivers, a better

running back, a better offensive line. And he couldn't win the game. Couldn't score points. With the play calling, this is the same thing. Like, last night, should the Lakers have run more offense late, especially in the last possession? Sure.

Is there, right? These are all explanations. These are all explanations. It's fine. It's fine to say that Kellyn Moore is inexperienced as an offensive quarter. It's fine to say that Jason Garrett's not a great head coach. Okay. But if you watch the game, you'd say,

Dak Prescott or Carson Wentz, who's better? And then you factor in that Carson Wins has got practice squad guys at Wide Receiver, and Dak Prescott has, what we're told were stars at Wide Receiver and a star at running back. Big games matter. They help determine what's what. Who's who? Last night was as big an NBA game as we've had in a long time. Does it mean the Clippers are going to absolutely win game seven of the NBA finals? No. Doesn't mean that win the Western Conference files, it does not. But it gives us a little, hey, Alex Caruso, not ready for that level yet.

Right? Lakers still trying to figure it out. Clippers working together, but really won that game on toughness, rebounding, defensive intensity, tenacity. It wasn't always pretty. And maybe that's the way they always have to win, or maybe that's the way in which they're winning now. like all of these are good explanations

but the facts remain that you just watched last night it's okay this is like having a discussion with your significant other when she's thinking about having a nip or a tuck or something lifted up like hey those lines in your forehead

that's okay that makes you who you are that's experience that's upsets down that's life if lebron can win an NBA championship that actually makes me think even more of him. He still won't be the best player on earth. He just find a way. Lift up other people.

Add new pieces. Add an Andraigadol, add somebody else who can come get them buckets late because LeBron cannot do that anymore. That's not who he is at this stage in his career. And if you don't believe me, watch the big games. It's all you need to know. Playoff basketball, differ than the rest. Big game NBA clone night basketball.

Polono Colon is a special night. Last night was a special night, and it showed that Kauai Leonard was the best player and floor. If you don't think there's a difference between last night's game and the other games, why did both Kauai and LeBron sit leading up to it? Because they knew, everybody knew. Games matter. It's a playoff intensity.

You find out who belongs on the court. You find out who does not. But you also find out who the better man is. and the snapshot in time of December 25th, 2019, two in the white jersey, was better than 23 in the yellow jersey. Doesn't mean that he's been better for the last 17 years. It does mean that last night he was,

and this appears to be a trend. Coming up next, are the Cowboys bad, or are they just unlucky? We'll discuss next. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is The Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd, weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeart Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are

trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where sports slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff, Nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered.

SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlic. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast. Learn the hard way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field

and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch.

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What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the 4th. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff, like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me, he goes, A, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her.

What? Come on out. Quarterback on office blue 42. A rep, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Miss Park. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game.

We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night bases on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson,

we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball, like, You go through a training camp with that Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How many guys out there have been using their wife or girlfriend's shampoo? Your hair is different. So do them and your hair a favor. Get your own. Dove men plus care has created a range designed to give your hair the care it needs to stay strong and more resilient available at Walmart. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. This is the herd.

Chris Haynes is going to join us. NBA insider for Yahoo Sports. They'll join us up coming about 10 minutes or so. We'll get his thoughts on yesterday the entire slate of NBA games. I saw this in pro football focus. The Cowboys strong offense, easy schedule, derailed by bad luck. The general point to the article, you can read it online, is that, look, in terms of yards per play and offense and defense,

strength of schedule, overall efficiency, the Cowboys should have won at least 10 games. How in the hell are they 7 and 8? Right? Hell, I'm 7 and 8. Sounds actually like Jerry Jones wrote it. Howie 7 and 8? Don't really know.

Don't really understand. This is one of those, you run the numbers, and it works. You run the numbers and it works. You run the numbers and it works. And then you put it into play and it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Look, a lot of things are like this. I mean, in many ways, the idea of socialism, for example, should work.

Right? We should all get up and go do our job and not have to worry about health care, schools, and how much you make, and we just go and do our thing, right? Just go do your thing every day, get up, focus, whatever my job is, I'm going to do it, and I'm going to come home, and we're all the same. That sounds like a great idea. What gets in the way? Human nature.

I'm working harder than that person. I should be more valuable than that. I bring more to the table. Other businesses want to hire me. I put myself in the market. I should be worth more. Somebody's willing to pay more, correct? right human nature and leadership right because even in pure socialist societies there's leadership

and leaders see themselves as above everybody else leadership human nature it derails the great socialism experiment right i mean and capitalism pure capitalism should work what's the problem with capitalism leadership human nature right cut and cool owners. And oh yeah, by the way, what if you can make something for far less money in a foreign land? Forget about how you treat them, how you pay them, whatever. It's a bottom line business in capitalism. Every business is a bottom line business. In its purest forms, both of these should work on paper and an algorithm. The reality is that leadership and human nature, chemistry, if you will, gets in the way. That's the problem with Dallas Cowboys. Has a kicking big game

been an abject disaster, sure. And in all honesty, the ease of their schedule, especially early on, that was fools gold. Yeah, you dominated the Redskins. They suck. You dominated the dolphins. They're atrocious. Congratulations. He got the giants twice. Okay. Everybody got the giants. You know, the Giants started a rookie quarterback against you. Go through the the hard part about the NFL this year is usually by about this time of year we have teams that have packed it in right you get to 15 16 week 17 this year we had teams that were packing it in that were stinking purposefully or based upon their roster in week one so it's really hard to tell to compare those stats like you cannot compare cowboys versus dolphins

cowboys versus redskins versus cowboys versus eagles on the road week 16 can you It's like a different sport. So it does create a little bit of false equivalency. You know, it does create fools gold. But if you want to know why when you're running in a computer, a hundred times over, the Cowboys come up with 10, 11, or 12 wins, and the reality is seven wins, what's the proper answer? Leadership, chemistry.

Is it bad luck? What is luck? What's the definition, the street definition of luck is where what timing and preparation meet? They weren't properly prepared. And yeah, I guess their timing was off. Having an owner who calls into question every decision a coach makes while not giving the coach an extension before the season, creates unrest and a lack of quality leadership. making coaching changes with the position coaches and the offensive coordinator,

including putting somebody in charge of calling the offensive plays who's never done it before, is ill time preparation in this important a year. Look, did a lot of things go their way? Sure. Dax's been healthy the whole year. Zeek's been healthy since he's been back. Amari's been healthy the whole year. You know, for the most part, obviously Van deresh has not,

but for the most part, they've been pretty healthy. healthy football team. That luck has actually been good. The only luck that's bad is we create this luck. They should be better. They have all these yards. They dominate time of possession. That's not how you decide football games.

Can you make a play on third down? Can you make a play in the red zone? Special teams, kicking game, coaching, chemistry, ownership, leadership, right? Don't give me this bad luck stuff. Bad luck is what's happened to the Eagles. bad luck happened to the Seahawks. The Seahawks lost C.J. Pro Seasize.

The C.J. They lost Rashad Penny, Chris Carson, all for the year, all within the last two weeks. You want to give me bad luck? I'll give you bad luck. Seahawks, they play great all year. They stick around. They lost it home to the Ravens. They lost it home to the Saints.

But with a roster that's still kind of trying to figure it out, they were in line for the number one seed in the NFC. Now they're, they went and dusted off Marshawn Lynch out of retirement. We hadn't carried a football in a year and a half. Since he caught the Bart back from the Oakland Raiders game. That's bad luck.

Isn't not bad luck? This is where stat guy will never be true sport guy. Okay, because sports defy statistical logic. Stats give you a little sense. But if a team

statistically or based upon an algorithm should win more and doesn't, that's coaching, that's chemistry, that's leadership, that's human nature. That's what's gone wrong with the Cowboys. Let's get to Ryan Music with the news. No, no, no, no, no. Turn on the news.

This is the Heard Line News. Good morning, Doug. Merry Christmas to you, Ryan. Merry Christmas to you. Happy Hanukkah to you, Doug. Yeah, and listen, people don't have to do the, you can't say Merry Christmas, you're Jewish. Like, that's okay. It's okay.

My wife is not Jewish. And it's a nice, friendly greeting. And can I still do the Merry Christmas the day after Christmas? Sure, why not? Why not? I got no problem with it. If you're saying Merry Christmas in maybe January or February, I might tell you, you know, we should probably move on from it.

But we're still good. It's still December. There were other Christmas Day games than the Lakers and Clippers yesterday. I know as surprising as it was. Almost as surprising was the Warriors without Steph Curry, getting a win over the Rockets yesterday. Houston came into the game with a four-game winning streak. Warriors, they consistently double-team James Harden.

He was held to only 24 points, his third lowest of the season. Russell Westbrook also had a tough game. 11 for 32, 0 for 8 on 3-point field goal attempts. Rockets kind of like what you were saying with the Cowboys there, where they're that type of team. They build out their roster. They do everything by analytics and by the numbers. And you always feel like they should win a lot more games than they always do.

They had a whole study, right, on game 7 of the Western Conference finals two years ago. Like, hey, we should. Every foul went against them. foul went against us. How many different guys do we have to see alongside James Harden? How many different times do you have to see a Mike-Dan-Toney team to realize this thing is going to work by and large in the regular season, work some in the postseason, and ultimately come up short? Yeah, most of those fouls that they talked about were the reasons why they went 0 for 28 on three-point field. 27, I think. 27. Oh, sorry. Close enough. Close enough. We'll round up there.

And another Christmas Day game, Doug, the 76ers got a win over the bucks. Joel M. Bede led the way for the 76ers in their first home Christmas Day game in 31 years. Embed's seventh game this season with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds. He had 31 and 11. Janice held to only 18 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists. Something we've talked about on our show, Doug. Janice, the three-point shooter went a little cold. 0 for 7 on Christmas Day from 3.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you Janice stinks. He doesn't. He's a tremendous player at both ends of the floor. I tweeted out that Joel Embed might be the most talented player in the NBA. And people, you lose your mind. You're like, well, you say he's the best player in the NBA, and he's only averaging, like, I don't care what he averages. I'm talking in terms of talent.

He's a seven-footer who can shoot, who can really handle, who can move, who can also score in the post. Like, Anthony Davis didn't seem to have the post moves to really force his way inside, to force himself to getting foul to getting close to the rim. He's settled for jump shots. This guy can legit score in there, can legit handle the ball, can pass, can protect the rim. Is he as agile out on the perimeter as Yonis?

No, but Janice makes shots but is not a shooter. Joel Embed can legit shoot the basketball. When he's right and he's focused, he's a freak of nature, absolute freak of nature. And they're built, they're unlike other teams, they're built with multiple bodies between Al Horford, Joel Embed, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, all can match up with Janus. They have the bodies to throw at him to really frustrate him. I think this will be a better postseason team than regular season team. And Embed was receiving a lot of criticism from guys like Charles Barkley and Shaq earlier in the year, and he even admitted that he needed to buckle down, get a little bit more serious.

So as you were saying, when he's dialed in and he's playing like this, he absolutely looks like one of the top players in the league. It's just whether or not, obviously his health was always a concern going back to what happened in college and early in his NBA career. And now that he may be healthy for most of the season, I don't know if they have him on sort of a load management plan or if they should. should, but seems to be heading in the right direction. Last thing, Doug, we'll wrap up here with some NFL. Dak Prescott missed practice yesterday with that same shoulder injury that they talked

about going into the Eagles game. He's been limited in practice since week 15 after the Rams game and taking it day by day, but Jason Garrett is hopeful he will be able to play on Sunday. They do have a chance to still win the NFC East, despite losing the Eagles last week. They need to beat the Redskins and they also need the Eagles to lose to the Giants. That would be amazing if that happened, right? in the all-time ways of backing into the playoffs that would be backing your way into the playoffs

and then they'd get a home playoff game and then they'd maybe win and then Jason Gary gets a 10-year contract extension I'm just kind of at a loss of the DAC thing like I know he's not faking I know his shoulder is banged up but man he just did not he just bad throws

and it wasn't like he was throwing injured throws where he's he's skidding him he just missed guys throwing it behind it, throwing it high throwing it low. You know, it's like to call that Army golf, right, left, right, left, right. Or got got to golf. That's very accurate.

