The Mismatch - The Collapsing Celtics, Bucks Beam The Kings, and the Helter-Skelter Warriors With Rob Mahoney

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

KOC and Rob Mahoney (who’s filling in for Chris Vernon) recap a fun night of NBA action, beginning with the Bucks’ comeback victory over the Kings (01:29). They discuss Giannis dropping 46 as well as Brook Lopez’s importance to the team. They also debate whether the Kings can make a run in the playoffs (10:22). After losing to the last-place Rockets, is it time to reconsider the Celtics as possible title favorites (17:03)? The Warriors looked like shades of their old selves, defeating the Suns for their seventh straight home win, and KOC and Rob discuss Deandre Ayton’s lack of impact before debating how the Warriors will fare without Andrew Wiggins (28:10). Without Kyrie or Luka, the Mavs lost to the Grizzlies; the guys discuss their disappointment with this Mavs team (37:58). They also discuss the good news about injured stars LeBron James and Karl Anthony-Towns (50:01). Hosts: Kevin O’Connor and Rob Mahoney Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's official. One Shining Podcast is back, and I am your host, Tate Frazier. And as March Badness begins, we're covering everything from Selection Sunday all the way to the championship and beyond. We're going to have great guests that are coming through on the show. And look, if you're a friend of the program and you're already subscribed, you don't have to do anything. OSP is back. It's going to be right back in your feed. And if you're not a friend of the program, and this is your first time on the rodeo, then let me tell you this. You need to go to Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. and smash subscribe today

because the OSP show is back. Welcome to the mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon and then joining me as he does every Tuesday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Brien, a.k. Kevin O. Robmooney. I was about saying, I definitely can't be

Kevon tonight or Kvon tonight because Kevin Hurder, man. He had a great game. He might be at the top of the Kevin power rankings for the day. So I'm glad I can only be Rob. I'm glad you can only be Chris. We can just be ourselves here. Rob, I appreciate you joining me on this very, very late Monday night. No Chris Vernon tonight. That's why me, I'm trying my best to do a Verno impression with the introduction here. Verno's got the night off. He'll be back on Friday show, but we do have you here tonight, Rob, to talk about a pretty fun night in the NBA. I thought the game in the night

It was Bucks Kings. Bucks were down 15 in the first half, end up winning the game by nine points, 133 to 12-4 on the road in Sacramento. Yannis had a 19-point third quarter, finished with 46 points on 19 of 28, 12 rebounds, four assists. I thought tonight's game overall, Rob, was summed up by a third quarter conversation by the Bucks announcer, Ruzora Stevenson, Marcus Johnson. They made the comparison. Yannis tired at the end of his shift in the third quarter, dominates the entire. entire period. They say it's like, it's like rustler's tag team. And Yonix, Yonis goes out, then Drew Holliday or Chris Middleton can tag in. Middleton tonight at 31 points, 5-3s, both

season highs for him, also had nine assist to zero turnovers. I thought tonight's game for the Bucks was just another reminder why now two and a half games up on the Celtics for the one seat of the east, why I've considered them the favorite for a long amount of time now this season. with Milwaukee, the way we've seen them developed. Do you feel the same way about their status in the East as the clear favorites? Yeah, I've been there with you. The Bucks are just, they're so hard to argue against, even when their offense looks a little stodgy or a little robotic on some nights,

looks overly dependent on Janus on some nights. But as Chris Middleton has come back and come on strong and really looked better and better, this game is a great example in contrast over how he's looked over the last couple of months, where sometimes recently, Middleton's been good, but more important to them as a facilitator, as a table setter. Here he was beating switches.

He was getting to his spots. He was doing that little Chris Middleton spin-back mid-range jumper that's going to be so important to however far the bucks can go. He needs to be able to hit those shots. And Drew has to be a threat, and they have to be aggressive.

They have to have that tag team working. It's going to work pretty well when Janus has 46, but the times when he's out or just the times when he needs to take a blow, those guys have to be able to step up and they were both killer in this one. Absolutely. And I mean, I thought

Janice tonight showed again best player in the world on track to be at least top three in MVP voting. We'll see where he ends up finishing eye on first in my ballot at the moment. We'll see how that pans out over the course of the season. But also it's Brooke Lopez too, right? It's not just that backcourt

with Middleton and Holiday. Brooke Lopez tonight back-to-back possessions in the middle of that fourth quarter, he attacked a rotating defense closing out from the perimeter, throws a dump off pass to a cutting J. Crowder. The next play, he pump fakes from five feet behind the arc, hits a three-pointer, a five-and-o

run that he created on his own. And Brooke Lopez tonight, finished with 23 points, eight rebounds, four assists, four, six from three. He makes guys like that Montesabonis look small, how imposing he is. We'll talk about with what happened in the final minutes of the game in a second, but

Brooke overall again tonight, I felt like showed why it's really a big four for the bucks with Janice, Middleton, Holiday, and Lopez with four guys who can all show out or any particular night, and the three of them did tonight. Well, and the centers are always going to be easy targets, because there's going to be the argument that, okay, certain teams play a certain style, Brooke is going to have a harder time. This game, case and point, like, he was playing a pretty deep drop against all of those

dribble handoffs that the Kings run, and sometimes that results in some wide open threes for guys like Kevin Herder, for example. But the tradeoff for that is that he played 37. minutes in this game. One, how many high-level centers are you getting 37 minutes from in a high-leverage regular season or a high-leverage playoff game, period? Brooke Lopez can do that. But also, I mean, he was like a side of beef, just taking hits from Domas Sabonis all night. Like, those guys were battling in the post. It made this game incredibly fun to watch. It was great to watch Sabonis try to out-fox Brooke Lopez, try to get shots over that length that you're talking about.

He had the right-hand finish. He went to the right. Unbelievable. That's when you know he's going deep in his bag, when Sabona's actually busts out the right hand. He looked impressed on himself when it happened, too. I mean, rightly so. But their battle was so much fun, and the fact that Lopez can have a night of that kind of heavy lifting offensively and defensively,

and still make those big plays late, that's a pretty rare error for centers in the modern NBA to be able to do. Is it possible for back surgery to go any better than it has for Brooke? He looks great. He's moving so well, honestly, and especially big guys in backs. That's terrifying territory. But he really is such an important offensive piece for them because of that flexibility that you mentioned, that he can post, that he can play out.

