The Ringer NBA Show - The Celtics Shrug Off a Bad Shooting Night to Take a 2-0 Lead. Plus, the Surprise Chase for Dan Hurley. | Group Chat

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Justin, Rob, and Wos react to the Celtics' 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals. They discuss how the Celtics found a way to win despite poor shooting, the Mavs' supporting cast's struggles, and early predictions for Finals MVP. Then they give their thoughts on the potential for Dan Hurley to be the Lakers' next head coach and share their thoughts on the coaching search overall (34:48). Buy tickets to our live show in Los Angeles here!The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit http://www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Tucker Tashijian Social: Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer

is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again? Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. With Group Chat, I am Justin Barrier and joining me as always, Big Was, and joining us from the balcony in the Boston Garden, hanging out with all the jerseys of the former plumbers pass. Rob Mahoney, what's up, Rob? You know, it's great to not be in the bowels for once.

I don't know what the opposite of the bowels are. I guess it's the balcony, but you're right. I'm up here with all the banners. I'm here with illustrious Boston Celtics history on a night where I guess there are now two wins away from a potential banner number 18. So a lot going on here at TD Garden. Do you feel the history just coursing through you?

You know, all the greats, all the beautiful chess passes that have gone by right where you were? You know, there's a lot of Bruin stuff up here. Are we acknowledging, is this a podcast that acknowledges Bruins supremacy yet? I don't know. These arenas that are dual purpose. I have a hard time wrapping my arm.

around all of the history involved. But yeah, let's do a little salute to the hockey players. Let's do a little salute to the plumbers past. And maybe most importantly, a big salute to the fact that the Celtics are looking pretty freaking good on the NBA final stage right now. That's right. So Celtics go up to O in a night where they shot God awful, I have to say. So they finished 10 for 39 Waz from three point land.

But really didn't matter. It seemed like they just had a little bit of everything in between to make this game work for them. for me, this was actually a lot more impressive than game one was, because Boston got out of their clean lanes, clean shots, clean looks, just like their perfect, basically game plan, right? When you think of like a Kyle Shanahan or Mike McDaniels or one of these offensive coordinated geniuses and how they have like the first 20 to 25 plays scripted, that's how Boston played the entire game of game one. That was not the case here. And they won muddy,

They won ugly. And for me, I got to tip my cap to them, man. This is the kind of play that I've always wanted to see out of Boston. Like their A stuff wasn't working and they went to plant C and D time after time. They did it quickly, decisively, confidently, and were rewarded for doing that, man. I got to tip my hat to them for this game too. Not just on offense they found the way, right? Like you said, the shots weren't falling.

So what they did was they put their head down, went to the basket, and found, they found open guys and made the extra pass. But on defense, they were just gritty as hell. Like, straight up dirt under the fingernails. You know what I mean? Like floor slapping as defense that they played this entire game. And this was quite, quite impressive by them. Yeah, the defense was awesome.

I thought the offensive process, to your point was, was really good. Even though the threes aren't always falling, even though the spacing is a little junked up, as you'll often find in highly competitive finals games, Boston had to adapt. had to change what they were doing and they had to veer into different directions than they're used to. And they have so many smart, capable, flexible players that they can just cut through the seams in those situations and come up with huge buckets from guys like Drew Holiday, for example,

where normally they might rely on that deluge of three-pointers. Yeah, I do think I came into this series expecting the Celtics to have an edge because of what was is kind of referring to there. I just thought the logic of what the Celtics do was going to be particularly difficult for a heliocentric, everything runs through one superstar sort of offense like the Mavs have. It's really the most historic offense we've ever seen in the NBA against what Luca can do to combat that. And obviously, the Celtics have done such a good job shutting off all the other things that Luca activates around him. But I have to say, I think this was very much a Derek White, Drew Holiday game. We talked so much about the three-pointers. We talk so much about Tatum and

Brown, and we're going to talk about those guys because it seems like we can't get one game without talking about the Jason Tatum discourse. But this was very much a like the stabilizers on the roster here because it seems like whenever the Celtics do get into these tight situations was, it tends to be White and Drew doing the little in between things. And they probably had between them like 25 separate plays where they just were the connectors, the offensive rebounds, the blocks, especially the one toward the end there from Derek White. They just happened to have all of those extra effort plays that they needed.

A couple of things. One Drew Holiday game of his life damn near tonight where he was just perfect. Everything that was asked of him, he executed flawlessly, not just in his defensive assignments one-on-one, which, by the way, that sequence where he's ripping guys at half court,

making threes, putting the team up by 14, essentially sealed the game for these guys. Like, that was incredible shit, like back-breaking shit. But the first half, where he's making a bunch of shots at the end of the shot clock. He's making, you know, when they make that fifth,

six extra pass of the possession and he's finding it underneath and finishing it every single time was incredible. And I think, you know, Derek White, just with the floaters and just like you said, being connected and keeping it moving, what I didn't expect to see from Boston in the series

as I, you know, I'm looking quite foolish for picking against them. These guys are playing desperate. They're playing like a team that knows what it's like to lose a final. on the margins, and they're executing their assignments to a T, and they're not making stupid mistakes.

