The Ringer NBA Show - Rocky Waters for the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics With Michael Pina | Weekends With Wos
Episode Date: December 16, 2022Wos is joined with Ringer writer Michael Pina to discuss the Golden State Warriors amidst Stephen Curry’s recent shoulder injury and the Boston Celtics’ need for a regroup after playing the Warrio...rs. Host: Wosny Lambre Guest: Michael Pina Producer: Jade Whaley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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The time has come to get ready for the 2022 World Cup.
And what better way to prepare than by revisiting the World Cup's most amazing goals?
I'm Brian Phillips.
I'm making a podcast about the history of the men's World Cup,
told through the stories of 22 iconic goals.
The show's called 22 Goals.
It's out now on the Ringer Podcast Network, and we're having so much fun.
Back, ladies and gentlemen, to the latest edition of Weekends.
I'm your host, Big Wasa, aka Wazni Lambray.
And I'm joined by my brother and colleague, teammate, running mate, all around Paizan.
My man, Michael the Pod Pina, what's going on, brother?
Not too much, man.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I'm good, man.
I'm still reeling from all the sports that I'm watching.
I'm doing NFL.
I'm doing World Cup.
Of course.
We're keeping up with the NBA, which is what we're here to talk about today.
But I'm quite happy with the amount of sports I'm into.
I feel like a kid again because I want to say around 2010, whenever it was that LeBron did the decision,
it was like that kid that used to play a lot of sports and started concentrating on the one sport.
That's how I became with the NBA, became an obsession.
Like college football, college basketball I shed.
I still kept up with the Jets and the Mets, kind of.
But I was just so devoted to the NBA because of that LeBron story.
And, you know, it just, it was a laser focus.
And then as I got older, I started refining baseball.
I got back into college football.
I've never picked college basketball back up because it's just a crap product.
But that's neither here nor there.
Can I tell you the college basketball game that was the last one I seriously watched as a fan?
Please tell me.
It was Butler-U-Conn National Championship.
I think both teams shot a combined 15% from the field.
And I was like, I'm done.
I'm not watching this anymore.
This is ridiculous.
So that was Kemba Walker, right?
Yep.
Kemba Walker versus Gordon Hayward, I think.
Yes.
So Kemba Walker, I watched that game too,
but I remember not watching the season,
barely paying attention to March Madness.
But I was like, oh, snap,
Kemba's in the championship game.
And Kemba, you know, to this day, I still have a rooting interest for because he was a freshman in high school at Rice in the CHSAA when I was a senior.
And so I still feel an attachment to all CHSAA guys.
So anybody that would do well in the Big East or in the cases like somebody like Russell Robinson at Kansas, I always wanted to see those guys do well.
So yeah, Kemba, I definitely paid attention to that game.
but yeah, wow, Drek.
It was bad.
It was really bad.
So, yeah, I think the last college season
that I followed from beginning
until end was Derek Rose at Memphis
and that championship game against Kansas
and, you know.
Mario Chalmers, baby.
Chalmers, Sherrod Collins,
all of those guys.
That was the last college basketball season,
which would have been, what, 08?
I don't even know when that was, right?
that I would have been like, oh, snap, I'm paying attention to college basketball like a real live fan, but that's over.
But yeah, that was sorry for the digression, but I just had to dump on the NCAA product just one last time.
Want to talk to you today.
We're going to get into Boston's sort of rocky.
And I put rocky in brackets, West Coast swing.
And I say this because I went to the Los Angeles Clippers game on Monday.
and let's just say I was in the company of a few Celtics fans
and a slight panic was starting to set in,
which I was quite amused by.
So that's why I wanted to talk to you about,
like, what should the panic meter be?
But first, man, I want to talk about a team
that actually is in panic mode,
and that's the Golden State Warriors.
Steph Curry just went out with a shoulder injury.
And they're saying he's going to be re-evaluated
in two weeks.
And, Mike, I have to admit,
I recently went on
Samus Fendiary and Andy Luz's podcast,
Light Years Pod.
Those guys are like,
essentially the Mike Francesa
and Chris Russo of Warriors' Twitter.
And because they're so deep in the weeds
with the partisans,
it's like there was already panic mode.
And I was on there just like
sort of putting out fires.
Like, the Warriors are going to be fine.
They have championship pedigree.
They're starting five.
It's still like sort of a bit of a juggernaut.
