The Ringer NBA Show - ‘Heat Check’ — Basketball Doesn’t Stop (Ep. 165)

Episode Date: November 20, 2017

The Ringer’s Juliet Litman and John Gonzalez review the Celtics’ continuing win streak (0:49), marvel at the Warriors’ effortless dominance (3:31), and tout the young 76ers’ impressive recent performance (9:45). Then, they play "Real or Not Real?" with the sinking Los Angeles Clippers (16:33), check in on James Harden and Lonzo Ball (22:50), and preview the holiday weekend’s slate of games (27:52). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Monday heat check on the Ringer MBA show. I'm Juliet Litman. I'm John Gonzalez. We have a really fun week of basketball ahead, and we're coming off a really fun few days as well. It turns out that basketball does not stop. Basketball doesn't stop. You know, I think that Nike is underrated for that ad campaign from the lockout. Yeah. It's like the best one ever.

Basketball never stops. It really doesn't. I went out. I realized I went out way too fast during the preseason. Too much summer league, too much preseason. forgot that it's a marathon. You got to take your time. But we're easing into it.

It's not even a marathon anymore. It's just like a constant cross-country trek. Yes. Because it's all the time. It's never ending. It's an ultra-marathon. But right now it's particularly fun. And it's particularly fun if you're a Boston Celtics fan.

I really want to apologize to everybody who's not a Celtics fan because we have managed to almost lead every single pod with them. But it's unavoidable, Juliet. They're really good. They've won 15 games in a row. And on top of that, they beat the Golden State Warriors. without Gordon Hayward in their own gym. This was the team that we thought,

like, what are the Celtics going to look like after the Lost Gordo? What do they look like? They look amazing. They look great. In the first quarter, I thought they were going to get blown out. I was like, oh, the Warriors were playing a different game. But that is why the Celtics are impressive. They make in game adjustments and they got Jason Tatum to wake up for the fourth quarter.

Jalen Brown had like one of the best games of his career against the Warriors. That's impressive. Like in the middle of the game, you turn it around and like it's the young guys who do it for you. We've gotten to the point now where we've gotten to the point now where we're, we could almost just do this particular part of our show on loop. It's true. We're like, wow, Jalen Brown. We go like, oh, Jalen Brown's really good.

And Jason Tatum is really good. And then we play the drop. And we go, Kyrie Irving is really good. And Brad Stevens is to run away, favored for coach of the year. And the Celtics have the third best net rating and the best defensive rating. And like rinse and repeat. And we'll probably have to do it again next week because, Juliet, I was looking at their schedule. This could continue for a while.

They're at the Mavs tonight. Then they're at the heat. Then they're at Kevin Clark's now awful again magic. No, they have the magic at home. And then they're at the Pacers. This could go on for a while. They're at 15 games. They could push this into the 20s.

What's the trap game on here? Pestons, I think, is the loss. I think the heat could be a loss too. You know? Those are fighters. They like to punch up, you know? Yeah. And they've got players that aren't necessarily, like, I like the way that Al

Horford is playing this year relative to Al Horford last year. Hassan Whiteside is not a good matchup for Al Horford. Yeah, and just they can pull a win out like randomly. Yeah. Not that I think they're underwhelming. But I actually, I'm glad you brought up Forford. I just feel like he's the biggest winner of this Celtics team. You love him.

I do like him. It's because he's got such beautiful eyes. Checked out his eyes. I will have to look though now. They're just very bright. Anyway, but I just feel like I found him to be a very unfun, uninspiring player. But the way that he really facilitates a lot of their offense and makes a lot of what they do possible, just makes him seem more valuable than I really ever thought him to be.

They're a much deeper team that I think people give them credit for for a lot of reasons, and that helps. They got Marcus Morris back. One of the more I is now back on the team. Actually, both Mori are back. They're playing for their respective teams, but he's been really good for the Celtics. Marcus Smart can't hit a three-pointer to save his life, but he does so many other things on the floor. And then Rozier, like the whole team. And even like Ojolet is useful for them off the bench.

So they're doing great. The Warriors fell to them by four, and I was surprised by that. They just sort of seemed like they didn't expect anyone to really challenge them. but then they've pulled it together since on their road trip, but it should really be a breeze. It should be easier than they making it seem, but they came back from down 23 on Saturday night against the Sixers. The Sixers had scored 47 points in the first quarter,

we're basically on pace for 200, and somehow the Warriors were able to win, and they did it by scoring 47 themselves in the third quarter. This makes me sad. It's a bummer. Did you watch this game? I did. I watched almost all of it. Okay, so I was like the rest of Philadelphia.

