The Ringer NBA Show - Eastern Conference Survivor, Plus Hot-Seat Rankings | Group Chat

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

Justin, Rob, and Wos pick four Eastern Conference teams to get out of the first round and then vote on the team they think will make the Finals (3:58). They also discuss the recent scoring boom and pick out which coaches are on the hot seat (42:15). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the icons club. And welcome to Group Chat.

Justin Verrier joining me, Big Waz, Rob Mahoney. Gentlemen, we're reaching the dog days of the NBA season, but we're almost there to the playoffs. Rob, are you excited for, what is it, two more weeks of NBA basketball? There are no dog days with you, Justin. With you, Was, I'm happy to be here. It's always a celebration when we're together. All right, so we've got a little bit of a stick-heavy episode today, but I'm excited about it. This is when we get a little weird when we try some things and I think this is going to be fun. We're going to get into some hot seat rankings later in the episode because this is around the time I think when GMs and coaches start to feel the burn, if you will, we start

getting rumors and reports that maybe some guys are out. Some people might be looking for changes. I'm going to talk about the scoring boom that's happening across the league, weirdly. But first, I want to get into one of my favorite schicks we've done thus far, I hope. We're calling this Eastern Conference Survivor. and Rob has been gracious enough to do all of the theme songs and sound effects associated with Survivor. Rob, do you want to hit us with a little sample?

Well, first, could you give me like a little lore download because I got to admit I've never seen a single episode of Survivor before. I get the general schick, but like what's some jargon I can work in here to feel topical? You need a good social game. That's a jargon. That means like you need to work the people in order to get like the votes on your side. I like you. Okay.

See, Rob, I mean, Waz, are you a fan? No. No, no, no. No, no. No, no. Although, shouts to my home girl, Allie, a friend of mine out here, she was once on a season. From what I understand, it's been like 45 seasons. 42 seasons.

She was on one of them. So shouts to Allie. I should have known you knew a former survivor contestant. I feel like your Rolodex runs deep. I was blown away when she told me this. I was like, wait, what? She was like, yeah, went to me. to the island did the thing.

I worked out for months of preparation, but I was like, wow, that's sick. Yeah. The preparation for a lot of that, not to get too sidetrack is like, is wild because you almost want to go in overweight

and then you have to worry about like parasites. It's a real like, it's like a real dark thing going on there. Yeah. But none of that here. Just we're focusing specifically on the teams expected to make the playoffs and maybe even the play in of the Eastern Conference as we've talked in the past.

It's a very, very thick race. and only four of these teams can get out of the first round of the playoffs, the actual playoffs. And so we're going to have to make some choices here. So we're going to cast our votes and vote people out one by one is what we're doing here. Rob, want to hit the theme song? How does it go? I would assume that would be producer Isaiah's job to put the theme song in.

Unless you want to rob the beatbox, the Survivor theme song, which I guess would be pretty funny. If only I knew it. Not that I'm thinking about it. Yeah, I can just throw in some jungle noises throughout here. Just sprinkle them in. They'll help. All right.

So we're going to go one by one cast our votes. Let's start. I mean, I think we could all assume Hornets, Hawks expect to be out first, right? Not even make the playoffs. Yeah. All right.

We didn't have to get into that. That's a pre-show vote out. They didn't even make the cut. Although I think the Hawks could upset. No, don't do it. The Raptors? You don't think so? Okay.

Well, do you want to talk about it? Yeah, look, I don't think, man, and it's kind of crazy. I think they could upset the Nets without Kyrie. Just again, this is one game sample. I don't think they would beat either one of these teams in a four-game series, but I think in a one game, like, hey, both teams going balls to the wall. You never know with foul trouble, things like that. That's the duty of a one-game elimination scenario.

I think they could win. Not that I think they will, which we'll get into for hot seat purposes at the end of the show. I'd love that you're being true to yourself, the last man on Hawks Island. I can't get off. Yeah, I was going to say,

how much is you just protecting your take from preseason? The take is done. The take is buried. It's dead. It's over. I've watched this team give up 160 points enough nights to know that it's not going to happen for them this season in any meaningful way.

Right. And none of these games are going to be happening at MSG, so you won't even get the tray bump. Right. Exactly. All right. So hornets and hawks don't make the island. First vote was. Who are you putting down on your parchment? Cleveland Cavaliers. I mean, to me, they're just first. Wow. That's that's off. Out of all the eight teams that like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cleveland. They're the youngest, most unproven of the bunch, and they're of dope, fun story, but they're reliant upon a rookie in Evan Mobley

as their second best player, and their best play is a third-year guy who has never played a single playoff minute, right? And the idea that Cleveland would get out of the east, like that just doesn't jive with me at all. Although I like their roster, apologies to the Cleveland faithful because I did dismiss them as anything other than another also ran this year before the season started.

And people were like, hold on now, you didn't watch the end of the season now. We was bowling at the end of last season, blah, blah, blah. And those people were right. Did you see Dean Wade? Yeah. Right. And those people were right. So, yeah, Cleveland is the first one I write off because I just write off young teams.

Well, Justin, we're talking about who can make it out of the first round, right? Like that's the parameters we're working with. first round. I thought she said to the finals. But it was. No, no, no. I think you're on to something with the Cavs because I think they have the toughest upset case. Like how the calves would be better than these top Eastern

Conference teams, it's kind of hard to parse. And some of that is unfortunate because I think it's a product of the season they've had where this is a good young team, as Waaz outlined, that just hasn't had a chance to like fully cohere yet. You know, they built a rhythm with Ricky Rubio early, then they lost him. Darius Garland is

missed time here and there throughout the season. Lowry Markinen's been out for long stretches. Then they traded for Karas Lavert. They're trying to integrate him, and Jared Allen goes out. We just don't really know what the fully functional version of this team looks like. And so if you want me to make a case for why they would beat the heat or the bucks or the Sixers, I just don't know that I can make it. Right.

And Jared Allen has a fractured finger that's kept him out. But I think he's foregoing surgery in order to push through it and he's expected back. Later in the season, I don't know how that's going to work out. Is he just going to, like, work with a club, like, offensive? of Lyman do when they break their hands. But that's just going to make things more difficult for them. But just to clarify, I guess it's the same thing, right?