They got to show up
the bench a little bit. It's going to be great. Don't worry. And then inevitably, this
Steph injury happens. And if this guy is gone for a month, let's say, and these guys are in
a 10th seed right now, this is, this is bad, Mike. So we're recording this on the day that Tim
Bontemps' ESPN, Straw poll came out for MVP, and I was fortunate enough to participate in
said straw poll. And I had Steph number two on my poll. And that's because
this man is averaging 30 points a game, 50, 40, 90 shooting splits.
The on-offs, I don't really care that much about their record or their place in the standings in,
we're not even at Christmas, I don't really care that much. I care about they're bludgeoning people
when he's on the court and they're getting destroyed when he's off the court. And I have just,
there's so many on-off numbers you can look at that really symbolize and represent just how
dominant he is and how influential he is. You can look at effective field goal percentages for basically
all of his teammates are so much better when he's on the floor. That's not a coincidence.
You can look at the basic offensive rating, which is first in the NBA by about, it's about
a point better than the Celtics when he's on the court and like seven points below the last place
team when he's off the court.
Yeah. So, I mean, he's everything for them. He always has.
been their record since, I have this written up right over here, their record since he was drafted
when he doesn't play as 67 and 133. So I think that, you know, obviously there's championship
pedigree, there's Dremont Green, there's a lot of pride, there's Clay Thompson, there's talent
there, Steve Kerr's still the head coach. But I don't, like, this could be bad. Like,
they're not coming from a place of strength. When he got injured last year, they were in a pretty good
spot as a team. First in the West is something. They were like on pace to win 66 games is something
crazy like that. Right. So now they're down in the standings. They're not because of how muddled
everything is, 10th place or whatever they're in sounds a little worse than the actual games behind
of how many games they would need to catch up to win to kind of get back in the top six there.
But it's not good without him on the court. And I'm sure we'll get into.
this, but like, anyone who thinks that you can just slide Jordan Poole in and be fine, I have
bad news for you. You will not be fine. Jordan Poole is not good. So that's this could be a tough
sledding for the Golden State Warriors and their schedule. I think they have four road games
coming up against four pretty good teams. A long stretch at home afterwards. We'll see how long
step is out. But this is going to be an interesting part of their season. Absolutely.
Yeah. And I'm looking at the standings, right? Right now, they're 10th.
in the West, you know, let's just, you mentioned it being muddled.
Phoenix is fourth and Golden State is only three games behind them, right?
And so that's six places in the standings separated by three games.
Like you said, it's really jumbled up there.
But the problem for the Warriors right now, as I see it, is that the two teams directly behind
them, the Timberwolves and the Lakers, you know, we can reasonably assume that they're going to
do better than the same.
Stephless warriors reasonably.
Those two teams have their own issues and problems,
but we could reasonably assume that.
And the guy and the teams ahead of them,
the only people that you might expect,
and I would argue that you shouldn't,
to go through a free fall, it's not Dallas,
it's not the Clippers, it's not the Kings,
it's not the Blazers, it's Utah.
And the only way that it happened is if they do some kind of fire sale,
and I just watched them,
beat up on New Orleans last night, and who, like, you know, Justin says every single media
member is pegging them for the championship.
They beat them twice.
They just beat them twice.
They just beat them.
They whooped their asses earlier this week.
And then they, you know, sort of toughed it out in overtime.
I'm just like, man, these guys, by the time Steph gets back could be in a really bad way.
And, you know, these are the kind of things that fans worry about.
coaches worry about, right? The kinds of people who live and die with every single game to
game result, it's like, look, if we were, you know, 23 and 8 right now, so what? You know,
we plummet in the standings and Steph comes back and whatever. We get back to like,
Steph gets us back to like the fourth or third seed or whatever and we're still in good place.
We're still in good standing for the playoffs and all of that. When you are at 10th and the MVP and
the single most indispensable player on your roster goes down for an indeterminate amount of time.
Yeah, I'm finally worried about the Warriors this season, Mike.
And we haven't mentioned yet, but when a player like Steph goes down, you're kind of assuming
everyone else will be healthy.
But like Andrew Wiggins has missed, I think the last five games with an inductor strain.
And he just started practicing.
I don't know when he's going to actually rejoin the team.
he might be their second best player to be serious.
So, like, they could be down their top two players.
And he was indispensable for them in the postseason last year.
So, I mean, his health.
And then you're obviously at risk of anyone else going down on the team.
This is not a deep team.
I think that they made two, one critical mistake in the off season after winning the title was not bringing back Gary Pate in the second.
I thought he was, like, humongous for them.
