The Ringer NBA Show - #RingerNBA Live: Warriors-Celtics (Ep. 164)

Episode Date: November 17, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan, Jason Concepcion, and Justin Verrier share their instant reactions to the blockbuster matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Basketball is very good The Rockets are better without Chris Paul Janus will win the MVP What if Kyrie Irving is actually God Basketball is very good What a coincidence I'm wearing a green hat My name is Chris Ryan

This is Jason Concepcion This is Justin Verrier This is the Ringer NBA show Hit us up with questions on Twitter Hashtag Ringer NBA Guys Wow. I feel lucky. I don't know why. Boston is back, baby.

It's really nice because they hadn't had a win in a while, so it's really great to see these scrappy guys coming back. Blue Collar Town. Yeah, you know what? Boston just beat Golden State, and they won their 14 straight game. So I do think we should need to... Maybe this is real, man. Maybe we should pay homage to what's going on right now.

Is it real? They just beat the defending... I was so wondering about this. The voice went up like you were talking about mellow. We're not talking about Melo. Is it real? No, okay, here's my thing. I felt like the Warriors were never in that game.

There was something off about them there entire time. It just seemed like they locked in on defense late. But the offense wasn't there for pretty much anyone, including staff who had to go out during the middle of the game. It was like a bad, it was a good game to watch. It was very Eastern Conference, scrapping. A couple of bodies hit in the floor. It was a very Draymond game.

And then I just feel like we didn't get any sterling individual performance from a warrior. Yeah, I think the early red flag is Zaza Petulia getting like a lot of easy. looks and rolling to the rim for layups and Steph not hitting whenever those two things occur at the same time. It seemed like it just seemed like one of those

flu-like symptoms games where guys have been out or something. And this is not to take anything away from Boston who are an excellent team, the second best team in the league by net rating, but it just was a weird warrior's performance. Hashtag ringer NBA if you want to ask us question or make comments about

this game or the NBA in general ask us any questions you've got. For as much as this was sort of building up, we built it up today on the Ringer on group chat. I was like the Kyrie game where he was going to show off his MVP credentials maybe a little bit. Jalen Brown and Al Horford won this game for that team. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty worried about Kyrie Irving.

I think that's kind of the low-key storyline of the NBA right now. He was a bad offensive player this entire game. His numbers are... Shooting numbers are bad. To be fair, his face was broken. Recently. Conspiracy theory. I haven't seen the break.

myself. I'm just asking questions. I'm just asking questions. I want to see the MRI results. I want to see the MRI results. No, but like this is a product of the Celtics brand Steve in the system that they have in place here where they can muck up a game.

They can win it on defense and just get enough from those all like auxiliary guys. Kyrie finished 16 points, 4 for 16 from the field. One for five from three. Took the mask off middle of the game. I think he was feeling a little bit uncomfortable. But, you know, this one of the cool things about this season, this first month of this season, has been watching, whether it's Joel M.B., Christopps Porzingis,

Yannis, sort of understand their potential and step into that potential. Kind of seeing that with Jalen right now. We're seeing that with Jalen Brown a little bit. 22 points, free for 8 from 3, but a lot of key defensive plays. And when they needed baskets, he was right there. It's really annoying how good Jalen and Jason Tatum are at this early stage of their career. It's like terrifying. Very annoying to see that as a person who hates the Celtics,

you know, with almost every fiber his being. The only thing they could make it worse is if his name is Paul Pierce. Why'd you have to bring him up? I think the good thing to take away from the Celtics, besides the win and the 14th straight win, is just that the model that they built for their team is actually going to like maybe work against a team like the Warriors. They've got all these long ring type of players,

which is kind of the Warriors model. Come at you in Wendtick. waves. Right. And it seems at the very least, maybe they don't have the offensive punch to win a series, but they now have the defensive acumen and just like the defense of talent in order to like make a game like this competitive. There was an interesting conversation that happened at the end of the baseball season when the Indians rattled off all those wins. And I remember our co-worker Mallory Rubin actually said, you can only win so many games. There's only so many games to win and that you, that she felt like the Indians were basically peaking too early, essentially. I'm not saying that Saltics were peeking too early, but they are really clicking at a very early. point in the season. Are you discounting their streak right now to some extent? Because it's early days there was a shortened training camp. They just seem to be clicking when other teams are still figuring it out. No, I think they're legit. I think they're probably, not probably, but they are the best team in the East. I would probably say that the third best team in the NBA. I still want to

