The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Celtics Collapse to Knicks, Steph Curry's Superpower, Nikola Jokic vs. Larry Bird | 5.9

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

On today’s episode, Vinnie Goodwill of Yahoo Sports joins Bomani Jones to recap some of the NBA Semifinals games. They start off the show shocked with the New York Knicks completing their second comeback in a row vs the Boston Celtics (0:46) which makes Bo and Vinnie question if Jayson Tatum is that guy (7:19)? Sticking with the Knicks vs Celtics series, they wonder if Joe Mazzulla is limiting Tatum's game (12:57) and why is there no alternative to shooting only 3 pointers (15:53)? Switching to the Indiana Pacers vs Cleveland Cavaliers series, Bo says why the Pacers had to have that game with the Cavs dealing with injuries (37:31) and that Tyrese Haliburton does not miss clutch shots (40:20). They round out the show by asking if the Oklahoma City Thunder are truly 40+ points better than the Denver Nuggets (46:01) and reminiscing on the legendary career of Larry Bird (48:33). . . . Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media: http://lnk.to/therighttime Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Support the Show: Discover faster, more reliable search with Perplexity today. Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at perplexity.com! https://pplx.ai/bomani-jones When any player scores 50 or more points in a game, DashPass members save 50% on an order, up to $10 off. Use promo code NBA50 to redeem. See further terms and conditions at https://drd.sh/8ONpZP/ Download the DraftKings Pick Six app NOW and use code BOMANI. Better payouts. Bigger wins. Only with Pick6 from DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A Wave Original presented by Perplexity. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You'll give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater.

It is Fridays of Vinny Goodwill. Vinny Goodwill y'all. Yahu sports was going on, man? Man, what's going on, man? You pretty soon are going to be in what by Saturday? will be the happiest place on earth. And you know where that place is? New York City.

How do boys do that? How do boys do that? I have no idea. I have no idea. All remember was being out to dinner and I broke up my TV, you know, broke out the app. I was like, yeah, let's go see the last few minutes of the game. And this has happened to me twice where the calves and the Pacers, once the Pacers went down, like seven with a minute left. I'm like, oh, okay, it's cool to go back to my seat.

And I just turn the game off, then bring my computer. By the time I get to my seat, somebody says, oh, you don't know what just happened. Like, what the hell are you talking about? He rewinds it. Tyrese Halliburton. By the time I walked from one restaurant to the next, that game got closer and closer at every bar we walked past that was like outdoors and you could sort of see it. Like, man, it's an eight-point game. Oh, it's a four-point game. Man, let's where I can get to this restaurant seat was cracking. And by the time we get there, dog, ball game. Brother, I sent a tweet during game one of Celtics Nix.

And I can't remember what exactly I said. But, you know, I was like, yo, let me hold. Let me make sure I get the time to write on this. The Celtics and Nix game was before the Pacers game. Okay. Because the night of that, during that Celtics game, I said something basically saying, oh, yeah, here's what I said. I said it's running clock time in Boston. Boston was up like 20. And that's what I say.

Like, hey, man, keep the clock running on out of bounds play so we can all go home. You know what I'm saying? And then the Knicks made that comeback, right? The Celtics just couldn't make a three-pointer, but they couldn't stop taking them. You know what that's how they do. Okay, cool. Then the next night, I said while the Pacers were getting their ass kicked, I was like, I know a classic. All we wanted was a split anyway performance. And then they went and walked Cleveland down and got that win. Put a pen in that one because I got some questions about the Pacers. So, but when, when the Celtics went up by 20, I did not say that in game two. I didn't say a single word about it, but I did say to myself, self, if you would like to watch

more of Nuggets and, uh, Thunder, you might want to take a little catnap right fast, come back and see what happens. I came back in the Knicks at one. Oh, you didn't see it. You didn't even see it. Brother, I came back and it just ended. Oh, no. I mean, the Celtics couldn't possibly do it twice, right?

No, well, here's the crazy thing. If you take away the title, like the title is the thing that sort of washes away every disappointment. But if you take the title away and I told you the Celtics have blown two games at home, would you be shocked? No, no, but what I find fascinating about that is, and I feel like we've seen this with just about every team that's ever won a title. If you keep the same people, it comes with a certain resolve, right? Like a certain bolstered confidence.

And I think I've talked about on the show before when I really realize it, because I always say this, like, what, you want a championship, you became a whole different person or something like that, right? Like I dismissed that idea. But it was in the bubble

when that Raptors team that didn't have Kauai Leder, I forget who they were down to and they did one of those, we ain't going home just yet. You, like, sort of performances at the end. And I was like, damn, If that team that we had for all those years said was mentally soft and everything else, if they could come up and be like, yo, we some champions, then okay, this means something.

The Celtics look like they are still capable of all the absent-mindedness that we had seen over the years. Even think about that year they went to the finals when E-May was the coach and Jimmy and Miami walk them down because they gave game after game away during that postseason to the point where I was like, are we sure this E-Made dude is everything you say? because somehow he doesn't get to blame that these boys kept collapsing all the way through that postseason. To do this twice in a row blew my mind. I think to some degree, the Knicks thought the game was over.

Like the undertow thing was that Brunson and Carl were pulled at some point in the second half. And you know, Tibbs ain't giving up on no game. And he was like- No, he's not. He's not. He's not. of it. No, he's not. And then

McHale Bridges hit like two, three, four shots in a row. And not to say that he's like the fifth starter. But he's the fifth starter on that next team. They just happened to give five first round picks up for him. And he wound up like going on a heater.

And then Tibbs came right back with Brunson, right back with Carl, and you could just see the Celtics get tight. And I think what has happened is, I wonder if there's some correlation here. There's increased physical. There's always increased physicality in the playoffs. It just seems like they're playing a different sport now.