I mean, they inserted him in the starting lineup in the finals and it kind of changed the series a little bit.
100% Auto Porter Jr., another veteran three-point shooter, also inserted in the starting lineup in the finals, help them win the championship.
So losing those two veterans, and we don't have to rehash their plan of, you know, straddling these two timelines, but that's what they wanted to do coming into this season.
They wanted Wiseman. They wanted Cominga. They wanted Moody to play bigger roles. And Wiseman is just bad in the G-League.
Coming has shown something. We're going to talk about the Celtics later. He was pretty.
pretty good in that game against his Celtics.
He's got great motor, elite athleticism.
And so, like, you put those things together.
He makes things happen on the floor.
Like, he's aggressive.
He's forcing people to put him on the free throw line.
Yeah, I think he just needs more opportunity to get the sort of nuances down.
But, yeah, he's looked great.
So he'll have more opportunity, I think, going forward offensively, for sure.
They're going to need something from him.
They're going to need stuff from Moses Moody, who I like a lot.
DeVincendo's played okay.
But, you know, one of the stats I was just looking at on-off splits with some of the players on the team,
I don't mean to pick on Jordan Poole, who I just, I just don't.
He just hasn't been good.
But his usage rate when he's on the floor with Steph is 20, and that's like a good number for him.
And he's very efficient in those minutes.
His usage rate when Steph isn't on the floor is 34.
That's like Luca.
It's way too high.
So I'm sure they'll temper that knowing that Steph is not going to save them
and they need to play a different way.
But it's just pretty concerning.
So here's the thing, Mike, that is really, really concerning for me.
It's last year when Jha went out for Memphis,
they replaced his minutes with players who were vastly better defenders.
And so while they were losing all of them,
Jaws juice on offense, they were making these huge leaps on defense in the minutes they were
replacing him on the floor with. So the equation they used to get to wins, you know, it changed.
But there was a path there because they became this like high effort, high execution defensive
team with Jod not on the floor, right? This high athleticism, like they were swarming people. It
became like, oh, okay.
To your point, not only did they add the best backup point guard in the league when
Chow went out, so they have Tyos Jones, which is just like a huge luxury.
But yeah, that team knew how to play without Jha to everything that you're saying.
They had an identity.
Steph Curry is the identity.
So it gets pretty tricky when he's out for an extended period.
Yeah, and again, not to have another pool party, but yet, Jordan Poole ain't that.
He's not going to improve upon anything that Steph does.
Like, he's not a better defender by any stretch of the imagination.
Obviously, you know, Steph Curry, it's, yo, people could say,
if Jordan is the greatest offensive player we've ever seen,
Steph Curry is probably number two.
You know, like, there's an extremely strong argument there for Steph.
that. And obviously we can't expect Jordan Poole to do that. But again, he's not improving upon
anything that Steph does. And some people would say, well, you know, Steph's not the greatest
defender. It's like, no, Jordan Poole is by degrees worse. He's bad. He's bad.
A defender. Yeah. So, oh, man, I'm worried about the Warriors, man. I'm finally,
finally worried about this team's prospects this year. So could I say, like, let's say hypothetically
he misses three weeks and they just go on a total tailspin.
Like the Timberwolves jump them.
The Lakers jump them.
The thunder.
Don't sit Shay Gilges Alexander.
They jump them.
God forbid.
What does Golden State do?
Is there like any percentage point that they are like,
screw this, let's just try to get Victor Wimbunyama,
like we're light years ahead here?
Like what?
Like is there any percentage chance of that?
They would have to do it with too many guys to even put themselves in a reasonable position as far as like the fake, you know, calf injury, the fake hammies, the fake back stuff.
You know, the kind of things you can't prove in a freaking MRI, they got too many guys to do that with.
This is the thing, though.
This is why I think they're behind the eight ball.
I think the Warriors are fully capable of just turning on a switch where they treat every game quite seriously.
they win like, I don't know, 75% of their games, close to 80% of their games when Steph comes back.
I think the talent is there to do that if they're treating every single game the way they did
game four against the Celtics in the finals last year.
The problem with that is your guys are old.
They cannot be expected to expend themselves that way over the course of like, say, 30, 40 games.
and then do it again in the playoffs?
No, these dudes are too old for that.
Like, that's the problem with the 82 game season.
Like, it doesn't favor people who have a lot of mileage on them already.
And not just they've played a bunch of regular season.
These guys have made a bunch of deep playoff runs, okay?
All of these guys.