Thank you for somebody who's been on the golf course with me. Look, Dak's going to play because that's who he is. He's the tough guy. But if you're going to play, you've got to be willing to take the criticism. And he has been, but I think DAC defenders are not for when he's as inaccurate as he was this past weekend. That's Ryan Music with the News. Well, that's the news. for stopping by.

The Herd Line News. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. This is The Herd on your IHeart radio app, Fox Sports One and Fox Sports Radio. Let's welcome men. He's an NBA insider for Yahoo Sports. He's Chris Haynes. He joins us now in the herd. Fresh off of, they usually call it, you usually call it.

There's no presence in there. There's no presence in there. It's quite the walk-up. See, too many NBA games. He had this slow walk-up where he's expecting people to take pictures of the suit. What is your, give me your biggest takeaway of last night's battle of L.A. Well, I think the Clippers are legit. They're real.

I think, you know, like I said, they are who we thought they were. And their record is not going to be reflective on how really good they are because, you know, they're going to have these load management games all throughout the season. But, you know, this is why they built this team this way, just to have so much length and versatility to be able to combat the powers of the Lakers, which is AD and LeBron James. And so I'm not going to overreact, you know,

off of one game, Christmas Day game, even though they are up 2-0 in the season series. But I just think it shows that, man, this team is legit, went healthy. You know, I just suspect the winner of the Western Conference stand is barring injuries. I expected to come out of L.A. I watched last night's game, and I thought a couple things.

We'll get to LeBron in a second. I do think the Lakers are missing something. And everybody believes they'll add, likely to add Andre Godala. The reasoning there is Rob Polenko was his agent, right? And they need one more guy. I think they need a guard and a combo guard. Like, Darren Collison was supposed to be a Laker. He decides to retire.

And so now you're working with Rondo and Caruso. They have an infatuation with Rondo. I don't understand, you know. He hasn't been a good player in the league in five years. he hasn't been a great asset for a championship team in like 10 years. That's debatable, Doug. I mean, he's been really good the last couple of years. When?

Rondo, he's been really, Roddo was been putting up numbers last couple of years. When was he good, though? They were better in New Orleans when he was, you know, he was decent in New Orleans. He got run out of, what was it, was it, Dallas, right? Dallas, yeah, then he had the resurgence in New Orleans. In New Orleans, right? And he's been solid.

And he was okay. with the Bulls and then he was really good in the playoffs for the first two games against the Celtics and then he got hurt and they collapsed. How many years ago was that? I get you, but I would agree that maybe his skill set doesn't blend well with

LeBron James because typically when LeBron James team he needs a stretch point guard type of It's not just that though. Like look if he can't shoot and like his numbers actually tell you he can shoot but nobody in the NBA thinks he can shoot, he has to be Patrick Beverly at the defensive end, and he's not.

I'll give you that. Right? The whole thing with Rondo is he's an unbelievable defender. He has statistically, every metric tells you he actually hasn't been a great, maybe even a good defender in a long time. He lives on reputation there. And then he's not a good finisher in the lane. So it's like, all right, if you're not going to bring much on offense,

just stand outside and shoot, you've got to give me something on defense. And he's not that tenacious junkyard pit bull, chunk of our dog that he used to be. Well, to your point about them needing to bring in another edition, I agree with you, hold Harley, on that. The fact that I think they need more of a 3D player. I just don't think there's anybody outside of Danny Green really on that roster who's going to hit that jumper consistently

and stretch the defense. Kyle Kuzma can do it from spurs. But, you know, somebody like J.R. Smith is out there. I know he's probably a red flag for a lot of GMs out there, but, you know, LeBron James has familiar with him. in Cleveland knows how to, you know, handle him, get the best out of him. Somebody like that makes a lot of sense. I understand, I agree with you in terms of shooting, but there's also a lack of shot

creation, right? Like, LeBron is not the same guy athletically. None of us would be if we played that many years in the NBA, right? Is that, like, look, we've seen him in these games, the Milwaukee game and this game. You can say groin, and I'll be like, all right, but, you know, when you're 34, your groin does flare up more often. That growing is important. You know, you won't.

It does. Dapper what you were able to do? What's your assessment of LeBron? We've seen him in two big games against high-level competition in this last week. Well, look, I have to take him by his word that he's not 100%. And I look at last night's game, and he clearly wasn't imposing his will physically on the opponent. You know, there wasn't a lot of drives.

There wasn't a lot of attacking. There wasn't a lot of pounding. And that's what LeBron James does. And, you know, Doug, up to this week, you know, you know, there's been talks about him being, you know, in the MVP race. And so his play has been there, you know, you know, except for the last, you know, four or five games. Chris Haynes joining us.

Here's what we'll do. Stick around for a second. All right, no problem. There's a trend with LeBron and it's a bad one. I want to talk about that with you. Plus there was a big play at the end of the game in which replay was called and actually overturned it. It's a good thing or bad thing.

That's up come next Chris Haynes, Yahoo NBA insider. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is The Hurt. Be sure to catch live editions of the HARD Weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying,

and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves.

locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life 12 and the TikTok Podcasts. work on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade

of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro.

Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search learn the hard way and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the 4th.

And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out.

Quarterback on office blue with 42. A rep, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Cliverts show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds.

Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series

because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nasree. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night bases on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing.

That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In sports, top-notch organization has it all. Great front office, incredible personnel. It's no different when it comes to buying or selling your car.

You need to have an MVP at every level. Visit True Car when you're ready to discover. Buy or sell your next car. Visit True Car. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. This is The Hurt on Fox Sports One, Fox Sports Radio. Continue to kind of celebrate basketball people's Christmas, which was, in fact, Christmas Day.

Chris Haynes continues to join us. Senior NBA insider for Yahoo Sports. I used to be a reporter with ESPN covering the Warriors. Of course, the Cleveland Plain dealer covering the Cavs. So he goes way back on multiple sides of LeBron James' story. Let's go to the call. It was kind of a weird possession where, again, Rondo's in the game, where you're like, why is he in the game?

game, but LeBron has the basketball, late, couple seconds left, goes up to shoot, and Rondo hits the ball out of his hands, and it appears you're going to have a timeout, it's going to be Laker Ball, and we're going to find out, you know, if the Lakers bench can draw something up for three-point shot. They go to replay, and on further review, the ball did go off of LeBron. Is this the right call? Well, I mean, it is the right call. I mean, it went off of LeBron's hands, and so ball goes to Los Angeles Clippers.

I think what people have a problem with is just the slowing down the game. Obviously, this is a call. If you're looking at it just what you did eye, you're going to say Patrick Beverly tipped the ball out, you know. It's going to ruin pickup pickup. I said this in the meeting that we didn't have some of our guys that play a lot of pickup basketball. It's going to ruin pickup basketball forever.

And here's why. Okay. And pick up basketball, whichever direction the ball goes automatically determines who we think the ball went off of them. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Right? Like if you're, oh, no, it can't go that way. I didn't hit it that way, right? Patrick Beverly hit the basketball in that direction. It went out. It has to be off Patrick Beverly.

But now that we've seen on the replay that it actually went off of LeBron. Yeah. And look, I go back and forth with the replay. Obviously, you want to get the right call on the court, but. Are we going to get the right call every call? No, and that's what you're not. Even a replay, you're not going to get the right call every time. because, you know, sometimes, you know, the reps can't find, you know, they can't really truly get it right. And so they'll leave the call the same, you know, they'll leave it as is. You know, it's one of those plays where it's like, damn, you want to see, you know, no matter who you're rooting for, you want to see if LeBron or Lakers, if they can get, you know, see what they can do with those three seconds left.

And, you know, they get the chance to do that. Is LeBron James still a top five player in the NBA? No doubt. No doubt. No doubt in my mind. No doubt in my mind. You would take him ahead of. of Kauai today.

You would take him ahead of... You mean like physically right now? Yes. Well, since it's like the whole thing. Hold on. Since LeBron James is banged up right now, yes, I'll take Kauai. Come on. You say it today. All right.

So you would take it for the year. You would take him ahead of Kauai Leonard. Right now. Not for the entirety of his career. This is what we're doing. We conflate. Do you like LeBron James? You love what he's been and what he is right now.

It's like Tom Brady. Tom Brady's not top 10 quarterback in the NFL. He's 42 years old. But he's still the most successful quarterback in history of the sport. This might be the last year I say this, but I will still take LeBron this season. Over Kawhi Leonard? I will take LeBron this season over anybody right now. Were you in person or did you watch it on TV last night?

I was there in person. How many fingers am I holding him? You're open two. You got two fingers up. Okay. I realize the Domit's La Coy Leonard. I know that boy is a bad boy, but I'm saying I... He's a robot.

He is a robot. He can't be touched. You can't move him. You can't speed his game up. You can't mentally challenge him. He's his own person. But I will say this, you know, I believe, like, you have to take it from somebody to be the best. I don't feel like anybody took it.

Durant didn't take it from him two years in row in the finals? Came down the court in Cleveland. Two years in row, the exact same spot came down and hit a three right in his eye. That's not banquishing him right in front of his own people? Kevin Durant even acknowledged himself that he thought more people will jump on the bad wagon and say he took it. And he was disappointed that that narrative didn't take over. I mean, but the reality of it is it, I felt like it did. And then Kauai, because Kevin Rant was hurt, he was the guy.

He's the guy. And then Janus felt like he took it from him. I don't think. But you're saying hurt. That's what happens. When somebody's hurt, somebody else has to take over. What do we do with LeBron's fourth quarter foul shooting? Ooh, there's no, there's no defending that. I mean, it's weird, though, because usually the older you get, those are the

the things that you do better. That's true. Right? Like the athletic things you don't do as well. But your brain, you know, like, look, he wasn't a great three-point shooter. He's got that kind of awkward step back, which last night he didn't hit it, but he has become a better three-point shooter and a better mid-range shooter, you know, and has a little bit more in his bag, if you will.

But the free throw shooting the fourth quarter, like he made the first one. The second one was like, oh, my gosh, that might not draw iron. I was playing pickup one of the homies from back when we were teenagers, and he couldn't shoot then and he still can't shoot now and I'm like dude what have you been doing for the last 20 something years like that's your jumper is what gets better right you don't

you know athletically you don't get better I agree so what like even I can make jump shots so what happened to what's up with LeBron in the fourth quarter not lack of volume I've covered this guy exclusively you know pretty much on a daily

two years in a row then periodically last four years years. He's changed his free throw style stance. I want to say about five or six times over that time. He's never stuck with one thing and just, you know, developed it. He's always, he's always switched. So I think that is a reason, but, you know, look, if he doesn't get that right, man, that's going to be a problem come playoff time for sure. Okay. I'm wondering about the rockets. Like, look, I just, I don't think it's going to work. Obviously, yesterday becomes a confirmation bias. It's only one game last year the Warriors lost to the Lakers in the exact same game.

But you see the volume of shots that Russell Westbrook took and did not make. Right? And you just start to say, here we go again with the Rockets. Do people in the NBA think the Rockets are at the same levels of Lakers and the Clippers? No, no, nobody really thinks that. But when you say it's not going to work to what extent? They're not going to take that next step, right? That's why they mean. Championship? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I get you there. No, no doubt about that. Playing the finals. Like, can they, you know, it's like they couldn't beat the Warriors.

And I guarantee what Tillman Fertita said was like, look, we can't beat the, remember when they lost to the Warriors, again, at home. Yeah. The Warriors didn't have, you know, didn't have KD. And they come, like, if we can't beat the Warriors now, we're never going to beat them. We had to rethink things. They try and rethink things. They go with Russell Westbrook, who's a more athletic at this stage version of Chris Paul, but doesn't do the other things Chris Paul does. Yeah.