So when you look at these teams that are so three point reliant, there's so much variance now. They don't have the legs to do with latent games. Remember, Minnesota was on a, you know, a 12 for 62, excuse me, 12 for 72. Over two games, that's what the Celtics look like. You can't shoot all those threes when your legs are being a. attacked when you are fatigued and you were being hit. They don't and they don't have like a change up.

They didn't need a change up last year. They need a change up this year and I don't know what that change up is because they just feel like they've been trained to play different basketball. I want to throw those other guy out there and I think it's interesting when you start talking about physicality and fatigue. Okay.

Every year we say the same thing about tips and playing those guys so many minutes and we see it as him running them into the ground. Now, I forget who it was. It may have been Tom Habistrow. I'm not sure, but somebody very recently did some work with the data on whether there's anything to this that Tibbs is like shortening guys' careers are causing injuries. And as I recall, the data did not indicate that, right? But they don't look like the team that's getting fatigued.

The Knicks do not, that is. I think part of this, I think it's fair to say. Once they start to put, like, they put a needle in Jalen Brown's knee, man. Like once they start doing that, they don't do that because the other stuff is going well. That's not. the first thing they try on your knee is we're going to start putting needles in it. Porzing has got some form of the cooties that none of us, it's not of our business, I suppose, except for the fact that we watching it, right? These dudes are maybe what you describe is real. The fatigue part is there.

It's just not the team that we would necessarily think is fatigue. I think there's another part. I'm curious your thoughts about this one. What if Jason Tatum is not that guy? what if he is a very good player? What if he is an excellent player? What if he is a player who will ultimately end up in the Hall of Fame? What if he is a player that will win double-digit all-stars?

They make double-digit all-star teams, right? But isn't Italics that guy? They give you a trophy for conference, finals MVP, and NBA Finals MVP. Now, they got one for both. Jason Tatum did not win. either one of those. Tatum, look, all kinds of things could happen to all kinds of people, right? But the way that it looked on that last play with Tatum at the end, where he takes the ball, they gave a one look at that before that, and he blew through that and went straight to the rack.

It happened the second time, and he wound up on tilt. Like, I feel like you wind up at the baseline where he wound up, turned around, surrounded by three people, and unable to get a pass off. That's an on-tilt series that happened for him. What if he is not that guy? Because when a 20-point lead is breaking down, that guy goes and gets an easy bucket. Yep, yep. Jason Tatum is one thing we know about Jason Tatum.

He ain't really so much about them easy buckets. Oh, have we ever believed Jason Tatum to really be that guy? Or did he accomplish himself into us having to have the conversation as opposed to showing us the type of game that from an aesthetic standpoint, you can't deny anymore. Like there's a reason why a lot of us are in a quote unquote rush to say, Anthony Edwards is the guy, even though he doesn't have sort of the accolades and the trophies that Jason Tatum does. There's never really been a reluctance that I can remember upon crowning a guy the way that we have this reluctance to crown Jason Tatum in the way that he's done all the things.

He has the pedigree. He's on the Olympic team. And that was the thing. When Steve Kerr and everybody bagged on Steve Kurt, and I was not one of the people who did, Bo. Everybody bagged on Steve Kirk. How could you not play Jason Tatum? Because he was like, I'm trying to win a game.

Y'all looking at it like we're trying to make an Olympics commercial, and I'm trying to win the game. So when it comes down to it, he has not made easy plays for himself. and the greatest of the great coaching minds don't actually believe it either. That says something on a number of levels to me. Now put a pin in the Olympics point because when we get back to the Indiana series, I think there's something interesting about that too.

But I do remember I was not one of those people that came down on Curry. If or no other reason, then you can only play five dudes on the floor at one time. What was wild, though, was that Derek White was getting minutes. Derek White wouldn't even really own the team. In fact, he wasn't on the team at all until the end, and he was getting those minutes over Jason Tatum. Tatum has, all right, I think that we are, our society is very much so what I would call a technocratic, right?

And part of our society being technocratic is very often, even in things where this should not be the case, like talking about rap, for example, people need data in order to make their arguments. not something that in some form of fashion can be qualified. They're not doing it. That's why people start arguing about who the best rapper is and they're talking about stuff like concert ticket sales. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, what are we doing? But that's, but I see that all over the place in things that used to seem like fun. It's the discussion of Ryan Cougler's centers about

whether or not it made back its money. Like, how to regular people care about that, right? Right, right. Like, have your take, have your feel about it. But with Tatum, he's checked off so many boxes at this point, right? He's got all these all-star teams. He's three-time first team NBA. Interestingly, though, never higher than fourth in the MVP voting, which I think speaks kind of to what it is that we're talking about, although only four people can be in the top four.

You know what I mean? But the case, I think, for Tatum is a case that is made more than it is seen. And the eye test doesn't tell you everything, but I do think you know who that guy is when you see it. There's a host of statistics that'll tell you that Luca Dac's hitting that guy except you know it when you see it. You knew it when you saw it with Alan Iverson, right? There's something to be said for the fact that with this one,

we don't really so much see it. And this is even after he's turned himself into a pretty good defensive player. Yeah. Right? He scores bunches of buckets. He gets lots of boards. He's getting you six assists the game, right? So it's not even that he has a game that is only to himself,

but it still doesn't feel like he's that dude. And I'm not saying it's fair. I'm just telling you what happened. It's just a feeling. That's all it is. It's legit, just the feeling. And he could very well, you think about it. You said he, you know, he's going to wind up.