The fact that they can play Janus and Bobby Portis and Brooke Lopez together in stretches, and it's not my favorite look of the Bucks arsenal, but the fact that they have that at their disposal shows the kind of flexibility that they have as a contender. Well, is that flexibility, what you're describing as part of what I think is so critical in the playoffs right now, is the ability to play different styles and dictate styles, right? Like, they can play supersized if they want to, or they can just have Yonis at the five. They can go that way too, especially after adding Jay Crowder, another wing defender, throw him at the four, you can go a little bit smaller in the back court,

but they can play virtually any style at all. Is that part of your confidence level and them is the Eastern Conference favorite right now with about a month ago? It's a huge part of it. And in a way, I think we've gotten so used to talking about defenses setting up the wall against Janus that we take it as if that's something easy to do.

And you watch in this game, like Janus in transition, Harrison Barnes tries to set up to take a charge. And by the time Janus Eurosteps, he's like in the wrong county. You know, like it's hard to get position against this guy when he's coming at you with the head of steam. And even when he's not, part of the flexibility, I don't want to gloss

over this, is Drew Holiday. And the fact that Drew is probably the best, like, Dunker Spot, baseline lurking guard in the NBA. And a lot of that is just he's so strong. He doesn't need the momentum. Like, he can catch down low, go up, finish with contact, get Ann ones, make huge plays off of those Yonnas dump-offs if you over-commit to him. So the flexibility is kind of coming from all angles. And this was a game where they didn't have Joe Ingalls, who could be an important piece in unlocking some of that if he can put some good stretches together. We'll see what Jay Crowder can offer them in over an extended playoff run. But even with just the core guys, they just fit so well and they swirl around each other in such a complimentary way. It's hard to

pick against them in the East. They also defend each other at the end of that game. Brooke Lopez, well, first of all, Janus, running out the clock kind of dribbles in front of Trey Liles towards the Buck's bench and then Lyles fouls him, he's pissed off, pushes Janice in the back and then Lopez being an enforcer immediately goes over to Lyles, stares him down and then Lyles shoved Lopez with an open fist in the face

then gripped him hard in the neck and I thought Rob first of all when the play first cut to it we didn't know who started it but the replay showed Liles was really the initiator of all of it. I thought it was a dirty sore loser play by Lyles at the end of the game. And I feel like he should be suspended for it. You know, an example needs to be set.

You can't push a player in the back as they're walking away and then shove a player in the face and then grip them hard by the neck. I mean, come on, dude. Like, that's a bit much. Yeah. That's a bit much there. One of them, one of them you can get in my way. But all three in consecutive within 10, 15 second period, come on, dude.

It's true. I mean, and that's the kind of frustration that happens in some of these Kings games where they are in it. Like, they are competitive against the best teams in the league, and they just can't hold on defensively. Like, they just can't stop Yannis from putting up 46. And frankly, there aren't a lot of teams that can when Yonnas is on a role like this,

has a game like this one. But they just didn't have options against him. And even when you build 15-point leads, when you build double-digit leads, if you're going to bleed points the other way like Sacramento does sometimes, and they are one of those teams where it feels like there's an inevitable third or fourth-quarter run coming from the other team. And they've been able to stave some of those off.

Deerrin Fox has been absolutely fabulous this season. Again, there's so much to recommend about the way they play. And honestly, Lyle's fist shoves to the face aside has been like a nice role player for them. They're rosters full of those stories. And yet, they just need a couple more stops to win a game like this. Like the line between them and the very good and elite teams in the NBA is really not so big.

So you say it's not so big, you know, and I think with Sacramento, you could look. look at tonight's game one of two ways. It's, you know, as you're saying, they just need to be a little bit better defensively. Yeah, they have the league's best offensive rating. Number one of the NBA. Dearon Fox, as you just mentioned, one of the best clutch scores in the league. One of the most efficient isolation scorers shooting 77% at the rim, 50% from mid-range

this season. On the Bill Simmons podcast, Bill and Ryan Rusillo had a good conversation on their Sunday night show talking about the Kings of Sleepers, you know? Yeah. I think they were 33 to 1 as finals to win the West. Like those are pretty good odds if you want to bet on a sleeper. But with tonight's game, did their biggest weakness being their defense, their 25th and defensive rating, does that show like they just aren't actually quite ready yet? They're more of a very good, not very good, an incredible story.

Going from not making the playoffs for our entire lifetimes pretty much, half of our lives, to being the two seed or the three seed, depending on where they end up, it's a remarkable story. but if you're talking strictly about, you know, championship contention, does tonight's game really put in, you know, under the spotlight, their biggest weakness in what will be the reason for their demise at some point in April or May? It does seem like that's the most likely outcome. But I think between here and there, they could end the season of another team that's hoping to contend, right? Like, if you're the Clippers and you roll into a first round series against the Kings, I think Sacramento could beat those guys.

Like, I think that they could catch a team like the Clippers sleeping, and the Clippers have not played well in recent weeks by any stretch. But you can apply the same logic to, you know, the Mavericks, a team with a pretty similar design when their stars are healthy. Warriors too, Rob? Warriors might be a little too far

just because they have that, I mean, you could call it veteran savvy, you could call it the chemistry, but we've just seen when their guys are healthy and together on the floor. The defense for the Warriors may not always be perfect, but the execution is going to be there in a really clean and fluid way.

I think you would have to pick the war, in a series like that, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't rule out that it could go seven. I wouldn't rule out that the kings could really put fear in them. They can beat the warriors then, like, you know,

it would be competitive at least, you think? I think it would be competitive. Who were the teams where you're like, yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not picking Sacramento for sure against them.

Honestly, I think a lot of them are second round teams, which is why I think a lot of the conversation with Sacramento is, oh, you would be, you know, the bottom teams, teams on the bottom half of the bracket

should be angling to get Sacramento in the first round. And I get, relative to the alternatives, why some of that might be true. But I don't know. I don't think Dallas has an open and shut case. I don't think if the Lakers make the playoffs, they have an open and shut case, OKC, all these teams in this range,

the Kings are tough to keep up with offensively. They're going to give you some open opportunities. Look at the threes that the Bucks got in this game, how late some of Sacramento's closeouts were. You're going to get some of those looks, but you better be damn sure your role players are going to hit them more than Malik Munk is going to hit them. Because they're going to get great looks the other way, too.

I mean, I think with them, the game that's going to stick in my mind maybe forever is that 176, 175 double overtime win against the clippers, not just because of the scoring. Yeah. But they were down like 10 points, 8 points, 6 points, so many times in the fourth and the first overtime and the second overtime. And then they yet somehow managed to pull it out and win the game. The resilience they have and the ability to just pile on points in such a short amount of time. Like, if they win a series, it's going to be because of their offense. I mean, that's, you know, an obvious thing to say. They're 25th in defensive rating, number one in offensive rating.