They're not playing sloppy. They're playing like a championship level team. Game two was it for me in terms of that. Yeah, they're coming up with so many of those marginal plays, kind of like the chaos of transition, those sorts of moments, obviously loose balls, 50-50 situations. But you can even see it in these cases where their defenders are kind of sneaking up behind Luca as he tries to push the ball up court.

and on the other side of it, the Mavs are basically doing everything they can to cut corners for Luca so that he doesn't have to do everything possible. They're having Derek Jones bring the ball up. Maxi Kleba bring the ball up. P.J. Washington bring the ball up. Anyone just to like save Luca

a couple of seconds of having to handle this thing because Justin, you're right, like the heliocentrism of the Mavs is very apparent. And it's very apparent because of the way they're being guarded. Like Dallas ideally would love to get their pick and roll with some momentum and get the lobs and the kicks to the corner.

But you can't do that against this Boston team with the way that they're guarding right now. And that's as much schematic as it is these guys executing at a super high level. Rob, what did the arena sound like when the Derek White, Jalen Brown double block happened? That was basically the play of the game. It was incredible. Like, the crowd has been great. Obviously, you hear the Kyrie sucks chance. You hear the usual stuff you would expect from the garden.

But yeah, there's just a feeding frenzy here every time Jalen Brown in particular soars in for some huge block. And Derek White, one of the best shot blocking guards in the league, just wrecked Kyrie's shit in the middle of this game, came up with some huge blocks, huge defensive plays. That's how you win. That's how you win against a matchup like this. You muck things up as much as you can against the best player on the court in Luca. And then you scramble and you help each other and you rotate.

And they just have such a tight defensive game plan right now that I think it's hard to almost conceptualize how the mads are going to break through unless they get something dramatically different from Kyrie Irving. Yeah, I was. I kind of think that is where we should bring the discussion point because Luca was ostensibly hobbled. So in addition to all the other stuff he had coming into the finals, he now has, what was it, a chest contusion that he was getting wrapped up like a mummy pretty much whenever he was off the court. He seemed to be laboring at times. But overall, when he was in the flow of things, didn't seem all that different. He ended with the 32 point triple

double with four steals. I thought his hands were particularly good on defense tonight, even though he wasn't really moving, but wads, where's the rest of the team in Kyrie in particular? So what Boston is doing, which I think is the smart thing to do, I think we even predicted it in the preview show, was they're just switching everything, one, and staying home on the shooters.

They're like, look, Luca, Kyrie, beat us one-on-one. Luca, you saw a couple of times in the second half, Chris Staps was in a drop. A couple of times they blitzed them. A couple of times Luca was able to get them out of their defense, their base defense, and they got some nice opportunities out of that. Kyrie has not been able to do that. They've been satisfied with guarding him one-on-one,

guarding him with two guys and pick and wrong when they don't switch and just being like, yo, everything's going to be completely fine, staying home on everybody else. And look, Luca in spurts is getting them to change their defense. Kyrie's not getting them to do anything. And if that's going to be the case, if Kyrie's not going to make them. pay, make them, you know, cheat a little bit off of one of the shooters or cheat a little bit

off of the big men to give help on what Kyrie's doing. Dallas's offense is going to have a hard time. Like, Kyrie has made his name in this league as being an ace level one-on-one shot creator, shot maker, tough shot generator. And in two games, he has not looked like an ace-level guy in that respect. And I think you see Dallas's offense lagging because of it. Yeah, you see him at some of those Kyrie shots, you know, kind of tough pull-ups among multiple defenders, but man, does he have to work for him? You don't look comfortable, Rob.

He doesn't look comfortable. He looks rushed. His handle looks sloppier than usual. And you're right, that Dallas is like, Luca in particular is making the Celtics adjust their defense. You're seeing a lot of the switching you described. We also saw, you know, Chris Stap's Porzingis trying to push up and trap

Luca a little bit more. But I thought really the difference in this game from Dallas's perspective was there was kind of a philosophical change from game one. Game one, they were hunting specific defensive targets and trying to get the bigs to come up in the pick and roll. And the only way to do that because of the way that Boston is cross-matching

is like, okay, Derek Jones has to come set the screen now, or PJ Washington has to come set the screen now. It's not really what the Mavs want to do. It's not really what Luca was like the way he wants to play. This game, I thought we saw a lot more of Daniel Gaffer, Derek Lively, you're going to come screen even though

you're being guarded by Jason Tatum. And then Luca is going to attack Jason Tatum one-on-one to varying degrees of success. And I think that's going to be the one piece of tape that everyone is picking apart from this game is what can the Mavs get out of those situations that maybe they didn't at first blush? Yeah, it's hard to bum hunt when you don't really have any bums to hunt on defense. And that's just kind of the beauty of the Celtics defense.