He's probably going to wind up finishing fourth in MVP ballot this year. And the three guys ahead of him will be foreign players, which in theory makes him, the best American player year after year, but nobody actually believes it. And I think to some degree, this is where I would give Jason Tatum a little bit of grace. Is he being undermined by his own coaching?

Is he being undermined? Is he being undermined? Is the development of his game that should be really rounding out? Which I firmly believe, Bo. This is supposed to be the playoff where Jason Tatum takes the NBA by the scruff of its neck and says, this league is mine now. Like he literally, not just I'm a champion, but I'm taking this away from you from the moment you walk into my building

and the moment I walk into yours, there's no fear factor there. And I wonder if the way that Joe Missoula coaches the Boston Celtics lends a very limiting sort of space to where Jason Tatum's game can go. It can be a quote unquote efficient space in terms of, man, you got to take a lot more threes and you can defend at all three levels. But I wonder, like you said, when it's time to get a bucket, can Jason Tatum say, oh, I got this switch on Jalen Brunson? I'm putting your little ass on the block and I'm scoring the next two or three times down just to give us some confidence. It's never that way with the Celtics.

And I wonder how much of it is Jason Tatum's game and how much of it is the Celtics and Joe Missoula and his style limiting Jason Tatum's game. So I'm curious, let's take that to another place. Like, where are you on Missoula? Because the Missoula thing is interesting, because look, he's going to do what it is that he does and they shoot zillions and zillions of threes. I like that he did not call that timeout at the end of game too, right? You got it, go get it.

Like, you should be able to trust your players under those circumstances. But I do agree. His game is not a let's go get an easy bucket kind of game, except the problem for me is, Jason Taylor was playing like this before Joe Missoula was the coach. Agreed. I think both for me and that spot, if you're going to run the exact same play that you just ran the play before, then you must think Tom Thibito's a fool, right?

If you're going to run the exact same play, oh, we got Jason Taylor in the open floor, we're going to get the switch, we're going to have the floor spread, he's going to go and get a dunk. If you think the New York Knicks and Tom Thibito are going to allow you to do that, then you're an idiot. Period. I'm not saying he's an idiot. I'm saying don't take Tom Thibito. though to be a fool on that.

So with that, you better call a timeout. Because Jason Tatum is not the creative basketball player that you can just hit pause and be like, okay, where does he go from here? Even with the Kobe Bryant's, the Dwayne Ways, the mics, whomever, you can hit paws even if they were in trouble. And you can say, they're going to make a good attempt out of this. When Jason Tatum had his back turn and had no idea where the hell he was, you knew it was bad news. You know it was bad news and he was 20 people from the basket. You don't, there isn't

this great feeling. And you asked about my feelings on Missoula. I think leaning into the three-point revolution is one thing. The fact that he looks at it and says, man, we're not hitting these threes tonight. We have some of the worst fourth quarter offense in the entire NBA through two games at home and you don't have a change up, that doesn't, that doesn't says to me, say to me, Bo, you know what we're going to do what we do, we're just going to do it better. That speaks of an arrogance to me that I don't know if the Celtics have necessarily earned. I will make this point also about Tatum because I think everything you say about the value of the timeout and all of that is fair, though I would contend that whatever the play was,

it has something for you to do in case something changes, right? Right. Also with Jason Tatum and everything that happened, Jason Tatum, knew they had a timeout. I think Jason Tatum has the liberty to call a timeout under those circumstances if he wants to, except when full on set lemon booty is in the house, it becomes difficult for you to make some of those decisions. Like the guys we say are that guy probably figure something out to do under those

circumstances. Now look, it's on Missoula. I agree to know whether this is your team, whether you've got it or not. But it has been wild to just watch them up all those points. You know what they look like? two games in a row. They looked like the Falcons in that Super Bowl when they had that 28 to 3 lead.

Like, hey, don't you guys want to run a little clock? But you guys want to go to, go to slow, like, they needed to go get an easy bucket. See, part of the thing with Porzingis, not being out 100% is he's the easy bucket button. Unless, like, do you, I don't think that Mitchell Robinson necessarily wants

with a healthy Porzengis in the post. And goodness knows, Not Carl. No. Well, here's the crazy thing. We think of Clutch as like this very, you know, like the stats are five minutes and five minutes left and five points, you know, either way, right? To me, Clutch is scoring when you're up 20 and now you're up 10 and you got to hit a couple of shots just to give yourself space to breathe. Or you are down eight and you just need to hit a couple shots to keep yourself back and keep yourself into the game and keep your guys.

and keep your guys engaged, I don't know if the Celtics sort of have that mindset. It's just we're going to keep launching, we're going to keep launching. And secondarily, this is also what I feel about Joe. And I feel like the basketball guys, if there are such a thing, the basketball guys getting his ass, this hacker stuff. This hacker shit has to stop. When you're up 20 and you're doing it,

and then tips does not take Mitchell Robinson out the game because he's like, oh, all that's going to do is help us get in to the bonus and then we're going to take him out, you're being out-coached. Like you are coaching this like it's in a math equation. You are coaching this, and this happened to Mark Dagnall in game one against Denver in Oklahoma City, you are coaching as if you don't trust your players to think for themselves. You are playing this as if you have to control every single element of the game from a analytical perspective, which is fine, but it also takes agency away from your players.

and therefore it inhibits your player's ability to think for themselves, and that's why stuff has gotten the way that it's gotten. The Celtics don't look like a team that can figure stuff out on the fly by themselves because I don't think Missoula gives them that. Well, I think the Missoula counterpoint was, and it's an interesting one, they're plus 19 with Mitchell Robinson in the game, right? So on his end, if he's doing something to get Mitchell Robinson out of the game, maybe there's something to that.