Not to make the finals or make the first round. But the bit is, these are the teams that won't make the first, out of the first round for what it's worth. And I'm surprised that you guys would say the Cavs first, because I would have pinpointed the Raptors above the Cavs. You're talking about the giant killing

Toronto Raptors, though. This is what they do. Yeah. unfortunately they don't play offense particularly well. And that's going to be a problem in the postseason. Yeah. Like they've been an awesome story. Scotty Barnes has been great.

We talked about him on a recent podcast. But, you know, there's still a work in progress. Pascal Seacom has also been great. But I think this is very much a golf clap sort of season for them. Like you did a nice job, Pat on the back for rebooting post Kyle Lowry pretty quickly here. But let's wait till next season.

And I think it's important to note counter examples in the past, right? the box offense of last year's playoffs was in moments vometrocious. You can look the numbers up. It was putrid. However, they were playing historically great defense on the other side of that, right? Like, they were, like, literally breaking defensive ratings metrics in the playoffs of last year. So I don't think the Raptors are going to play good defense.

they're not going to play historic defense. And that's why, you know, I think it's smart to say they're not going to be able to get out the first round behind Pascal Seaccombe one-on-one game or Fred Van Vleet, much as I love him, trying to finish amongst the trees, which is, you know, the weakest point of his game, right? They just don't have it offensively.

And I like what Scotty Barnes says. I want to see, I want to see, especially after watching him against the Lakers hunting mismatches, like he plays with a level of force where, like, I do want to see him hunting mismatches in the playoffs against smaller guys. Like, even as a rookie, he plays with a certain level of physicality that I think will serve him in a playoff setting. But even still, the Raptors don't really have the spacing

that could facilitate this type of matchup hunting, even if he does have the requisite playmaking with like an obvious double-class. and he can kick it out, they don't have the spacing, they don't have the offense. The Raptors probably won't get too far this postseason. I just don't know if they would be my pick this early. Like, I think the Cavs are my first cut,

just as an upset bid, in terms of upset bid potential. After that, I'm actually kind of looking at the Bulls and thinking, who can they beat? Wow. Of the teams that they would realistically play, who can they beat? Because I'm looking at the Raptors.

The Raptors are 3-0 against the Bucks. two and one against the Sixers, two and one against the heat. There's some potential there. They just beat the Sixers without Fred Van Vleet and OG and Anobi. And if you're a guy like Joelle Embed

or a guy like James Harden for that matter, I don't know that you want to see a team of long, savvy opponents coached by Nick Nurse in a playoff series. I don't know that that's what you want to be spending your first round doing. And so if there is going to be, let's say a normal underseed

because the nets are kind of aberrational as an eighth seed that could have upset potential, could have upset potential. I think the Raptors are it. And I'm probably not fully drinking the Kool-Aid on them just yet, but I definitely am nursing my cup and sipping it a little bit. Okay. And the counterpoint to that is the Bulls are 0-in-16 against the top three teams

in each of the conferences. That's what I'm saying. Last night against the Bucs. Was, how were you feeling about the Bulls? Man, it's just a shame what the injuries have done to the team, particularly on the defensive end. And I think, you know, when you start watching Vouch trying to defend at a high level,

it gets to be pretty ugly. And I do understand, like, you know, that's a great event stat. Oh, and 16. That's a great metric. I understand Rob's reservations about that team. And, you know, the Bulls, why I like them is that in crunch time, I know they're going to generate decent shots.

But will these games even be close, right? When you think about the injuries and you think about the defense. So, man, I do understand just basically like, I think they could give Philly a run for their money if Philly falls to the four spot. Because, again, I don't believe that Philly's figured everything out. I think Philly's a much more talented team. and it's better, but I don't think that they figured out how they want to attack teams

since the hardened trade. And that's no fault of their own. It's not like it's been this, you know, great amount of games that they've played. It's not like they've had this great runway. So I think Philly's kind of the only team because Boston, I think, is just a horrible matchup for them. Just like your wing defense?

Like, what the hell are you supposed to do with those dudes? And Boston is playing at, It's just an absurd level on the defensive end themselves. And so if you don't got guys that can hold up against Tate, I'm like, for instance, if the Raptors played Boston, that's a dog fight for Boston because O.G. and Pascal and Scotty Barnes, and it's like, whoa, all of this wing depth on defense. And I've watched O.G. shut down Jason Tatum on the island for a whole playoff series.

That's happened before. Right? So I think Toronto would present matchup problems for Boston, that Chicago, they don't have the freaking horses to do it. So it becomes like Philly because like realistically, I don't think Miami can fall to four. Although, you know, things are looking pretty close there. Forget about Milwaukee. They're going to dogwalk Chicago if they end up playing them. We just saw it. Yeah, I think Philly is probably the best match. But then that's not a strong matchup for them.

No, you're going to get wrecked by Embed in that matchup, but if you're the Bulls, you can at least exploit Philly's perimeter defenders. Yes. And you don't have to be as worried about Demar defensively, because DeRos and his guy, you have to hide, and you can either put him on Thibel or Tobias Harris, George Nying. There's a lot of places he can hang out in a lot of different places,

and you just have to hope you can at least create enough confusion and chaos around Hardin to neutralize some of his impact. So if you're going to have a case of the Bulls, it's there, here's the bad news is the Celtics have the hardest remaining schedule and the Sixers have one of the easiest. So I don't really see how the Sixers are going to slip into four, five against the Bulls per se. It's tough. Well, I don't know if the Celtics are ever going to lose another game. So the Bulls, I mean, my issue is how do they even create that sort of chaos Rob is talking about with James Hardin against anybody considering the injuries that they've sustained?