Is this version of the Rockets at the same. same level as the Lakers and the Clippers. And you're saying you don't believe they are. I don't believe so. But what I would say this is that they're dangerous enough where you really can't take them for granted. Because I'll say that the seating has to play in their favor, playoff seed that is. Like they can't go through L.A. and the Clippers in the playoffs.

You know, seating has to be in their favor where they meet those, you know, meet one of those teams in the conference finals. But I was, you know, look, when you got Hardin, you know, playing like he's a top five player in the NBA. I give him that. No, definitely. He's top five. Yes.

Hold, hold. Oh, are we? No, I'm just saying, like, you're going to. I know he's trying to get out. You have Kauai, but you have Kauai behind LeBron. You put Hardin behind LeBron too? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a gym. I know he only plays one end, but he's pretty good at that one end. Well, Hart's been playing better at the other end now, especially in the post. Just full disclosure. I love basketball. Uh-huh. Okay, I was in a gym at Hope University of my son and my nephew. Yesterday, hooping, like, then watching all these guy.

I love basketball. I think James Harden's great. I cannot stand watching James Harden play, but I will tell you he's probably the best offensive player in the league. I will give you that right now. He's revolutionized the game. He makes you like, there's seldom guys that come into a league and they do moves where you have to look at him like,

dang, was that allowed? Like he really... No, the answer is not, shouldn't be allowed. The travel shouldn't be allowed. Well, I'm sad, but there are some of his stepbacks where I have to replay it and slay. low mode to look like, man, that was legit. It is kind of ballet.

Last thing. Look, I know Joel Embed is not at that level because he doesn't do it consistently. And because everyone holds their breath thinking he's going to get hurt. But man, is that guy a talent? Like, I'm in the, he might be the most talented cat there is. Like seven feet can move, can shoot, can pass, can block shots. The most talented. Is he in your top five?

No, because he doesn't. We don't see that from him on a consistent enough basis. Okay. Most talented. He's arguably, AD. A D's up there. A seven footer that can move like that and do all of those things. I mean, what Yonis does at 6-11, you know,

but Yonis is not as, I don't think Yonis is as good as shooter. No, he's not as good a shooter, but, I mean, he can do pretty much everything else better than Joel M.B. Can't score in a post. Not a true post score like, like Embed is. He does everything with the ball a little bit better in terms of creating for himself. The Euro step is, but like Embedness.

Consistency. Consistency from M. Yes. That's what everybody. If you were a betting man right now, I got 15 seconds. Sixers or Bucks out of the east? Bucks. I don't need to hold 15 seconds.

Bucks. They usually shoot it very well. They did not shoot it well yesterday, and the Sixers did. They're on a mission. I don't, Christmas Day game, whatever. They're on a mission. Bucks. Chris Haynes, you check him out and speak for yourself a little bit later.

Read his work in Yahoo Sports. Follow him on social media. He does a great job. Incredible rise for you. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.

All right. That's Chris Haynes. Spirit of the law versus letter of the law. We'll get into the replay debate. That's upcoming next time. Doug Gottlieb. This is The Hurt. One more HARD?

The HARD streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week, within the IHard Radio app. Search HARD to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action, with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, We get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing.

And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on Earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely.

And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real. conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the hard way and listen now. What's up, guys?

This is Clever Taylor the 4th. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff, like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42.

Hey, Wreck, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano,

and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest. player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall.

And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah. You figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball.

So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up? Welcome in. This is The Herd. Live from Los Angeles, wherever you may be. and however you may be listening or watching the show. Thanks so much. Hope you had a very Merry Christmas.

You're having a happy Hanukkah, and you're getting ready for a safe and happy New Year. I'm Doug Gottlie, filling in for Colin Cowherd. We've got a great show for you. Mark Medina covers the NBA, the LA Clippers. We'll join us upcoming at half past the hour. Greg CoSell next hour. We'll get his take on what went wrong for the Dallas Cowboys in Philadelphia last week.

how much of it is play-calling and how much of it is players, players. And I give you my thoughts on something that Tom Brady had to say about playing next year, all that upcoming. There's a lot of different ways we can go with Lakers and Clippers, fabulous night in L.A. And I do think it's really interesting that there are people in my profession who are trying to make this kind of a battle of Los Angeles in a battle for supremacy in terms of fandom. Look, Kauai Leonard spoke to the crowd. He's a native of Riverside, not actually Los Angeles, but whatever. He's seen as a SoCal guy.

I spoke to the crowd, the first game in the season, in a Clipper home game and got booed. Last night was a Lakers home game, and it's just different. It's just different. Do I think the Clippers could ultimately win L.A.? Yeah, I don't think it's crazy. I don't think it's crazy. You know, it's like shopping season. You know, if you try and tell your kids,

hey, 50 years ago, J.C. Penny and Sears ruled the world. They're like, I've never heard of those places before. You know? Maybe you go back to, do you remember? Like Blockbuster is not that. I get emails from Red Box. Red Box still exists.

Like, these things are not that old. So it, even if you've dominated, for 50 years, which the Lakers have. It doesn't take that much to change it, but two regular season games in 2019 are not going to sway Laker fans to suddenly buying Clipper gear. Just not, that's not the way it works. It can work. It takes a long time.

But during the process of that victory, there was an overturned call. And look, based upon the replay evidence, review evidence, it should have been, it should have been Clipper Ball Patrick Beverly defending LeBron James you knew LeBron James is going to a step back he didn't know he's going to his right hand step back and Pat Beverly hits it out of his hands

with what looked like 4.4 seconds I think they end up giving him 3.9 seconds when it went out of bounds. They go to the replay and they're like, wait, it's actually off of LeBron. Here's LeBron James after the game last night. Not by the review, but I was surprised about overtime.

I didn't feel like the ball went off my hand. He stripped the ball and they went, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if you look at a slow motion four or five, ten times, you know, you can always, you know, decide if it could be a different call, you know. But throughout a live game, if he strips the ball and the goals, I mean, it's just weird to me. What he's saying is that eyewitness testimony is the least accurate testimony, right?

your eyes do in fact deceive you. Because everyone I know when you watch the first call, you're like, oh, that's the Laker Ball, they'll take it in bounds, a call, time out, they run a play. And then when you watch it in, for the review, you're like, well, wait, actually, it's clipper ball. There's a debate here between Letter of the Law and Spirit of the Law. Some people will sit there and go like, hey, isn't the idea to give the ball to the Lakers because Patrick Beverly was the one who initiated and caused the ball to go out of bounds.

Steve Javy, who of course, is ESPN, ABC's official, former NBA official. He's like, no, actually the rule is who the ball went off of, which we all know. The one flaw that you should know in terms of getting it right based upon replay evidence is oftentimes in basketball when it's close and sometimes when it's not even that close, If you think there's a foul, but you don't want to call a foul, or you're a little late to call a foul, you'll give the ball to the offense anyway. You're like, yeah, I might have missed that one,

so I gave you guys the ball. But that's not how replay works. We've reached this point. We're going to reach it this year in the NFL playoffs if we didn't reach it based upon last year's NFL playoffs, which gave us the ability to review a past interference, and which is more of an appearance.

opinion than a fact, right? It's not in bounds or out of bounds. It's like, yeah, I don't know. And as we've seen NFL officials and our Riveron are very, very hesitant to overturn the play called or not called on the football field. Look, you always want to get it right. So I'm not sitting here saying I'm a non-technologically advanced guy. Let's go back to landlines and fly planes with without radar, you know?

And I do appreciate the fact that these replays and reviews, with exception to the coach's challenges, don't occur at any time other than the last two minutes of the game. Those last two minutes are interminable. But is this really what we're doing here? Like, it is literally impossible to get every call right. And to make this the call that you get right when it is, in fact, that close. I'm not a Laker fan. I'm not a clipper fan. I don't care who wins last night.

I just won a good game and I wanted to come down. And I thought Pat Beverly made a great play and had the Lakers gotten the ball back. I don't even think Pat Beverly would have cared. He wasn't arguing. He wasn't even doing the point in my way. Our ball. Our ball. He knew he hit it out of his hands.

But we're at that point where we don't actually need it. Right? Like you do the search for perfection. It occurs with people all the time. How many times you sat down at dinner and maybe you go to New Year's party. And whether it's a guy and what he tries to do to his hair or a woman, what she tries to do to her body or to her face, yeah, that's something, something looks different about Jim. Dude, look at his hair. Yeah, he was bald last year. Now he's got just flowing mane. And then you look closer and you

see the little dots in his head. You're like, oh, okay. Got it. And I know they keep getting better and better with the hair restoration thing. And I know that, but there is, like, look, you're not going to, you're the search for perfect. We do this with college sports with paying athletes. You got a really good system. Let's make it perfect. There's no perfect. Does not exist.

You know? Heck, even the college football playoff. I'm not saying the bull system wasn't flawed. It's incredibly flawed. In our lifetime, in the 21st century, we had split national champions. Think about that. We had two teams that could set. say we're the best team on earth in college football.

Wait, that doesn't actually work. That goes counter to your co-champions. Why can't you play? We just don't. That's just not the way the sport works. So we create a college football playoff and Oklahoma gets in, right? LSU goes undefeated, the ridiculous schedule. Clemson goes undefeated. Ohio State goes undefeated.

And Oklahoma gets another life. Why do they get another life and other people do not? How many years have we done this to where there's, sometimes there's a fourth or fifth team that claim, hey, we should be in that game. Last year, last year, Clemson was the best team, was the best team. And it ultimately proved out, but they had to win two additional games to prove they were the best team. Do we actually need a college? Do we need replay?

Do we need review? I'm not saying it doesn't work, and I'm not saying they didn't get the call right. And there's not spirit or letter of this law. The ball went off of LeBron James. The intent of any call is if the ball goes off of LeBron James. There should be the ability for the ref to go wink, wink, nod. I get what the replay sees, but I also missed a foul, so we're going to correct it this way. But last night was the perfect example of more is not more.

Anyone who watched that play would have said like, yeah, I get it. Flaker ball. And we play on. Instead, we slowed it down. We stopped it. We watched a million times. Hey, Mark Jackson caught it going to break. Wait a second.

Hold on. That might be. that might be a Lakers ball. It's going to ruin pickup basketball. Okay, because the rule in pickup basketball is whatever direction the basketball goes, that determines who hit it last. No, no, man. That ball was going this way.

That means you hit it last. That was LeBron's argument last night. I don't know how the ball could go that way and I could hit it last. Sorry, dude. The video does not lie. Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Back and to left.

and to the left. I'm not saying we go back to landlines or even flip phones and we should never fly a plane without radar, right? Which is just not. But do we really, really, really need to review calls and go like, wait, fingernail? All right, coming up next. Tom Brady had some interesting comments about retirement. How close are we to the end of the TB12 era? I'll tell you next. Sunday, it's a doubleheader on Fox highlighted by America's game of the week. Dack and the Cowboys battle to keep their playoff hopes alive as they host the Redskins. Check local listings for the game in your area or catch it on the Fox Sports app. It's time to talk Super 6 NFL Sunday. Redskins Cowboys is one of the matchups this week. Doug, help us win some money this weekend. Give us a winner and final score.

All right, Cowboys won six of seven versus the Redskins. I know Duane Haskins won a couple football games. Dack Career versus Washington, 6-1, 69.1 completion percentage, nine touchdowns, one interceptions. Cowboys actually statistically had the best offense in football. Redskins are last on third down defense. That's the most important down. And pass offense. 31st in total offense.

So try and shorten the game just run the football. I think the Cowboys, again, they're confounding. They beat up on the bad teams. Redskins are a bad team. 2710 Cowboys, Lock it in. Speaking of the end of the football season, Tom Brady and the Patriots did it again. For the 11th consecutive time, the Patriots won the AFC East.