I don't, and it quietly, the only guys that were plus in the plus minus, the only guys that were plus were Mitchell Robinson and Miles McBride. Oh, the dudes off the bench will never play. According to us. Well, campaign was a plus four. But McBride was nine minutes and Mitchell Robinson was night. I mean, no, McBride was 17 and Mitchell Robinson was 22. So it wasn't like they were just out there for a couple of minutes.

So like that's the Missoula point, but I agree with you. Like I think I am rarely convinced that. that the benefits of the hack a blank strategy actually cash in. And like I think slowing the game down, affecting the rhythm, all of those things. I'm rarely sure this is possible. Even by the way, if you get, if the other team gets one point per possession in the playoffs,

quite often you will take one point per possession. Absolutely. Absolutely. And right at the start, as you said something, and we never touched on it because it's the tips point. We talked about tips playing those guys all those minutes. one reason I have railed against load management is in theory, the regular season is supposed to be harder than the playoffs.

If you haven't done the hard of the regular season, then the playoffs feel like an entirely different monster. It's almost like if you blow teams out during the regular season and you're never tested that you don't know how to handle close games in the playoffs. The same thing applies for the minutes. And everybody's saying, well, if you're playing three games or four nights, you're not going to do that in the playoffs. so you shouldn't, you know, have that simulation of the regular season. Yes, you should. It's not going to feel exactly the same either way. And if you're playing your guys 32 minutes, right at the 32 minute mark,

because you get diminished in returns at 36, 37, 38, what happens when you actually have to play the guys 40 minutes? Their bodies aren't used to it. If it's one thing you can say about the Knicks, them dudes are used to running on this treadmill. They, and here's the thing. They've been great on the road. They've been great in the fourth quarter.

they've been really good in the clutch situations this entire players. They have not lost the game on the road this entire playoffs. Some of that is not just, oh, Jalen Brunton get the ball and get out the way. A lot of that has to give credit to Tom Thibbittal because if they were fading, we'd be on their ass. I may also say this. There's something like kind of adorable in some ways and talking about the Nova Nix, right? And all these guys went to college together.

hey, they didn't just go to college together. They won a lot of games in college together. And it is interesting to look back because I see it sent around a lot like Stephen A saying to Villanova during that time didn't have like a legitimate NBA prospect and people slamming him for that. Come on. None of us thought that they did. And it turned out that that first championship team had four at least because I'm just

counting the four that played for the next last year. Four legitimate NBA players who were all. own that team, right? Winning a college championship is not the same as the NBA playoffs. The stakes are not the same, but the stakes are high, right? These dudes have been in big games before. McHale Bridges has been to the NBA finals before, and they look ready. When it came down to it and it had to be done, they had that in them.

And there's something to be said for that. Bo, there's something to be said even this. And I want to see what you said on this, because I asked Stefan Curry after game seven in Houston. Is concentration a skill? And he said, yeah. I firmly believe that that sweat equity that you're talking about, that you've done it in college before and you've done it with these dudes, you know that guy next to you can concentrate for 48 minutes or can concentrate on whatever the game plan is, the players, whatever it is. They very rarely make game plan mistakes. They may make physical mistakes, but they don't make game plan errors like, oh, they

messed up a switch or something. They don't do that sort of thing. So they have an ability to concentrate for longer stretches of time right now than the Boston Celtics do. And usually to me, when the margins are thin, when the talent is relatively equal, it does come down to shopmaking and all this this other type of stuff. But Boa really does come down to can you focus for long stretches of time. And it doesn't mean when you're young, you can't focus. And if you're old, you can because a lot of times that's reversed. A lot of times when you're fatigued, you can't focus. But they have an ability to focus in, especially when stuff gets thick. And I got to give them credit, because I didn't think they was, I didn't think they was cut like this. Hey man, I said many times

in the last five years. It was not more like the last four. I watched a rerun in the last dance. I was just flipping channels and it came up. And it's maybe the most profound thing in that film. And I can't remember who was saying it, but it's a voiceover. And I want to say that it's a clip with Jordan putting up the shot over Brian Russell. Right. And he said that the greatest gift, the reason of Michael Jordan is the number one dude. The reason that there's nobody better than him is his ability to no matter what in the biggest moments always be 100% present. He was always right there. The moment never was too big for Michael Jordan. all that other stuff, because focus isn't even so much about thinking about the one thing.

It's about not thinking about the bullshit, right? And he could lock in on what this task at hand is in a fashion superior to anybody else. Like when people talk about the Mike Kobe thing, we watch Kobe put a stamp on a game seven and completely mail it in, right? It was 2007 against Phoenix, I want to say it was a year. 2006. He put a step that would never happen with Michael Jordan. Whatever else was going on that made Kobe do that would never happen to Mike, right? This is not to re-litigate that argument, but that's the bottom line. I say all that to say. Focus is a talent and focus is a resource.

And not everybody, think about all the drugs, you and your children are on, not you, you, but you know, the big you, you and your children are on in the name of focus. Like, it's not, it's not something everybody has. No. And you just said it. It's not all the other stuff. It's blocking out. It's not thinking about the consequences. It's not thinking about the

crowd. It's not thinking about in the Kobe sense, I don't have the right teammates around me, so I'm going to show you this. It is staying present in the moment, Zen, whatever that thing is, because that's really hard for normal human beings to

do when the stakes aren't very high. If I just told you to stare at an innate object, like there's a camera on top of my screen and I'm looking at, if you told someone to stare at that for 45 seconds and not move, you know how hard it would be for them for their eyes to not wander somewhere. Like you would have to try really, really hard. Now think about that in the context of a basketball game where focus is one thing and you have to apply it physically when you're tired with all this other stuff in front of you, all these other variables that you can't control, that's where I will give a team like the Knicks a lot of credit. That's where I will give a player like Steph

a lot of credit for being able to apply this stuff at a point in his career where he shouldn't give a shit anymore. All right. Now, coming up next, I'm going to make a Steph point and then talk about what's going on with Indiana and Cleveland because it's interesting over there. Tell you why. Coming up next. This show is brought to you by perplexity.a.i. Perplexity. A.I. is an AI powered answer engine that searches the internet in real time to give you fast, high-quality answers with sources.