I think that also Luca and Kairi had such a natural order to the way that they were both kind of going off. It was really Luca and then Kairie took off toward the end there to give them the finishing kick throughout the entire Western Conference playoffs. But I think it's tough when you're in a situation like this where you need more from Kyrie. But it's hard to do so because everything flows through Luca. It's very much like a year turn, my turn,

which works when there's a natural order and cadence to it. But it's hard to do your turn, my turn, in the flow of everything. It feels like there's much more of an effort to get Kyrie involved. And we could talk about the ways that maybe they could do that more. But it seems like it's not as natural as what we're seeing from the Celtics, where things just flow where Tatum doesn't have a, particularly good shooting game, but he's at the very least moving the ball to other guys. I mean, so I think you could do your turn, my turn, a lot of calves in 2016, right, against one of the

best, that was probably the league's best defense. They were doing that against, by the way. But the difference is, like, as elite as Clay Thompson was in 2016 as a perimeter defense, Kyrie could get the better of him in a one-on-one matchup. And that would scramble the way Golden State had to play. And they didn't want to put Iggy on him because Iggy had the guard. Braun and they obviously didn't want Steph on him. Like, Kyrie was cooking those matchups in 2016 in a way that he's just not right now.

Like Brown and Tatum, they feel confident. When they see Kyrie trying to ISO, they're like, we got this little guy. This is not a problem. Drew Holiday, same thing, right? And even the big guys, when they get switched out onto Kyrie, they're like, yo, we don't mind being on an island. And Kyrie had a couple of his, like, flashy handle moments where he got the, you know, the step back and it was open and he just missed it.

It just, he's looking, I've never seen people just poking the ball from behind Kyrie. Like, the handle turnovers is just like, they feel confident guarding this guy on an island. It's wild to see, genuinely, just given the confidence and the mystique of his handle and everything we've seen from him in these playoffs. But Kyrie is a guy who honestly is super cognizant of trying to avoid that sort of your turn, my turn offense. And he and Luca have done a lot of things very deliberately in these playoffs to try to see. seeer around that as much as they possibly can. But when Boston guards you in this particular way, they nudge you in that direction and they force you to do that exact thing.

I think the reason you're seeing more momentum from Boston's offense versus Dallas is exactly what, like, Kyrie cannot break those guys down one-on-one, but Tatum is getting the corner on a lot of the guys who is trying to guard him one-on-one. And so then you can spray out. Then you're drawing multiple defenders. Then you're attracting the help. And even though Jason Tatum, I would not say, is covering himself in glory in these NBA finals. I think he has almost as many

turnovers as he does field goals at this point in the series. He's doing enough from a playmaking perspective to keep that offense churning and moving and so it can actually find the open guys. Can I just say this please? Jason Tatum is playing well. Like he's not making

shots, but he's affecting the game, bro. He's compensating the game. Like, when he's driving and they're sending all that damn help and Boston is spraying out the shooters. It's off of his initial move. Like, yes, I would like to see Tatum drop 25, like everybody else. But, like, he is affecting the game.

He is forcing Dallas to react to what he's doing. Sure, the shooting is a problem. And we should mention that. He was one for seven from three. He was six for 22 overall. And at a certain point, like, ball goes in hoop is the whole point of the game here. And if ball is not going in hoop more times than it isn't, that's a problem. but the playmaking that he's been able to kind of consciously divert his attention toward

has been kind of remarkable that he could almost turn it on when that is not going well. But I think it's more of a two-sided thing to the point where I'm almost annoyed by people overcompensating as I am for the people getting mad at it. It's like it's a very like down-the-road performance. He's giving something. He's taking away other things. So to me, like for me, because I'm somebody who starts off as a Tatum skeptic, basically from the beginning when it's like,

oh, he's only 17. Look how good he was in his first playoff and all of that. Like, where it was like, oh, this guy's basically going to be Jordan. And like, that got on my nerves. And I'm like, yo, this guy has some of him. She doesn't pass a ball, blah, blah, blah. But like, slowly but surely. And at first he wasn't playing defense.

Slowly but surely, man, this guy has, like, rounded off the edges of his game where on a night, like, tonight, he's driving the second they commit that defender. He's getting it out. He's not like sort of falling into those eight assists in the first half. Like he's consciously creating these opportunities. So yes, it'd be better if he was scoring. Obviously, I'm not, you know, this isn't rocket size.

But like, he is making the Mavs defense look bad when he's doing his thing. And so I don't think we should be discounting that. That's what I'm saying. No, I think from a playmaking perspective, he's played largely well. There's some sloppy handling moments. There's some bad passes. But these are high leverage games, and this is a good defensive opponent. That stuff is bound to happen.

So I think from a playmaking perspective, he's done fairly well. Defensively, he's absolutely done well. And he's playing really good and disciplined team defense at a spot where they've really needed somebody to be able to do that, somebody who can guard Biggs the way he guards Biggs, someone who can rebound with Biggs the way he rebounds with Biggs. Those things are super important. As a scorer, he has not played. particularly well. But as a creator

and as a defender and as the glue that's kind of binding the Celtics team together in a lot of ways, I agree. He's more than lived up to his end of the bargain as far as those things go. So you're not saying that Jalen Brown is the best player for the Celtics? Were you there for that? I'm not trying to play mind games

with anybody out here, Justin, except you know, I've always said that Waz is the best member of group chat. I've always said that. Do you know what that's going to do to my game? I'm not going to start. assisting more. I'm just going to go into a tailspin. If Jason

Kidd wanted to be spicy, he'd be talking about Chris Stap's Forzingis. You know, realistically, man, this guy's effect on how Boston looks has been ridiculous. Okay? I don't know what the plus minus is. I'm sure

it's out the freaking Ruth in the KP minutes in the first two games, but when you look at it, they just look completely different. And I think the difference when you're scrambling and Chris Staps is out there to 30 feet and the amount of ground the collective defense has to cover, you know, before that rubber band snaps,

it's just a completely different proposition when KP is out there. And they just look like animals out there, particularly on offense. And, you know, even the play that he got hurt on, Rob, he's sprinting back. back in blocking cats. He looks incredible. Like, yo, I'm sorry. Like, the Celtics, collectively on both ends of the floor, the effort mixed with the execution has been at an A level.