Losing your mind? Not so much losing my mind as like, and I should have known better, it became this preemptive gloat because they looked so good, right? So in the first game, when they played each other exactly one week apart,

in the first game in San Francisco or in Oakland, the Sixers looked in the first half like they could really play with the Warriors. Then all of a sudden, they're coming off of those two games in L.A., which we're going to get to. And then what happens?

Like, they just crater in that third quarter and the Warriors assert themselves. And I wonder, like there was some, I think, like a little bit of Warriors related panic, and then they reminded us, oh, yeah, they're really good. Yeah. The third quarter is, like, when the Warriors strike, right? Like, if they're going to win, they win it in the third quarter, usually. They've been amazing in the third quarter.

Yeah. That night, Steph had 35 and Katie had 27. And that was, the Sixers game I was, like, excited by, because even though I don't need a fourth straight finals with the Warriors, it is like... It's going to happen. It's exhilarating to see players just sort of, like, decide they're going to take over. That's why LeBron is so fun. Sure. And so I was really happy when the, in the second quarter, it just sort of seemed like Katie

was like, no, I'm done with this. like get me the ball and I'm shooting and I was scoring. And then stepped at the third quarter. And I enjoy like just exceptional individual performances like that. They were all exceptional. And they melded their individual performances into one team win where they went, oh, did you think that we were going to lose back to back to the Celtics and the Sixers? Because that's not going to happen because we're the Warriors. And I went, oh, right.

And, you know, when you say, I don't really need another Warriors final, that was them going, you're going to get it anyway. It was really depressing. Steph had something to say afterwards. It made me sad. It was wild because we never had anything going for us in the first half. And you expect to give yourself a chance, find a way to get back in the game and see if you can make it interesting down the stretch.

And you don't expect to cover a 22-point deficit in one quarter. No, you don't. You don't expect it, but you did it anyway. Thanks so much, Steph Curry. Whenever the Warriors are down by a lot, I think about commentator Steve Kerr. And he's always like, if you can just get it within, like, 12 by the end of the third quarter, then you're feeling good. And that's what the Warriors

did, is they caught up kind of incrementally, and then they just took over. Where are you on Carr these days? I'm wondering if he's just getting a little too cute with the media. So Kevin Durant was out last night against Brooklyn, Warrior still won, even though it was kind of close. And he does this thing when he announces, like, the subs, like, who will be starting instead? He kind of like leans into the meta-narrative. So he was like, okay, does everyone have their phones out? starting in place of Kevin Durant is Omory Caspby and then he pulled out of slinky and he starts playing with it and someone asks a follow-up question.

He's like, no, I'm going to let everyone finish their tweet first. He's really committed to this bit. Yeah. So he's done a couple of different things. Like one day he clipped his fingernails, which was like a little gross, but I get the bit. I wonder, really I think it speaks to

what this regular season is for the Warriors that he has decided that this is going to be a running thing. Right. And he's going to come out. with different props and gags to do each of them. And he's putting actual effort and thought into them preemptively. Like, everybody else is like, oh, we got to get ready for the Warriors. And he's like, do I have a Rubik's Cube this week?

Like, what am I bringing out? Because that's where my mind is. Yeah. He projects so much calm. He does. I often wonder, like, is this a projection or are you really calm or is it a combination of both? Or this is just what it looks like to be like a professional winner.

because Steamcar is just a professional winner. Professional winner is exactly what they all are. I think in any industry, right, when you become comfortable in what you're doing in your day-to-day routine and confident that you can execute X, Y, and Z tasks, that that lends itself to comfort, exactly where you're saying. Yeah. Like, he's a professional winner. He's used to it.

So he can go, yeah, man, I'm going to clip my fingernails while you tweet this out. I'm not at all worried we're the warriors. It's a little grading, but, you know, when you're that good, you can do it. And you're that good, you're that good. You're that good. I think that he's excelling also making up injuries for his players, like to get them rest. Sure. It's a very pop-esque.

Yeah. Kevin turned out of the sprained ankle. Okay. Maybe. Tweeted it. Steve Curry, the upper thigh contusion. Okay. Sure.