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offer terms at pick six dot draftkings.com slash promos. All right. We're back on the right time. We've been a goodwill. You mentioned Steph right before we went to break. Eddie Gonzalez made an interesting point on Twitter. It was tied into something that you had said a bit earlier about the value of turning an eight point game into an 11 point game, right?

Like there's a certain clutch element to that that people often see as being a frontrunner. But Eddie made the point. He was like, yeah, I used to say all this. But then you watch that with Steph. You cut that to an eight point lead. the next thing you know is up to 19. And your spirit has been totally deflated in that moment. No, no, no.

There's something to that. There's a value in the ability to do that. And it's been a long time since Steph Curry was on a team that we would say was really talented. Right. Or truly in the combination of talent and application. Like James Wiseman's really talented, but that's not the point. Now is it, right? It has been a while since Steph has had a team around him that was as good as him.

he has stayed closer to his optimal level of play than Draymond Green or Clay Thompson did as the years went on, Kevin Durant left, all of those things. But yeah, dog. And by the way, I don't think Steph is as good as he was, but he can still get there. He can't stay there as long as he used to, but he can still get there. Good graces. It's like a singer. It's like watching, it's like watching Stevie Wonder. know Stevie Wonders' prime was where it was, right? In the 70s, we know that's where his prime was.

But man, on the night, that is right. Stevie can sound just as good, if not better, than he has ever sounded for a night. For a night, maybe two, but usually it's for a night. You think of stuff in the same way. At least I do from the standpoint of, hey, you got to concentrate for 48 minutes on this one singular task, and then you can move one to the next round, that's why I would not want to see him in a game seven, because not only does he have nothing to lose, but he has this ability to concentrate that actually,

I think, Bo, see, I'm going to see if you follow me on this. I think he's a better basketball player now than he was even in 2016. So, I don't think, I don't think he's athletically there. I don't think skill-wise he's there. But I think he's a better basketball player in terms of negotiating the game, in terms of manipulating the game, in terms of reading the game

in ways that keeps him afloat and enables him to get to those spots that you're talking about. Well, yeah, his understanding of the game is certainly, like, vastly superior than it was. I think to stay with the music analogy, tell me what you think about it this way.

All right. If you tell me a new Stevie album is coming out, I don't care. You tell me, Steve, he's got a show. I'm there. Yes. You know what I mean? Like the regular season is putting out an album, right?

We got to go to the studio. We got to work on this. We got other people coming in. People will be on vacation. We got to wait a while before we get this done, everything else. But that tour, that tour is the playoffs. And that tour, them boys still dialed it up on that tour. Now, don't they?

That's a great analogy. I like that. Yeah. I like that. I like that. That's the real ones do it live, right? And so that's the question that you wind up with about like the Celtics, for example, even with that championship.

Deep down, are y'all just a studio gangsters? You know what I'm saying? Not gangsters, but you know what I mean? Like deep down, are y'all a studio creation? That when we got all this going on and everything else, y'all can do it. But when it just come down to the bare essentials, like where are you? Because to me, and adding the physicality to the playoffs, which, look, I don't know who made the decision in the league office to let this go, but it was smart.

I think people like physical basketball is more interesting, but physical basketball emotionally resonates in a different way, right? Like people like that. And so I always say my greatest rapper of all time is was and will be KRS one. And my, my, if I'm making an argument, because I shouldn't have to argue, but still, if I'm making an argument, strip this all down. And I put every MC that's ever been on stage and all you got is you and you're lonesome. nobody's beating KRS 1.

Not a soul. You know, nothing to dress it up with. You ain't got your DJ out here. You ain't got your beats. Just a microphone. How about this? Not even a microphone. All you got is you.

And that voice box. Yeah. Nobody's beating that dude. When you start getting to the playoffs, man, we start whittling this down. This ain't about your nine-man rotation. It's really just about your seven-man rotation. All that manipulating of the referees are you.

to do. No, no, no, that ain't, that ain't really going to happen. These shots are harder to make than they were. What was a 15, well, was a 15 footer now feels like an 18 footer. What was an 18 footer now feels like a 21 foot. Right. And what was 21 now feels like three and a three point it might as well be from half court because the stakes have changed, right? It all comes down to you in your most basic and essential form. You as an individual, you as 18, right? You got to go through and you've got to play with these different matchups, circumstances will not be optimal like you're Boston right now. Some guys are going to be a little banged up.

They're going to be a little bit hurt, but you can't mail any of those games in. Now, Ken, right? That it's right there. It's pure. Like, I think that's the word that we're looking for is there is a purity to playoff basketball that cannot be manipulated by, like you said,

the refs, or you're playing three games and four nights, and the other team is rested. you know what I mean like that everybody is in equal conditions it's not fair like you said because some players are hurt some players are fresh or whatever but it's equal conditions everybody's battling the same thing and if your game isn't tight if your game requires you to take six dribbles when really two is needed we're going to see it and I think that's why some of these dudes rise and some of these like playoff risers and dudes who don't you know what I mean like legit there are guys who play better in the playoffs because

when you strip it all down, oh, I'm at the same level as y'all and you don't have all these advantages over me, bet, we're going. And I think that's why you're seeing some teams rise and some teams not. I will say this for Boston. Could Boston pull a 95 Houston rockets, especially with the variance of three-point shooting? Now, I realize they don't have the right-in-you-old.