see the Rockets with Chris Paul. I think everybody's sleeping on the Rockets right now just like kind of mowing through teams. They're probably going to drop 200 on the Suns tonight. But at the very least, like they have something here. Like I said before, they have a model. It works. I do worry about in a playoff series, when it becomes about your best players, about having a big three, whether they're relying too much on a system-based kind of approach. That is a great point. On the other hand, they have Kyrie Irving, who is not playing well? Not playing well now, but is that guy who would be the guy to throw it to late in the clock when everything breaks out. And his system totally breaks down. Yeah. And then going to the line is what kept like, you know, tied the game with it.

But you look at what happened tonight and they really kind of took Kyrie out of the game for most of it. He was great down the stretch. He was able to manufacture free throws when they needed it most, which seems like such a small thing. Really big play, obviously. But I wonder if you just kind of focus in on him, if they're going to have enough guys around him. Especially you look at the three-point stats,

20% from three for the Celtics. That's not great. That's not going to win you a game on most nights. Right. hashtag ring our NBA on Twitter, if you want to ask us questions, make comments on the game. Paul from Twitter said, did we just see the two best consecutive November regular season games in L.A. L.A. L.A. Lakers last night with Philly.

Thank you, Paul. And Boston Golden State. Man, this league is fun. It's a good league. I definitely had a very nice 24 hours of being alive from going to Staples last night for that Sixers game to watching this tonight. I mean, I felt more spiritually awakened by the Sixers game. I felt more stimulated by the Sixers game. But this was just good basketball from tonight's. And also, different kinds of basketball.

Last night's was a shootout. It was all ripping the ball out of the net on a make or miss and then running and tons of turnovers and tons of fast breaks. This was much more like, it was like, I thought Golden State might walk away with it early when they were doing all these backdoor cuts and they just looked really crisp. But as it tightened up, it just felt like a kind of like a 90s Eastern conference game out there. It really did. To be fair, like Golden State missed a lot of shots that they should have hit.

That said, so did Boston early? They were running their offense, but their second unit guys just couldn't hit shots. And to be able to claw back is really impressive. They mucked up the game in really impressive ways. Jalen Brown and Tatum looked kind of semi-shook early. Yeah, Tatum is special. And Tatum never shook that off until the very end of the free throws. And then, you know, but Brown especially, yeah,

really like dialed it down and was able to make an impact on this game. I just hate how good those guys are at this young age. Splash Brothers were 5 for 20 for mine are. It's not great. I think that's the question here. Are you, it's going to be weird to say, are you worried about the Warriors? I know.

I'm a football fan. I shall remain nameless. Who's in our control booths. We just made his night. Let's go to William Medina on Twitter. He asks, I'm not even entertained that. He asks, are the Celtics legit now? I think we definitely have answered that's yet.

Michael Lewis on Twitter. Chris, what's up, man? Would you give up and beat or Simmons for Brad Stevens to coach the Sixers for the next 20 or 30 years? No. No. I actually, while I appreciate what Justin is saying,

I think that we possibly over-emphasize coaching in the NBA. And while I, you know, Brad Stevens is doing a great job. And I think that the system is great. I think you can see the... Look, man. Did you guys see what coaching needed to happen for Embed last night? Please go down low and shake three dudes off? That's a little different here.

It's like the Celtics obviously don't have many front-line guys. They don't even have the talent. Right. The front-line talent love the six-ups. Like, Pop has been winning games with nothing. Kyle Anderson. I'm not saying that there are genius coaches. I'm just saying, like, what if Brad Stevens loses his 20 or 30 years of Brad Stevens?

I can't tell you what Brad Stevens is going to do when he's 60? I agree with you. I just think when you have a team that really has only one standout offensive player. Right. And a bunch of guys that don't really have an elite edge in any one category and a bunch of young dudes and second line players that no one's ever heard of. and you're able to craft a league-leading defense and rattle off 13-14-trade wins,

you're a good coach. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't... That being said, you're asking me after that Lakers game last night, I wouldn't trade Simmons and Embed for, like, Red Hourback or something. You know what I mean? Well, Red's dead.