11th consecutive. That is crazy. Utter and sheer domination. This was Tom Brady talking about his NFL future. For a long time, my tune has. and change. So I hope to continue playing. I've had long-term goals. I've had short-term goals. And again, football is a

contact sport. So you never know when your last game is going to be, and you should count your blessings every time you walk off the field to help you. I hate to interrupt here, but I'm going to. Football is a collision sport. Not a contact sport. Basketball's a contact sport. You make contact with their guys. Football is a collision sport.

A little bit more dangerous. Just slightly more dangerous, right? I'd say this all the time about the concussion protocol on basketball. No offense, but there are no basketball players who struggle to find where they parked their car or their keys because they had debilitating brain issues because of, you know, past concussions in basketball. It just doesn't. It's a violently dangerous sport. And he's been able, with the exception to the one year in which somebody rolled up on his leg, able to not sustain a major injury. It's remarkable. But a blind man can see

that he's not the same. And a smart man would have told him, hey, dude, you won the Super Bowl last year. You should have walked then. all the signs are there like all the signs I don't know what Tom Brady is going to do I think there's a chance that Tom Brady doesn't know what Tom Brady is going to do legit right I'll think about that

when I think about that I have a conversation with Giselle I have a conversation with my money guy with my TV guy with my football like I'll have my dad we'll have those conversations then I haven't decided but if there are signs Remember when LeBron left Miami for Cleveland? Remember his wife had all of a sudden there was cars on like a not a flat bed,

but one of those like double-decker car transporters like in front of his house in Miami. You're like, wait, and then there was like a plane. There was all these other signs that, wait, maybe they're going back to Cleveland. You're like, nah. His contract's up. They can't franchise him. Whatever the reality is of the offense. Because the reality is they've tried to put wide receivers around.

him. They may have missed on Nikiel Harry might not be good enough. A lot of people in Boston don't think he's got it. They may have missed there. They may have missed on replacements for Rob Grankowski. They try to get Antonio Brown. They couldn't

make that work. Josh Gordon, they couldn't keep him in line to make that work. You know, I mean, look, look, if you look back, they made a trade for Muhammad Sunu. Probably should trade for Emmanuel Sanders. I don't know if the Broncos would have done an inner AFC deal?

I don't know. But I do know that Emmanuel Sanders has been far more effective since he was traded to San Francisco than Muhammad Sanu has been since he was traded to the Patriots. Muhammad Sanu looks like he's, looks like Atlanta got over on him.

Oh, no, he's fine, he's good. You want him? Oh, sure. Yeah, no, he's good. He's ready to go. Yeah, no. Not even close. But it's not for lack of trying, right? They went out and added wide receiver, drafted one in the first round. You know, got Antonio Brown as well. Like, those are, they put some resources towards it.

But end of the day, Brady couldn't possibly be happy with the supporting cast, which, of course, only exasperates his own limitations at this stage in his career. Like, look, I'm not saying he's Peyton Manning. People forget, Peyton Manning. It wasn't just bad in the Super Bowl. It was bad all year. nine touchdown, 17 interceptions. Brock Osweiler replaced him.

Like Brock Osweiler instead of Peyton's hurt. He was terrible. And they recharged him and got him just back, just upright enough so that he could take him to a Super Bowl. And the defense and special teams won that Super Bowl against Carolina Panthers. I just, Brady's got to be really, really careful. Because when it goes, it can go in a hurry and it can get really, really ugly. And if the ego says, I want to get Payton's,

and I'll go to L.A. I'll go to L.A. Yeah. I mean, Johnny Unitas ended his career in a charger uniform, I believe, right? We've seen O.J. Simpson in a Niner uniform. Like, these things don't... Emmett Smith, an Arizona Cardinal.

Joe Montana did it. He went... They won playoff game with the Chiefs. Like, he wasn't... It wasn't terrible with the Chiefs. But this whole idea of continuing to play, like it doesn't get better, it tends to get worse, no matter how. He does have the Benjamin Button thing where he keeps getting better looking,

but your play isn't better. He's not getting better as a player. 42 is old, old, old, old by anyone's NFL standard. And, you know, you can keep telling us that, I don't know, it's the still same plan. Put your house in the market for a reason. your contract's up for a reason the team's offense has fallen apart for a reason

like all of these things seem to be working the fashion of you know what dude if you don't do it if you don't win it if you can't get back to a 10th Super Bowl and win that seventh championship to somehow put you ahead in some people's minds of Michael Jordan I wouldn't keep chasing it I wouldn't keep chasing it I understand that it's the last time in life in which, you know, 45 other guys on a Sunday are going to be dependent on you.

And 75,000 people are going to be cheering for you. I get it. It's a rush, and he's earned the right to try and walk away whenever he wants to walk away. He legitimately has earned that right. I don't believe most guys have, but there's an expression in boxing, which is, and I may butcher it if you're a boxing guy, feel free, you can tweet at me at Godleap Show, which is basically like no fighter walks, out of his last fight. Right?

They all get carried out. It's like Floyd Mayweather, I'm never going to box again, never going to fight again, now he's going to do some, like, you don't get, nobody walks out of that last fight. Muhammad Ali didn't walk out of his last fight. They just don't. They keep going back and keep going back, and ultimately you end up getting carried out.

And that's the last thing you want to have happened to Tom Brady. I thought he should have had somebody pull him aside at the last, and the last year's Super Bowl and go like, hey dude, this is it. You cannot get, it wouldn't have been like Peyton Manning. Like Peyton Manning retired, but it felt like he had to. Tom Brady could have said,

I'm retiring because I want to. I want a Super Bowl and I want to. Now we're getting to the category of you might have to. Let's get to rhyme music with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the Heard Line News. Doug, you were just talking about the Patriots, and you mentioned their wide receiver,

Mohammed Sunu, who they got from the Falcons before the trade deadline back in October. He's played in seven games for New England, 23 receptions, 172 yards, and one touchdown. But he's been struggling about adapting to the change in scheme from Atlanta to New England. Here's what he said about getting up to speed with the new system. Quote, I haven't really scratched the surface yet of what I know I can do. Getting adjusted to things people have known for years or months when you have to catch up, it's just the little things you can't teach. they just have to be done.

It's the difference between knowing and doing. Yes. Hard. Like, look, there's a reason that they draft college graduates. Because, I mean, you've got to be able to formulate answers to the problems. And Muhammad Sanu is not a dumb guy. Like, he's a smart guy. He's played a lot of football at a high level.

And he's played in a couple different systems, right? In Cincinnati first and then in Atlanta. But this one, either it confuses him or, he's also hiding the fact that he's confused because he's also not getting open, right? Some of that. But you got to be. Either one of those options is not good. Either one of those options is not good.

And they're going to have to have him make plays. Otherwise, it's going to end in a hurry. But my fear for the Patriots is no matter how good the defense is, in the AFC, you're going to have to score. You just are. You get Kansas in there. You got Baltimore in there. Those two offenses can score points.

Even you go to Houston. Yeah, they already lost to the Texans. They lost all three. of those teams. Right. Those are the teams you have to beat. Do I think that they can beat him second time around? Like, yeah, I think you can. I just don't know where the offense comes from. Yeah. And as they continue to rely on Julian Edelman and he showed up in the Bill's game, but even at that point, he was missed a few plays because he's had a shoulder injury, a knee injury. And as great as Edelman's been, I just don't know how much longer you can

keep relying on only him. It's sort of like you look at teams in the AFC and you wonder, okay, why wouldn't you just double-team Julian Edelman and force them? They do. They do. And look, think about ways in which they've won football games this year. Block punts. A bunch of block punts. You know, what's interesting is they've been doing it,

and they've had a shoddy kicking game in their own rights, which is definitely new to New England. They've gone from great kicker to great kicker to now being a little bit of a mess. But they've done it with trick plays. They've done it with special teams plays. and they've done it with, you know, occasionally Edelman. But the reason, and this is what Mohamed Sanoo is saying, the reason that Edelman is open is not because Edelman is so much better than anybody else.

He's really good. It's because he and Pat are on this, I mean, he and, Pat, he and Tom Brady are on this same wavelength that no one else is on, where he knows exactly where he's supposed to be. You've said this in the past. I mean, the number one thing for Brady and the Patriots at this point in their career is trust. I mean, so much of what they do just operates on trust. And like you said, you know, Mohamed Sanoo is a veteran.

He's been in multiple systems. He's a bright guy. But you can't just develop that trust over the course of a few weeks compared to what they've done over the course of several years now and several Super Bowls. Not just years, but like big games, high pressure situations. No question. And I think the other part is you can't expect Brady to stay after practice and go through it. Like he's got to rest his arm. One of the big things that a lot of these coaches and administrators will tell you, front office guys will tell you,

terms of the older quarterbacks is they try and not have them throw nearly as much throughout the year during the week to save all of those fastballs because they're going to need it. It's one of the things that organically helped Drew Breeze this year, right? Breeze got hurt, so he got that break. You look at Ben Rossburg's having surgery, Philip Berger's having a terrible year, Tom Brady's not having a good year, like all of these older quarterbacks, they want to save those fastballs. I'm sure that's a portion of why they haven't been able to work together and be on the save wavelength nearly as much. Well, you just mentioned the Saints and Drew Brees. One thing that they will not be doing this week is resting. They're still playing for playoff seating in the NFC. Drew Brees and Michael Thomas did pop up on the injury report yesterday,

but here was head coach Sean Payton when asked if he's considered resting some of their starters this weekend. We're full speed ahead when in this game, and you go through the different situations or scenarios. There's ones that exist where you could be the one, the two, or certainly be the three. That's significant relative to the opportunity to possibly have. have a buy and not have to play the first round. So we're treating it much differently than maybe a year ago where we kind of knew where we were.

So some of the scenarios that Peyton was referencing there, so the Saints can't finish lower than the three seed. They can get the one seed if they win and both the Packers and the 49ers lose. So they have to get a win. Both those teams have to lose. They get the one seed. To get the two seed, they have to get a win and then either the Packers or the 49ers have to lose.

So they're moving right ahead with all sites set on getting one of the top two seats in the NFC. Well, you look at Drew Brees' numbers. Dome versus not Dome. He's a different quarterback. And I know they beat Tennessee last week. Obviously Tennessee doesn't have their star running back, so it's a different football team. They're built to play indoors with their quarterback, and they're built to play on a fast track as well. That's how they're built.

And when you look around the NFC and the possible teams, you know, either San Francisco, on grass or going and playing the grass of Lambo. Lambo, especially to me, if I'm the Saints, I want no part of that. Now, I know they won in Seattle early this year. That's turf. Technically, that was Teddy Bridgewater. And that was also Teddy Bridgewater. But I think they want no part of the road.

That would be prohibitively difficult, I think, for them to get, they would really hurt anyone's belief that they get to a Super Bowl if they have to play one or even two road games. Do you think it's more important for them? Or some people have pointed out that home field is really important for the Packers. Some people have sort of questioned just how good they may be because when they've got on the road, they got completely blown out by the 49ers and also the Chargers. Didn't they just beat the Vikings on the road?

They did. They did. They beat the Vikings in the road. But they also beat the Vikings earlier in the year. I also think that as much as the Saints are a little bit average on the road, they're great at home. Like, that's a really hard home field. The team that doesn't really have or hasn't shown themselves because the new stadium because they haven't been good to have a great home field advantage is the Niners.

On the other hand, look at what the Niners did. They beat New Orleans in New Orleans and they beat the hell out of Green Bay at their place. So look, I think it's paramount for the Saints to get a little bit luck. They got to win and they got to hope somebody gets a loss. I will wrap it up with this, Doug, sticking with the NFL. Ben Rothesberger, you had mentioned he's been out due to an elbow injury. he is determined to come back in 2020. Week two is when he went down with that elbow injury. And there were some conflicting reports about whether or not he was considering retirement in the off season.

Well, he's trying to put all that to rest. Brett Farr's style retiring, maybe not retiring. Even going back to last year, remember in the off season, he kind of wavered a little bit. And he's like, oh, no, I'm coming back. Well, now he put out on Twitter, contrary to recent reports out there about my football future and my uncertainty about playing again, I am working hard and am more determined than ever to come back stronger and better than ever next year.