You know what I mean? Can this shit turn quickly? They can pull a 94 or a 95. The 94 Rockets lost the two games at home and then wound up winning in seven. The 95 Rockets lost the two games on the road were down 3-1 and then wound up winning it. And sure they can because they are. That's still the Knicks. Like they were still not getting their asses kicked in both games.

You know what I mean? Like the Celtics lost an embarrassing fashion, but they did not get destroyed. They did not get demolished. Now, I want to switch gears because a team that was close to losing in what I would have deemed an embarrassing fashion, in part because the other team had a guy who I think we could fairly say as a playoff riser was Indiana in game two. And we will talk about Cleveland blowing that game. Donovan Mitchell had damn near 50 points. Like he was rolling. But Indiana, if they had lost that game with Darius Garland being out, Evan Mowgli being out, I feel like I'm

missing one more. Didn't have another dude that was hurt. And D'Andre Hunter being out. That to me, the fact that they were down in the way they did, it's cool that they want it. But it was because they played, that's why I sent the tweet. You guys were playing like you were cool with a split. And then they wound up getting it at the end. But, uh, hey, man, that shouldn't have been that hard. That being said, we could say that Steve Curran knew what to do when it came to Jason Tatum.

Apparently Tyrese Halliburton maybe should have got a few more minutes. Maybe just maybe. No, you know what's funny? Underreported thing, Tyrese Halliburton was battling a hamstring in the audience. Oh, okay, that explains. it. So he wasn't going to play a lot anyway, and then you're not going to, as we're going to see, you don't want to mess around with these hamstrings. Because if you pop a hamstring in the Olympics, can you imagine what the patients would be saying to the NBA? So I get that. Yeah, we ain't saying,

no, we ain't never doing this again. Not, never. Grant Hill, his ass would have been on the firing land. They could, they would barbecue Grant. All the people would have had all the bad things to say about Grant. Grant would have, everybody would have found out how Black Grant Hill was, because everybody would have been on his ass. Now, Tyrese Halliburton, that's a playoff riser. That,

that to me looks like if Steve Nash were born and bred in this basketball era, right? Because there's not that many, quote unquote, pure point guards left.

But he's a pure point guard that likes busing your ass and relishes this. Like he's got, he's got both, he's got some stuff to him that I wouldn't have imagined. especially in this day of the sophisticated scouting.

How did he get picked as low as he got picked in the first round of the COVID draft? Well, hold on. You and I talked about this on Wednesday on the phone. The last pure point guard, that size was what Jason Kidd? Yep, yep. Or at least anywhere near this class of being, right, was Jason Kidd and Jason Kidd was not here to get buckets, right? No.

This dude's here to get buckets also here to get you double digit assist and that 6'5. part is important. I'm not here for Cleveland and their little guards. They have a six foot five dude that can get other people shots and can get his own shot and who's here for the moment. Did you see the montage that people have put together? I want to say that he's 10,4, 11 on shots in Thai games or to take the lead in the last two minutes of games this year? Oh, he's ice cold. He's only missed one shot all year under those circumstances. And this is the guy. Remember, at the start of the they had such a slow start, we stopped paying attention to them. Like that's what happened.

We dip in at the start of the season and then we kind of dip out because it's an 82 game thing, it's a long thing. Like even people like us who love it, you kind of dip in and out of how much attention you pay to certain teams. When the Pacers started off slow, it's like, oh, okay, you know what? That last thing was a fluke. Who knows what this Halliburton thing is as far as long term him being a tier one, tier two type of superstar.

And then you look up, you're like, wait a minute, they hit the fifth best record since November. And he's been on what type of run all season long? And then he does all of this. Like you said, on small guards. I don't hate small guards because I grew up in a city that had two small guards when finals MVP back to back. But you had the outlier.

Yes, that's not. It ain't the rule. You had, Isaiah Thomas is the outlier, right? Of all outliers. Yes. That is what you had. And like even a guy like Steve Nash is interesting because Steve Nash is not really a small guard. Like Steve Nash is coming in about 6-3, right?

Yeah, he's 6-3, yep. Yeah, you know, so that's, that's a, that's a, Donovan Mitchell, the difference between 6-2 and 6-3 and the NBA to me is a giant difference. It's kind of like that difference between 6-7 to 6-8. Like, that matters. That, that means. No, 6-9 and 6-10. 6-10 is the line.

That's the line. 6-9 and 6-10 can greatly affect your money. Yes, it's like, oh, wait. You show up with, yeah, you show up how, like five boxes and socks. You know what I'm saying? By the way, while we're talking about Tyrese Halliburton, Ryan, if you can look it up, all perplexity and we get back to it. Something about Tyrese Halliburton and shots in the last two minutes of games this year.

We'll check back in on that one. I want to throw this out there about the Pacers. I think it's easy to lose sight of, okay? They got swept in the Easter Conference finals last year by the Celtics. Three of those games were five-point margins. And that was them, like, depleted in that series. Yeah, the Selju didn't have Porcings. But was it all of that series they didn't have Halliburton or just a lot of it?