He's been dead for us. There's no coach I would have... I would trade those guys for, except for Caliparic. No, no, no. Those guys are way more important. Yeah, yeah. Vincent Orlock on Twitter, are the Celtics speaking to early?

We talked about that earlier. No, probably not. I don't think there's such a thing in NBA, in the basketball realm. This is sustainable. Yeah. Sure.

And that works. Yeah, they're doing things that don't look fluky at all. Can we talk a little bit? Because we were talking before the game about the MVP race and we noticed that we were rattling five players deep talking about.

It's like Janus, Christops, LeBron, Hardin. And then we realized we hadn't mentioned the name of a Warriors player. I think tonight you did see that there was not a Warriors player who was saying, put this game on my back,

I'm going to shoot us out of this. Even though they had some nice team leads of 10, 12, 14 points, there was never a point down the end of the game where KD or Steph was just like, I got this. I have no real concerns about that long term, but that was an interesting development this evening. Man, KD, only 18 shots and a 50-40-100 game.

I mean, 50% from the field, 40% for big. But for efficiency addicts, that's what they want, right? I know, but at the same time, Like if those are your efficiency numbers, then take more shots. Yeah, right. So it was a little strange to see him so reserved. He was made a lot of some nice defensive plays down the stretch, but still. Yeah, it doesn't seem like he's asserted himself not only on this game, but on this season.

I picked him as my preseason MVP, simply because I thought the words were just going to rattle off wins. They'd be so good. And we'd be just looking for anybody, and Katie would be the guy. It really seems like it should have been his season this season, simply because of how he finished it last year. You seem to be the perfect foil for the last year. LeBron going forward for the next couple years,

it's not even anyone on the Warriors at this point. I think the closest thing we have is maybe Kyrie. Yeah. Which is it really interesting. Yeah. A couple more questions from Twitter. Vance Williams says, is the ringer staff emotionally equipped

to handle a Celtic Sixers playoff series? Oh my God. I don't think I could be around Bill for the two weeks before. And probably the two weeks after, depending on what happens. Yeah. Although he has become a little bit more benevolent since the Patriots championships

and the Red Sox champions have made him soft. It's made him soft, right? The thing that people don't understand about the ringer office is every day, people go into Chris Ryan's office and they say, are you worried about Markell? Or something like that. Every day. Every day.

I'm not worried. He's not worried. His body language was good last night. His body language is great. He's looked great in Jojo's Instagrams. Yeah, and he went into the Pacific Ocean. That's something that's. I'm not really crazy about doing it.

Were you worried about him swimming like this? It would attract more sharks. I'm sorry, it's this arm. Is it going in or coming out, though? The fluid in the water. We have a bunch of questions here. Run CMB asks on Periscope, when Hayward comes back, who plays the four in the Celtics,

luck of the Irish lineup, Brown or Tatum, I think Hayward coming back would be a pretty miraculous, but B, closer to something like, like Paul George, when he came back from his leg break at the end of that pacer season, and there was a minutes limit. And you could tell psychologically he was still getting used to, you know, being on the floor.

Yeah, it's hard to see, like, what good it would do, especially if the Celtics are clicking at that time, other than get him some spot minutes and blow out. I'm just trying to get him some reps, but it wouldn't do any good, I don't think. Right. It'd be amazing if he came back, because I do think that they're a competitor against the Warriors in a finals.

Yeah, and it gives them that little, extra, where's the basket coming from? Yes. On the other hand, his foot was on backwards, like a couple weeks ago. Like, let's stop trying to rush this dude. You're grossed out, but we also, as a staff, watching this game. We were all in this room, yeah. Well, this is the last time we watched a basketball game in this room was that injury.

Then today, while eating copious amounts of Chinese food, for some reason, all ringer staffers started sharing athletic injury tales. So take that from what you will. I don't know. John Gonzalez, Gonzo from Philly on Twitter. He says first time, long time. Thanks, John. When is the Celtics parade, and where did Justin get that dope t-shirt?