That doesn't actually put to rest the uncertainty of it. That just says he's working hard to come back. What are you looking for him to just flat out say? I'll be back? Yeah, I mean, look, he basically had Tommy John surgery, didn't he? Yeah, he had surgery to reattach three tendons in his elbow and has not been cleared to throw yet. Yeah, so we have no, he has not.

no idea. We have no idea. This is, we have no idea what his rehab process is going to be like as a quarterback. Clearly showering and shaving, not really part of the rehab process at this point. I think I heard somewhere

when they had the game on Sunday night, I think NBC had said that he had told them he wasn't going to shave until he could start throwing again. Yeah, yeah, and that's not like it. Which is an interesting choice.

I'm not, it's kind of like, usually that's like a playoff beard. Right. And so maybe it's a motivational thing. Like, man, I really need to rehab hard so I can start throwing again so I can get rid of this beard. He's got this big chin and cheeks and he's a gigantic man. I don't have you ever been, Ben Rossburg. Like he is a giant, six foot five, six foot six, like a, just a giant of a human

being. And then you put a beard on it as well. Like, that is a big imposing figure. Again, I'm not saying that he's not going to try and come back. but even the uncertainty, that's a very ambiguous term. I think there is uncertainty in Pittsburgh. I don't know how Ben Rothsberg is going to throw next year. You know why?

Because Ben Rothensberger doesn't know how he's going to throw next year. He hasn't thrown a football. And if you even look at the contemporaries that he is alongside, Eli Manning mostly looks like he's done as an everyday starter in the NFL. Philip Rivers just this year. I mean, last year, the Chargers made that great run at the end of the season. season and into the playoffs before they got dusted by the Patriots. But it wasn't until this year where you really looked at Philip Rivers and you were like,

start to have some serious questions if he could be your everyday starter throughout an entire season. Right, and Ben threw for 5,000 yards last year. Okay, so he threw 5,000 yards and he didn't have Antonio Brown the last game this season and all kinds of mess. But it wasn't the, now, did he throw it well? That's to be determined. This is unprecedented. Not just a guy coming back from Tommy John to play football, also at this stage in his career.

I think that's the uncertainty. I think he's taking the uncertain to mean, oh, he might retire. Like, no, dude, we're saying we don't know if you'll be able to, when you'll be able to come back. If you'll be able to come back, you don't even know. And if you try and tell us you do, you're lying because you haven't even been clear to throw football yet. That's Rhymeasic with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by.

The herd lie news. You know, you know, Marshaun Lynch is coming out of retirement. is going to play for the Seattle Seahawks. Coming up next, I'm going to tell you why I think that is bad news for running backs around the national football league. That's next time. Doug Gottlieb,

this is the Hurt. Hey, Doug, Mark Magena. Holiday, Lerra. I said, happy holidays. How are you? It was fun. You know, I've been doing a lot of Christmas Day games, and it seems like

there's usually an extreme, like they're either really bad or really good, and this was a fun one. Okay, perfect. Thanks for having it. Live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the Iheart radio app.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you, exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered.

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This is Clivert Taylor the 4th. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff, like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What?

Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, ref, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca. and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game.

We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too.

Steve Nash will get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah. You figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball.

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What are you waiting for? Learn more at Discover.com slash cashback match. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. Joy Taylor also off. This is The Hurt on Fox Sports Radio, the IHeart Radio app and Fox Sports One on the TV side. Everyone I know in sports was watching the Lakers and the Clippers last night. Mark Medina, of course, was there in person.

and he's an NBA writer for USA Today. He used to cover not just the Lakers for the LA Daily News, but then he went up and worked for the Bay Area News Group for about nine years covering the Warriors. And he joins us now via the, are we doing the Herd Global Satellite Network? We are. Love the Herb Global Satellite Network.

He's at the other end of this thing. Mark, let's start with last night. To people who weren't inside the arena, how playoff like was that atmosphere? here? I think it was a playoff game. My time covering Christmas Day games, it's either one extreme or the other. It's either a really bad game because teams aren't really engaged with it because it's the holidays or it's a preview of a potential playoff matchup. And this is where it was all about that this is what it's going to look like in the Western Conference finals or maybe even the second round

where it's going to really come down to A, which superstars come up in the clutch and B, how well can they lock in consistently on every possession. And so far, you've seen the Clippers being able to do that in this season opener and the Christmas Day game. But at the same time, I don't really take anything definitive away from these games, A, because it's early, but B, you know, my thought going into the year is the Clippers were always going to have the edge, but there's always going to be extenuating circumstances, mostly health that would determine which L.A. team would wind up being on the winning

end of it. It's interesting that you point out the health because the health seems to be. be affecting the Lakers more than it is the clippers and everybody's cautioned with the clippers because Paul George has been hurt the last two years and Kauai Leonard is seen as a guy who kind of kept together by by by stitching and by glue more than just you know more than more than some other athletes that said who was the best player in the court last night there's no debate it was Kauai Leonard uh when you look at the compare and contrast with kawai and LeBron the Lakers were trying to show

throw every different combination of defending him, even Anthony Davis, and no one could stop Kauai. Where with LeBron, you have to take into account of fairness to him that part of his initial ineffectiveness was, you know, him feeling some pain in his groin after taking that charge on Beverly. But they're throwing a heavy dose of Beverly, some Kauai, some old heartless, and that seemed to make him more, feel more discomfortable than Kauai did. But I think at the end of the day with LeBron, we're going to have more answers as far as his injury moving forward in the next few days. But my initial sense is it's not going to be as serious as it was last year when he entered his groin incidentally enough on Christmas Day against the Warriors. Here,

this happened very early in the game and it wasn't serious enough that he wasn't able to play the duration of it. So if I had a guess, he could maybe miss the next game, but I don't see anything serious beyond that. There's a Bleacher report story which quotes you. It's a pretty telling quote. I don't want to say I've never met a Clipper fan because you're at games. You see fans there. But when I've been around L.A., I never run into a Clipper fan. Like, look, I'm with you. I grew up in Southern California. And I, like, the idea there's a lifelong Clipper fan. I do know that there is a generation of people that, you know, where they think Lobb City, they kind of bought into Lob City thing and now they're in.

But what is the reality to the Clippers trying to overtake the Lakers in Los Angeles? Well, from a talent standpoint, they could certainly overtake them. But as far as the fan experience and how people feel about both L.A. teams, it's not even a debate. It's a Laker heavy town. And whether it's a home game yesterday on Christmas Day or a quote unquote road game for the Lakers, it's going to be more Laker fans in the building than Clipper fans. And, you know, I don't think that this really should be surprising. You look at it almost like a bank account.

The Lakers had built so much historical equity with championships and star power. and the Clippers didn't because of their ineptitude under Donald Sterling. And so just because there are a few bad investments, so to speak, from the Lakers and the last few years, that really wasn't enough to dent their global popularity because, A, Kobe Bryant was still going on this farewell tour. And B, as much as there might have been excitement about Lobb City with Chris Ball and Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, they never made it past the second round of playoffs. So, you know, kind of spinning it forward with this season. If the Clippers wind up winning a championship, sure, there will be more.

buzz, but I think it's going to take a whole generation of this pattern to continue before there could ever be any, you know, changing of the guard as far as the fan base goes. What do Laker people think of Magic Johnson saying, see, this is my plan all along? I think it's mixed. I mean, from a player standpoint, Laker fans are always going to love Magic Johnson because what he meant to the Showtime era. But there's a lot of Laker fans that kind of roll their eyes on Magic's tweets. And, you know, I think his record as an executive look,

you have to give magic credit for getting LeBron James. That was one of the biggest reasons why he signed up for the Lakers. But I think there's obviously a lot of fair question marks as far as, you know, how devoted he was to the job, the roster that they constructed last year where they didn't really have any shooting to help LeBron James. And also the way he handled his departure where he didn't even tell Jeannie Bus directly that he was resigning. And then on his way out, sharing all this dirty laundry about Rob Polinka. So I think Laker fans, they kind of view it. it through two prisms. They love them as a player, and as everything else, I think it's a little bit

of a mixed bag. We've seen in the past these championship caliber teams, they add a piece down the stretch. It feels like the Lakers need to add a piece, right? They wanted Darren Collison. He decided to retire. Everyone's talked about Andrea Godala, but is there somebody else that the Lakers think they can add here down the stretch that will help them? Because they just, in the back court, they don't have guys that really create shots. They're just kind of cobbling together what they're doing outside of LeBron. Yeah, I mean, Andre Gauda would be the primary target, But here's the problem with that is, from my understanding, the Memphis Grizzlies are really sticking to their guns that they want something in return. And now, you know, this is part of leverage going into trade deadlines and they have until February 6 to feel that out.

But I don't think whether it's the Lakers or the Clippers, as much as Andre Lodal is valuable to a championship team, would be willing to sell so many assets just to get them. So he would only be really available in a buyout market, but I don't even know if that's going to come to pass. the Lakers certainly could use some more championship help and some more wing depth. But at the end of the day, I'm looking at this game yesterday. There were a lot of things that easily could have gone the other way, right? Where say the referees didn't overturn that last play with Patrick Beverly, poking the ball out of bounds, or, you know, just not fouling so many times or just missing so many wide open threes, this very well easily could have been a Lakers win.

But all that being said, I still give the edge. the Clippers because of all the depth and the continuity that they have on the bench. But after watching these two games, as much as I give the Clippers a lot of credit for winning and Kauai for having his performances, I really think coming down a playoff series, it's really going to be one of those series where it's determined by the possession. Okay, let's take a peek at the other side. Mark Medina joining us, NBA writer for USA Today. We all went crazy over Yannis because he hit five threes Thursday night.

the Lakers, but then he goes Ofer yesterday and they get beat by the 76ers. We've seen Milwaukee have a great regular season in the past. We've seen Mike Boodenholzer have great regular seasons in Milwaukee in Atlanta in the past. Are they different? Are they better or is it simply the competition at this point hasn't been as strong in the east? Well, competition hasn't been as strong in the east. But from what I've seen on TV and in person, there seems to be a new Janus that, you know, use last year's playoff failures against the Raptors as a really significant. source of motivation. And fairness to him, you know, he went through what a lot of

up-and-coming stars go through through their first playoff test, where they experienced that right of passage of how much different a playoff series is because the game slows down. Teams have more time to adjust. So I think that he's been using that to make sure that he can continue to have a complete game. But as far as what that means for the immediate, I still give the clippers or the Lakers the edge because of that experience and the fact that, you know, maybe they don't have an answer for him one game as they have shown in those regular season matchups, but it's a much different thing to see how that plays out in the actual postseason. So I give the box in Yonis at least another year or two before everything kind of comes together.

Okay, so we saw Yannis and LeBron the same floor. We saw Kawhi and LeBron the same floor. We haven't mentioned James Harden, they lost to the Warriors, just a complete stinker, yesterday. And Bede goes crazy. Now, we don't have Kevin Durant because he's not healthy. We don't have Steph Curry. Is LeBron still a top five player currently in the NBA? I think he is. I think you put it between him and Kauai. Now, the very interesting thing that makes it hard and difficult of who's better, who's not sure you can go head-to-head matchup and Kauai is the clear winner. But obviously he has been load managed because of his own injury situation

where with LeBron, you know, even at 34 years old, he hasn't really had a sit. out, except for Sunday's game against Denver. And I think what's going to be significant with this Christmas Day game is how did the parallel tracks evolve or stay the same? Or maybe with this groin injury, you're going to start seeing LeBron start to scale his workload a little bit back. And with Kauai, maybe it's the opposite. Yesterday was one of the very first games that Doc Rivers was comfortable with putting Kauai on some of the primary scores. And he wasn't doing the beginning of the season as part of a load management within the game. And so I don't really know what's going to be the winning end.