Things you can't, oh, you know, like my back. Yeah. Right. You can't mess with that because it's like, sure. Yeah. All right. It hurts. It's sore going.

But that's what they should be doing. They're the warriors. And as we said, this is an inevitability. They're going to be there in the end and let them rest. Yeah. Speaking of the end, question you have brought up. Yes. How many games could the Celtics get off of the Warriors in a seven-game series?

They give them problems defensively. I mean, we've seen it. They're very good on defense. They're very good on defense. They've got players that are switchable. As I've mentioned, Mark is smart at the offensive end. Not terrific. Mark is smart in the defensive end.

Amazing. I really like him. You've got the J-Team who are long, and you've got a lot of guys who could potentially confound them. That still, to me, is probably a walk. Maybe two? Yeah, maybe too. Maybe they push it to see.

games if they meet in the end, it certainly looks like it's going that way. Brad Stevens is taking the crown on top minutes manager. I noticed that all of the Celtics are averaging under 30 minutes per game, except for Jaylon Brown, who's at 32. He's just turned 21, I think. So that's fine.

So he's like, obviously, they're, like, really trying to play the long game. Do you believe in peaking too early? I don't. I think that this is a team that you want to see that. Like, if we're talking about the Celtics, then no, because this is a new team. Yeah, they need to get in the rhythm of winning.

Right. Put it all the, gather, get moving. And also, I think if you asked any player or coach, do you want to win or do you? I mean, like, they're put it, forget about winning too early or peaking too early. They're killing it right now and ride it. Yeah, it's true. It's true.

It's true. Should you talk about your beloved six or a little bit more? We need to. Okay. We need to. Now, the Warriors game was dispiriting, but Juliet, Kings of Los Angeles. Kings of Los Angeles. That's really impressive because I know that Joelle and Bede went out while he was here.

I know he hit the club. And the beach with Markell. And the beach. They put their feet in. the sweet Pacific Ocean. They did. Which was like, a little chilly.

Yeah, I get it though. I went to the beach yesterday. And I was like, oh, I should have come a little, I went for sunset. I was like, oh, I should have come a little earlier. I could have dipped my toes in as well. Anyway, still playing as well as he did while managing the LA nightlife is very impressive to me.

Like most teams, that would be a one and one or an O for two. But they walked away two and oh. They absolutely throttled the Clippers who were going to get to a little bit later. In the Lakers game, I was at that Lakers game, Juliet. What was the vibe like in Staples? For the Clippers game, it was, it was a good atmosphere. For the Lakers game, it was insane. There were a lot of Sixers fans there.

Not surprising that Sixers fans are absolute maniacs. They travel well everywhere. But to see that performance, I think, even if you weren't a Sixers fan for Lakers fans, and I use this, I'm doing like the air quotes thing because I'm like, I'm never really sure how much Lakers fans are actually fans of basketball writ large. Everybody in that building was captivated by that performance. As we later learned, since the NBA started track. blocking blocks. It's never happened. 46 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists and seven blocks.

That's the first time ever. It was a really amazing performance. Julius Randall, RIP, Julius Randall. I think he has to go into hiding. Yeah, people were like, oh, he's like really improved this year. I don't believe in Julius Randall, like, it just long term, and I think that was born out. He's just not like a top tier player. I actually like Julius Randall. I think that this is maybe not the best fit for him, and eventually he'll go somewhere else and he'll be fun. That's a tough guard for Julius Randall or as we've learned. It was a tough guard for DeAndre Jordan got punked, Willie Reed. I mean, after Joel M. B'd put it on Willie Reed, he later said, yeah, I also took it to that guy whose name I can't remember. So he was clowning everybody all over the floor. And then on top of that, we saw Ben Simmons. I just love him. He's killing it. He's so much fun to watch. There's just like an obvious savvy. Like he has like the LeBron IQ. And also, I think it's impressive to get everyone to be like, yeah, don't shoot, only dunk or pass. And no one's like, oh, no, we knew we're about Ben Simmons, but he has everything else so well

that you're like just so on board, yes, just dunk as much as you can. If you can't get a dunk, just pass it. There's so many times where you see, I mean, like I was sitting there for that Lakers game. We were watching how much room the Lakers were giving him. And other reporters that were sitting on either side of me were talking about that and then going, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Because he can still get to the room whenever he wants.