I mean, Caruso's back. Patrick Williams is back, but on a minute's restrictions. And so the cavalry is kind of coming. They look like the team that I think probably people expected them to be earlier on when they were. The cavalry is coming, but one member of the cavalry is being ramped down in Lanzo Ball. Yes, so Lanzibal, the latest is that he's actually going to pull back on his rehab. And as we've been saying throughout the season, throughout the season, the entire season,

if they don't have him or Caruso, like, where is the defensive help? I mean, maybe Williams is like back up to speed in time to provide that for that. them, but like, as asking a lot of a second-year player coming off of a near complete season injury. So I don't know. It's looking pretty dicey. Yeah, and if we're being totally honest with ourselves about Pat Williams, he wasn't that player before. Like, he does a lot of classic young player stuff, makes some really nice plays, and then has some emptier stretches. That's just reality of relying on a player at that age. But he's been watching a lot of tape, Rob. I don't know if you've been reading the stories. Eating that tape. Yeah. So I think we're all in agreement, bottom three here.

calves, raptors, bulls in some order, right? Okay, they're off the island. Wait, Rob is not convinced. I mean, I just, I think the rap, like, how you navigate that order varies a little bit. Like, you know, again, where you put which team? The Raptors might have the best case for busting out of it, but like, I don't know how you argue that they have a better chance than the Nets who, you know, with all due respect to the Raptors, who as I mentioned, have been giant killers this season, the difference

between playing them and playing Brooklyn is just absolutely enormous. Okay. Then let's flip to the fourth team voted off the island here. This is probably where it gets really interesting. Was? Look, man, I watched the entirety of that Utah Jazz Nets game where KD is just, he's not only just destroying people, he's yelling at opposing players. He's egging on the fans.

He is a man on fire. And I'm just like, so somebody's supposed to deal with this for the duration of a seven-game series and see the other side of it? Man, it's looking tough. And I think the Bucks defense has reached, they're up to 15 or 16. now, if I'm not mistaken. And, you know, again, they're not the 16th worst defense or best defense in the league, but they're definitely not in their current iteration what they were last year, which is just stopping everybody in the regular season anyway.

And then in the playoffs, when we stop dicking around, we put Janice at the five, and we're scaring. We're just, you know, enveloping teams. Brooke Lopez is back And I think that's going to make a difference But he's coming back from a major injury That's cost him 80% of the season

I don't know You know what I'm saying? Like I think I would pick Because I've picked the bucks all year To get out of the east I think I would pick them against Brooklyn But I don't know And Miami is where it gets interesting

Because that's what it's looking like It's going to end up as and I just think that's going to be that's a seven-game series against the Nets especially if the Kyrie thing gets remedied pretty soon here. So, you know, if you're not voting the Nets off, you're voting either Miami

or the Bucks off of the island. Not the Sixers? But that would mean the Sixers jump to number one. Or that they lose to the Rats? Or that they lose to the raptors. This is interesting. Rob, were you? Yeah, this is where the probability game comes in

because if I'm thinking about that heat nets as a potential 1-8 matchup, and who knows if we'll get it? With the play-in structure, just starting an 8, you could so easily move up to 7. So who knows what we're ultimately going to get. The nets are really, really tough, but I think if they do end up playing the heat,

the combination of really clever, experienced players plus elite defense, plus Eric Spalstra, who's probably the best playoff coach we have in the league right now, that feels like enough to keep them at bay, maybe provided that Kyrie's situation remains what it is.

Because, you know, as friend of the pod, Michael Pina wrote for s.i.com today, the Nets have a historic road offense. And if only there were some way that one player could single-handedly translate that to their home performance, they'd really have something going.

That's insane. That's why I wonder if the play-in is going to be harder for the nets than the playoffs. Because the way the play-in shakes out right now, they would be on the road in Toronto for the first game, which means that Kyrie would not be playing, right? And then if they lose that game, they would be home against either the Hornets or the Hawks. And while KD could probably win both of those games by himself, you're not getting Kyrie for either of those. And so the margin for error is obviously greater than. So like the play-in for the Nets is actually going to be particularly dicey. But if they get out of that and I think we expect them to, I'll be honest.

Like I'm having a tough time not picking them as the most dangerous team, perhaps even the best team of this entire crew. Even with Kyrie playing part time just because of like just having like Katie able to just like win a game or two by himself. That's all you really need. I think is probably the biggest curveball you could throw out of any of these other teams and so I would probably lean more toward the Sixers getting my vote off of the island, off of the top four

rather than any of these other teams. Like I think the nets are there with a bullet. With a bullet. So you're penciling in first round upset against either the heat or the bucks basically. Unless the Sixers can crawl into second place in which they would be knocked off potentially. And that's assuming that

Kyrie doesn't even get a reprieve and is out for the road games. Yeah. That's a lot of faith, my friend. I mean, I don't know if you've seen the Tyler Hero defensive clips lately. Oh, boy, man. He is really bad. And if like, if they can't hide him and if they have that on the court, Katie's just going to pick him apart in those sort of situations.

And again, you only need like, what, one or two wins without Kyreed? Like, I think that's fine. I mean, they don't have to play him, though. Like, that's the thing about the heat is they could just not play Tyler Hero down the stretch of certain games. Their offense is going to suffer for it a little bit. And that's the big question with them is like, does Miami have the half court shock creation to really hold off some of these elite teams? And if they end up playing Brooklyn, they're playing at least a quasi-elite team much earlier than they would like to. The tests are going to come much earlier this year in the Eastern Conference pretty much no matter who you're playing against.

And the thing I like about Miami, too, is the PJ factor in the sense that, and people are going to laugh about this. But, like, he played really good defense against KD last year in the playoffs. But, like, at times, KD was just making really tough shots. But PJ Tucker, like, changed things in games three and four for Milwaukee with his defense against KD individually and on an island, right? especially games three and four. And I love that Miami now has him as, look, nobody's going to stop Kevin Durant. It's a matter of providing some level of resistance that makes it so that Kevin Durant is exerting himself in an extreme way on every single possession when he tries to score one-on-one. It's not just this breeze by, oh, I have this little guy on me, turn around, shoot it over.

Like, he has to exert himself for 45 minutes a game every single night. And you hope that that takes its toll on even the most superhuman of superhumans in KD, right? And I love that Miami has that. And of course, you know, they have different options that they could throw at him, whether it be Jimmy or even a band out of bio. So defensively, you like what they can throw at the nets. As always, I'm always worried about generating offense for the heat in a playoff setting, you know, because as much as I love Jimmy, like, his freaking injuries,

just nagging injury after nagging injury. And, you know, at times we've seen him be a dynamo on that end where he's just forcing his way to the free throw line, double-digit free throws, and he's getting to the rack, and he's getting to his beautiful mid-range game. But man, you know, like that that's not your favorite superstar crunch time offense diet in the world, right? Like it's not exactly the Atkins diet if you get my drift. I just can't get over this game a couple weeks ago in which Bam out of bio and a bunch of bench players beat the nets and didn't seem like they had that much trouble doing it. And yeah, that's without everything was laid out without PJ Tucker offering the resistance, without

Jimmy Butler scoring and defending and grifting his way into free throws without all the Kyle Lowry acceleration, they just beat them. And I kind of see that dynamic playing out. And so everything we've said about Miami's half-court offense, it's probably eased a little bit by the fact that Brooklyn's defense is not any great shakes.