Trader J-Oz, baby. Mostly vegan. Mostly. That's the problem. He's not full vegan. Yes. Yeah, he would be an all-star in that case. Let's see what else we got here on Twitter.

John Powers on Twitter asks, five Jalen Browns versus five Steph Currys. Who wins? Wow, I don't know if five Jalen Brown. I think the steps win, but it's a bloodbath. How many foul are they? get. That's a great question. I guess you have to five Jalen Browns, couldn't they just all like stand around the arc? I mean,

I have a couple more questions about this about the Celtics team and about this Warriors team. Do you think that there's any, Steve Kerr has talked about the spiritual and mental fatigue of being competitive for this long. It kind of in retrospect makes LeBron's

achievement of going to these seven straight finals or whatever it is even that much more impressive. Do you ever, any body language readings you want to give? They don't have to be long-term prognosis, but did you see anything on the court? I sometimes feel like Steve Kerr looks a little grouchy. Yeah, I think Omri Kasby looked depressed. Concerned about him.

He seemed, he just seemed down, you know, about, I'm not sure what's going on in Omri's life. Omri, you know, if you have, I hope you reach out and you find help. Anything from you? like any body language alerts from you? I mean, Nick Young looks fat. Yeah. Nick Young's 40 speech, right? Sure, right.

Also, I just ate a ton of Chinese. You're projecting. Yeah, exactly. Do we just see a finals preview? Yeah. Yes, I say yes. I'm worried, not worried, but I think the calves have a move in them.

That's the thing. Yeah, that's true. They want to cash in the Brooklyn pick. Yeah, that's true. I was actually wondering about that. When I was seeing, I was like, these guys are going toe to toe with this team. Now, on one hand, I bet I could see Boston being like, we bet on these kids.

Because we're ahead of schedule, and I could see them just being like, let's just go into this postseason with these guys. You get Jalen and Jason a run through the postseason as like number two, number three options. Right. On the other hand, the window is the window. And they have some assets left, and they have a collection of guys. They've got a lot of pieces sitting around. I don't know what you can get. What can you get that would make the difference?

For the Celtics, I mean, they could swing something small, like a Dwayne Deadman. I mean, I think I saw you guys on ESPN.com talking about this today. They need a rim protector for that team. Have for a long time, have yet. The calves, too, would be great with that. Some, like, small things might make a huge difference. The thing with the calves is I just don't see it. I don't see them cashing in that pick with LeBron.

It's too much. Unless LeBron, like, shows up in L.A., and he's like, I'm not moving. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm going to stay. The Celtics have that injury exception. I think they got money for Gordon Hayward. And you look at the calves, it's like just structurally, I don't know where they get better.

Like, who plays better? You know, LeBron is playing 42 minutes a night. I would almost say, too, part of the problem with Cleveland this year seems to be the additions is throwing everything off. It's like introducing Wade and Rose has like tilted it somehow for guys like J.R. and Amman and some of the other people. And that's just also not playing defense. Also, I just need to see them try on defense so I can properly evaluate what kind of defensive team this is, which they're not good. but it might not matter enough that they've got LeBron going for 45.

Here's my other question. So if we're saying this is this is a very possibly a finals preview, is it the finals preview that is it the finals that we want? What else would you want? Well, I mean, the rubber rubber match, the fourth, you know, like we get LeBron

versus Steph again. Or, yeah, something weird. Something like, I think Boston Golden State immediately re-energizes the finals. I have a hard time believing that even with their new pieces, if Cleveland trudged to the finals,

that they could beat this Golden State team. But all of a sudden, with a new competitor in the finals, I think it would kind of re-energize it. Yeah, I would love to see this Boston team. I just think they match up really well with the Warriors. We talked about they can send defenders to multiple positions in waves. They just have a lot of depth. What happens in close games?

Who do they throw the ball to? remains to be seen, but I think they're just a great matchup for the Warriors. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they were last year too. Yeah. They played them tight.

I love the storyline of overcoming Hayward's loss and just getting to the finals. On the other hand, I would love to see LeBron against the world. Yeah. Like, I just think that's so much fun.