Right. And now he's got this like sort of in the paint hook shot throwbacks. shot, which is working, good for him. He's also a pretty good in-air adjuster to, which is really impressive. And it's so interesting, like, really unique players, I think you need to unlock one thing. Like, Kauai became great when he could shoot. But with Ben Simmons, you're just like, he already is great. It's so weird.

For me, it's hard for me to separate it out my filliness because, you know, take me out of Philadelphia. I've been here for a year and a half. Is there a better league pass team right now? No, there's not. The Knicks, I think, are number two. But the Sixers are number one. Have to be.

I'm really excited. They're so much fun. Also, just watching Robert Covington shoot all the time. Got his contract, got paid. Love Rocco. The Sixers got sort of a discount there. I thought that Robert Covington would get more money. Good for the Sixers.

Good for him. He obviously won. I think when you're Robert Covington and you were making a little north of a million dollars a year and now you're going to make on average north of $15 million a year, like you're not going to push it and you're going to go, this is great. I'll take the money. I get to stay with a wonderful team. Yeah, a wonderful team.

Well, a team that's on the up. No, this is like a nice fun. Yeah, no, that's fair enough. You're laughing me about this. It's okay. Because it's exciting to watch them. I'm happy for Brett Brown, too. I wrote a piece last week on The Ringer.

I saw him from the very beginning through now. I covered him through all those dark days. And he really is truly one of my favorite people that I've ever covered because he's a genuine human. He's a real professional. And he had a steward that team and that franchise through all those dark days. and now that he gets to go out there and like coach a wonderful team that's talented. Wonderful. Juliet, like, it's all coming up Sixers.

It's all great. It's not quite coming up Fultz yet. That was our Faults update. Yes, that's the Faults update. Out another two to three weeks at least. It's fine. Soreness is dissipating and muscle balance is improving. I've never heard anyone talking about muscle balance before.

Look, whatever happens with Fultz happens, it has occurred to me and probably to you and everybody else. Let's not get carried away, but it has occurred to me and you and probably everybody else that it maybe doesn't matter because Simmons and Embeder the thing. What should we do with like Okapur and Fultz? Like where can we send them? Apparently not to another team. They can't be traded.

Like first of all, Fultz should go to the G league is one thing I just want to say. That might be extreme. No, it's not. Tony Parker is rehabbing in the G league. You cannot send the number one pick. I don't want to get into a thing here, but you can't send the number one pick to the G league. I would like to. I would like to.

Listen, I'm on team Adam Silver. Okay. And I think Adam Silver would appreciate that. Shouldn't we turn it into the minor leagues where you go to practice? No, we can't have that. Why not?

Because he's the number one pick and like whatever. Because if he's shook. He's very shook. Right, but that would make it way worse. I don't know. I think that honestly, I think that like it sets a good example

when someone like Tony Parker is like, yeah, I'm going to go to the Austin Spurs. He's Tony Parker. He's won like 47 championships. Yeah, and he's Tony Parker. He's like so suave and he's French. But that's besides the point. I just think,

I actually do, I would really like to see the G League become a more, it's already headed that direction. Like it's working. I'm still over here on track. But like, let's just accelerate it and send folds there. No, let's not. I'm great. Go for the like the G League. Delaware 87ers, right? It's the Delaware 87ers, which is still like one of the worst names. Delaware's, they didn't have Joe Biden. They wouldn't have much. Not a lot going on. It's a pass-through state. It's also a tax haven. Yeah, it is. Your Delaware knowledge is really impressive. I am rooting for G-League. I want Fultz nowhere near the G-League and let's not, let's never speak of it again. Wow. It would be terrible. You're getting defensive. No, I, this is my new thing then. Okay.

To poke at me about Foltz and the G-League. Yeah. I'm going to have flop sweats tonight. I'm not going to be able to sleep. Look what you've done to me. I'm all of a clumped. I think it would help him. That's just, can we talk about like a much worse team now? Because I like, I like to think about the Sixers in happy terms and I want to, and I want to believe that Foltz eventually will be back and fine. You might not be, but you've got two for four is great. All right, we're going to do real or not real. We've decided to make this an all Clippers edition. Yes. I've been in L.A. now a little over a year, like a year and change.