It's not great. If I am Miami, I'm not scared of Andre Drummond. I'm not scared of the small ball nets, particularly because Bam can cover so well and I have so much lineup versatility. But I'm hoping you guys can help me parse two bits of statistical information.

I don't know how to decipher, which is by the numbers, the heat have been the best defense against elite offenses this season, the absolute best. The Brooklyn Nets have been one of the best offenses against elite defenses. I don't know where that's supposed to leave us,

but we have to figure it out. Yeah, no. I think we all agree that PJ Tucker did a very good job against Kevin Durant last postseason, right? here are Kevin Durant's numbers over there we go over seven games 35 points 50% shooting from the floor 35% from 3.10.6 rebounds 5.4 assists 1.6 steals 1.1 blocks in 43 minutes a game he's going to play every minute and he's going to score a shit ton of points and like I think you're going to get into a

track meet you're going to have to trade off points no matter what happens which means are going to want to have to skew offense more, which just plays more into the Nets hand in that series. The most important stat, though, Justin, four L's for Kevin Durant. Okay. He's out of there. One inch of tough shoe, yeah.

Well, I think that's actually a good question. So the Nets, in a weird way, could almost force their opponent here, whether it's the heat or the box. I mean, it could even be the Sixers or the Celtics, depending on how things shake out. If you're the Nets and you're saying, well, I could either beat, let's just assume that they beat the Raptors

or they could say, let's take this game off and let's win the second game and play for the two seed. Who would you be trying to get of those four if you're the Nets? I don't think they're in a position to play games.

Sure. I think... Just go with me for a second. To me, if I'm going to choose between the heat, the Bucks, the Sixers and the Celtics, if I'm the Nets, I want to play the Sixers.

Yep. We're arriving on a theme. here, which is if you're one of these teams trying to upset, I think you want to play the Sixers, which is... It's wild considering Joel and none of these teams have any answer for Joelle Embed, but what they have around Embedde is still preferable to deal with than some of these other elite teams. And two things that need to be, you know, underlined, and I know people are tired of hearing the shit, but look, James Hardin has a terrible playoff record, like, horrible. And quite as kept, Joelle Embed has never played up to his regular. season standard in the playoffs. Not one time in his career has he done so.

So it's not like he has this, and I know I remember the Toronto series where they outscored Toronto with Joel on the floor and it was backup center that doomed them and whatever. I don't want to fucking hear it. I mean, it's true.

Okay, here we go, Rob. We get it. We know this. But individually, Joelle Embed has never played up to his regular season standards in the playoffs. And you would think, a player of his caliber would have done so in one playoff series, right? He's never done it.

And, you know, you think about his peers, people like, I don't know, Nicola Yokic, who seems to just completely trash people every single playoffs, right? Seems to get actually better every single playoffs that he plays in, every single series that he's in. He seems to dominate. So, yeah, I look at the playoff record of the two most important people on the Sixers, and I'm like, yeah, give me that team. Well, they also have the biggest wild card of any dynamic for any of these contending teams,

which is how are Hardin and Embed going to be officiated? Because we've seen incredible swings over the course this season, as I'm sure we'll talk about in the scoring boom talk we have planned later. But if they call those guys to the rule versus as loosely as they have versus as tightly as they have at various points in the season, they're just subject to incredible swings and offensive performance in ways that even other foul drawing players aren't. Like Jimmy Butler, historically,

is one of the most sustainable foul drawers in the league, regular season to playoffs. Like, whatever it is that he does plays in the playoffs. Not always the case for James Hart. Here's the difference. Here's the difference. Even when James Hardin was getting a step on guys,

he wasn't getting the calls. He's no longer getting a step on guys. He's absolutely not going to get the calls. He's not going to draw fouls in the playoffs because he's not dribbling past people anymore. So I think Joelle is still going to get his calls. I think Joelle is going to be fine because Joel is going to make it so that he's in and near the basket,

his upfake game, his all of that. He's like, he's like going to get there. And he's going to be, like, there are going to be times where teams have to legitimately file the guy because he's overwhelmed his defender. Like, that's going to happen. James Harden not overwhelming nobody. Not on a one-on-one basis.

He's just straight up not. And yeah, that's a beautiful, beautiful point you just illustrated, Rob. Thank you, Wes. It was a nice comeback for James Harden that week or two after he got traded to the Sixers. And it's like, oh, James showing a little extra step here. And then you get the stats about how foul drawing is way up over the past month. And I'm like, oh, something is a foot here. But how do we make sense of this?

I mean, if we think a potential Miami-Bro Brooklyn series, I mean, how would you wait the probabilities of that, Justin? If you think the Nets are likely to win that series, are they like a 60-40? Are they like a 70-30? How would you break it down? Probably closer to 70-30. I'm just not as big of a believer in the heat as I think a lot of people are. And maybe that's like a me issue. Yeah, you didn't dig your career out of the mud like we did. Hey man, I was covering girls gymnastics back in the day. I was grinding for those newspapers. They saying JV ain't from the soil, boy. But I think we're all in agreement here.

I think it's the sixers who are getting voted off. Yeah, sixes voted off the island, for sure. Here's the thing is like if the Sixers are still more likely to get upset than some of these other teams, but if there's only like a 35% chance to get upset and we think Nets Heat is anything close to 50-50, then it would have to be one of those teams. What are these numbers you're just pulling out here? You're asking us to make probabilities for who's going to get eliminated, so I'm trying to think of it in those terms.

I mean, I think 70-30 Nets over Heat is wild. I think that is a wild choice considering Kyrie Irving is probably not going to play for the majority of that series. I don't think you think it is. Pull out your graphing calculator and chart me a path here. I think, look, I think the nets are 50-50 against the heat in the series. Even at full strength, I think it's 50-50, just by nature of how series goes, man. And the nets are eminently attackable defensively.