Damn there, A plus. An example I'll give you. There was a possession. I think it was either the second or third quarter where they put Dallas in rotation. Dallas does a damn good job of. scrambling, Kyrie gets to the corner, fucking fouls the guy. Perfect rotation, gets it all done, actually is there for the contest, fouls the dude, sends him to the line after a perfect defensive, basically a perfect defensive possession. Boss is not doing none of that. Like, they're actually

doing it right on every single play. And I have to think, you know, getting humbled like that in 2022, like, makes you hungry and makes you not take these possessions for granted. Like, Dallas, like, this sloppiness just looks like a team that's just like, oh, in the finals, it's fine. Like, we'll probably come back or we'll probably be here next year. Or, like, they're playing like that, you know, Blase team. And Boston is not. Nothing blase about the way the Celtics are playing.

You're right that there's a hunger there. There's clearly an experience there from having been humbled in these series before, as you mentioned. And there's also just like a collective focus that I think is at a different level. And it's something different than just all out effort. Because playing hard is one thing. I do think the Mavs are playing hard. I do think they're playing desperate in a lot of ways, but desperate in a bad way. They're on kind of the wrong side of that coin where they feel like they're flailing a little

bit through some of these possessions where everything the Boston's doing, even when they are turning the ball over, even when they're going through these stretches where they're missing threes, you can see the method, right? You can see the underlying theory to the way that they're playing. and it all makes sense. And some of that is just because they have more cards in the series than the Mavs do. And so they will always have the luxury

of being able to kind of make the next Trump and the next play. But it's very evident. It's very evident in the way that these games unfold. Who is in command and who is actually dictating the terms and who is responding to them? Yeah. And that's where I wonder if this is just

a pretty bad matchup ultimately for Dallas because I think we've seen at times in this playoffs in the regular season where the Celtics almost programmatic way of doing things as a way of spinning out when tested, right? Whereas, like, it seems like what they're doing for the Mavs is just, like, the perfect counter because, like we're saying, being able to guard Luca one-on-one and limit him, in air quotes,

to a 30-point triple double, but basically turn everything off around him. I have to wonder, as we circle back to, like, the Kyrie point of this all, like, how much is he even affected by the fact that everyone beyond him even has been absolutely atrocious in this game, non-Luca Mavs, two for 17, from. three. And if you're not getting the space from the shooters that have been so successful throughout this postseason, like, things just kind of crumble from there. So it's like, where are the margins going to come from, especially if the Celtics aren't forced to help. As Rob alluded to, like, you saw a little bit more of it in the second half, but it didn't really

get to the full point where you had to send so much. I mean, in the first quarter, even, Luca was seeing three guys and the Mavs wasn't, weren't really like making them pay for that. So it's going to be tough going forward from here, unless the Christop's injury just kind of changes the cat's watch that Christop's injury because he's been the X factor or the Z factor that's a huge deal

and even the Z factor I like it it's beyond X it's beyond that we're adding X's out here it might be the Y factor you know

Chrisaps has been great in this series overall obviously shooting over the top of guys breaking like breaking the switches those are important things but his rim protection has been huge when he's been mobile. And so

when you see him at the end of this game, yes, he's trying, he's, he's busting ass to get down the court. He said after this game, I will die out there when they ask him about his leg injury. I love that. That's good. You can't fault the effort. You can't fault the hustle. I would prefer no one die out there

on the court. It's like the Latvian version of if he dies, he dies. Because he's talking about himself. When you pointed at yourself, that's when it gets a little dark. But he wasn't moving super well after he seemed to kind of come down awkwardly on that. And that's concerning.

It was a lot of, whereas normally in the offense, he's involved a lot at the top of the floor, he was running straight to the corner. And that's never a good sign for a guy's mobility when they think that that's the best place that they can contribute as a shooter, even though he's obviously a good shooter.

I just think ultimately, whether Porzingis is fully, you know, the game one version of himself or not. Dallas is against the ropes in so many ways right now. There's the Kyrie stuff we talked about. there's the shooters who have been neutralized. And one thing Boston has done really well is pull PJ Washington and Derek Jones out of the corner,

make them go above the break where they're not as effective. And they haven't been able to hit those shots. And then there's a huge front court problem for the Mavs, where Daniel Gafford has been the best option by far, as far as the centers Dallas can actually put on the floor, he was break-even in his minutes in game two. Derek lively is having huge issues, as he did against Oklahoma City, frankly, in some of those games,

where these smaller teams, they speed him up, They make him feel a little frenetic. His hand, like, Boston's hands and activity have really bothered him. And honestly, Jason Kidd might have to pull the plug on Maxi Klieba right now. Like, those are really vacant minutes that they're getting from Maxi. And you can see how they're like, why are they trying it makes sense? Like, you got to throw some kind of smaller look out there with the way that Boston plays, especially when your other bigs aren't quite dominating in the way you want them to dominate.