A lot of it. It was a lot of it. Yeah, I think it was the last two games. But they brought that back to Indiana. And they were in, with the exception of the game two, they were in all of those games late. You got to think about it. Like, I think it was game one, was that the Jalen Brown three that they should have filed on and they didn't. And Pascal Seaccom put his hand in a cookie job.

and took it out. And we discount, not just the fact that they were there, I think we discount the ability to learn. We only think of Oklahoma City as the team that, okay, they went to the semifinals and they're on this, you know, run that they can continue to move on the upward trajectory because they got all these young pieces. We don't think of the Pacers because they never bottomed out. They never actually hit the tank button and then wound up rising from the ashes. They kind of built from the middle. They kind of wound up, hey, we can get Pascal Seacom on that Toronto fire sale, bet. We can trade subonis for Tyreys Halliburton because Sacramento has two point guards and they don't know which one they want to keep. I think we discounted the ability. Maybe it was luck, right? Because it's very difficult to build from

mediocrity as opposed to build from being bad or build from being good, so to speak. But they've built from that middle point and they have tough players and skilled players. We don't think of tough. And we think of tough and skilled as two totally opposite things. You can't be one and be the other, except you can be. Because Aaron Neesmith and Andrew Nimhard and Ben Matherin, them dudes are all tough and they're skilled. And Cleveland is finding that out. And if they, let's see, if two of those dudes don't get back from Cleveland, this series

is over quickly. I also want to point out that Pascal C. Icum is a three-time All-Star and a champion. Mm-hmm. I think it is easy to ignore that he's a dude who's been. been there. And by the way, when he was there before, bald. In fact, I don't know if he's ever actually been as good as he was in 2019. But when he was there, he was somebody that you had to consider somebody that you had to think of. So there's, there's a real chance that they wind up in the Eastern Conference finals. And depending on what physical condition Boston is in, if they're the

ones who wind up going there or the Knicks, Indiana, as a, it's not out of the question that they could go to the NBA finals. And Rick Carlisle, hard to get along with, but when he's cooking, he cooks. I mean, do we have coaches who are, we got players who are playoff risers? Do we have coaches who are playoff risers around this time?

Because it certainly looks like Rick Carlisle is that. And like you said, that people in Detroit used to call him prick Carlisle because how he used to kick it with people. But baby, and think about it. We never give coaches credit for getting better, right? We never

look at coaches and say, you know what, the way you were and the way you are are two different things. We make a decision on you very early. We decided JJ Redick is a genius. Darvin Hamm is a boom, a boob, whatever it is, right? And we never give you a chance to come out of that box. Rick Carlisle started off as a really good coach and has become a better coach, even as the game has evolved. And I give him a lot of credit for that. Now, right fast before we get out of here, the Nuggets pulled a big win in OKC to start that series

and then got beat over the head with a 40 bottle in game two. It was, it was it was atrocious. I don't think there's any other way. Like I say, a 40 bottle. They got beat by 43. What do you think is more like,

more like right? I mean, not the. one where you get beat by 40. I don't think Oklahoma City is 40 points better than a team with Nicola Yokic, a healthy Nicola Yokic on it. Like, I don't know what's going to happen when that series gets to Denver, but I think a lot of these series that we think are going to be over is going to be two to at the end of four games, which I'm not going to be too upset at. Because guess what? Nobody can card Yokic. I would say Chet, I will say this. Chet does a better job guarding Nicola

Yokish than I think we give him credit for. That lymph bothers him in a way that the physicality would not. And it's good because Chad ain't going to be physical with you anyway. He's just going to wait for you to bring the ball to him. Now, it's funny you say that because I'm going to bring this to you and I'm breaking a little bit of somebody's confidence, but I won't

say who. Somebody hit the nerve last night, Bo, to tell me or to intimate to me that Larry Joe Bird is overrated. I ain't going to lie. Normally somebody says that they, I start hearing somebody dial up that somebody says something ridiculous. I was sure it was going to be something Joel said.

But then I realized that there would be no reason for Joel to have talked to you about this. And if this is what we got to do on the way out, this is what we got to do on the way out. Hey, man, there was a time when people thought that Larry Bird was overrated. All of those people were black. It was all in the 1980s.

Every single one of them was incorrect. With the exception of Dennis, Rodman. Nobody who played against Larry Bird said any such thing. If Yokic tells us anything, is that Larry Bird would be as cold if not cold in this day and age because Larry Bird thought the three-point shots were beneath you back then. Can you imagine Larry Bird was shooting nine threes a game? With a spread floor and we could play small and people don't know. Larry Bird is 6'10. He ain't 6'8. He is 6'10 and ambidextrous. Work, I tell you, work.

The truth is, and I know this seems like an impossible, yeah, but, but I'm going to ask people to just work with me a little bit on this. The most comparable player to LeBron James really may have been Larry Bird just, you know, the whole mind-blowing athleticism thing. Yep, right? But the things that truly make LeBron special would still be there. If LeBron were a quarter of... as athletic as he is.

He would be a player similarly as good as he proved to be. He wouldn't be the defensive force that he was like the Miami era. But Larry Bird twice made second team all defense in the 1980s, right? But when you think about it, the vision, the way that they saw the floor, the way that they lit, the way that they could distribute from the wing, all of those things. Like magic went doing it from the wing, right? Like that's a slightly different thing. Magic in the middle of the, like magic running the break and LeBrow run

the break of different things. The match is running it from the middle. LeBron is running it from the lane. But Larry Bird, I just can't. No, man. The fact that Larry Bird told them dudes, I'm saving my right for L.A.

You boys are getting nothing but the left. In a game. Not in a practice. In a game. It was killing him. And told Kevin McKell, oh, it's nice that you got this record, this team record of 55 points.

I'm going to break it tomorrow. and then he broke it tomorrow. What are you talking about here? Larry Bird is in the top ten that people don't think is in the top ten. And talking shit to you the whole way. Like you and I were talking about this

with Yokic, right? Yokic, you can make the argument that Yokic maybe is the direct bird cop just bigger and actually playing in the post. But there are great similarities between what they provide. Though Yolkich's game isn't as Sutton as Byrd's game.