This dude is like, if anybody's going to be able to withstand that sort of environment with those sort of teammates around him, it'd be LeBron. Yeah, and you know what? Let's just be clear. I mean, the Celtics have rattled off

14 wins in a row. But in the Eastern Conference right now, you know that the wizard one another shot at the Celtics. You know that the Raptors, they're the Raptors again, but they're playing in a different style, and they're capable of achieving pretty great heights

with their offense, not in the postseason necessarily, but they've brought that unit back. So it's not going to be a cakewalk for Boston to get through. And, like, if I were, I'd be a little bit nervous about who's going to be in that eight seed. Not that they're going to lose in the first round of the playoffs, but it's going to be like a good team in that seven or eight.

I mean, I think that's a good point. With only one transcendental score, transcendent score, it's hard to see how they sweep teams in the playoffs. And the Celtics have kind of always been like that. It seems a little, gets a little harder than it should be in the playoff time. I would love to see some of these other East teams to swing a deal. Like the boogie to watch everyone that we always talk about, that'd be great. Milwaukee made the Bledso deal.

They've won four in a row. I mean, these things can have positive effects. Hashtag ringer NBA, if you want to ask us any questions about this game or the NBA in general right now. When do the Celtics lose? Next couple of games are, let's check this out. We've got... I can see an emotional loss. At Atlanta and at Dallas next year.

So they could very well win their next year. I was just going to say, like when the Warriors lost their streak after the emotional Boston game where they went to O-T and they went to Milwaukee. But I don't know about that. Could be another few. RIPP, Dirknovitsky, by the way. Oh, my God.

Because Ken Moran's terrible. Took his whole style. I'm sorry, Jason. He looks like he's, made of steel beans. It's crazy. Like his hips just look like, he makes these moves like, Boston's won 14 games in a row. Are there the story

of the NBA season so far? The story? Remember from where we draw our checks? I understand. I think, I actually think the story of the NBA season right now is the young players really showing out Ben Simmons, Embed, Chris Stapps, Janus. I think that's really the storyline because this is

stuff that won't emerge, you know, Celtics versus Warriors, won't take shape until the second half of the season. Sure. I mean, I remember that the 1-6ers team that went to the finals against the Lakers started, I think, 10-0. They also made a deal in mid-season to bring in Mutumbo. You can get very far

on an early season streak. It can really build a lot of confidence. But I agree with you. I think it's the young players. What about you? Do you think the storyline of the season so far? It's young players plus the brawn. Like, the Cavs have just been a tire fire this entire season. And I feel like there is that push and pole where you've been saying this whole time, well, they can turn it on whenever

they want. And then there's another fact being like, listen, this thing is broken. I'm on that side of the fence, and I think that's going to be a discussion. I'm starting to get closer to he could turn it on. Yeah, LeBron can turn it on. LeBron, I mean, he's... And on any given night, if he's like, I want to go for 51 points and play 42 minutes or whatever... Yeah, but he can't keep this up.

42 minutes. We can keep saying that, but, like, I'm not, I'm saying, you're right physically and eventually, but not now. Like, now it doesn't seem like it. A few days ago in that Dallas game, I wrote about it the other day. Like, he looked passive aggressive the entire time. He was sending a sub-tweeat. that entire game but not doing it.

It's kind of annoying. There's been numerous plays just in the last week where it's, whoa, LeBron watches Frank Milakina, waltz to the rim, and he does that numerous times a game against multiple opponents because he's doing everything except driving the bus. I will say really quickly,

Boston is part of this story that I'm most interested in. Not necessarily the one that's grabbing the most headlines, but the failure of the super team a little bit. Not, you know, the Minnesota, third place in the West, having a good season. Rockets are obviously good without Chris Paul. But I think I'm thinking mostly of Oklahoma

and their failure to kind of catch fire immediately. See what he's doing here? What? What? I just think that they added, they added Paul George. Right. Sure, I've heard of him.

They added Raymond Felton. Yes. Yeah, I think Patrick Patterson. Pat Pat. Yeah, Dan. Great nickname. Who else do they add? I don't know.

Is you playing the Big East? Do you play for Yukon? I don't acknowledge this person that you're speaking of. Carmela, Anthony. So there's been a little bit of, there's a rocky beginning for some of the super teams. Yeah, if you guys have any more NBA questions, hashtag ringer MBA.