But Maxi hasn't been up to that. By the way, I can envision a future where a Derek lively or even a Daniel Gafford make it so that your adjustment cannot be you put Tatum on the center so that when you put the play this pick and roll, you can easily switch that because my center is bludgeoning Jason Tatum. Who's not a who's a freaking small forward in the post? Getting fouls on them, getting good looks because he's pinning him underneath the basket and making him pay that way. as a rookie, as a young guy, still pretty slender guy, hasn't gotten his grown man strength yet, that's not an option for them. No.

It's honestly reminiscent of back when Christops was over there. Like, they can't go to their big man on a big to small switch and take advantage of it. And that's what I mean. Like, Tatum is, you know, not to go back to the Tatum thing. Like, bro, like, there's a lot of guys who couldn't execute that. Where it's like, oh, okay, you want to put your small forward on the center? We're going to go right to that.

We're going to find a way to get that guy the ball within five feet of the basket against your small guy and make your defense pay. I just don't think lively is savvy enough and strong enough and strong enough with the ball even to get that done at this point. Yeah, and we'll see what happens in the next game because if Chris Stops is even limited, then maybe things start to swing the other way. Because I can't believe how good they looked when Chris Stops has been out there. Even early in this game, just like the extra bit of zip. he gives on both ends of the court, as you guys have been alluding to. Like, the team just, like, clicks into place. Like, the Voltron just all of a sudden forms.

And it's like, this team cannot miss, cannot lose this game. I thought Al Orford has been pretty good in this game. Obviously, when it's more of Al, then it gets a little diceier because as we saw earlier in the playoffs, he gets targeted a little bit more. And then I think the biggest thing, Rob, is like, who is filling those Christop's minutes? In the past, it's been the Luke Cornett buzzer. the bat signal, are we going to get

O'Shea percent minutes and it's just going to satisfy every podcast host out there? That's when it starts, the calculus starts to turn a little bit where I'm like, oh, those margins are starting to slim a little bit. Yeah, and you could see Dallas,

too, I thought in game two, make the more deliberate choice to, like, park the Biggs defensively, lively and Gafford, in the paint as much as they possibly could and make a late run at Chris Epps Horsingas or Al Horford or whichever big was on the floor

to contest a three. they want that help defense there, right? They need it so that Tatum and Brown aren't breaking dudes down off the dribble and getting all the way to the rim every time. They need the help. And so I think what happens if you have to replace one of, you know, Porzengis in particular with Luke Cornett minutes, is you're just buying Dallas's defense,

a lot of benefit of the doubt, a lot of margin for error. They can play exactly they want to play every minute that Luke Cornett is on the floor. So, yeah, I think they would probably welcome O'Shea Brissette in a lot of ways stylistically to get this series going in the way that they wanted to go. Is Brissette up to this? This isn't a good matchup for him either, if you ask me. I understand, again, like the concept,

but I could see him getting bullied even more so than we see, you know, Jason Tatum getting posted up by Gaffert here and there. Was right now, finals MVP. Who's at top your rankings? Is it Drew? I think it might be Drew. We probably haven't talked enough about Drew, given how good he was in this game.

Yes. after two games, the numbers, the shooting, like he went 11 for 14 today. You know what I mean? Like, this wouldn't be like an Igudaala nonsense MVP, right? Like, the impact he's having on both ends is crazy. It's just for me, like, he's not creating these chances, man. Like, he's not doing the heavy lifting of what needs to be done for Boston. Like, I'd still want to see one of the two Js get the MVP.

For me, And this is not just my like, you know, just my vengeance for the media's fawning of Drew Holiday. I just genuinely think those guys are doing more than Drew is. But Drew has been worth his weight in gold, okay? Like, you know, even though his contract is worth more than that. I think he's just been, he's been excellent. And like that first half where if he's not that good, I think Dallas is up by like eight, seven, nine going into halftime and feeling. comfortable, feeling pumped up. The crowd is like nervous. But because he's so great,

they end up going into halftime up three, man. And it's because of the effort. Yeah, it's so interesting to think about him as a finals MVP candidate because you're right was that he's not driving the action. If anything, I bet if we want to look at the data when it comes out, like the tracking data from this game, it could be like a Clay Thompson type, like he took six dribbles in this game overall kind of performance. And yet he ended up completely dominating without ever controlling the ball. He co-led this game in rebounds with 11. He finished every damn thing around the basket on shots that, yeah, he didn't create as a

passer, but created as a cutter and made himself available and was able to get behind the Dallas defense or wedge himself between defenders in order to create scoring opportunities in a different way. And is that the kind of thing that we should reward with the finals MVP, or should we reward the guys who are making those plays as passers and who are drawing the doubles or drawing attention in the first place. I think that's a fair conversation to have. And Drew's been good enough to kind of force that conversation on us.