Right, quick twist. There's a quick, quick, quick. the Byrd games that Yolkich doesn't have, right? Yeah, it's a little different in that regard, right? But I cannot tell you that Yokic is a better basketball player than Larry Bird was. It's something different. And you know how I feel about Yokish. It's something different about Larry Byrd, man.

That dude was scary. And I don't mean scary, like, but I mean, he was scary. He's one of them dudes that you up eight with a minute left and you know that the game ain't over because somehow the ball going to wind up in his hands, he going to wind up doing some shit, and you're going to find yourself saying, damn, now I got to defend this dude with five seconds left, and he telling me, Xavier McDaniel,

what he's going to do, I'm going to pick this spot here, I'm going to catch the ball, I'm going to fade away off my right shoulder, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I'll be damned that that in exactly what he did. Can you imagine somebody telling you that's what he's going to do?

And then he does it? And also while being ready to fight, like talking bad to these cats, he made Dr. Jay fight him. The state, hey, the stately Dr. Jay. Oh, my God. I'm just trying to imagine because Byrd had, well, put 42 on him at that point. 42 to 6. And I want to say, Doc had 6. Yeah, 42 to 6, dot.

I just can't imagine how furious, Doc was being impervious to stop it. because Dr. Jay has quietly become underrated over the years. That is a discussion for a different day, but Dr. Jay is treated like a guy who just put up highlights, but by all the stats and the advanced ones, Dr. Jay is a like top 25 all-time caliber player. Like, like ABA, MBA, doesn't matter. And Larry Bird made him lose his ever-loving mind.

That's Dr. J punching out or trying to choke Larry Bird is akin to Kurt Thomas dragging Dennis Rodman all across the forum floor. It's the same thing and just look different. It's, I've had enough and I've had enough of you.

The only difference is that in the Kurt Thomas situation and what Mace is so funny is that Dennis Rodman was only with the Lakers for like two weeks and it was still enough time for him to do something so memorable. And it was very,

very clear that Kurt Thomas has said to himself I'm not going to let this dude get to me like this I'm not going to let this dude get to me like this and I am certain well not certain if I had to guess

Robman said something whole more erotic to him and he had just simply not thought was possible to come up like of all the things that he had braced himself for right that he was

He was not ready for that or a violation of personal space. But I just remember he was dragging Robin. And the look on his face was like, I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe this. How did you make me do this? It was like Robin that said, hey, man, I like how you looking in them shorts. And he was like, what? No, it went way past that.

I think he was ready for that. Like, oh, okay. Look, I've probably told this story on the show before, but I'm going to tell it again. I've heard people say things about how I be telling all the same stories all the time. That's what friends do, right? That's just how you know we cool. But after that Sports Illustrated story to Mike Silver Rover,

Robyn was undercover in the leather and had to parrot and all of that stuff. One of the things he said in there was that he believed that every man fantasized about other men. And I remember that they asked Akim Olajuwon about it because that came out during the 95 Western Conference finals where the Rockins were playing the Spurs. and they asked Akim Elijah about it and Akim said sometimes you think things

and you think that because you think those things that everybody thinks the same thing. He is wrong. He is wrong. He is wrong. Loszawa was like

that we're out from. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. You got to put the extra inflection on him. He is wrong. He is wrong. He is wrong. I saw somebody do some comedy and it was a Nigerian cat.

And he was saying that sometimes like people learn something and they do it better than the OG does it. Like you just wind up taking something to make it your own. And he said that that is exactly what Nigerians did with the English language. They took it from the Brits and they took it all to themselves. Look, I don't always understand what a British person is saying. I know every word a Nigerian is telling me, I ain't getting nothing wrong there. They are speaking the hell out of that English. The King's English.

They are making the King's English, my English. He is wrong. Elajuan was not leaving that to chance, right? And I can only imagine in 1995 what it was like being a reporter and deciding I'm going to go ask the locker room what they think about Dennis Rodman saying y'all be thinking about dudes. You know what's funny? Luckily for all of us, Vern was no longer in that locker room. Because can you imagine somebody walking up to Vern and saying, burn? Man, you don't get out of my face with that bullshit.

Get on a bite here. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't ask him. Oh, Mario, don't answer him. Don't ask him. Hey, hey, he's coming over here talking crazy. Don't ask him nothing he got to say. Not a word. Cod.

Don't say nothing, Codd. God. I know you like to be all statement. Don't say nothing. Codd. Nah, no, no, no. We ain't talking about that in here. Oh, boy.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Vinny Goodwill. Check him out on the good word with goodwill available. We're all five podcasts are giving away for free and check out his columns at Yahoo! At Yahoo Sports. My brother, I appreciate you. Appreciate you, man. All right, man. And Ryan, I asked you to ask perplexity something right quick.

We got to answer? He is 10 for 11 on those quads shots, like you said, clearly one of the most clutch players in the NBA. Tyrese Halliburton, like, look, it may be noise in that sample, but he ain't looked scared a little bit when he put that shot on them to win that last game. Like, once it went up, I was like, man, that ugly-ass jumper going in. I'm so glad his daddy ain't allowed to come back into arenas because I would just, then I'd have to root for the Pacers.

The Applebee's was going off that night. He seemed like, that seemed like exactly where he would be. Applebee's got exactly what he looking. In that corner. That elevated corner. Applebee's got exactly what he wants. Like, who wants an appletini? Poor job.

But ladies and gentlemen. Boy, you're lucky. He lucky. But ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. Hit the voicemail line 3-23-9-6-77-67 in line with our Larry Bird discussion. and tell us about that time that you underestimated that Caucasian on the basketball court and what he did to your bonus points if he talked shit along the way. 3-2-3-5-9-6-7-67.

We do this here three times a week. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll touch you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.