Are they smart enough with the clippers of managing Kauai that he's going to be fully healthy toward the end of the season? And LeBron, it's a matter of just diminishing returns because he's older. That's hard to say because I think in fairness with LeBron, he's averaged 34 and a half minutes, which is fairly normal for most top NBA guys. with exception to up to this week, he didn't really have any debilitating injuries. So this could be a potential turning point throughout the season. All right.

I got about a minute left. You mentioned the overturned call. The referees got it right based upon the replay, right? It was the right call. But is that the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish now where we're nitpicking everything? Because anyone would have watched the play originally and said, okay, it was Lakers ball? You go back and you find Toothcomet and they got the call right. Is this the ultimate goal of replay?

saw last night. Yes, but I think that it causes more problems and solves them because I think it disrupts the flow of the game as well as the challenge call. So I'm of the mind that as much as you want to have officials make as many correct calls as you can out of a fairness standpoint. I think that the main objective that official should have should ensure, you know, a constant flow of the game where it's not disrupted. And I feel like whether it's this call here or the challenge system in general, that really disrupts the flow and rhythm for both teams and winds up creating more headaches. And I know fans certainly don't like watching. So I would be kind of against having all those different mechanisms.

Mark Medina, Rita's working USA today. Of course, he's been all over this globe covering the NBA. Does a great job. Mark. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. Thanks so much for joining us.

Doug, all the same year. I appreciate you having me on. And Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas. Happy New Year. All right. Cool. Thanks, Mark. Really appreciate you join us.

We can see. it now. It's there. It's easy to admit it, but it's really hard to say it out loud. We'll say it next in the hurt. We live in this really weird, polarizing era in which you're either all

in or all out. I've sat on this, in this very chair before, at this very desk, and gone through... What up? Welcome in. This is the herd. Live from Los Angeles, wherever you

may be and however you may be making as part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gottlieb. In for Colin Cowherd, whether you're watching on FS1 or listening on the IHeart Radio app or any of our hundreds of Fox Sports Radio affiliates, we wish you nothing but the very happiest and safest of New Year's upcoming. We are going to talk about innovations in this decade. And I would say, we'll call them ride sharing services. It does feel like Uber is kind of like Kleenex. or Q-tips? Think about that for a second, right? Like, even if you're going to go and press your button for a lift,

like I'm an Uber way there, you're still going to use the lift, right? When you go to get a tissue, you go get a Kleenex, even if it's not a Kleenex brand. You understand the parallel making? I think has become kind of synonymous with that business. LeBron has become synonymous with the NBA. Christmas Day, LeBron. When I was a kid, it was Jordan.

Usually Bulls, Knicks, right? Wasn't always bulls nicks for Christmas Day games? Sure felt like that. Jordan at the garden, Christmas Day was amazing. Now it's LeBron. We've seen him in Cleveland, we see them in Miami. Last year we saw them in Oakland, taking on the Warriors. He got hurt, remarkably his groin, which again supposedly re-injured yesterday,

and they lose at home to the L.A. Clippers. Look, there are times in which you can bring stats to an argument. you can use history to an argument, you can bring injuries to an argument, it's fine. But there are times in which those same other factors don't actually measure up to the overall statement.

Look, it's not LeBron's fault solely that they lost last night. He didn't shoot a good percentage. Patrick Beverly did get into his and everybody else's head. By the way, Patrick Beverly is, he's one of those guys that you have to have on a championship team.

go back and look historically, and just about every championship team has it. And that's the guy that somebody on the other team wants to fight every night. And yet, you love him. He's the heart and soul of your team. I talked to coach and the Clippers about a month back, and it's like, I don't know if you guys win a championship with Patrick Beverly. He's like, we couldn't win a game without Patrick Beverly. He's just, he's our heart and he's our soul.

Does he have some limitations In terms of size? Sure. Not really a point guard. Not like he's a lights-out shooter. He can make some shots. But he just provides us this kind of junkyard dog toughness. Yes, somebody wants to fight him on the other bench every night. And that actually works for him.

He's okay with that. That's okay. That's how he rolls. But it's not LeBron's fault that Avery Bradley is a mess right now. They've got to get something more out of him. Or that Frank Vogel keeps playing. Jean Rondo too many minutes, or that Alex Caruso appeared to be a little bit overwhelmed at the level of that game.

That was a playoff caliber atmosphere, played at a much higher level than your average NBA game. Like, if you watched who Toronto lose to at home, they got run off the floor by the Boston Celtics. I mean, that was a terrible basketball game. It just was. It's not two terrible teams, but nobody in the crowd was into it. Both teams, you know, the Raptors weren't into it. And the Celtics just came out and laid the wood to them. that is a different level of it's like a different sport than what we saw last night at staples

last night at staples all the stars were out every seat was filled and we got a chance to see two former finals MVP one the sitting finals MVP in a kawai leonard the other one lebron james and it's okay it's okay to admit that kawai leonard is the better player not for the length of LeBron's career. I'm not going back 10 years ago. I'm not even going back seven years ago. But when you watch them play on the same floor, it's not really close.

Did LeBron shoot a lot of threes last night? Yes. But that's because LeBron can't get where he wants to get on a basketball floor. And that is not his teammates' fault. That's either Father Time's fault, combined with injuries or a lack of ability to kind of develop some moves and game other than just playing downhill. Really it is.

Like it's okay. It's okay, America, to admit Tom Brady is not a top 10 quarterback anymore. Doesn't mean Tom Brady can't win a Super Bowl. He won great last year and they won a Super Bowl. He's not as good this year. And his supporting cast isn't as good. It's okay Dodger fan to go, hey, Clayton Kirschaw, not our best pitcher anymore. he's not even your second best pitcher anymore.

Clayton Kirshaw cost you a world series. Because you threw him two additional batters? Like, this is what happens. It doesn't mean that Clayton Kirschaw hasn't been an all-time great Dodger. It doesn't mean that Tom Brady hasn't been an all-time-grade quarterback. It doesn't mean the LeBron James hasn't been an all-time great player. We've reached this weird era. and maybe it comes from political TV.

I would say that's the most likely where you're either in or you're out. The world is gray. I've always been a Jordan guy and Jordan at the same age, won his last championship in dominant fashion. He wasn't always peak Jordan because at that age, he can't be peak self. He obviously did have a couple of years off a year and a half off because he played baseball and he went to college for three instead of not going to college at all like LeBron James.

So comparing their careers, it's hard. The career arcs a little bit different because there's a break in the middle of. I don't even factor in the Washington Wizards thing because Jordan was done and then he tried to come out and show everybody could still do it. It kind of still could, but it wasn't the same. But I don't remember watching Jordan play at 34 twice in the same week and thinking he's not the best best. player on the floor. And earlier this week, against the Bucks, I don't think he was the best player

on his own team. It doesn't mean Jordan didn't have bad games. There's a difference. There's a difference. Kauai Leonard could get anywhere he wanted on the floor. LeBron James couldn't.

Whether you want to do, the father time is undefeated. It's not just that he's 34. It's that he's been playing in the NBA for over 17 years. And the freshness that he had to start the season because he didn't play in the playoffs and he didn't play with Team USA in the summer, that's starting to wear off.

And we're starting to see who he really is at the highest level of competition. Nobody cares what you do against the, you know, you pick your bottom team. We don't care what you do against New Orleans Pelicans. We don't. Don't care what you do against the Grizzlies. Bucks and Clippers this week, playoff caliber games in which whether his groin is hurt or not hurt,

he did take a game off to prepare for yesterday's game. 39% from the field, 26 from 3, 22 points for game, 6 turnovers. And even if you want to say, well, he had a bad shooting game, that's okay. It's not about the bad shooting game. It's about just watch.

And you're like, wow, he doesn't really go by people anymore. There's also a lack of development there. People have been on him about his post game forever. He was guarded a good. portion of that game by Pat Beverly. There's no reason that LeBron James shouldn't, if he developed a proper post game, shouldn't like Jordan late in his career, have been able to go down the post, set up shot, put his hand in the air, catch the ball, and go make a shot. He didn't. Do we remember what happened after game one and game two when KD got, when Pat Beverly

guarded Kevin Durant last year in the playoffs? You guys remember that? Kevin Durant was like moving the ball, facilitating. And they're like, hey man, how come you're not going for 40 on Patrick Beverly. And he turned into the camera, he said, you know who I am. I'm Kevin Durant. And if you didn't know then, you did know after he went crazy and just, you know, game 45 a night. LeBron doesn't have that. Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist telling you he's playing all these games this year because he's trying to track down Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I think he wants Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record. But I don't think that's why he's played so many games. I'm not placing all of the blame for the loss on his shoulders. It's not his fault. Anthony Davis didn't attack. Their guard,

Anthony Davis was one guy. You're supposed to be a superstar. Get the ball, take over, get to the rim, make them foul, you get an N-1. Montres Harrell's not even seen as a great defender. It's not LeBron's fault that Caruso wasn't ready for that level. Rondo doesn't have it anymore. Or that Avery Bradley is somehow a mess. Or that Kyle Kuzma, everything in the first half and then struggled in the second half. Not his fault. I'm not talking even about winning and losing or missing, choking a free throw late as he continues to really struggle with fourth quarter free throws. I'm simply telling you that you've watched twice in a week, Thursday, and last night,

okay, that's seven days total. And Janice was the best player on the floor in Milwaukee, and Anthony Davis is probably the second best player. And last night, Kauai Leonard was the best player. And even if you wanted to say LeBron was the best Laker, there was a sizable gap between Kawhi Leonard, the sitting MVP, and LeBron James. It doesn't mean that Kauai hasn't had a better career or has been better throughout his career as LeBron was at his peak.

He's not his peak. We don't judge you based upon anything other than what we see when we, that's the beauty to this thing. That's the beauty to players in the NBA versus NFL players. Well, it's, I mean, the dream Super Bowl, right, is Aaron Rogers versus Tom Brady. but Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady will never match up against one another. Never match up against one another. Well, LeBron James and Kevin Durant did in the NBA finals.

Who was better? Kevin Durant was. Heck, you could even go back to the Spurs when they beat LeBron James and say Kauai Leonard was the MVP for a reason. The Bron was really, really, really good. But if you just watched last night, or if you watched on Thursday night, one of the best player on the floor.

Why? Because 34 years. old because he's played 17 years. This is what happens. Doesn't mean he can't win. If anything, it gives you more respect for his ability to win if it does in fact happen. Even though he wasn't at his peak, he did it with his mind, he did it with his toughness, he brought up the level of everybody else around him. But right now that guy is Kauai Leonard. Kauai Leonard's team was the one that got the loose balls, they got the offensive rebounds, that made their free throws down the stretch, that found a way to win the game. Kaui Leonard might not be the leader. that you think leaders are supposed to be,

LeBron James with, you know, the ability to carry on a conversation and make you really sense that he's leading. But if every team you play on plays better in the biggest games with you on the floor, doesn't that make you a great leader? Right? Like the Raptors would continually hit a ceiling

and then he pushed them through the ceiling. Granted, LeBron wasn't in the east. I'm not blind to that. the spurs were better when he was there. It's not just his talent. It's the way in which he plays. It's the way in which he leads without saying a word. And the words in which he did say after the game, he's like, look,

we're not going to win in one play. Just keep grinding. That's why they won. They won because they got just enough stops. They got just enough offensive rebounds. They got just enough free throws. They didn't hit any dagger threes. It wasn't Fool's gold offense.

Whereas LeBron had to settle for jump shots because he couldn't get a step. He couldn't get to the rim. Couldn't get those easy finishes after making some jump shots rolling in the fourth quarter. Look, bucks and clippers game combined in the last week, 39% from the field, 26 from 3, 22 points per game, an average of six turnovers. It doesn't mean that it's over. It doesn't mean that he's Peyton Manning at the end of his run, but it does mean that at 34, he was not the best player on the floor, not once but twice within the last week. and you can give me all your stats and how close he was to a triple double

and how much he's done throughout his career. Those are great. He's a great player. He's still a great player. And he's been their most valuable player and maybe the league's most valuable player. But best player? That was Kwai Leonard.