And so, man, yeah, this is, you know, break class.
glass in case of emergency, whatever situation,
whatever y'all got in that glass goal to say,
y'all better get it right now.
Because this is bad.
So then, I mean, the other side of the coin there is
if they do tread water here and maybe go five,
they've been a 500 team this season with Steph.
So if they manage to do that, treadwater, stay 500.
Do you think there's an urgency then to get really aggressive with the
James Weissman, Moody Kamenga trade offers here. And like, I don't know what fake trades are
out there for Weisman right now. I don't think he has any like real value around the NBA. So I don't
even know what this hypothetical could yield. But do you get more aggressive to upgrade to get a more
veteran established piece contributor on your roster quicker than you other eyes would?
So to me,
Combinga's off the table.
Off the table.
Off the table.
Off the table.
Because the kind of player he is is precisely who you need next to Seth.
Athletic wing.
By athletic, I mean, this guy can guard the bigger wings when he's playing his best.
He runs the floor.
He's a vertical threat.
The kind of players that really can.
thrive around the gravity that Steph attracts.
And, you know, you can put them on the guys.
You don't want to have Steph expending himself guarding on defense.
So if Kamenga's on the table, you need to be trading for somebody who was established
in all of those skill sets, right?
I'm thinking, I'm thinking maybe Grant in Portland, right?
Somebody in that mold.
Whereas it's like, no, we have, we're going to trade the potential of Kaminga for somebody
who already does maybe a lesser version of what the greatest expectation for what Kaminga could be, right?
Like, he's not the most optimistic forecast for Kaminga, but he's under it.
But we've established like he is actually that, whereas Kaminga is still theoretical.
So to me, because of Kaminga's skill set and what that means next to Steph, I'm not moving that, dude.
I'm not.
But, yeah, if you can get something for Moody and Wiseman and so.
Somebody wants to be like, oh, because, you know, a lot of, you've talked to GM types, Mike.
You know, every single GM sort of player development guys, like, let me get that guy in my building.
Watch, I'll turn him in the shack.
You know, a lot of guys will feel that way, right?
Like, they think they got the special sauce.
So if you could do something with Wiseman, do that, I'm not moving, Kaminga, man.
Yeah, maybe those, I don't know, any GM talking like that hasn't been watching the Santa Cruz Warriors.
I'll tell you that right now.
So, so yeah, Golden State is something we're really monitoring.
And I'll say this so that we can get off of them and get to Boston.
I'm appreciative of Golden State for collectively taking on the LeBron mantle
of constantly churning out drama for us to dissect as NBA watchers.
Like, this team is always producing interesting stories.
We don't need to get into what happened in the offseason and all of that.
But, like, they are just constantly producing stuff that I want to pay attention to.
And, you know, I hate that stuff got injured.
But I really want to see how these guys are going to respond to this.
I mean, even right before the Celtics Warriors game on Saturday night,
it was like, Bob Myers doesn't have a contract extension.
They're always up to something out there.
Always, always.
and I'm grateful because of the job that I have.
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They are nine-point underdogs, which is a crazy amount for literally any NBA game.
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So yeah, let's move on to the Celtics,
which I mentioned briefly at the top of the show.
And, you know, I watched the Warriors game,
and to me, that was a bit of lack of mental toughness to me
in the sense that the Warriors,
they understood the moment
and they could go out
and actually treat it like that.
Whereas it felt like the Celtics
just felt unsure of what they wanted to do
and a team that you played six playoff games against
that you basically are measuring yourself against
as they won the NBA championship.
It felt like the Celtics didn't quite meet that moment
and Jason Tatum particularly just looked
hesitant.
I'm not saying he was scared.
He just felt unsure
about how he wanted to attack Golden State.
I think a lot of that
and, you know,
Warriors fans know,
is Draymond Green on defense?
Like, he just gums up so much of the works
for what the Celtics are trying to do,
particularly inside, on pick and roll.
Like, he's just so great at timing
their attacks.
His instincts are just
it's just all-time great.
Draymond is definitely
in the Celtics' heads.
But I just feel like they didn't meet the moment, Mike.
What did you think about that Golden State game?
Yeah, I think there's certain truths
to what you're saying, for sure.
Tatum in particular played his worst game
of the season, probably.
Just super inefficient, super indecisive.
As a team, I thought that
they looked like the team from the finals
when they spent this entire regular season evolving from that group,
if that makes any sense.
Yeah.
Like they weren't driving, kicking,
having confidence in their offense,
letting the ball flow playing free,
playing with pace in the half court.