Like, they are. Like, you can go at those guys, you know, whether it be Kyrie or the rest of the bunch in their back court, right? you know, Goren Drogic, like these, you know, Patty Mills. The heat might have an idea of how to attack Gauron Drogate, you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah. These guys are eminently attackable. And I think the heat have enough juice on ball that they can attack those guys, you know. So I do think it's 50-50.

I just think of the top four teams, the team that I could see imploding in a playoff series most easily are the Philadelphia 76ers. Yeah. Like, it just, that just seems obvious to me. Yeah, and like, as we outlined in the last episode, I think there's like really big rotational concerns that they need to figure out on the fly here that I just don't know if they have the time for it. And I don't know if Doc Rivers is the guy to do it.

So, Rob, if you're casting doubt on the Sixers getting voted out, like, who would you put in that place then? You got to vote somebody out. That's all survivor works. I think I would put the Nets next. Okay. Because I think they also have implosive potential. Again, I just think they have a 45% chance or so of losing in the first round to assign more arbitrary numbers to it.

All right. Now, guys, we go to Final Tribal, which is typically the last three teams. So we're going to extend it to four here because it does seem like this is kind of a coin flip might be dictated by matchup sort of thing here. So in Final Tribal, you make the case for the team you want to go to the finals here to win it all, essentially, out of the Eastern Conference. So, Wads, which of these four that we've picked here, the Miami Heat, the Bucks, the Celtics, and for us, the Brooklyn Nets for Rob, the 76ers, are you giving the million dollars to? I'm steadfast with my bucks pick, and especially having Brooke Lopez back, because I think what's important is what I mentioned earlier is the versatility of being able to go ultra big

with Brooke Lopez, or if I go quote unquote small with Janus at the five. Like, they have the ability when you don't possess an on-ball guy who can kill my drop coverage. I'm just going to pack the pain on your ass, and you will never score down there for the entire series. If you don't have a guy who can punish pick and roll defenders for sagging off, and as soon as my guy plants my defender and I get a wide open jump shot. And also, if you don't have guys who can exploit what the bucks are trying to do with elite mid-range shooting, right? So it's not just the pull-up three.

It's that you have guys who aren't afraid to dribble into a mid-range shot and hit that with efficiency because that's the weak point of a soft sort of conservative drop-back defense. If you don't possess those kind of guys, the net, I mean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, justance, just to, um, um, give me the bucks, man, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm still bucks. Robert, are you still bucks? I'm still bucks. Now and forever, apparently. I'm sorry. These are boring.

Well, look, I mean, now that they have kind of the shape of their roster back with Brooke Lopez starting again, I like what they have. And even the guys on their team, the points in the rotation where you'd be like, can they get enough from this seventh or eighth guy? I know people are doing a lot of concern trolling with Bobby Portis. And I do think legitimately not having PJ Tucker as a wing defender, that's going to be a thing that matters. But even those guys, even if we're going to concern troll about Bobby Portis or Pat Conantin coming back or Sir Jabaka as he works his way back in, those are all proven playoff guys.

Like health permitting, these are guys who have done it on big stages before. I have learned over the last year of my life not to doubt that when the ball swings to Pat Conantin in the corner in a big moment, apparently he's just going to hit the shot. It's just what's going to happen. And so I have come to accept that this is the world we live in and that the Milwaukee Bucks are the team that's most likely to come out. of the east. That's what age brings you. The perspective that Pat Conantin is the key. All that sweet Pat Conantin wisdom, Justin. Yeah. Can I concern troll about something else, actually? Because I was going to bring up the defense, which is now 13th overall in the league over the course of the season. And since the deadline is in the bottom third of the NBA, hugging up against

the likes of the Detroit Pistons, the San Antonio Spurs, and Waz's Atlanta Hawks. That's not. That can never be a good sign. So I think that's my bigger concern is like how real are the defensive issues and do they have the personnel to get that right, especially when Brooke Lopez is, yeah, he's back, but like does he have enough like spinal fluid at this point in order to make it through an entire postseason? Yeah, is Brooke Lopez a 10 minute, 15 minute a game playoff guy or is he a guy you can play 35 minutes if you have to? That might be what decides their playoff run. That's a scary place to find yourself if you're the defending champions. but I think what's ultimately going to break down for them is this is going to have to be a different kind of run.

Waz laid out last year, their offense was putrid at times. They won primarily with defense. They're going to have to win with offense a lot more often to make this work. And I think they have the pieces to do it and the tradeoff of saying, oh, they've been this bad offensively, or sorry, this bad defensively, they still been winning a lot of those games. And they've been winning them with one or two guys out of the lineup at a given time.

They've just kind of made it work. in terms of some of the tougher scoring situations. And so you have to bet on that if you're betting on the bucks at this point. That's just where they find themselves. So for me, I'm kind of caught in a left-brain-right-brain situation because intellectual me looks at all of the numbers the Boston Celtics have put up for many, many months at this point. They're far in the way the best defense in the league.

They have a solid-ass, what, seven-to-eight-eight-eight-man rotation. Jason Tatum is finally playing awesome, giving them the offense a boost that they've always needed in order. to make this whole thing work. I can't quite get there with them, in part because the rotation is so tight, and that I think if they actually lose a Grant Williams or a Peyton Pritchard,

like I do wonder, like what's going to happen. I guess they could run like a seven-man rotation like the Nets did last year and just kind of like ride the rails, Steve Nash style. But there's something about them that I can't quite get them to the favorite status, partly probably because Tatum hasn't done it for long enough in order to assure me that he could be that guy for an entire postseason.

It's pretty telling, though, that they didn't really come up at all as a team that we would eliminate. And I think that's because considering how stacked and how challenging the bottom of the east has turned out to be relative to the middle, the Celtics might actually be like the best bet to make it through the first round at this point. Right. That is what I would describe them as. Yeah.

And I think the Celtics defense is the best unit in the conference, right? Even more so than the Nets offense, I think they have the best unit in the conference. And like, once you have that, especially in a first round setting, like, come on, bring it, calves. Like, what? Like, come on. Which takes me now to, I guess, my lizard brain here. And I can't get over the fact that Kevin Durant is the best player, probably in the NBA. And I know that Janus figured something out last year.