That's their strength. That's why they've been so successful this season. If they win their first round series, regardless of the opponent, they could beat the Grizzlies in round two. Like, it's not inconceivable for the kings to find themselves in a Western Conference finals. And if you're at that point, I mean, maybe Denver gets upset in round one. Maybe there's, you know, a turned ankle. from whoever the opponent might be by that point.

Sure. There's fatigue. Like, you don't, you don't know how things can plan out sometimes. So I think for Sacramento, really, for that two, three seed, you know, the path to the West Finals is pretty strong, you know, for one of them to get there. I know that's not like some hot take to say a two or three seed to the West finals. But the fact that we're talking so much about upsets in the Western Conference, if you just get by round one, if you just get past that round one, if you just get past that round one,

You get a real good shot. I think Sacramento does, because Memphis is beatable as well in their own right. And they have some versatility to the way they play, too. Again, I think part of the reason Sacramento is being discussed

as a team that could potentially be upset is this idea that, oh, when we get in the playoffs, all of their pretty offense, all of that fluidity, some of it's going to dry up, some of it's going to get gummed up. Maybe. I'm not so sure about that.

I'm with you, Rob. Like, they play any style. They can do anything on offense. And some of it is, like, Sabonis has such good chemistry with so many different handoff partners and so many different pick and roll partners you can really go up and down the roster.

It's not just, you know, he got Kevin Herder off for a lot of great looks tonight, but he and Fox have played so beautifully off of each other. He and Harrison Barnes and Harrison Barnes is often the forgotten guy in terms of Sacramento's offense. But watch early in this game against the Bucks, Sacramento's running

Barnes through a lot of that handoff action. And it's because, look, Janus is an amazing defender. He doesn't want to chase over the top of dribble handoffs all night. Like, that's a nightmare scenario for a player like him. And the fact that Barnes can do some of that, like you can see that stretching the wrong playoff matchup, right? Like really being a pressure point for some of these other defenses in the field.

And they can do that with Fox. They can do that with Murray. They can do that with Herder. They can do that with Monk. Like, there's just so many different engines and inflection points where they're going to find your weak spot. They're going to find the Grayson Allen, Bobby Portis pick and roll and make you guard. it. And that's going to be really tough for anyone to figure out.

Absolutely. I'm with you there. And I think with the Aaron Fox, you know, I said earlier one of the league's most efficient isolation scorers. If the game does have to slow down, you have a guy who's been one of the most clutch fourth quarter scorers this year, who regardless of time and situation, has been dominant more than he's ever been in isolation situations. And I think that's going to play into Sacramento's favor with the fact they can run those DHOs. They can play fast if it's that type the series. They can slow down and run high pick and roll, isos against the switch defense over and over if they need to. They can play any different style. And that's the beauty of watching the Kings this year. And I think if you're a Kings fan, you lean a little bit more, oh, I feel good. We just,

you know, went toe to toe for four quarters against the best team in the league and the best player in the world. So the Bucks extended their lead for the one seat in the east, two and a half games over the Celtics, who lost on Monday night to the Houston Rockets. Oh, my God, Rob. Wild stuff. Absolutely unbelievable. Rockets win that game, 111 to 109. Dude, I think for Boston here,

I mean, Bill Simmons tweeted tonight how the 2023 Celtics, it's more of a dire situation than people are realizing right now. They have won only three of their last eight games of losses against the Knicks, Nets, Knicks again, calves, and now the stinky rockets.

I mean, for Boston here, I mean, this is just one game. It's just a game in March. But I do think overall, we've seen some of the similar issues that we've seen in recent weeks. Marcus Marr just not playing at the same level he did last year,

either as the defensive player of the year he was. Offensively, he is really skidding right now. Derek White, not closing games for whatever reason. I'm not sure what Joe Mazzul is thinking there. And Tatum, he has been super inconsistent in recent weeks, Rob. After his, you know, he's leading

the Timbant Temps ESPN straw poll for MVP back in December. He has been tremendously inconsistency more in recent weeks, recent months. With Tatum, is your confidence level in him as the best player on the championship team or your confidence level on the Celtics

as a championship contender wavering at all right now, or is this just, you know, it's March and let's not overreact here. I think it's wavered a bit, but it's been more gradual than that. It hasn't all been in March, right? There's been a noticeable offensive aggression or regression that's been happening for a while with them

that's a little bit concerning. But also, to your point about Marcus Smart, there's just a little bit of a loss of edge. And when you're playing undersized in some lineups or at some positions to begin with, when you're, you know, games like this are a perfect example. Like, guys like KJ Martin are going to make you earn it in a way. the Rockets are not a well

like a particularly organized team honestly and some of that is guard play some of that is coaching that is just like... That's such a nice way of saying it. You know? We're trying to be kind today. But like they do have guys who are going to play with force and energy

especially some like Atari Easton is going to show up and make a pop right? KJ Martin is going to push in transition and attack you and make sure that you're set and if you're not he's going to get layups. If you're a team like the Celtics that walks into a game like this when expecting to win it, I just don't know that they have the lineup and the roster that's equipped to do that.

Like, if they're not bombing away and hitting a disproportionate number of their threes, they have to earn it against a lot of teams, right? Like, they just don't have the kind of structure or even the kind of talent base. Like, they are really, really good eight or nine deep, better than almost all the teams in the league in terms of depth. But at the top, at the middle of the roster, like with Tatum having inconsistent nights, with other guys having off-shooting nights, you just have to have more that you can bring to the table than in some games like this one.

They are 47 and 22 right now. They were 35 and 12 on January 22nd, which means they're 12 and 10 since then with some really bad losses over that stretch. Over this time period, they are 16th in offensive rating, sixth and defensive rating. They were earlier in the season in the middle of December, 21 and 5. At the time, their defense was not as amazing. They were an unbelievable all-time great offense, as you said, with their three-pointers. But offensively, they've just been more average since early December, especially since late January. A lot of that is due to, you know, regression, like you said, the three-point shooting.

Part of it is inconsistency with Tatum. I think, you know, we talked about Deerrin Fox as one of the league's most efficient isolation scores this season. Tatum, I mean, I love Tatum. I have always loved Tatum. He's, you know, he is a top five, and maybe he candidate. He's one of the best players in the world. But it's not like, I think sometimes when we talk about Tadem, we act like he's Kevin Durant on offense.