I've met exactly two Clippers fans. Okay. One is Jimmy O. Yang from Silicon Valley, who plays Jin Yang. Nice. Who I met during the Blake Griffin piece that I wrote for The Ringer. Cool. So shouts to Jimmy O. Yang. The other is our producer, Isaac Lee.

He's the only other Clippers fan that I know. The Clippers for a minute at the beginning of the season, we went, Are the Clippers good? As it turns out, they're not good. No. Hello, darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again. All right.

Juliet, they're five and ten. They've lost eight straight. They're behind the Lakers and Sons, and they're barely ahead of the Kings and the Mavs. That's stunning. It's breathtaking. It's really bad. Losing eight straight,

they've been without Pappé, they've been without Teh Dosich. In a couple of those games, they've been without Gellanari. So, caveat. However, they lost a lot of games with them anyway. As you can hear, it's storming. It's stormy in Los Angeles.

It doesn't rain here, except for when the Clippers play, at which point there's thunderstorms and lightning. Let's do a Clippers edition of Real or Not Real. I'll give you the first one. Real or Not Real, Julie, the Clippers will finish the season where they are as a bottom five team in the league. I'm going to go with Not Real.

I think a bunch of these Eastern Conference teams will regress, and I think that the Suns will start tanking. This was a team. I'm going to go Not Real too, but not by much. This was a team that we talked about as a fifth or... Yeah, a middle of the pack. We're like, I had them at the very edge of the playoffs, like a seven and eight, but still in the playoffs. I said fifth or six preseason.

Yeah, and Kevin O'Connor, same deal. He was bullish on them. I don't think anybody's bullish on them right now. You have to be worried if you're a Clippers fan. Absolutely. Let's do real or not real. Blake probably regrets signing with them for five years and $173 million. Not real.

He's fine. I think he's fine. I think he wants to get rid of Doc. probably. He probably wants to make some moves. Storm is really picking up. Yeah, but this is the first of five years. It's still L.A. I think for someone like Blake,

per your piece, who's really interested also in other ventures, being in L.A. is way better than being in many other places. Plus, he's dating Kendall Jenner, who goes to many games, and that would not be possible if you were in different city. She was at the Sixers'Clippers game. She was. Which I didn't know until you told me, even though I was at the game with Justin Barrier and Katie Baker.

She was sitting courtside. Yeah. I think that there's 173 million reasons why he's pretty happy with being with the cupers. Totally. Totally fine. All right. Real or not real, they should trade DJ. Real.

And I want to point something out. We saw a few years ago, I think it was 13 or 14, DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin spent their summer vacationing together in Croatia. And they had like his and hers hats. And then when Chris Paul first came to L.A., that had that famous Lobb City clip of them like hanging out. I have not seen Blake and D'Andre hang out in quite some time. I just want to throw that out there. Doesn't DJ hang out with the Warriors sometimes? Yeah, Kevin Durant.

And then he had dinner with Dramon Green a couple of weeks ago. They were caught by the paparazzi coming out of catch, which is a hot spot in, like, West Hollywood. I go to you for all of my Instagram information, TMZ information, restaurants. You gave me a whole thing about what did you call it? The Benzware Corridor of LaGuardia. You're blown my mind with all of this stuff. It's ridiculous. That block from like first to second on Libraia is like all men's wear and like outdoorsy menswear.

You're my go-to. Nothing for me. Anyway, I have not seen Blake and DeAndre out together or on vacation or like hanging in a while. So I just want to, I just want to note that. Here's my thing. I think it's real that they probably should do it. But if you do that, if you trade DeAndre Jordan, that's a hard reset on this team. And you still have Blake Griffin.

So now what? So they should, right? Do you think they should or should not? No, I'm sort of. I think that they will. I'm not sure that they should because if you do, right, exactly. If you do, all of a sudden the thunder is really pronounced and then things get ugly. I mean, you've got Blake Griffin, so you just signed him and now what? What's the ideal team that surrounds Blake? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know that we've seen it yet. I don't know either. Like,

everyone wants Blake to run the point, like a point forward. But like, this is like unfair, but like, already he's not as good as like Joelle Embed, who also does a lot of things that Blake does. I thought I was getting a little carried away because I was going to say he, why can't Can't he be the Ben Simmons of the Clippers? No, he can't be Ben Simmons. He's a better shooter than Ben Simmons. Yeah, sure. But I honestly think it's almost like his skill set is more similar to Embed at this point.