I don't dismiss the idea that he took a leap or that the Milwaukee Bucks collectively took a leap and are now like minted and have our title tests and all that stuff we say about them. But the Brooklyn Nets almost beat them with James Hardin on one handstring and a bunch of bombs and without Kyrie Irving. If they get Kyrie Irving for a couple games in the series against the bucks, I just like, I don't know how I'm picking against the net's there. And it's really tough to pick against KD in a conference where it's like there isn't a clear cut team that could just like knock them off in four games. Like there's there are issues about every team that can go against the net and which leads me to the best player in the best conference. Not to be reductive, but like it's hard to pick like this is the little Bronner role essentially.

Best player. And I'm going to go with KD. See like you're picking KD. I'm picking against, you know, Bruce Brown and. Bruce Brown's been good lately. You know, because, no, he has. But that's what I'm picking against. It's the Claxton's.

Sure. The Blake Griffins. It's, it's, those are the guys that the Patty Mills is and the Goring Drogics. It's like, come on, man. Tate's going to figure out a way to stop those guys and get it done. So if I'm going with the Nets and like, I guess the Celtics as 1B, that isn't enough to get them to the finals. You guys are both voting for the,

bucks, correct? Yeah. I think they're the lone survivors from the Eastern Conference. Congratulations. Rob, hit the theme song. We passing out like immunity. What is an immunity idol? Can you explain the concept to me? We're too far gone for that. You can't use an immunity idol in the final trial, Rob, obviously. My mistake. All right. Let's flip now to a big picture trend that's happening. We kind of alluded to it before, but scoring way up in March. kind of an oddity here because it's happening, I guess, simultaneously or maybe these are both like connected

with the 50 plus point boom from individual scores, LeBron, Kyrie, etc. have been going off of late. Ben Taylor, who does a lot of good work for thinking basketball, also found that this is league-wide. The offensive rating is highest than ever before

in a single month, in the month of March. And as we alluded to, shooting files way up. I guess, Rob, what do you make of all of this? Is this a thing? Do we need to care about this?

Is this something that you're interested in? I mean, determining whether it's a thing requires us to look at like six intersecting trends and try to untangle that knot. And I frankly don't know how to do it because on the most basic level, offensive officially ramping up over the course of the season is not uncommon.

Overall, the league tends to start slower, offensively build up as it goes on. This year you have the thorny complication of these points of emphasis and the officiating, coming and going over the course of the year, and right now, especially just being thrown out the window in terms of allowing defenders to make certain kinds of contact. The one takeaway that I've had in watching a lot of the games this month,

is for whatever reason, whenever I'm watching a game and thinking, oh, the refs are actually like really letting guys defend and letting guys play tonight, it's a Celtics game. And I think there's something about the way Boston is defending that is neutralizing this impact to something. extent, and that's not entirely surprising, considering that's the best defensive team in the league by far right now, as Woz talked about. But I don't know, there's something about those games that makes me feel optimistic about Boston's playoff chances and ultimately, I guess,

more confused about why things are booming in terms of scoring the way they are. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of think of football when I, like, look up sometimes and I see Kirk Cousins is putting up stats that, like, Peyton Manning used to put up and it was like considered video game stuff. It's just like, this is just the new normal. I think we just have a shock to it. It's like everybody's figured out shoot threes. Everybody's figured out this like three yards in a cloud of dust at a time is over in football.

Everybody's throwing the ball. And so passing numbers are up, scoring is up, et cetera, et cetera. Like this just seems like the natural progression of where we're going where, you know, for somebody like me who remembers watching Knicks' Heats playoff games and, literally end in the 70s. These games ended in the 70s. I'm not making this up. So, like, I understand as like an old that it's like,

wow, this feels crazy. And it's, you know, by the numbers, it's legitimately the highest offensive efficiency since whenever. I just think this is what it is now, right? Teams are all playing smarter than they should, you know, coaches aren't arbitrarily, you know, freaking punting the ball

on fourth and three inches anymore. There's the same stuff. Teams aren't leaving the easy stuff on the board anymore. And so scoring is up. And we should just get used to it. Like, when I saw this question, I literally thought about Kirk Cousins

because there's times where I look up at somebody's quarterback numbers. I'm like, wait, what? Like, this guy's able to do this and absolutely nobody respects him at his position. You know, so that's just what I think it is with basketball at this point. Yeah, and with some of these.

individual performances. Like, I've seen some people poopooing Sadieke Bayes, 51. That was legitimate. He dropped a legitimate 50. Legitimate 50. And I get, like, it's against the magic. I get why you would turn your nose up at that.

The magic just beat the Warriors. Like, I don't know. Like, real basketball, to some extent, is still being played at this stage in the season. There are teams that are trying desperately to tank out of the play in race. That is definitely a thing that's happening. But I don't know.

Like, these are still staged against real NBA competition against real professionals, against real defenders. It's not like a weird, like, blip in terms of how basketball is being played at this stage in the season so much as, I don't know, it really does seem like more of an officiating thing to me. I think the more interesting question here is, do we want this? Like, do we want more scoring or did we appreciate earlier in the season where teams could be a little bit more defensive and could provide maybe more of a counter to that? You're basically arguing, I guess, for more strategy.

Definitely teams and players would be arguing more for that advantage and not being able to the offensive players just to get away with anything. And I guess for me, it's like, do I care? Like, am I having more fun watching 50 points every couple nights? Or do I want like PJ Tucker to have more of an advantage? And I think ultimately I don't care and I actually just want the entertainment value. Yeah, what I don't want is the stuff that's not entertaining, which is some of the foul hunting that we've seen in previous years. The stop short, stick your ass out and let the guy hump you in your butt and then, you know, the official calls it a freaking a foul. The James Hardin grabbing the guy's arm on his way to the basket, he gets a two-shot foul.

The freaking, yo, Gary Trent Jr., straight up karate kid. kicking everybody every time he takes a freaking three and he's awarded a three shot foul. I don't want to see that shit. So long as everybody's getting their buckets legitimately within the flow of legitimate NBA offense and aren't doing this, you know, what my man, Bomani Jones calls basically, like, tax accounting tricks.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you find the little loopholes in the rulebook to get to the free throw line. So long as that's not what's occurring on our way to these. absurd offensive numbers, I'm completely cool with all of it. I just hate seeing like

the bullshit three shot fouls or even the bullshit two shot fouls. As long as you get in your buckets legitimately, you shoot and you score, go ahead, brother. I mean, some consistency would be nice one way or the other, honestly. Like, can we just call it one way?