Like the ball was just kind of bogged down
and you have to credit Golden State's defense.
I also thought that Golden State was like really up for that game
like it was their Super Bowl.
Yes.
And as they should be, it was a, quote-unquote, big game for December and the NBA, right?
Like, everyone was watching that game.
You know, I think that Clay shot the lights out, Celtics missed a bunch of threes, and it's just one game.
But Tatum, it's kind of difficult to, like, I'm sure he was in his head and I don't know if he'll ever admitted for that one game.
is that me and you have gone out and said Tatum has played at an MVP level all season.
And he just, it's cool to miss shots and still play it at an MVP level.
He didn't play like that against the Warriors.
No, I think he had two assists, I want to say.
Like, it just, he wasn't making plays.
He wasn't reading the floor, wasn't forcing turnovers, just wasn't being the active guy who,
you're right.
When shots aren't falling, he's found a way to have a positive.
impact on the games this entire season.
And that just wasn't his night for whatever reason.
I mean, everything else, honestly, besides like shots not falling and Horford not playing,
and Horford's like pretty big part of their team and how they space the floor.
Like they started Blake Griffin at the five.
They're playing Luke Cornyette at the five.
They didn't really, it took a while for Joe Missoula to go to a small group that could switch everything,
which I thought was like, this is the regular season and I don't care type of attitude.
from the head coach, which is fine.
But yeah, you're dropping with Blake,
you're dropping with Vonley, you're dropping with Coronet.
And it's like, Clay's not missing shots.
So maybe we should switch this up a little bit.
Press up on that guy.
Yeah.
So, you know, you can parse everything from one little game,
but I think in the aggregate,
just like expounding upon their road trip,
11-day six-game road trip,
they managed to go four and two.
The Clipper game was all.
I felt like that was Golden State Hangover.
It could have been, I've watched almost every minute of Kauai's season so far
because there's only been like 14 of them.
And he's, that was a joke, watch, you can laugh at my jokes.
It's okay.
No, I thought you were making a point, but yes, I didn't.
But he looked tremendous.
Like he was moving well.
he was, when he knew, there was one play that was just like so, like, first of all, he's making every shot.
The pull-ups get into his spots.
Like, that's just peak Kauai.
But, like, he knew that Jalen Brown had, I think it was three fouls late in the second quarter.
And he's just like, I'm driving to the basket right by this guy because he's not going to touch me.
And so it's just like really smart Kauai too.
And that was awesome to see.
And I think when, I don't think, I know when Kauai and PG are on the court together, their net ratings like 18 this season.
not a huge sample size,
but they're really good.
That team is really good.
So on the road,
and to your point,
maybe they didn't shake off
the humiliation of losing
on national television
the way that they did.
It wasn't,
they didn't bounce back as quickly
as you would have liked to see.
And then one night later,
there's that really entertaining game
against the Lakers
that could have gone either way.
And you want to talk about,
like, a team where that's their Super Bowl,
like the Lakers played LaBron
on an AD. I don't even know how many minutes, a lot.
They wanted to win that game badly.
And they should have. They should have. But, you know, such as life.
They were up 13 with, I think, two and a half minutes to go. You got to win that game.
Yeah. But so, I mean, generally speaking, I think we're recording this on Friday and
Rob Williams, I believe, is making a season debut tonight against the magic. So he's their third
best player, in my opinion. Getting him back is huge. If he's healthy, they're just like a, in
just a different basketball team.
Yes, they are.
And it'll be really interesting to see how he impacts the offense,
upgrades the defense,
which has been playing pretty well lately.
So, yeah, I don't think there's any reason to be concerned
over one loss.
And as we spent the first, like, 15 minutes of this conversation,
it's like, I don't think they're going to play the war.
If they get to the finals, I don't think they're going to play the Warriors
in the finals this year.
I don't think they'll be a rematch.
Maybe, I don't know.
It could happen.
Who knows?
But a lot of basketball have to be played.
But if that team is their kryptonite, I don't think they have too much to worry about on their path to avenging what happened last season to them.
So I do want to say I'm of the opinion that collectively they have the most talent in the best talent in the NBA, the Celtics, that is.
That's my opinion.
Especially if Robert Williams is even close to healthy.
Like to me, they're just, they got the most talent.
They're the most athletic.
they have enough skill around that athleticism to make things work.
To me, they got the best team if they're healthy.
And with Robert Williams, that's a big-ass if,
because he's, you know, it's very contingent upon his presence,
the type of team they can be.