Well, quote Jalen Brown. Drew Holiday has been an example of excellence. Wow. So there you go. He's right. He's right. I would still put Jailen Brown as like the odds leader. As if you listen to our ad read going into the playoffs,

you would know that we picked Jalen Brown. Thanks to, he means he, y'all. Justin picked Jalen Brown. actually Rob picked this one. It was the one time Rob would indulge the... I should have known something

was up when you didn't pat yourself on the back. Nobody else is going to do it. You motherfuckers are as hell or not. No, that's definitely not sure. That's for goddamn sure. Anything else, Rob, any sights and sound from Boston? What did you think about Paul Pierce's outfit?

I thought he looked like a complete dupist on TV. I don't know if I'm qualified to judge that. Like a flavor of flavor? weird chain on. It's the chain, really. It's nothing else wrong with what he was wearing. It's just a chain. I'm just like, Jesus Christ.

Look at me, Louie energy is killing me. Could I pull that out? Should I get one for the live show, you think? Why not? Let's do it. I have to say, we got too many, like, the, when Paul Pierce has shown, everyone is cheering truth in a way that categorically

in a Simpsons-esque way sounds like booing. They also do it for Drew. It's just a lot. We got too many guys in the building who are Celtics or Celtics legends, who it sounds like you're booing because you're doing some weird thing with it. I think we should just do a little less, frankly. But yeah, I have no real, look, let Paul Pierce cook. If that's what he wants to wear in his moment of glory as a returning Celtics legend,

I would never begrudge him that. Did I see that they're serving lobster in the press hall? That pissed me the hell off. Which, first of all, that's a choice. Second of all, I don't know if I'm eating press room lobster at any event. Justin, stop it. You know what? I'm not doing that.

It was. It was legit. It's Massachusetts. Cracking lobsters? Oh, yeah. We were cracking them on the press table. I think they said they cooked 600 lobsters for the, for the attending media. Good God.

There were just piles of lobsters there for you to just go scoop up. If you wanted to bring one to your seat and. gnaw on a claw over the course of the game. That was available to you. But this has become a bit of a Celtics tradition. I think they did it again in 2022. And so look, if they're going to be a dynasty and be in the finals every year, from immediate dining perspective, I'm not going to be mad about it. Your move, Steve Balmer.

So they don't want us in the locker room, but they do want to stuff you full of lobster. Oh, are they still doing that for the finals? It's a tiered locker room system? Yeah, it is tiered. a lot of second class citizens out here. Among us, you know, we have several ringer. That's rude. Just saying, we got a lot of, we got some ringer staff in attendance.

You know, Michael Pina's here, Howard Beck's here. Bill is obviously here. Ryan Rusillo, I saw poking around pregame. So we got to pick and choose a little bit. You know, who is entitled to Tier 1 access? And let's just say tonight I drew the short straw, y'all. I don't have Tier 1 access. That's why I'm up here with you guys doing this podcast.

And I don't even get to hang out in the locker room and see actually what's going on. Adam Silver, you did your thing with that media rights deal. Get the media back in the locker room. Okay, do your real job. Thank you. Next year, group chat live from the floor. We're going to be stomping on unlucky ourselves. That's right.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. that fandal.com. All right, before we go here, we need to talk about the other story, kind of permeating, I guess, the NBA finals. It sounds like our guy, Dan Hurley, or I should say, my guy, Dan Hurley, is in the running for the Los Angeles Lakers coaching job. I think this one is hard to talk about without talking about how the story came up,

because for a long time now, I would say weeks at this point, we thought JJ Reddick was a shooing to get that job. And then all of a sudden, ESPN, Adrian Wojianowski, in particular, reports Hurley has been at the forefront of the Lakers search since the beginning of the process, which was, I have to say, is a little perplexing to me because how do you get to the forefront of a search, but don't get a formal job interview? And it's not like Hurley's been doing anything. I know, like, most people aren't following college basketball these days, but just to give you a little insight, the transfer portal closed on the first of May. Darvindham was fired on the third.

So Hurley's just kind of been hanging out here. And so I have to start wondering, my conspiracy theory brain is kind of churning here. Is it similar for you? It's almost as if that sport, college basketball in particular, has a deep history of coaches taking interviews to force raises from their institution. I've seen this movie before. And obviously we know the freaking source, the media, the freaking newsbreaker who's doing it,

clearly has a great relationship with Dan Hurley. It's no secret. Like, that's not a secret within our industry. Clearly, there's an agenda of jacking up his price, which, God bless him. He just dominated won two straight championships. Justin and his alumni base, they might need to step up.

The boosters, Justin is making good money. Maybe he could contribute to the next Dan Hurley contract. How much are you willing to chip into the GoFundMe, Justin? $10, tops. Okay. We'll note it.

Look, what I'm, all I'm trying to say, kids, is like all of this hype that went into this freaking interview, the fact that he didn't come out of that with the Lakers job, to me implies that this is a hustle.

This is a ski mask and a gun. You can't pay up. I don't actually want this freaking job. That's what it feels like to me. I'm doing it with the help of my friends in the media. And that's what it looks like. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong, guys, and what I'm missing here.

I would not tell you you're wrong. I would only say this is the kind of thing that can be circumstantially beneficial for a lot of the parties involved. If you're the Lakers, for example, you've had this kind of charade of a coaching search, at least that's the way it's been reported so far. Well, JJ Reddick has been the clear favorite, the presumptive nominee, as we like to say.