Can we agree that kicking out is a foul or is not, that baiting in these ways is a foul or is not? Because I think the worst case scenario is you get into the playoffs and the guys who are participating in those games and coaching those games don't really know what the battleground is that they're walking into. That's what we don't want.

Yeah. So it's definitely something to keep an eye on. And like you said, I think it has ripple effects into the playoffs, particularly for the Philadelphia 76ers. So we'll keep an eye on there. But before we get to our last segment, we have to pay some bills here, guys. Our friends at State Farm want us to talk about college basketball. So we will do our best.

Some fans assume that two and three seed teams will breeze through the first round of the tournament, but then a 14 or 15 seed team plays a perfect game and surprises everyone with a huge upset. Waz. You are a huge college basketball fan. Waz Billis over here is what I like to call you. Which are these upsets from the NCAA tournament have caught your eye? Oh, that's easy. My man Shaheen Holloway, Queensborn. Of course, he played his high school basketball.

out in Jersey and St. Pat's, so the Jersey people want to claim him. But he's a New York City guy. And St. Peter's upsetting Kentucky. Beautiful, of course, at the end of the game, the press conference. He explained us New York City guys, we're tough guys. We're not afraid of anything. We're not going to be afraid of a stacked Kentucky team. We're going to go in there.

We're going to play hard-nosed ball. And we're going to upset them and get to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, Jess. speaking right to Waz's heart with the New York toughness you know right unfortunately my Yukon Huskies did not have enough of that New York toughness

and they were felled by the New Mexico state cowboys I don't even know what they are I don't know what's going on there but they had this one guy I think his name was Terry Allen who scored like 37 points was doing stepbacks like he was James Harden well the good news is I'm sure a lot of these guys

on these upsetting teams that could be in line for some money that could be in line for some NIL cash. And I guess we have to talk about at some point the implications on the other side of that. I know we're going to talk about the NBA hot seat. Do we have to have an uncomfortable John Caliperi conversation at some point?

I don't know. Our producer suggests that it is the Aggies and it was Teddy Allen, not Terry Allen. Typically, I'm very precise with my college basketball takes, but there you go. Even when you assume it won't be a big year for certain teams, there are always a few that make history. It's like people that assess.

assume they can't afford great insurance, but then they discover that State Farm has surprisingly great rates. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. All right, let's flip back to our typical peer view. Hot seat rankings. Let's get spicy here. I asked you guys to come with your top three ballot for guys or gals who are facing some heat as we get down the stretch here. Rob, why don't you start us off? Who's at the top of your hot seat rankings? Is it even fair to include Frank Vogel? I had him number one, so yeah. I think he's got to be number one.

I'm just kind of operating under the assumption, really not a particular fault of Franks, but that he's going to be gone, and they're going to make changes there because that's what big market teams in struggling situations do when they're, they can't seem to like keep their heads above waters. Oh, let's just fire the coach,

especially if they, for some reason, can't trade Russell Westbrook. what else are you going to do? I mean, to me, the hottest seat absolutely should be in the Nate McMillan. I'm sorry. You went to the conference finals last year, and you were a freaking 10 seed this year, and you cannot convince these guys to play consistent defense for the life of you. And defense is your calling card, right?

And it's not for, like, look, Tray Young at the point of attack is a problem. Golanari is a problem defensively. These are guys getting, in Trey Young's case, he's the All-Star, he gets heavy minutes, Golanari's getting heavy minutes. They're terrible on defense. But you have defensive talent on this team in a Kangaroo and Clint Capella who got $100 million,

legitimately just to play defense, you know, and that's before we get to guys like Hunter and Collins, et cetera, et cetera. You should have been able to cobble together a better defensive unit than what you put together this year your freaking bench mob lineups. It's just been awful. And I hate calling for guys' jobs,

but Nate McMillan, you did the Cardinals, you made me look bad. You made one of my picks fail. You made me look bad, so you're out of here. I like to think of it not as calling for these guys' jobs, but we're warning, we're doing a service to them, warning them that, hey,

things could get dicey for you pretty quickly here. Well, so I had Nate, Number two in my list. I guess the question with the Hawks is how much is it a coaching issue and how much is it a roster issue? Because on the one hand, they do have talent. They have a lot of players on this team to the point where they could just give away a recent lottery pick to the Knicks and Cam Reddish and not really even feel it. On the other hand, like, does this roster make sense? Is there enough to cobble together a good enough defense? Obviously, they have the offensive talent, but like it's so just topsy-turvy. It's so like one-sided offensively that I want to. wonder, like, should Travis Schlank have, like, figured something out to create a little bit more balance for Nate McMillan? Because Nate McMillan is the second coach in two years at this point. And so I do wonder, like, do you have to start looking elsewhere outside of the coach? I mean, for me, their offense can be so damn explosive at times, which is just like, when you get a unit like that, you want to be able to be like, all right, this is something special and

important. Teams dream of being able to put the ball in the basket this easily the way the hawks can. So to me, it's like, it's just about Scotch taping this damn defense and making it competent. Like, you don't need to have a Rose Royce defense, but I'll take a Prius. Right now, it's a pento. It's a goddamn hootty of a defense right now. I don't know what to make of D'Andre Hunter and Clint Capella on defense. I really don't. Like, I really thought that those guys could prop something like this up. And we, I thought there was enough evidence from last year to corroborate that. Clearly, whatever it was that was working has gone completely off the rails.

Yeah, my question is, I guess, twofold. Is, like, Clint Capella not able to anchor a defense by himself? Or is that idea that one rim protector can have such pervasive effect on your defense no longer the case? So is it a compelah issue or is it more just, the idea that like one player can solve a lot on defense. Well, I think they were hoping he wouldn't have to be the one guy, that he would have enough help from Hunter, from Reddish if he had developed, from, you know, younger guys like Herder just like developing defensively over time, Collins, who's like an athletic,

shot contestor, shot blocker, that they could, you know, cobble together enough supporting pieces to make that work. A Kangu, as was mentioned as well, really like useful, switchable defender. it feels like there's enough pieces here where if Capella is an all defense candidate, a guy who like last year was kind of on the ballot in the running for a defensive

player of the year. If he's that guy, they should be a good team. He doesn't appear to be that guy right now. So who else we have on our ballot? Because this one, this is where it gets really kind of tough. I didn't include Alvin Gentry, if only because that was, I think, a foregone conclusion. He got the interim tag off the bat

And I don't think he's done a lot there to prove otherwise. I think they're like five and 12 since the trade deadline. So I think that's probably not worth discussing. Anybody else you guys see out there that? Carlisle obviously is safe. He's pretty entrenched over there. Yeah, a lot of these bad teams have pretty new coaches or disappointing teams have pretty new coaches. So it's hard to imagine somebody getting fired after one season or partial.