James Byrne asks on Periscope Gordon Hayward, a Ewing theory candidate. No, come on. You gotta be there for longer than five minutes. Right. Kind of. Come on. No.

Yeah, so what else? Like, we were talking about this. We'll have a post about this tomorrow, giving away some awards. We talked about the MVP award. In a normal season, I think Tatum would probably be the favorite for rookie of the year. This was certainly not necessarily a calling card game, but a calling car moment for him to hit those free throws at the end of the season. What do you have for rookie of the year?

Ben Simmons. He's just been absolutely electric, and I did not expect him to be this good. His jumper still looks awkward, but he's getting anywhere he wants to on the numbers are stupendous. I mean, he had like, what, 1910, 5 and 5 in the Embed game against the Lakers, and it's like no one will talk about it because Embedd Eurosteped Brooke Lopez. Yeah. But he's just been incredible. He's been able to exist in this weird place where like the the shooting, nobody talks about because they're A getting W's and because Embedd is just Akeeming. So we just are over. Well, I mean, they run that pick and roll with Embed and Bede and is

the floor space in that case. It's cool. Crazy. Yeah, he pops out. We talked about this today. Just the way that Ben uses his body and just uses his physical advantage, it's really impressive for someone that young. Yeah, and I don't think I noticed it until I saw him play live. It's also just like the things that you can see that are the LeBron-ish way of reading the game.

He was playing free safety in transition where he would just sort of watch Lonzo's eyes and then just pick a pass out of the sky on him. It was really impressive. Who do you think has the brighter future right now, the Knicks of the Sixers? Why are you doing this? The Sixers, just because they have more top-level players. But I'm bullish on the Knicks.

It's as excited as I think I've seen you about the Nix since I've known you. I've been free-basing, poor Zingis, 30-point games, just really tough over the last two weeks. It's been a special time. Yeah, the tough thing is like, how do they get that second guy? We've been talking about this for weeks now. They're too good to draft him.

Justin Podium Cafe on Twitter just asked redraft of the 2016 NBA draft number one, Ben Simmons, does Jalen Brown jump up to number two? Ooh, man. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Like, Ingram has a lot of potential, but I feel like we've been saying that for two straight years now. Yeah. And he really

needs to figure out that body. He was on the wheel pretty tight last night. He really wanted to take that game over, and it was just like not quite happy. He's playing a lot better, but yeah, Tatum just looks like a man. Yeah. Do you think that when, what's a

What's a team that's struggling right now or what's a team that's doing really well right now that you expect to regress or aggress back up to some sort of mean? Is there a team that's like, whether it's a Cleveland, whether it's an Oklahoma City, they're going through an early season stumble that you're thinking, you know what?

I think they'll correct themselves. And like, well, a team like Boston say, maybe come down a notch or two, just a bit. I'm thinking maybe like a Pistons are playing a little bit above their heads right now. Yeah, that's a team on the top of my list, the magic too. But I think what we want to do

is we automatically want to dismiss surprising starts. Yeah. But I would be shocked at this point if the Pistons in Orlando weren't in the playoffs. Right, right. Like we've said before, they're banking wins at a critical time. They seem to be like hitting on something

that might be sustainable going forward. I think those are the type of teams that like, yeah, maybe they'll fall a little bit. They should fall a little bit because they really don't have much to kind of fall back on. But they're good teams. They're good enough in the East.

What about you? It pays me to say this, and this is kind of a reverse strengths, but I think it's the Nix. Yeah. So much depends on, Porzingis and Frank Milakina, a 19-year-old French point guard who can't shoot and really can't dribble, but is their best passer and best option at point guard? Everything depends on those two guys.

Maybe we shouldn't discuss, I agree with you if one of those guys goes down, especially if Porzegos has like a two-week lower body injury. You're going to be in trouble, but we were talking about this today, and LeBron pointed it out. It's like, Horn is that getting to run his stuff a little bit. is definitely like giving them a huge boost in terms of what they bring to the floor every night. Oh yeah, they're playing at a quicker pace, getting into their offense more.

Still shooting a lot of mid-range dumpers that Porzingis is destroying from the mid-range. But yeah, Hornacek getting to run that Sun's offense that was good for like eight months in Phoenix. And by the way, guys are getting along, everything seems fun. I wonder why that is.