And, you know, the Warriors can do that.
Like, there's a reason that those dudes have won all those damn championships
and they've won all these playoff series.
And Sam told me a stat that they haven't, they haven't.
played in a playoff series.
Think about all the playoff series
they've been in since Steph got there
that went less than six games.
Meaning they haven't lost a series in five.
They've never been swept.
The worst they've ever been beaten
is six games in the playoffs, right?
Which to me just speaks like,
they're good, they're hard to beat every time.
You know what I mean?
They're an all-time dynasty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like Golden State playing their absolute hardest
and wanting it and beating you
in one given game is not something to be ashamed of.
Robert Williams is coming back.
You know, if the panic meter for Golden State with this theft injury is an 11 out of 10,
I'm basically at a 3 out of 10 with the Celtics just because of this, you know,
this blip against Kauai in them and this blip against Golden State.
Like, I'm just not tripping off of that.
However, if they do get to the finals, they got to beat the Bucks.
and the Bucks absolutely creamed Golden State right after the Celtics shit the bed against them.
And, you know, it's going to be a freaking dog fight if they have to play those guys.
How are you feeling about that matchup?
It's December.
We essentially have four months plus until this would ever be a thing.
But right now, what's your temperature gauge on Celtics v. Bucks?
That's a really good question.
I mean, Milwaukee's a fascinating team for so many different reasons how they're trying to reintegrate Chris Middleton into everything, how great they've been on the defensive end, how they've struggled on offense, how Janice is just he leads the league in usage.
His true shooting is barely above league average.
he's he just like nobody wants to play him but like the Celtics have a not a blueprint to slow him down
but I thought they did a pretty good job in that playoff series of how you want to guard Janus
and if you're disciplined and you don't turn it over which the Celtics have done a really
good job this season of not doing and you keep them out of transition in the open floor like
their half court offense has been really bad this year their half court offense has been really bad this year
their half court offense with Janice on the floor has been bad this year.
And I know Middleton is a humongous part of that.
So I think health is just like, that could be what it comes down to for both these teams when they meet up.
Most bodies, right.
And I don't know.
Like, it's, they're both really good squads.
I also want to see how each team kind of deals with the trade deadline.
You look at a team like the Celtics, you say, oh, they don't need anything.
But like you have Danilo Gellarlem.
Alinari's contract.
You have future picks.
You could move.
So it could be, they could make a move.
And then, you know, there's things to be, like the bucks have been interested in a Jay Crowder type or Jay Crowder all season.
So, you know, getting him could change the calculus.
Absolutely.
He's a winner.
He's exactly what they need is someone who can defend up a position, hit threes, really fits well around Janus.
I think he would be wonderful there if they can get him from Phoenix.
So there's just so much time.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how they match up against each other on Christmas Day.
That's going to be such a fun game.
And I don't know.
From here on out, I like the fact that I like how Boston's offense has just been borderline historic this entire season.
And they haven't had their best defender.
But the defense has been okay.
So, I mean, if I'm looking at which team is better at this point, I like Boston.
I think Boston's deeper as well.
And Malcolm Brogden, the little Malcolm Brogden, the little Malcolm Brogden,
revenge factor there, you know, former Buck.
He's a difference maker for the Celtics versus what they were last season, particularly
with their crunch time offense.
So I like them a little bit more, but a lot of basketball to be played.
A lot of basketball left to be played.
I think those teams are neck and neck, but obviously I just think the Celtics have more.
And in a series, I think it'll come down to execution and just make a misleague shit.
But they're very close, very, very close.
particularly with the way Brooke Lopez is playing this year.
I've just been blown away by him and his contributions.
But that's our show for today, man.
Michael Pina, thank you for coming on.
Check him out at theringer.com.
This man is prolific in his output for us.
Mike, man, anything else you want to tell the people?
No, we just know, as I say, something I want to share.
Just it?
We did a at the NBA ranked on the ringer.com.
week. Everyone should check that out. There's a lot of good stuff, including our top 100 list.
I'll just say for public record, and this is going to annoy everyone else, but I had Yokic number
one. I'm very upset that Yokish was not number one on our top 100.
Salute. Salute. But everyone go check that out. It took a lot of time. A lot of people worked on it,
and it looks great. So that's pretty much it. I had a very minuscule contribution, but yes, I played a little
baby part in that list.
It's so dope, so comprehensive.
Go check that out on the ringer.com right now.
Again, this was weekends.
We'll see you guys next week.
Peace.