He's not. Like, he's, if you look at the 25 most frequent isolation scores this season on second spectrum, he's 17th in efficiency of all of them. You know, just for context, the top three is Dame, Kyrie, and Duran. He's not that level type of guy, right? So I think with Tatum, that's where that's one of my hesitations with him of like saying, oh, yeah, he's definitely a top five player.

He's a top five MVP candidate. He's not top five player. And I think in games like tonight, the last play, he misses that wide open layup. So weird play call by Joe Muzula. Jalen Brown has 43 points in the game and you're giving Tatum and ISO when he was like not that great tonight at all.

Brown was awesome. He's the only reason why they even pulled themselves back into the game. Missoula, this is something. prove a time for him, man. They have been so much more inconsistent. Celtics fans are growing very frustrated with his lack of timeouts with his endgame

decisions, some of the play calling, the lineups and rotations that he's throwing out there. I feel like he's the guy. If you talk about Boston Sports Talk Radio, Azul's going to get the blame more than anybody right after he just signed his actual deal to be the

full-time head coach. No more, it doesn't have the interim tag anymore. Well, especially if you flash back to you, as you mentioned, to earlier points in the season when the Celtics were just ripping off wins. I mean, he looked like a coach of the year frontrunner, especially with all of the turmoil, everything they were doing or dealing with as an organization, as a franchise, everything that they were trying to do just in terms of trading out one coach for another at that stage in the season. It's very challenging. And yet, in the same way that Jason Tatum has slid back in the MVP race, which to go from being a front runner, that early for MVP. And the MVP is an notoriously anchored award. Like, whatever happens at the beginning of the season has a tremendous impact on the overall outcome of the voting. Like, we,

we set our opinions early. Those opinions get reinforced over time. They get fed and fed and fed into the cycle. Usually guys in Jason Tame's position, if they just like held serve, basically over the course of the whole season, would go on to win. The fact that he is basically out of the top three for the MVP, as you mentioned, a top five candidate, which I think is totally fair, but there's a reason we don't talk about him with Joelle and Yokic and Janus, right? Like, there's a demarcation line

and then you get into guys like Tatum. And Missoula, like, for everything he did well to get the Celtics on track early, for everything that was going well for that offense, I think it's pretty telling that as we tried to explain in November in December, why the Celtics were

at this historic offensive rate. It was well I mean their ball movement looks better the threes look pretty good driving kick driving kick it looks beautiful Malcolm Brogden etc etc it's like these are not sufficient explanations for how last year Celtics became the best

offense of all time and we're seeing they're still very good like they're still a top five offense in terms of like leveling out over the whole season still a top five offense but they're just not what they were earlier in the year and they have they're going to have to have to kind of rearrange bits of their identity to compensate for that

On the other side of that, real quick on the Houston Rockets, you know, there's still a bottom three team in the league. That's not going to change. But Jbarri Smith Jr., last three games, 30 points against the Pacers, 20 against the Bulls, 24 points on 9-11 on Monday night against the Celtics. He's averaging over these three games, 24.7 points, 11 rebounds. Best defender on the Rockets this entire season, low bar, but he's been competitive, good help defender, versatile on ball. I thought he has some strong possessions on Tatum tonight. Jabari Smith Jr. It's only three games.

You know, not going to overreact here. But I think he is showing why with a young player like him, a rookie, you got to be patient with these guys. Like this is what they drafted him for and what they're hoping for. So it's positive to see this progress towards the end of the year. Absolutely. Especially for a prospect like him, who I think because of his style of play, he's prone to leave people a little cold, right?

Like, he does have, he is a bit mechanical. He is still finding his way in terms of like how he fits into fluid, fast-moving possessions, we're still seeing some of that. But in developing the connective tissue to handle those kinds of switches or those kinds of cross matches, to do as we've seen not only in this game, but in previous ones, like as a grab and go option in transition, if he can be that in addition to, I mean, a big which is basically the smoothest and quickest shooting mechanics you would hope for a prospect to come into the league with.

If you can build on that with those kinds of like real time in play, read and react decisions, that's a real player. And I think some of those habits have started to kind of come along. But again, it's, you don't want to overstate the importance of a stretch like this in March. Just like we don't want to rush to judgment on a guy and just like discard him because he has a slow first half of his rookie season. There's definitely a middle ground we need to walk on on Jabari, I think. Get off the bench and bet the NBA with Fandul, America's number one sports work because right

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123, 112, the Warriors won that. I felt like this game was, you know, whenever you're out on the Warriors, you know, they bring it back in, they have 75 points in the first half. Clay has 33, 8 at 12 from 3, crowds going crazy. And then as soon as you're back believing. they remind you why they're a little shaky. You know, the suns come out.

They have a great start to the third quarter. Golden State built their lead back and ended up winning the game. You know, no Kevin Durant tonight for Phoenix. But overall, I thought it was one of those Warriors games that kind of keep you believing in their odds to beat a team like the Kings or the Grizzlies with the first round series, as you said earlier, and maybe make another run. They really do test you so often, though, don't they?

Every night. it's such a ride with them. And this one I thought was an interesting test too on the other side for your level of faith in the D'Andre Aiton experience as well. Because I would sit here

and tell me if this is crazy, Kevin. But I would sit here, Aiden produced very well in this game, 27 and 12 at the end of the night. Opposite him, Kavon Luni ended up with 9, 10, and 5. And I would sit here and argue to you that Luni had a bigger impact on this game.

And some of that is like, just watched the first half, and he was crucial in that third quarter stretch, like them coming out and kind of flipping this game a bit, the Sons did, closing the gap, really, you know, putting themselves in a position to compete in it. He was very important to that effort. But they were in that position because in the first half, even while Aiton is getting some pick and roll buckets and some putbacks and stuff, there's just so many possessions where it's like, what is this guy doing defensively?

Like, what possession is he watching where he thinks he needs to be in, the lane versus on the baseline or vice versa. Like, he's such a confounding player. He bugs me. I mean, I think with Aiton, you like the highs. He's been, first of all, like, you know, Verno and I have argued about this throughout the year. Like earlier in the year, I'm totally disappointed with Aiton.