I don't know why. Well, it's been seasonably warm in New York. Absolutely. The subways run really well, so I think those guys are all really satisfied with their commutes. Yeah, flannel season. I will say if Tim Hardaway, Jr. looks off my son, Chris Stavs, Porzingas, one more time, which he will. Yes. I will go insane.

Let's do a couple more awards just while we're here. Coach the year, you guys think it's Brad? Hmm, interesting. I think so, especially after that one. I think it's more interesting to say, like, who's two. I think they're, what's their defensive rating, like 95 something? That's like, that's some 90s numbers. They're like the pistons.

Yeah, I mean, if that continues and they keep playing like this, yeah, it's Brad. That means amazing. What about most improved player? That's a good one. I think Aaron Gordon's the obvious candidate there. I mean, you might even say Porzingis. You know what it is? The award always goes to the guy who was already pretty good and then took us next step.

Didn't Janus win it last year? It's the same sort of thing. Like if we're trying to pick who will win, it's probably someone like that. But I think it's probably Aaron Gordon at this point if you want to get... I think so. Just because it's such a surprising rise. Like Porzingis, I think, has gone up a level above what you thought he might get to. Certainly, he's jumped...

Like, this is three years ahead of the progress he would have thought last year. But Aaron Gordon just looks like a different player. Yeah. We had this idea going into the season. It was like, well, Porzingis, but we're going to have to get Porzingis more help. And of course you will. But this is what I'm saying is, like, I think this idea of pairing or... tripling up on superstars is being

kicked back a little bit because of guys like Porzigas who's like, I'm so good that Tim Hardaway Jr. can look serviceable on it on every other game, maybe like that, you know? Let's see. I mean, like, I think that right now, the thing that I'm really curious about

is to see whether or not a team like a San Antonio starts to put it back together, whether or not there are some of these Western Conference teams that I think are like right around the same area, like New Orleans, right? Like, New Orleans, we were all laughing out of the gym earlier in the season and is now, what, like, like, sixth in the West, eight and seven or something like that? Yeah, they're feisty. Yeah, they are feisty.

Boogie's been putting up those numbers. Yeah. They run some beautiful sets, by the way. Like, they're the type of team where on Twitter, you'll see one, like, Jiff a day. Pilo, yeah. They ran elevator doors the other day, and I was like, what? Yeah, it's actually really nice. The problem is they have two good players and the rest are not that great.

Yeah. But in the games where Drew Holiday kind of steps up. They get enough from those other guys. I think they're like, that will be an interesting playoff team. Yeah. Like, I would love that to be another 1-8 with the Warriors because they're the type of team that might muck up the game a little bit. Yeah, and also just love to see Boogie Played Raymond.

For sure. Boogie in the playoffs. We haven't even seen Boogie playoffs. Max Ward on Twitter, this will be the last one for the night. What Rookie is flying under the radar right now? Ooh. The Marketing. Yes.

Yeah, is it Markan? He's playing really well. Yeah, it's like, how are these guys flying under the radar? We talk about them all the time. We're talking about Kuzma. we're talking about. I guess Donovan Mitchell, he's in Utah as he's sort of under the radar, but I feel like he comes up around our office

all the time. Braine and Paul, 26-year-old for the Spurs, just doing work. That's a new ringer guy right there. We all love him in Danny Chow's office. Also benevolent of you. I know. Yeah, well, here's the other thing. You said it. Kuzma. Yeah. Yeah. Baby.

Kuzma is legitimately good. We could just say that he's good. Yeah. This is a... Justin Burry, Justin Byrion, was not Team Kuzva a few weeks ago. Kuzha, connected on that Dunkin and MBD would not be flying under any way.

I think he's a little bit better than Landry Fields. Like, maybe? It's somewhat concerning that Kyle Kuzza is the most consistently aggressive player on the way for sure. That's weird. Right. Yeah, none of their front line guys are really the guys that are stepping up for that time.

All right, thanks for joining us on the Ringer NBA show for Jason Concepcion and Justin Verry. I'm Chris Ryan. You can listen to this show on a podcast on Friday on the Ringer NBA feed. Hey. Boston. I love Boston. Go south. Basketball is very good.

Basketball is very good.