Because of who Embedit is becoming, not because of who Blake is becoming. You know what you mean? And that's kind of the problem. Yeah, Blake is a little more mobile. Joe needs to get in better shape. I have one more for you, and I like this better than jettisoning D'Andre Jordan. Okay. Real or not real, the last one for the All Clippers Edition.

Doc Rivers won't survive the season. I don't know. All bets say he won't survive. but do you really like eliminate his power like in two steps like that? Like do you first, they first took away his front office role and asked he's just the coach. Why wouldn't you just have done them both the same time or like give the coach experiment a little bit more time to play out? I don't know. What do you think?

I don't think he will. I think that they look at this and they go, this is untenable. This is not the kind of team that Doc really probably wants to coach. He's been a coach of veterans and winners for a long, long time. If you're Doc Rivers, do you really want, I mean, like, what's going on with this team that you're excited about? You're running your kid out there. He's terrible. Or Austin.

You know, like, right, exactly. Like, if you're Doc Rivers, don't you probably want to go and do something else? And by the way, I don't want him to leave because I go to a lot of Clippers games and a lot of Lakers games for obvious reasons. Doc Rivers is top three coach quote in the league. He's amazing. Totally. You go, hey, Doc. He makes your job easier.

It's so much easier with Doc Rivers. You go, hey, Doc. and you start your recorder, and then you just take it all down, and then you go back and make a story. Like, he's that good. Sure. He's going to go off and do TV at some point. Maybe some point is now.

His voice is too hard to listen to. I hope he doesn't do TV. J.M.T. Just my thoughts. Also, if he gets fired, does that mean that Mike Woodson is interim head coach? I guess. Yeah. Again.

Oh, man. It's time for the heat check, heat check. Someone who is really hot right now, James Hardin. Still killing it. He's killing it. Chris Paul is back, which led to. them doing a beat down on the suns and pretty handily beating the gris. All of the gris without Mike Conley for the foreseeable future, which really sucks. But meanwhile, James Hardin

is leading the league in both a points and assists. When asked about this by Jonathan Fagan of the Houston Chronicle, he said, I just want to know. I didn't even know. I just want to chip. That's it. Whatever it takes, whether it's scoring, whether it's passing the ball, doing whatever, I'm willing to do it. I just want to win. Stats are just stats. They're always going to be there. I just want to win. Is this a new James Hardin? Is this something that James Hardin would have said to years ago? Good question. I'd like to see James Harden if he just wants to win be a little bit better on defense. And yes, Rockets fans, I know that they have the eighth best defensive rating overall. They're a better defensive team than they were. Rockets fans are

beginning to rival jazz fans for angry on the internet. Sixers fans. I guess they're all mean. I don't know, jazz fans, the ones got really mad at me and I was traumatized. Anyway, jazz fans get angry about stuff? I was like Gordon Hayward's not a star, which he's not. And they didn't like that. I don't want to adjudicate Gordon Hayward whether or not he's a star right now, but I will say, look, James Hardin's killing it. He's right now the MVP favorite one month in, and we get carried away with these things because initially it was, hey, it's going to be honest.

And now we were like, oh, right. James Hardin is absolutely killing it. He's been in the conversation for the last three years, too. But the chip thing is, I believe him when he says he wants to assert himself and will the Rockets pass the Warriors and win a championship and all that is true. He's still a liability defensively. And I'd like to see him Marshall Moore effort at that end. That's all.

Sure. Like, he's so, so good overall that if you're going to pick a knit, that's the knit you would pick. Totally. I mean, he has developed and improved every single year. And maybe, like, it just gets to the point where you're so good that, like, what changes is your mindset and how you approach the game. I'm ruining for him. Like, I think... I kind of weirdly am, too.

Also, partially, because I just feel like he will be the testament to how to avoid the Kardashian curse if he does one. Finally... And I'll be into it. Somebody who's managed to over... He came out alive. My heat check, heat check. I didn't want to do this. every week I end up saying

like we should get through a show without talking about Lonzo and it's like impossible. He had another triple double. Last night against the nuggets, Yokic was ejected with Mike Belone in the first or second quarter, so caveat. But nuggets are a mess, unfortunately.

The nuggets have been like surprisingly good. They've been a fun team to watch, but that was not a good game for them against the Lakers. But so he had another triple double. He got a haircut, Julia, and everybody lost their damn minds. He did.