He's struggling. He looks like he's being lazy after assigning his big deal. He's been much, much better in recent months. I think that needs to be said first. But, like you said, Rob, like tonight, there's certain possessions. where Dream on Greens running a fake dribble handoff and DeAndre Aiton's way out of position to help. There's possessions where, you know, Stefan Curry's attacking the basket and DeAndre Aten isn't there when he needs to be. And it's like, hmm, this is one of those things that

kind of holds you back from trusting him as the center in a series against a team that can space it out like the Warriors, never mind in a series against like a team that can pummel you inside like the Nuggets or if it's the finals again against the Bucks, I mean, we saw that story play out once before. But I do think what Phoenix can go to that they haven't been able to in the past is Kevin Durant at the five. Absolutely. That is going to be the one card that they haven't pulled out yet. They only played three games, and they were three and O in those games.

But if there comes a moment, the sons say, you know what, DA's not giving us what we need tonight, you can go to Kevin Durant at the five. and Kevin Durant earlier in the season where the Brooklyn Nets was playing at in all defensive level, you know, next to Nick Claxton. The last time around when the Suns had a ride, DeAndre Aten, he was playing 36 minutes per game throughout their run to the finals.

There might be a series where he's down to like 20, 25. That might not happen, but if it is a 7-game series against the Warriors, like, can you really rule out that happening? Like, it might happen. KD. at the 5 against Golden State might be a necessity. You could absolutely see it.

And again, in fairness, not only do they have that option to play Katie at the five, but if it's the Sons who are popping off for 40 in the first quarter because they have Katie and Booker and Chris Paul and Aiton is like your fourth or fifth option on some possessions,

everything does feel a little bit different. Like there's just less on Aiton's shoulders as a result. But I'm with you on Katie's defense. Like even when he came to the Sons post knee injury but pre-ankel tweak, he had some really impressive, just like help side, you know,

coming in, swatting shots, challenging shots. He looked very mobile, very threatening, very dangerous in exactly the way that they're going to need him to be. Because they have some perimeter guys. Like Josh Akogi can be very disruptive on the perimeter, but they're going to need, whether it's Aiton, when he's fully engaged, whether it's Duran, when he's back and healthy,

whether it's, I guess, Bismack Beambo is going to play meaningful minutes for this team. Whatever you want to do. Somebody needs to block some shots and offer some real room protection because you're going to need it even against teams like the Warriors. Well, there was a positive news today for the Suns. You know, James Jones said earlier in the day that it's the type of thing that if the playoffs were to start today, Katie would be out there. He'd be struggling a little bit, but he'd be out there. Not so good on the warrior's side of things.

On Saturday, Steve Kerr said he hopes Andrew Wiggins returns before the season is over. But he said, quote, we're giving him his space as he deals with something that's way more important than a game. If he's able to come back, then that would be great. And if then that's not the case, whatever happens, we'll handle it accordingly. So we still don't have really any news on the second or third best player, however you want to peg him. Andrew Wiggins, with him potentially returning to the Warriors, one of their best three-point shooters at 40% the last couple of years, one of their best perimeter defenders, one of their most versatile. Wiggins turned himself into a vital player for Golden State and not having him is one of the reasons why I have such a hard time judging Golden State right now.

because how can you without a player as important as him? Well, as we saw in the playoffs, he turned out to be against all odds, given Andrew Wiggins' career to that point, he was a stabilizer. He was the guy who allowed the ebbs and flows of post-injury Clay Thompson to be a successful gambit for the Warriors.

And Clay has come a long way since then. He's been playing much better this season overall, but there's still nights where he gets lit up defensively. There's still nights where he's not popping off for, what do you have seven threes in the first half of this game? I think eight. I apologize, Clay, eight. He was going wild, Rob. That was fun.

Absolutely wild. But, you know, that's not every night. There are some nights where, God forbid, you're only going to hit four or five threes in the first half of your Clay Thompson. And those are the nights where you're going to wish you had Andrew Wiggins. You're going to wish you had him to, even if it's just to chase people around defensively to do the things that a guy Clay's age and with his injury history, you don't always want him to do. So they're absolutely going to miss it. him for as long as he's out. The Mavs and Grizzlies also played on Monday night.

We're not going to talk way too long about the Grizzlies since Chris Vernon is in here, but they did win. They won 104 to 88 over the Dallas Mavericks. David Roddy, I mean, that's a big mother refer. The Maverick killer, David Rod. I know, 24 points on Saturday. 24 points of career high on Saturday, then 19 on Monday night. Boy, I, Van Gundy are on the broadcast.

is saying how, like, has ever been a thicker perimeter player than David Roddy has there, Rob? I can't recall one. I would love, I need to go back and look at my season-long notes because one of the great joys of being someone who doesn't watch a lot of college basketball or see really any of these guys before they come to the NBA is I see him in Summer League and I'm really getting to know them over the first couple weeks to the regular season. And the first couple times I saw David Roddy on the court, I was like, wait, are we sure this guy's a wing? one, two, there are times where he looks like he's having problems running. Three, and yet he keeps getting to the basket.

He's just one of those guys, like through sheer physicality, through Wiles, through just having like kind of a deceptively quick first step can get by guys. I don't know if they expect him to be more of a shooter, but like he's kind of a downhill player for the most part. Well, the Grizzlies are four and two in the David Roddy era without Jammerant right now. We did get some job news on Monday. Adrian Ward Genowski and Tim McMahon reported at ESPN that John Morant is going to a counseling program in Florida, and he remains without a timetable on a return.

You know, John Moran had issued a statement, you know, previously he's doing that to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being that was prior to us knowing about the counseling program in Florida. But, you know, I hope whatever this program is, whatever it is specifically for, I'm sure we'll eventually find out those details or at some point he'll talk about it on the record in front of media but I hope he gets the help that he needs, you know, right?

Those are some poor choices that he's made and a lot of really negative stories this past year with what happened with the kid, the alleged pulling of the gun, the alleged laser with the pacers and never mind what happened in the club. I just hope he's able to come back with a healthier approach to, you know,

for his own good, but also for the good of the Grizzlies in their future. Yeah, I mean, you hope that some moment of clarity can come from this. As for Memphis, I mean, again, to very different situations in terms of where Jha is and his absence, which looks like this could stretch on quite a while, right?

If he's seeking counseling, if he's in a facility of that nature, we really don't know when we're going to see him play for the Grizzlies again. So it's very hard to project what their future looks like, what their prospects could be. Again, it seems gross to reduce these things to basketball sometimes, but the Grizzlies move on. They have to play the Mavericks on Monday night.

Like they have a full schedule ahead of them and trying to figure out what that basketball team is is pretty challenging. For sure. And on the Dallas side of things, they were without their star players. So this was really an ugly game for ESPN to have to broadcast. No John Morant on the Memphis side of things. No Luca, no Kyrie.