That was Janus going back to Thursday. Are the Cowboys a bad team or just an unlucky team? We'll discuss next in the herd. Two great bowl games are coming your way on FS1. and Fox. Tomorrow, it's the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl as number 16, Iowa battles number 22 USC at 730 Eastern on FS1.

Then on Monday, Cal faces off with Illinois and the Red Fox Bowl at 3.30 Eastern on Fox. Both games are also available on the Fox Sports app. Let's two pretty great games. Lavi Smith trying to get his first winning season in Illinois, right? Four and two, last six. Think about their kind of really amazing resurgence. And then USC making their yearly pit. pilgrimage, it seems like, to San Diego for the holiday bowl.

Both those games coming on on Fox. Those should be outstanding. Doug Gottliebun for Colin. This is the herd on Fox Sports One and Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, Big Tents won each the last four holiday bowls. We'll see if Keaton Slovis can slow down the Hawkeyes. I read this article from Pro Football Focus on the Dallas Cowboys. And here's the gist of it, right?

if you put together yards per play on offense and defense, strength of schedule, overall efficiency for the Dallas Cowboys this season. And you just run the numbers, they should be a 10-win team. Minimum.

This is not having to do with well, we got Ezekieliot, and we have Dak Prescott, we have DeMarcus Lawrence, and went healthy, you know, late in Vanderec, Mari Cooper, not the names.

This is simply using the data. And look, the goal in the NFL is to get the ball and keep the ball and keep your defense off the field. They've done that. Statistically best offense in football. Now, you have to factor in that half the teams have played, including this Sunday in America's game of the week, are crummy teams, right? You play the Redskins twice.

You play the Cowboys twice. Heck, you know, even the Eagles are not. not a, they're above 500 team. They played the Jets. They played the dolphins. Like, they've played an easy schedule. And that's what pro football is saying. Pro football focus is saying, like, look, they have a good offense.

They have a good defense. They played an easy schedule. They should be a 10-win team. But they're not. How do you explain the inexplicable to stat guy, the pro-football focus guy that's sitting there going like, we just keep putting in the computer and it keeps coming out 10 wins, and yet there's seven.

Their explanation is. bad luck. Bad luck. Now look, luck is a factor in sports. If you don't think it's a factor, why do we wish somebody good luck before a game? The Warriors got really, really, really sensitive that during their first championship run,

every team they played was missing their starting point guard for at least two of their four wins. Go back and look. Luck does play a factor. I could go through college football playoffs and tell you that who you match up with is very, you're very, very, very fortunate to get those teams. Right.

And it's one of the reasons that I don't do the, that's a win, that's a loss, that's a win, at the start of every season when you're getting the NFL schedule. Why? Well, because you have no idea if you're going to get a game. get a backup quarterback. You know, I'll take the Chargers, for example. The Chargers haven't been bad this season. They've been awful.

Yeah, they've been unlucky with injuries, but they got Duck Hodges as quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers. They got Drew Locke with the Denver Broncos. Like, you get young, inexperienced, and some bad quarterbacks. These are games you should win. You know, if you played the Detroit Lions after Matt Stafford went out, that's lucky. That's fortunate. You didn't injure Stafford. You had nothing to do with it.

But when you have a team like the Cowboys that has been mostly healthy this season, obviously Sean Lee and Vanderesh have been two guys that haven't been healthy. They've had their quarterback the whole season. Their offensive line has been mostly healthy, more healthy maybe than last season. They had Amari Cooper all year this year as opposed to trading for them last year. You run the numbers. They should be better. Now, kicking game has been a major, major issue, right?

Every different part of their special teams has been not so special, but the most important factor that stats can't account for is chemistry. And chemistry is kind of a bland term, but it takes in how the owner and GM and coach are all working together. In this case, the owner and GM are the same guy and the coach are working together. and whether or not they're working together for personnel or not. Think about what the entire preseason was dominated by. Zeke Elliott wanted to get paid, and then Jerry Jones is like, well, Tony Pollard ran football, right?

Remember that? Because the owner was so upfront about all the different contract negotiations he's working with, and because Zeke kind of skipped in line, he was unable to control that. Like, that's his job. He knows he signs the check, but as a gentleman, manager, like, he decides who's going to get what, not just how much, or if they're going to write the check. So from that point to when he started to question Jason Garrett on radio shows and in post-game

locker and press conferences to Jason Garrett and his relationship with his players, which I do believe has been undercut by not having a contract extension and Jerry talking about his players not making mistakes and said the coaches making mistakes, whether the players have played hard, or totally bought in, or the offensive coordinator is inexperienced and how he meshes with the quarterback. All of these things are coaching, our chemistry, our cohesion, our culture, right? It's the, what's the French phrase? Genesee qua? I don't know what.

I can't pinpoint exactly one specific thing. Do I put it all on Garrett? No. Do I put it all on Jerry? No. Do I put it all on DAC? No. Do I put it all on Kelvin Moore?

No. Do I put it all on the special teams? No. But when all of those things aren't producing at the level that every computer says, you got an easy schedule, you got a good team, you can run it, you do run it, you can stop it, and you do stop it, and you're still not winning games, that's coaching, that's character, that's culture. That's what's a miss with the Dallas Cowboys.

You can't pinpoint it on stats. that's because stats, while a good guide, do not tell the story about sports. Here's Ryan Music with the news. No, no, no, no, turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Well, Doug, the New Orleans Pelicans got a win yesterday on Christmas Day, 112 to 100 over the Nuggets, but they did it without Zion Williamson, the number one overall pick who continues to be sidelined with a knee injury.

He had surgery on October 21st to repair a torn meniscus. Now, he was originally supposed to be out six to eight weeks. the report is giving an update on his rehab, which includes working on the kinetic chain, kinetic chain in his body, which basically they want to change the way he moves and runs, because it's... Kne bones connect to the hip bone, hip bones connect to the right?

Thigh bone, thigh bone's getting to the hip bone, yes. So he said he's eager to return to playing, but he trusts the organization in their long-term plan. This is fascinating what they're trying to do. Hey, we need to re-teach you how to run. Well, did they teach you about a crawl? Because you've got to crawl before you can walk. Hey-oh!

I actually like this. Now, I don't know if it'll work, but I believe he does kind of have a funky way of running in terms of I think he runs like in the outsides of his feet. That's why his shoe tore the way it did. And reteaching somebody how to run is hard. Now, he also has to lose weight because when your body changes, your gait can change as well.

But all of that stuff is, in fact, connected. And as much as we'd like to say, man, like he looked bad in Summerlee. He looked heavy. He didn't look crazy athletic. And then before he got hurt, he didn't look great. All that said, Blake Griffin redshirted his first year. Okay, Joel Embeddee missed a ton of time his first couple of years, didn't he?

Ben Simmons redshirted his first year. We've seen other guys not play their first year, working their body, working their game, and improve. But I would agree with you, the idea that, man, he doesn't walk right, he doesn't run right. We've got to re-teach him. That is. Yeah, I think with those other. guys, yes, they had injuries. And especially with Embed, when you're a big man and you have back issues, or even Ben Simmons, who's almost seven feet tall and had foot issues, that's a problem.

It's a little different when you're already having knee problems, then they're like, we have to reteach your basic mechanics of how you naturally move. I think that's a bigger deal than... It's a hard deal to reteach to change somebody's gate. It's not like fixing a jump shot. It actually is. It actually is, because you're going to revert back. And it's constant. constant work. There are mechanics to it. Like this is, I just don't know, yeah, I don't know how good they are teaching it.

I don't know how receptive he is to it, you know? And I don't know how much game slippage is. Like, you can do whatever you want in practice. You get back to the game, you revert back. How much game slippage there is. But I don't think they have a time limit on him. He hadn't even played three on three yet. I doubt he plays this year.

Well, Doug, stop me if heard this before, but the Warriors got a win over the rockets. It's surprising yesterday on Christmas Day. Is it June already? Christmas in June, almost. But Houston had a four-game winning streak coming into the game. The Warriors used a double team on James Hardin, basically saying, hey, anyone but Hardin's going to beat us. Still got 24 points, which for him is actually the third lowest total of the season.

Russell Westbrook struggled, 11 of 32, 0 of 8 from 3. Damn. Warriors on a 3 game winning streak. Pass the ball. Oh of 8 from 3. Pass the ball. Stop shooting 3s. Like the idea that the Russell Westbrook thing is going to work in Houston,

a team that shoots the highest volume of threes, with the worst volume three-point shooter in the NBA last year in Russell Westbro. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, they're in postseason form. I just, I feel for Darry. I do. He's trying everything he can. Everything he can.

No lack of innovation. Nope. Nope. No stone unturned. And I feel like, I feel like Tillman Fertita is going to fire him at the end of the year because they're going to come up short. And is it going to be his fault? Sure.

But it's not for lack of trying. And they have been ultimately, they have been successful, just successful to a point. And that's the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The herd lie news.

Great news. There's a quick and easy way. You could save money. Switch to Geico. It only takes 15 minutes to see if you could save 15% of more in your car insurance. Go to Geico.com and see how much you could save. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin.

This is the herd. This is the most bizarre thing I can remember. I got a tornado warning alert on my phone in Southern Orange County at 1230 at night last night. That one's a weird one. And it dawned upon me that like, thank goodness for my phone, but there are no tornado sirens that I'm aware of. None. So thankfully, there was no tornado, but there was a tornado warning. in California. That kind of night. Clippers beat the Lakers

and are the better team and have the better superstar player and there's a tornado warning all the same night. Greg CoSell joins us for his weekly visit here in the herd. I'm Doug Ghalybin for Colin. Forty-plus years with NFL films watching, breaking down, teaching us things that we miss because we are layman and he is not. Let's start with the Dallas Cowboys. How much of their offensive ineptitude last week, Greg, was play calling? How much of it was. was the inaccuracy of their quarterback?

Play calling is always a tough thing for me to talk about because coaches, you know, work a lot harder than we do. But I was surprised, given that they came off the Rams game, which is their best game in the season, and was a clear focus with Zeke Elliott, that they did not start the game with Zeke Elliott as their foundation. So that did surprise me. The other part of that, I think that there were a lot of open throws,

open receivers that Dak Prescott missed. And I think if you're the Philadelphia Eagles, you have to sort of take a step back and be careful about how you evaluate yourself because there were a lot of open receivers. And you can't just assume because you did not give up a touchdown that your defense played at a really high level. What about Carson Wentz? What does the film say about his performance, keeping in mind he's playing with practice

team players at wide receiver? Yeah, I'm used by this whole Carson Wentz issue because Carson Wentz is a high level talent who's playing with, as you said, practice squad players. and in this league it's hard to play without any wide receivers. So I thought he played exactly the right kind of game that was required, given the limitations of his offense and quite frankly his defense as well, and played very efficiently, did not turn the ball over, understood how he had to play within that context.

And I think he's essentially been playing that way for quite some time. It's just this team has no weapons whatsoever. Think of it this way. And I know you're aware that a lot of people have been down on him. But think of it this way. You were a point guard. If you make great passes and nobody hits a shot. At the end of the day, people say, hey, golly, didn't have any assists.

You know, that doesn't mean anything until you look at the tape. Yeah, no, listen, Nelson Aguilar dropped the ball against Atlanta. Oh, that would have been a touchdown. It won that game, by the way. I mean, again, the one against New England, which in a remarkable throw, I mean, a little bit awkward, but did hit him, like, right in the chest. I mean, for a good portion of the year, they led the league in drops. That was when they had their players.

Now they don't have. Well, even with their players, and so he was dealing with a receiving core that had no speed, even when they had their players, other than Deshaun, who hasn't played. You know, since week two, the first 10 snaps of week two. Greg Kosell, joining us. Patriots, they find a way once again to beat the Buffalo Bill. Stop me if you heard this before, but the Patriots win the AFC East. That said, what did their offense look like when you reviewed the tape?