It was just a matter of time and a matter of negotiating. The fact that this report is coming up makes me think, or at least makes me wonder, maybe those negotiations didn't quite go the way the Lakers wanted. Maybe JJ Reddick was asking for something that they didn't quite want to give him. And so they enter an alternative. Dan Hurley, respected coach. Someone LeBron is already on the record praising. over the top, talking about how much of a genius he is,

perfectly credible candidate in theory. And yet, in reality, what his purpose might be is driving JJ's price down a little bit, giving some fake credibility to a coaching search that was never really a search to begin with, much less one that Dan Hurley has been the frontrunner in for weeks, despite no one ever reporting that until, I guess, weeks into the process. Make it make sense. He's always been number one, but we never heard it. Couldn't get him on the phone.

Couldn't find his number. His first interview comes like, come on, man. We've always been at war with Eurasia, I guess, is really what we're going for the vibes on the Dan Hurley beat. So it's a tough scene, but you can see if you want to put the puzzle pieces together, who benefits from Dan Hurley being involved in this process? And one of the people is Dan Hurley who might be significantly richer

as a result of it. And I'm not going to get into the internet chatter about hijacking my finals coverage with this Dan Hurley. crap for the coach of the seventh seed in the West. Like, all right, the next seven seeds coach, like this is like world shattering news. I'm not going to get into that. Because as Justin says, we got to pay our bills too,

and this is something to cover. I also have a lot of time on my hands. I don't know about you guys. In between these games, I'm not like, there's only so much tape you could be crunching over a three-day gap in between some of these games. I'm starting new spy shows, y'all. If you guys haven't seen the Bureau on AMC Plus,

Oh, wow. You're going deep. You're going deep. Deep. Deep. I'm going deep, deep. Deep. You got the AMC Plus going. Yeah. You know I had to shell that out. I sheled it out for, um, Mr. Speed. And, you know, I just kept it rolling. And now I'm, I'm going deep on the bureau. But yeah, that's... Magnific. I know. French waz is going to something else. How do we get waz and a beret on this spot? That's my only question.

That's good. That was scarily good. Sorry. I didn't think I was going to start speaking French on this show. Yeah, I'll be honest. I don't know. Yeah, sorry, Justin. You're a Yukon guy.

Are you scared that shit? Dan Hurley's gone? I am scared, if only because I put days, if not weeks of effort into reprising my Yukon fandom. And I don't want to lose that equity that I built back up. Like, I'm ready to, like, hit the ground running. I'm out here texting Kyle Mann, just like shit talking him about recruits that I don't know a fucking thing about.

And frankly, I don't want to lose that because that's become a big part of my social life. But yeah, I mean, obviously to stop short of going for a third straight when I think they actually have a pretty good opportunity to do so, I don't know how much of the transfer portal you guys have been tracking here, but they actually did a really good job of reloading after losing a couple guys to the draft, including probably two lottery picks. So for that part of it, I would like Hurley to stick around. But I do think it's like it's pretty telling about where the Lakers are probably in the search process. I think there are two theories that could be the reason why we're getting this news. We're recording this on Sunday.

Maybe by Monday he's taking the job and all of a sudden he's just going down Figueroa just in the back of an escalate. Who knows? What is this 2005 Nelly video? Yeah, I don't know. He wishes. J.J. said no would be the one theory. that something broke down in the process, either JJ didn't want it or they decided to back out. I like Rob's idea about the contract negotiations getting sticky.

And then the Lakers are trying to save face before that got out and jump the process and wanted to do a big sort of splashy hire. I think the more likely scenario is what Rob is saying, that they either need to slow play the negotiations, maybe to help out ESPN if they're just like in negotiations for the TV contract and they don't want to rip away another guy from the final. and turn the finals into the JJ goes to the Lakers whole thing. That's like the deep, deep conspiracy. That's the Hornets are considering Scoot Henderson

at the number two pick level of conspiracy. But I do think Rob is right. I think it's probably more closer to something's going on there. And this is just a leverage point, a very loud leverage point to get them closer to where they were inevitably going to be before this news drop. I want to say this about the Lakers job too. The Lakers job is a great job for J.J. Redick.

a candidate who will get plenty of interviews so long as he wants to keep doing interviews but like the Hornets turned him down for their job. If you're JJ Reddick and you can get the Lakers job, that's a great spot.

If you're Dan Hurley, that's not a good job. That's a high profile job. It's one that comes with a lot of pressure. You get to work with maybe the greatest player of all time. But it's an environment where coaches get blamed relentlessly

where you would surrender an incredible amount of power and authority just to take that job and to do what? To bring revolutionary offensive concepts to a team that kind of doesn't even want to employ them? Isn't it going to run the beautiful motion stuff that you want to implement?

That's not going to happen. Rob, he's going to develop the young core of Rui and Reeves and Max Christie. Didn't you read that? And Brani Jr. Jesus Christ. Also, that needs to be said because it doesn't get said often enough.

Lakers ownership and management is horrible. Bottom half of the league. Bottom third of the league in terms of tandem of ownership and management. Rob Polinka, Jeannie Bus, are a train wreck. They don't know what they're doing. Why would you sign up to be down with that?