Not even Christian Wood for the Dallas Mavericks. And they've lost nine out of 12. They're under 500 for the first time since December 20th when they were 15 and 16. Jason Kidd was after the ass. after the game about that. And like most things, you know, he doesn't really leave the bench. He sits down.

I left the couch to go to the bathroom, grab water more times than it felt like he did the coach's basketball team. He was very, very passive about his comments saying, it's just the season. It will matter after the years over. He's had some really strange, strange comments to the media in recent weeks. I don't want to hit too much of what Verno and I have talked about on Friday show with some of the weird coaching decisions, but he talked about one of them tonight, Rob.

He was asked after the game about, you know, or before tonight's game, about some of the lineups that he throws out there. You know, not playing Christian Wood a lot since, you know, the trade deadline with Luca and Kyrie.

And there was a tweet earlier on Monday from Nick Engstad, who is, who covers the Mavericks for Locked-on Mavs. And it was on-off ratings, you know, for Luca, Kyrie and Dwight Powell, Luca, Kyrie, and Maxi, and then Luca, Kyrie, and Christian Wood.

Luca, Kyrie, and Dwight Powell have played 334 possessions together with a plus 12.4 net rating. Luca, Kyrie and Klieb have played 76 possessions together, a plus 4.5 net rating. Luca, Kyrie, and Christian Wood have played only 46 possessions together with a minus 57.8 net rating. So anyway, Kit has asked about the lineups and Kidd says, I saw a report today that said, our best big was Powell, and then it was Maxie, and then it was Seawood. So we take the analytics and look at everything you guys write to try to figure out how we can please you guys. And it was just such a strange comment from kid where he's kind of like, he's done this a couple times where he's deferring blame.

He's not taking blame. I don't know what to make of all this. If this is coming from something top down in the organization, ownership for an office to not play a Christian Wood line out more, if this is indeed an analytics-driven decision where they're using a sample of only 46 possessions, which would be absolutely stupid to do. I don't know what to make of this at all.

Rob, I'm very confused. And Chris knows my confusion in my first. frustration here with considering how well Christian Wood was playing and how poor their other bigs have played. I don't know what to make about this. What do you make about it? I did not think we would get to the point in the season where my criticism would be Jason Kidd is too online. Like my guy, please get outside. You don't have to do this. You don't have to get into the Twitter trenches. But if you are, if you are going to wade into these waters and if you are going to overstate tongue-in-cheek or not, the importance of a 40-game sample, I would also encourage

you to look, you know, were I a Jason kid, look at the numbers when Luca plays without Kyrie and what the constructions of those lineups have been since the trade. Because to me, that is the low-hanging Christian Woodford, right? Like, when Kyrie is on the floor without Luca, when Luca's on the floor without Kyrie, Christian Wood should play 100% of those minutes. Because the alternatives, there just isn't enough creation in some of those lineups. There isn't enough versatility in some of those lineups. I know obviously there's not enough defense in those lineups. That is a maves, a pervasive Mavs problem that frankly, you're not going to solve by plugging in Dwight Powell for

Christian Wood in some of these groups. It's just not going to happen. Just like you're not going to solve it by plugging in Frank Nalakina instead of say, Jaden Hardy in some of those lineups. The Mavs right now are, they are at a delicate place, they are at a high pressure place, I'm sympathetic to all of that, to the fact that they do need to prove something to Kyrie, they need to prove something to organization, they need to prove something to Luca. They need to contend in the meantime.

There's a lot of people to appease at this specific juncture. That said, you have to invest in some of the younger players on your roster. You have to invest in the most versatile offensive big who's been kind of sitting and languishing on your bench. When some of these groups really need it, like the Mavs are a blow the doors off offense on balance. Not every lineup is that way. There are some groups they roll out that do gum up, that do get stodg,

that do have trouble scoring, that really scream for moving screens and defensive errors, you know, understood a little bit of Christian Wood, a little bit of what he can bring to the table. They're big phonies, Rob. Simple as that. You know, if they make the playoffs, they're a first round exit. They might not even make the postseason. Simple as that. They're phonies.

They stink on defense. They get a bad coach. They don't have a lot of depth, you know, like you don't have Christian Wood tonight. Nobody in that front court did anything worth a damn. they stink. And I think it's a real shame the fact that they were in a position last year. They make a West Finals. Jalen Brunson is crushing. They lose him for nothing. You know, at this point, I think if you pulled, you know, 100 NBA executives over half would say they'd rather have Brunson over Kyrie. You know, if you're factoring in everything in terms of availability, you know, Kyrie misses a third of his, you know, games a year. If you factor in, you know, personality locker room, you know, stuff, that makes it even more definitive in favor of Brunson. If you're talking purely basketball, I think there's arguments to be made for Brunson. You might want a guy who leans playmaking over scoring like Kyrie.

I could see the arguments being made there. But it's just a shame to see the team built around Luca. You know, sometimes he gets blamed for being a subpar defender. You know, you pull him out of the equation, the defense still stinks. you pull Kyrie out of the equation, the defense still stinks. You pull Christian Wood out of the equation, the defense still stinks. You know, I don't think there's any solving the 2022-23 Dallas Mavericks roster. I think this team is just destined to flame out.

At some point in April, whether it's before the play-in, they end up the 11 seed. During the play-in, they lose one or two or during the first round of the playoffs. I don't think they're getting to May again. It definitely seems like a longer-term project, right? the gaps in the roster, what they need seems more apparent than basically ever before. And I think you can take that from a certain view as a bit of a virtue, right? Like in the Luca era, there is incredible clarity right now about what the MAVs need and the direction they need to go in. They have their second star so long as Kyrie, you know,

continues to do his job as he's done and show up and be a part of this organization. They have their second star. But I thought Josh Bo wrote pretty well about this at MAV's Moneyball, about just the idea that you have this roadmap now, right? You have your two stars. You don't have the role player supporting cast that you need. Really what you need is some kind of defensive anchor or some kind of defensive backbone that can get you to a greater place of balance.

That presents some interesting propositions in terms of now you know the kinds of players you need to chase after. Who, you know? This is where it gets interesting. And this is, I'd be curious to get your take on this because we were talking about on group chat last week, the idea of Rudy Gobert

in a world where can you be a one-man defensive anchor anymore? Have offenses reached a point in the NBA where one guy cannot prop you up into the top five

defensively anymore? They're going to put him in the corner. They're going to stretch you out. They're going to space you out. And you can even look at the defensive player of the year races over these last two seasons. Look at last year,

Marcus Smart is the winner, but you could argue bam, you could argue Janus, You could argue Gobert then. His own teammate, Robert Williams. You could argue his own teammate, Robert Williams. Almost all those guys have other all-NBA defenders on their team, right? They all have co-anchors to their defense.