And how can you blame what happened in Detroit this year? year, after getting the number one pick last year, what were they really supposed to be? So you can't do that. Yeah, I'm not really seeing it. The Pelicans, again, another one of these teams, third coach in three years. I'm not really seeing where, you know, the hot seat lies, which is kind of crazy. I think there is one. And it's, there's a couple of pressure points developing around Quinn Snyder and Utah.

Yeah, as soon as you said that, I was like, yeah. That seems like the one. And there's a reason why, you know, Mark Stein reported this morning that teams like the Lakers, if they part with Vogel, other teams with openings would obviously be very interested in Quinn Snyder because he's a very good coach. Interesting. But they're a core of a roster that's been together for a minute. They're going to have to make some changes if they lose or have a disappointing postseason, which, I mean, we'll have to wait and see. But I'm not terribly optimistic about their chances to make it through the West. you could see Snyder as a fall guy again

through no real fault of his own because that roster is just not built to defend. Quinn Snyder, Lakers, legend. He's going to go home. Yeah, I can see that. Although it's tough with a lot of these guys who have been entrenched that long to see them really picking up,

especially with a team that kind of bases its entire worldview around consistency. I don't know. That seems like a little bit dicey. To pin it on Quinn as the fall guy there seems just like missing the entire point. Especially when the easier thing to do is just trade Donovan Mitchell for a shit ton of stuff and just keep it pushing. Like that seems like that would be easier than like, all right, let's find a guy that's going to come in here and make Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell like each other.

Like that seems way harder to me. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm wrong here. Do you want the job was? Do you want that assignment? No, absolutely. I will say that although they are consistent as an organization in a broad sense, they've had a lot of front office overhaul lately, new ownership.

I think not unprecedented for teams in that position to look to make organizational level changes like that, even for accomplished coaches like Snyder. And especially for Danny Yangh, the kind of guy who's like, really like, I want to have my fingerprints on every single thing that within the organization, that I'm in charge of, I can see Danny Angie and like, look, Winston-Nice is a nice guy, good coach, but he's not my guy.

I need a guy. That's mine. Does he make a lot of trades? Danny Inge, does he make a lot of moves? He almost does. He almost makes a lot. I have a couple other names to throw out you guys. Stephen Silas in Houston, obviously built to fail,

especially since like the day after he got the job, James Hardin was partying with little baby, a guy that I guess I could name drop right now as if I know who that is. But it's been pretty brutal. And I guess if you wanted to set your team up for a different approach here, maybe get a guy who's a little bit more of a Mark Denio or whatever is. That's not even close. What is it?

Mark Dagnall. Dagnall. That was close. Similar beats. Embarrassing. Yeah. Professional podcast. I could see Stephen Silas

somehow taking the fall for a team that's just straight up not supposed to be good. And it's not like when they play, they seem like this rudderless group. Like, they seem like they play pretty hard. There's just a bunch of young guys who aren't very good yet.

You know, despite, you know, how amazing all Rockets Twitter tells me Shangoon is, the team itself isn't good. yet. And maybe they're close to it. But I think he definitely deserves a shot next year with, you know, young guys who have made offseason developments and are better than they were the year before. I think they have growth potential. And you want to see, you know, the guy deserves a shot. I think he has more time. I think he has a longer runway. And if at the end of next season,

they look like a disorganized group that doesn't have a lot of momentum in any particular direction, then maybe it's a conversation we have. But I think he has more time. because other than like playing a couple veterans over some younger players in certain spots, other than, I mean, I wouldn't have put the ball in Kevin Porter Jr.'s hands personally. That's not my natural mode,

but I can understand the temptation to try it. Yeah, and there have been clashes with one Kevin Porter, Jr., but I almost wonder how much is that on the organization for bringing him into the environment. That's a Kevin Porter Jr.'s specialty. Right.

Other guy I would mention Chauncey Billups. It's not gone well. Not a good season for Chauncee. Yeah, I guess everything in Portland could be up for grabs. Here's one. Someone setting his own seat ablaze, Greg Popovich. Yep. I was thinking about this too.

It kind of, it would not surprise me if he just kind of went into the sunset this offseason. And maybe we just have to think about that every offseason going forward until he eventually does. He's just at that point in his life and his career. But it feels like a nice bookend setting the record this season. It feels like a natural transition point for the, the team in a lot of ways. I don't know who the era parent would be there or if they look to

hire someone from outside when, whenever pop does look to retire, transition into a different role, become a consultant, whatever that looks like for him. But we're nearing those days one way or the other. Yeah. I mean, and I could definitely see him not making a big deal of it and just like walking away on like September 1st with a press release and nobody knew it was coming beforehand. Like Jake Al-Hoon did this thing at Yukon where he retired at the start. of a new season specifically so they had to hire Kevin Ali, his handpicked successor.

I could see Pop very much doing the same thing, both very cranky old men as well. Also worth noting that that's basically exactly what Tim Duncan did was not really talk about retiring and then at the end of a playoff series was like, I'm not really going to say, and then all of a sudden he was retired. So if Pop does go that route,

there'd be a nice symmetry to it for sure. He kind of did it again with leaving assistant coaching as well. He was just gone at the start of one season. Last guy I would mention. Steve Kerr. No. Steve Kerr is good. Run a goddamn pick and roll, Steve.

You don't have step out there. Stop worrying about the ball motion. It's beautiful game, but not when you play it with fucking Chris Chioza, man. I didn't know you went full Warriors Twitter, Justin. Come on. Did you see that meme I put in the slack? It was him and him and P. Carroll. just like giving each other like a handshake,

very happy to see each other. And the caption was when you keep the ball out of your best offensive players' hands. Let Russ cook. Hashtag let Russ cook. There you go. All right. That's it for us this week.

We'll be back next week. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production. We'll see you.