I get it. Jeannie has great media contacts. So she doesn't have the Dolan reputation who obviously abhors the media and so people have no reason killing him. Jeannie is better at Masai. relationships with people, specifically in the media,

a lot of which whom are star fuckers. So she does not get killed in public. She sucks. She's a sucky owner. And Raupilink is not proven himself to be some great GM. So why would you want to attach yourself to that if you're Dan Hurley?

I just think that bears mentioning. I will say this in the Lakers defense, which let's just stop there and say that. I'm really like digging within myself to get to this point. I think there's like a kernel of logic to what they're doing with the coaching search, both with JJ and maybe Hurley, depending on how real this actually is, where it's like, oh, we need to be more conscious about developing guys.

I do think like with the new CBA, I think people do need to be more mindful of the process of building a pipeline from the G League and up. And clearly we're getting more and more two-way spots. And so that's going to matter more. And the NBA was invested, for instance, more in the G-League being a thing with Ignite. And so I can't see that being less of a thing going forward. And so, like, yeah, I think for a different organization, like the Hornets, for instance, getting someone like that that could do better player development would be great, right?

The funny thing about this is I actually don't think the Lakers' developmental system has been that bad of late. It's that they traded all of them for fucking Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis, which is the whole problem with getting a guy like Dan Hurley in there. You have the market muscle to play at the big. boy table. And as much as you want to talk about Rui Hachamura and Austin Reeves, and we're going to a system, you're not fucking going to do that because you always want to play the star game. It's happened for decades since back to your dad kind of pioneered it. So like let's stop pretending that you are the Cleveland Cavaliers and you need to build like a JV team. What you need to

do is play like a big market team. Like for instance, the Los Angeles Clippers who are paying a gobs of money in order to play on that. that level. That's all. That was another thing, too, when I smell bullshit, since when do the Lakers pay people? That, like, Quiet is kept there. One of the cheaper, cheapest organization. And, you know, people don't understand this. It's one of the last mom and pop operations in the NBA where the bus family is like eight kids. That's their income. The money a small business loan. The money generated by the Los Angeles Lakers is their income.

It's not bomber. It's not somebody's hedge fund, private equity guys. It's not, you know, an Russian oligarch like Brokeroff or a Chinese oligarch, like the guy that replaced him who's just got gobs of money on his own from his other business ventures. The bus, like, the more they pay their coach, the less the bus family gets paid out. Like, people don't realize that. And that's another thing that I was like, oh, they're just going to offer

gobs of money to Dan Hurley. Really? The Lakers are paying people now? So, like, this whole thing just seems ridiculous to me. This is effectively the reason that Tailu is not the coach of the Lakers right now. Is because they tried to play that game with him in negotiations.

I just think the most damning part of all of this whole process when the wrinkles started coming out in the reports surrounding the Lakers coaching search that actually the Lakers have had a new thought maybe they need a long-term coach maybe they need a long-term process with an eye to the future

which by the way nobody sets out to hire a coach for 10, 20 years it just happens because they're a good coach right? Like the heat weren't like hey Eric Spolstra We're going to sign you for 20 years. You're never going to go anyway.

He just did a good job and then kept doing a good job and then kept doing a good job. So he stayed on. And like you could maybe argue smaller market teams, for instance, have more of an incentive to want to keep coaches because then they have to pay two coaches simultaneously. But as you guys are outlined, the Lakers kind of operate in some senses like a smaller market team. Although maybe if we're just thinking like with the whole cork board here, maybe the fact that they might pay for coaches the reason to suggest that LeBron is. coming back and the cash train keeps coming. So I don't know. More intrigue to the offseason.

More, like, great pod topics for Justin to cook up. You act like you don't like this. More stuff to talk about at the live show. No, I love it. I appreciate your contributions to the show, Justin, even if I don't always tell you, man. Thank you. You say that in a way that I don't totally believe you.

I'm serious. I'm serious. I appreciate it. you. Well, thank you. Never hear that from a while. I mean, I'd rather talk about the Bureau, to be honest with you. The Bureau is good, man. It's good. Look, no, there's like 3% of English in that thing, but it is, it's the real spy shit. The nitty gritty. The Bureau is the grinding tape of spy shows. Yes, yes. It's for the real head. It's for the real sickos. Yes. Yes. It's perfect. Yes. I only made it through a few

episodes. I'll be honest. I tried it, but Chris Ryan recommended it to me and he said, this show might as well be the sopranos for me. And I believed them. All right. Why don't we wrap it there? We'll be back Wednesday. I believe we have a game Wednesday night. So you'll hear us yet again.

Sir. Live in your ears. Right off the game. After game night. So, and then after that we got live show action. Rob's going to be in town. Just taking them down Figueroa with the top down. We'll see what happens. Just the top down,

go down on your car? Not yet. Maybe we can get the budget going, like rent a Cadillac for you. That seems expensive. I don't even think we need approval for it. If Waz expenses it, yeah, we definitely could do that.

Easy, killer, easy, killer. Thank you to I did Blakely. Thank you to Eddie O'Kee. Thank you to Ben Cruz. Thank you to Tucker Tash. And then I'm sure there's nine other producers on this call. We can thank as well. But we'll be back on Wednesday. We'll see them. Bye. Must be 21 plus and 18 plus in D.C. And present in select states, Fanduil is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit fandul.com slash RG in Colorado,

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