Do you think the Mavs, like, is there even a one guy they can bring in to make them defensively solve it? No. No, I don't. And it's a really smart topic there because I think that speaks to the how far Dallas really needs to go. especially if they, let's say they re-sign Kyrie this offseason, and you have Luca and Kyrie as your core star players moving forward. It's very pricey, and it's not a lot of lockdown defense. And I think part of that is also on Luca.

Like, let's be real. This guy doesn't invest in his body the same way LeBron does. Luca is absolutely sensational. He is one of the best players in the world. He has been one of the best players in the world since he was a teenager at each age, right? he is on a Hall of Fame trajectory. He'll probably win a championship at some point in his life. Maybe it's not going to be with Dallas, though.

But it's 6'9. I'd like it if he were a bit more impactful on defense. And part of that would come from better conditioning, a better investment in his body. And I'm just not getting that right now. And it's also wonderful to expect him to handle that responsibility on defense, considering the fact he leads the league and uses. on offense and he is the league's most efficient

you know those devastating shock creator. So I from the perimeter so I think like it's so many issues factoring into one team right now that I don't know what the solutions are there. I look at Dallas and I feel like in some ways they could

be the first stint cavaliers with LeBron again. They were too good too soon. They tried to accelerate things getting Chris Stavs Porzingis didn't work. They're trying to accelerate things again getting Kyrie Irving, it's not going to work. It might result in Luca leaving at some point over the next five years before his contract is up or after his contract is up.

I just don't know what the solutions are when they've already exhausted so many of their assets and don't have a lot of ammo left. Yeah, I mean, the only reason they got Kyrie to begin with is because he had compromised his value around the league. Yes. And in terms of the young players on their roster, I mean, it really is just kind of green and hardy as far as guys you would project forward. and say like, okay, how do we close the gap between, you know, Jaden Hardy and Tyrese maxi? Like, can we get him closer to the Tyrese maxi level over the next three years? Is that plausible?

Okay. Even then, Rob, you got Kyrie and Jane Hardy in your back court to six, three guards. I don't know. It's flawed. Maybe the ultimate destiny is that Hardy is so good that he becomes the centerpiece of a trade package. Because you could see at least with Green how he would fit with Kyrie and Luca. certainly has well already in terms of just being like a dose of energy, a dose of playmaking, a dose of defense, maybe too aggressive defense at times. He is certainly foul prone,

but at least you can see how he could fit there. With Hardy, it really is the kind of thing where factoring in how he would ultimately play alongside Kyrie, alongside Lukah as a meaningful part of a contending team, takes some stretching of the imagination. At the moment, there are three games separating the five and the 12 seed in the Western Conference between the Warriors at five, the Clippers at six, tied to the same record, and then the Jazz at the 12th spot, they did lose on Monday night in their game. They lost to the Miami Heat. We'll talk about the Heat more on Friday show with Chris Vernon, since he loves them so very much. Tonight, though, in the Western Conference, though, just a couple of last things, Rob, before we go today. Got some Lakers news on Monday.

Darwin Ham said, quote, everything is going according to plan. In regards to LeBron James, because he shed the protective boot on his right foot. Granted, the Lakers lost their last game, a disappointing loss for them. They're still trending upward. If you're a Lakers fan right now,

I think you're going to be feeling pretty good after some of their recent wins, despite losing to the Knicks on Sunday. They have the Pelicans coming up on Tuesday night, the Rockets on Wednesday night. Could be two wins for them before they face Dallas, Orlando, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and Chicago, five-game homestand. Good news for the Lakers on Monday. First I thought you were saying, Darvindham was saying their whole season is going, according to plan, being ninth place in the Western Conference.

That would be a little tough. But you're right. Like, I think there's a lot of reason for optimism just in the spirit of their play, right? And, I mean, AD has been sensational. Russell, look, I think we all know well enough to know that DeAngel Russell is not going to shoot 50 plus percent for his entire, you know, this Lakers stint. That's not going to happen. That's not who he is.

But he's played some of the best games of his career during this stretch of games. And that means something at a point of the season where the Lakers cannot afford to lose. They cannot afford to be dropping, you know, series of games or streaks of games. They have to be competitive. They have to be there. They need the playmaking. They need the shot making. And the fact that he is on an absolute heater,

the way that DeAngel Russell will sometimes go on these, it couldn't be better timed. I don't know that it's ultimately like a fair at bellwether of how good he's going to be as a Laker with LeBron or without, but man, they've really needed him to be exactly this good, and he is delivered when he's been able to play.

The Lakers, Pelicans, and Thunder are all tied for the nine seed right now, nine through 11, jazz at 12, as I just mentioned. Blazers slipped a little bit behind Utah, about one and a half games back. A half game up on the Lakers Pelicans and Thunder is the Mavericks. A game and a half up on them is the Minnesota Timberwolves. They're currently slotted in at the seven seed.

They're a game back from the Warriors and Clippers for a guaranteed playoff spot. A little bit of news from them on Monday. Carl Anthony Towns was seen at his shoot-around in Atlanta wearing a practice uniform, shooting some baskets when the practice opened up to media. He's been out since November 28th with a calf strain. That's some positive news for Minnesota that he's at least outback shooting. Don't know if he'll return. We've received no news there, but that's at least positive.