And then the third one, he walked away from a quote fight against the Sons and Luke Walton said afterwards to the media that somebody on the team had to talk to Lonzo Ball about not doing that because like there's this this is a little scrum

you know it's like hold me back hold me back and like everybody pushes and nothing really happens but if you're on the floor you can be you know engaged to whatever degree you can be engaged without throwing a punch and nobody off the floor can come off the floor onto the floor in this particular instance

you see Lonzo just he looks over his shoulder at the scrum and then just walks off the floor like meh and the best part was he said it's the NBA people ain't really going to fight I ain't trying to get no technical I like it has Lonza Ball ever been in a fight

no I can't imagine right he doesn't look like a fighter no also it just seems like he maybe didn't interact with people outside of his teams and his family yeah which his family is back Leangelo made it back Leangelo's back maybe thanks to the president, maybe not. Lovar Ball is just stays in the media. I saw he's going to be on CNN

tonight talking about his. Great. I'll be sure to avoid CNN tonight. Ordeal. Yeah, I know. I will say we mentioned Steve Kerr earlier. Shouts to Steve Kerr for saying that we should ignore both of those guys. Agreed. I love Steve Kerr. On that note, let's move on. Let's do it. One personal note in this section I wanted to call out. Hit me. I was surprised to find that the Raptors are tied for second in the east. They're 11 and 5. They have lost to the Spurs, the Warriors, and the Celtic. who were playing without Kyrie that night. But they did beat the Rockets in Houston and have pretty handily handled worse teams. If you just hear people talking about the Raptors, though, and don't watch that many of their games,

you would assume they are like 500 or worse. Like, everyone's just like, ah, what's wrong with the Raptors? It's kind of sad. I guess we've gotten used to them. Yeah. And I've talked about this before. It's muscle memory with them. What we've seen in the past, even though they are shooting more three-pointers and good for them,

they finally figured out that, you know, you've got to increase that by whatever percentage. they're 7 and 3 over their last 10. They're fine. They're the Raptors. They're going to be in that 3-4 playoff range. Maybe two. Maybe they climb that high. I doubt it.

When all of a sudden done, I still like the Cavaliers to be up there with the Celtics. But they're fine. And they'll win a first round series and then they'll go home. Right. And Dwayne Casey is the- run it back next year. He's the Marvin Lewis of the NBA.

They're never going to get rid of them. And they're just going to keep doing this thing over and over again. I guess so. Looking ahead, Thanksgiving's on Thursday, but before that, Thanksgiving Eve, the biggest going out night of the year, maybe stay in because there's some really good games. There's a lot of fun basketball that night,

but I will also, because of work purposes, and I'm a masochist, I'll be watching the Lakers at the Kings. So dedicated to your job. Not one of the games that we have on our list, but that night, Julie, it's so many fun games. We have the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant going to Oklahoma City.

Excited about that one. That's going to be a blowout, though. You know it. There's just no way. The Warriors have been a little, a little squirily lately. Maybe they take like, you're calling the blowout. I'm a blowout, definitely. All right.

It's still a fun game in theory. We've also got the Nuggets and the Rockets. Nuggets, looking forward to that. Hopefully, Yokic doesn't get tossed. He's going to be in that game. And then, Juliet, the game that I can't get more excited about. It's your personal Super Bowl. It's my personal Super Bowl.

My two most exciting teams to watch in the NBA right now. It's Blazers at Sixers. Blazers. Sixers. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm weirdly excited about Bucks at Suns, just like it when two top players go against, two young top players go against each other. Plus you've got Bledso back in the place he didn't want to be.

Bledsoe back. I completely forgot about that. I was just focusing on Yonnes and Booker. Of course, there's that subplot. Even Raptors at Knicks is a fun one now. I'm looking forward to that. I don't know. It's like a really full night.

And then there's no games on Thursday. It's one of the reasons there's so many on Wednesday. There's turkey and there's football on Thursday. So we've got to get all our basketball in on Wednesday. Yes. But then this weekend is just a lot of great games. Turns out. Basketball doesn't stop.

Basketball doesn't stop. Neither will we. We'll be back next Monday. You'll be in New York. I'll be in New York. It'll be a coast-to-coast podcast. We will be cross-continental for the heat check pod. Thanks for listening.

Bye.