You know, I thought it was interesting. I thought in some ways they went back to what they did last year leading up to the Super Bowl. ball. Allandin Roberts, their linebacker, played 21 snaps at fullback, Doug. And I think you go back to last year down the stretch over the last, what, eight, nine, ten games. They played with a fullback on about 50% of their snaps. Devlin was a critical piece to what they did offensively down the stretch. And we'll see if they continue that going forward. But in this game against Buffalo, they played with a fullback on 21 snaps, Alandon Roberts. And therefore, they ran the ball with a little more consistency, and that's

kind of the way I think they have to play. It's remarkable. They just find a way to win games, using a fullback, which we thought had gone the way of the do-do, and they use them for over half the snaps in the game. You know, like, I want to buy into Jimmy Garoppolo. They win in New Orleans,

and I'm all in on Jimmy G. And then I watched this past weekend, and I don't know what, help me with Jimmy Garapolo where you think he is as a quarterback. I think that's his game. And Kyle's offense is very timing, rhythm-based. And more often than not, he does a great job of scheming throws for his quarterback. We saw that when he played with Nick Mullins a year ago. When you can't scheme it up,

when the defense, for whatever reason, takes it away, that's where Garapolo sometimes struggles because he's so timing-based. And we'll see going forward. But he's a very good thrower. When he's in rhythm, he looks as good as anybody with that compact delivery. But that's an offense that's built on the system producing and defining the throws. The Seattle Seahawks lost in last two weeks, Rashad Penny, C.J. Pro Seas, and then they lose Chris Carson as well, all for the year. So they go and drag Marshawn Lynch out of retirement. Everybody remembers Beast Mode loves him, but he hadn't played a snap this year.

How do you think their offense survives losing their top three running backs? Well, I have to both three carries, Doug, do you? Probably not, but we're talking. playoff caliber football. Think about this. Let's say the year turns out the way they want it to turn out and they get all the way to the Super Bowl. That means they have four games left this season because they'd get a buy if they win

Sunday night. So I believe that they sign Lynch so their offense will look exactly the same. They're a run-based offense. Everybody talks about Russell Wilson, deservedly so, a very good player. But they're a run-first and a run-based offense. And I personally believe they sign Lynch to continue to do what has been their foundation. all season long. The Cleveland Browns beat Lamar Jackson,

the Ravens earlier this year, and then they did a good job kind of bottling him up for the most part of the first half. Late two-minute, you know, he made a couple of plays, and they scored and took the lead at the half. But Cleveland has done as good a job as anybody

at trying to slow down number eight in the purple. Is there anything you saw they did differently than other teams are doing? No. And I think actually, if you watch the tape, which I didn't, I actually watched it today, It was nothing that they particularly did that anybody else did. And in fact, they tried to be aggressive, and then they got burned by being aggressive.

So they didn't really do anything differently. I thought that there were a couple of offensive line, individual blocks that were missed, that caused some problems. Lamar missed a couple of throws with inaccuracy. But I don't think it was anything the Browns did that were going to go forward and say, this is what you have to do. Greg Gosell, John, has 40-plus years of experience in NFL films, and I want to ask you, when you look at the Sunday night tape, Kirk Cousins doesn't have his running back, right?

That's a run, excuse the Monday night tape, doesn't have his running back, right? And that's a run-based offense as well. Did have Thielen back, but let's give him Thielen's not 100%. And, of course, we put all the blame on Kirk Cousins. The offensive line, the offensive line wasn't good, but they only get seven first downs against Green Bay Packers. What does the tape tell us or tell you about Kirk Cousins? Cousins performance? Well, Kirk Cousins was not the problem. They're an offense that has

foundations, as every offense does. Their foundations are the run game, the play action, pass game with boot action, the screen game. And in order to execute those things, your offensive line obviously needs to play well. So the offensive line played very poorly. They could not run the football. The play action pass game was really non-existent, and they didn't really have a screen game because Cook is terrific in the screen game. So Kirk Cousins, the result of that is Kirk Cousins can't play well. Kirk Cousins is a piece. You know, this offense is very, very similar to when you go back to the Houston Texans because Cubiak is in Minnesota and he was the head coach of Houston when Matt Schaub was there. And Matt Schaub would throw for 4,500 yards and no one said Matt Schaub

was a top five quarterback in the league. It's very similar stylistically. So when the pieces don't work, cousins will not be effective. It's not his fault. This is what he is. Everybody knows that. Aaron Jones had a great night for the Packers. Yeah, I love Aaron Jones. Obviously, Devante Adams got the ball a lot. They threw him, I think, 16 times he caught 13 of them. How did Aaron Rogers play when you watch the take? I thought he played okay. I mean, you know, there were a couple of really nice rhythm throws, but I think that their offense has kind of become balanced, and I think they have to stay that way. Jones is a very good back.

It's the outside zone run game is their foundation. And I think that that's where it starts. And that's what Matt LaFleur wants. That's the way he's – that's his background. He's a Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVeigh guy, and the outside zone run game starts the offense. And, you know, just like we talked about Seattle being run first, I think we expect Aaron Rogers to be miraculous in the way he plays,

and he can be. But I think LaFleur would like that offense to start with the run game and be balanced. Yeah. Keep you close and then hope 12 makes a play in the playoffs late. Greg, great stuff. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and you're getting ready to have an absolutely spectacular new year. Can't tell you how much we appreciate you join us in the herd. Much, you too.

All right, that's Greg Koseau. 40 plus years of experience in the NFL films, making you a smarter football fan, just made me a lot more intelligent during his hit here. The best and the worst of the past decade. I'll have it for you. The best for last is next in The Hurt. Be sure to catch live editions of The Horde. weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games,

from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsClyce on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12

and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations

with so many incredible guests. I'm talking Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch.

Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth, or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show,

I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Quarterback on office blue 42. Hey, ref, my mama want you to wave at her.

What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get. your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toledano and our podcast point game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves,

I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying.

He running up the court, licking his fingers while he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Oh, yeah. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Great news. There's a quick and easy way you can save money, switch to Geico. It only takes 15 minutes and you can save 15% of more in your car insurance. Go to Geico.com and see how much you could save.

Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. This is The Herd. Thanks so much for making us part of your day. You know, we like to close up shop and find the best for last. After almost three hours, Colin apparently hasn't gotten to the point yet. holding out on us cowherd. It's the best for last. Here's what we're going to do. There's six days left until 2020, right? So six days left in this decade. We're looking at the last decade in sports and beyond. So here's what we did in the morning meeting. No, we did not do the bagel hierarchy. We could do that. Or the fruit

hierarchy, we could do that. Instead, we came up with the 10 most significant developments of the last 10 years that are both the best and the worst things on earth. Number 10. Moving back to the extra point. Now, in 2015, they moved back the extra point, 13 yards from the two-yard line to the 15-yard line. So an extra point is a 33-yard field goal, unless, of course, you go for two. And it went from a 99.5% make rate to, like, low to mid-90s. Even Justin Tucker missed a game-tying extra point last year versus New Orleans, right?

Percentions have gone down. It's no longer a free point. I think this is great. Like, it's so hard fought to get six. Why are we just giving away seven? On the other hand, man, doink, doink, doink. We used to operate on the assumption that seven was seven. Instead, now seven is six with a possible seven.

It's changed the way we've looked at the sport completely. All right, number nine. Number nine. New overtime rules. In 2011, the NFL changed the overtime rules, so both teams get the football, which is great, unless they don't. That's because if you score a touchdown, the other team doesn't get it. In an effort to please everybody, they please no one. If you're a sudden death guy, you're mad.

If you're a both team should get the football guy, you could equally be mad. because both teams don't necessarily get the football. And recently, they changed the clock from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, so we have more ties than we've ever had before. Number eight. Cold brew coffee. Now, for the record, I'm a fan. I like cold brew coffee.

But coffee isn't coffee when it's brewed cold. Is it? It just feels kind of dirty. Feels like you're cheating. Remember your mom would have coffee, and she'd put like sweet and low in it and you come out, you have a sip. Or your dad would have black coffee and it was hot. It would, you know, singe the hairs in your nose and you'd take a sniff.

Brewing coffee without the smell of coffee permeating your entire house, that ain't coffee. Coffee is supposed to be reserved for the hard-working man. And reading your paper. Do things we don't do anymore. Number seven. Super Teams. Now, this isn't the advent of this last decade, but it did, become the popular norm of the decade, especially in the NBA.

The good news is that the Heat did win two titles, and they got the four NBA finals. It also gave us somebody to cheer against, right? And then the Warriors had a super team, and everybody's in search of a super team, but it depletes the assets of the rest of the league, and it gives us kind of a boring regular season. So there's good and there's bad. Number six. Ride share apps. ride share apps.

It gives you a predetermined cost, but that cost seems to be rising, doesn't it? And as much as it's great, because there's fewer drunk drivers out in the road, there's just no excuse for drunk driving this time of year. None. Press the button, let them take you home. On the other hand, has anybody been to LAX recently?

You want to tell me ride sharing is a good thing? Yikes. Number five. Las Vegas teams. Vegas used to be taboo to professional sports franchises. It was like the forbidden fruit. When you go there and you bet at a game

and you feel like you were doing something that was legal, but kind of felt illegal. Breaking the law, breaking the law. Now they got the hockey team there, they got a football team there, you can bet on UNLV games. What the hell happened? Vegas is just like every city in the country.

Number four. Touchdown celebrations. You know, the NFL was the Not Fun League and they weren't letting guys celebrate. and Joe Horn was the worst person on earth for the, he did the cell phone thing, right? Now Joe, Joe was heard in something far worse than the cell phone that's going to get them locked up, but that's different. Anyway, you know, now these celebrations, like, dude, I don't want you to celebrate when you're down three TDs or when you're up three TDs. Every once in a while, I like the fun bunch.

I like a couple of good celebrations. But sometimes it's just too much, and I just want to get on to the next play. Number three. College for a playoff. In our lifetime, since the year 2000, we've had split national champions. That ain't right. On the other hand, is the college football a playoff really a playoff? There are teams that win their conference, win their conference championship game and don't get to play.

Oklahoma's in this thing and they don't really belong in yet. They can compete for a national champion. And the one seed, the best team in the regular season, has never won the thing. Number two. Instant replay. It gets it right too often. And it takes too long. And enough, I kind of miss human error.

Number one. And, you know, food delivery service, mobile ordering. Look, I'm not saying that every barista is worth having a conversation or hearing their philosophy about where the country should go is a great conversation. But now the idea that we don't have to leave the comforts of our own home to get anything we want. And when we do order that cup of coffee, which can be iced or can be hot, we don't have to make contact with anybody, just read our name on a cup. That ain't right.

Whatever happened to the idea of a third place, Home, work, and wherever you go for a cup of coffee. That is lost with food delivery service. Apple. Happy New Year's here. Great news. There's a quick and easy way you could save money. Switch to Geico.

It only takes 15 minutes. And you can save 15% of more in your car insurance. Go to Geico.com and see how much you could save. Feels like a missed opportunity. There's no NFL football. I know our package is done, but like, why don't we have a game? I want football. I want basketball.

So much yesterday with basketball. all. It's kind of nothing today. All right, upcoming in three minutes, why LeBron can still be considered better than everyone else in the NBA. We'll get to that next. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is The Hurt. I will still take LeBron this season.

Over Kawhi Leonard? I would take LeBron this season over anybody right now. Were you in person or did you watch it on TV last night? I was there in person. How many fingers am I holding on? You have two. You got two fingers. I realize the Domino's Sikawa Litter.

I know that boy is a bad boy, but I'm saying I... He's a robot. He is a robot. He can't be touched. You can't move him. You can't speed his game up. You can't mentally challenge him. He's his own person.

But I will say this, you know, I believe like you have to take it from somebody to be the best. I don't feel like anybody's took it yet. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. Timbo, in every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source,

the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite, unhumored me with Robert Smygel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L'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 podcasts. What's up, guys? This is CliverT Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you.

conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Quarterback on office blue of 42. Hey, ref, my mama want you to wave at her.

What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come until he's like, you know I love you, dog.

You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.