I mentioned he's been out since November 28th. About a month before that, you wrote a story for the ringer called The Bigger They Are, the harder they fit, a big feature story that you reported all throughout the preseason on Minnesota. What are you thinking about right now, Rob, in context of the story you wrote about the tough fit between Kat and Gobert? and where this team is today with how they've developed without Kat and what it might look like

if he is able to return for the remainder of the season at some point, maybe in early April. Yeah, I mean, fitting guys like Gobert and Towns together on the floor, as I wrote, is a high degree of difficulty maneuver for any team. Trying to do it as they did

with towns missing almost the entirety of the preseason and then rolling into regular season. in action. That's even higher degree of difficulty. And now trying to fit him in midstream, if that's indeed what ends up happening, that's on another level. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that what Minnesota has done to stabilize

its season for the most part has come from Anthony Edwards as a playmaker, has come from their defense finding a bit of footing. McDaniels, outstanding. Absolutely. Worthy of all defense consideration, for sure. How those things

fit with towns coming back and taking up, like it or not, in whatever form he is, a lot of oxygen in the room, that's going to have my attention, to say the least. And so will, you know, on the other side of the DeAngelo Russell coin, the idea that now the point guard there is Mike Conley, who Conley cannot do all the things Russell does, but is a much better organizer, and is a much better passer to Rudy Gobert specifically,

and the emergence of Kyle Anderson, too, another guy who can really set up Gobert pretty well. early in the season, it was really just towns who was setting up Gobert. And so like that, it made him into kind of more of a playmaker first on some of those possessions, playmaker first on some of those pick and rolls,

where he was trying to still find how he's supposed to fit in all this with another center. Maybe there's enough avenues there where there's enough supplementary playmaking going on that it can all fit a little bit more cleanly. But it's just a huge boulder to roll into the water at this point in time. And there's going to be ripples that come from that.

There's going to be a lot of unforeseen circumstances and implications of incorporating a player like towns back into the mix. I hope it works, but I think logic would say it's going to be a rocky transition one way or the other. For sure. I mean, it's tough at this point. It feels like a team they win tonight, 136, 115 on the road against the Hawks. Feels like a team that's starting to figure some things out with their, you know, new look. It's not like they've been dominating over the past month ever since the deadline. That is not the case. but it feels like a team that has a bit of character, you know, a bit of a personality to it. So I think with Carl Anthony Towns,

it's going to be on him to fit in if that even happens. It may not. I hope he returns. I think from Minnesota as well, there would be great benefits to seeing Cat, so you have a better idea of what you want to do this offseason, whether it's trading Carl Anthony Towns, whether it's moving forward and building with that duo

with Gobert and Kat, if it's a team like Dallas that says screw it, we got to flip everything we can for Gobert and maybe you move forward and you take your losses from trading everything you did for Rudy Gobert but then turning it into something else. I just think if you're able to see it more than you did earlier in the year,

that would be of great benefit to Minnesota rather than going in kind of blind and only having what you saw the first month of the season to go off of. Yeah, it's a shame that they're in that category now, right? They're kind of similar to the Mavs or similar to the Lakers. As far as teams, it's like, let's take stock, let's play with a little bit of house money this season and see how far we can get. But really, we're talking about next season and beyond.

Really, we're talking about can this be our core over that kind of term? It would have been great to see Goberon Towns really get an honest shot at this thing. And honestly, for guys like Russell to get an honest shot to continue to be a part of it. It just didn't work out that way. So we'll take whatever games we can get this year. The Timberwolf certainly will of what. whatever games they can get of towns. Like they,

all the fit questions be damned. They can certainly use his punch offensively. They can certainly use his creation. Last thing, James Wiseman and a Pistons win. I did not see any of this game. Zero. Just pulled up the box score. 18 points, 14 rebounds for Jimmy Wiseman,

and a win for the Pistons. His first win with the Detroit Pistons over the Indiana Pace. Just had to point that out. James Wiseman. Give him some love. Good for him. I'm happy for him. Do you think we're going to talk about the baby warriors like we do,

the baby Lakers, you know, like the D-Los and the Kuzmas? Like, oh, you know, Moody's really hitting three or four years down the line. Wiseman's living his best life. These guys are all on another plane. What a pity they could not have all stayed together. Jonathan Baldwin, first in the NBA. I mean, you never know. One of my favorite things I wrote during the, like, I think the lockdown stage in 2020,

was like the ex-lakers all-stars. It's quite a list. Yeah, it was like 15 guys deep. Maybe someday we will have that. The baby warriors, the ex-warriers, the ex-warriers, all-stars. You never know. You never know. But you never know.

Rob, thank you so much for coming on late tonight on Monday, dude. Appreciate you, man. Hey, appreciate you, Kevin. Thanks so much. What do you have going on this week besides group chat? You're recording TV pods this week? What's going on in the world of Rob Mahoney on the ringer? You know, we got a group.

Group chat for sure. We're going to be Wednesday night this week coming after some late games, so look out for that. Otherwise, I'm getting my feet wet after a little vacation late this last week. I went off for a couple days, watched some pro tennis at Indian Wells. I'm ready to Steve myself in basketball. Indian Wells. You got to come out, Kevin. Palm Springs this time of you're beautiful. The tennis was immaculate. Who won? Did anybody win or is this just like one step? I know nothing about tennis. Oh, this is ongoing. This is like a two-week tournament. I was there for but a blip of it. But, you know, cross paths got to watch some of the best of the best do their thing.

You know, if you want to talk like backhand splits on San Warrenko, let's do it. Who's the best guy, the best tennis player in the world that they're not allowing to play? Like, what's his game? Novak Djokovic. Yeah, that guy, yeah. Well, there's a reason they're not allowing him to play. That's a whole other podcast, I think. All right.

Well, he's supposed to be back for, like, the Miami one, right? I remember reading something like that? Different rules in Florida. as we all know. Really? Wait a minute. So you can travel to Florida, but you can't, to California,

whatever. I don't get it. But I hope you had a great time at Indian Wells. Was it hot? What's it like at a tennis tournament? Oh, it's definitely hot,

but, you know, you get a little cool breeze through the air. You get, you know, you're there and, you know, catching that,

basically a nice summer night is the vibe. You know, when you get late in the day, you're getting into some of the best matches on the slate. Really a great time.

I feel like I'd like to play tennis. I played once many years ago. Let's get you into it. Yeah, I think I'd play. Sometimes when you're in L.A., let's find some courts and, you know, we'll play some tennis. I feel like a great physical, good cardio. It is good cardio. You a golf guy?

Absolutely not. I'm not either. I also know nothing about golf. Give us 30 years. You know, I think we all become golf guys over a long enough timeline, but for now, you know, we still have our legs. We still have some semblance of our youth. We can be tennis guys. Yeah, I want to be a tennis.

guy. That's a goal. Let's let me be a tennis guy with you. Next year, I'll know all the players. I'll know about Novak, you know, and all of them. Annie Murray, I don't know, whoever they are. We'll name some guys. I don't even know if he's playing anymore. Oh, he's around. Okay. All right, cool. Appreciate you, Rob. Tennis talk, NBA talk. This was very fun. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you so much for Rob Mahoney for joining the mismatch tonight. Thank you to Jesse Lopez for producing it, as always. And thank you for listening. Hope you have a great rest of your week. We'll be back on Friday. I'm looking forward to it.

Have a good week.