The Ringer NBA Show - The Playoffs Are Here: Early Upsets and Flipping the Switch (or Not) | Heat Check (Ep. 249)

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

The Ringer’s John Gonzalez brings on Jason Concepcion to discuss the Minnesota Timberwolves blowing their chance at stealing a game against the Houston Rockets (2:33), the Philadelphia 76ers steamrolling the Miami Heat (10:09), and Oklahoma City Thunder flipping the switch against the Utah Jazz (19:10). Then, Kevin O’Connor comes on to talk about the Indiana Pacers pulling off an impressive upset against the Cleveland Cavaliers (28:26), the Boston Celtics’ thrilling overtime win against the Milwaukee Bucks (34:45), and the dominant Golden State Warriors coming back into form against the San Antonio Spurs (40:34). Finally, Justin Verrier and Danny Chau join in to review the New Orleans Pelicans edging out the Portland Trail Blazers (44:44) and the Toronto Raptors snapping their decade-long losing streak against the Washington Wizards (52:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's Ringer NBA show Heat Check is brought to you by Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight partners with awesome hotels to help them sell their unsold rooms, which means you get amazing deals. All it takes is 10 seconds and just three taps and a swipe to book. No long, endless list of a zillion hotel choices. Hotel Tonight only shows you the best deals at the best hotels. Perfect whether you're a planner or, if you like to leave things to the very last minute like me, they'll help you out with that.

And with Hotel Tonight's H.T. Perks program, the more you book, the better the deals get. So start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels and download the hotel tonight app right now. And now, He Check. Welcome to the Heat Check podcast. I'm your host John Gonzalez, joined as I am every week by our producer, Isaac Lee. What's up, Iceman? What's going on?

How's Philadelphia? So, yeah, you are in L.A., as you always are. And I am on the road for the playoffs in beautiful Philadelphia. It was sunny when I got here. has been raining since, but still wonderful. I thought it was always sunny. It's supposed to be always sunny. As it turns out, that's a lie.

But that's okay, because everything else is turning up roses for Philadelphia, and we're going to get into that a little bit later. I wrote a story for the Ringer.com about the first playoff game of the process. You can read that now. We've got some other stories for you all about the NBA playoffs. Haley and Palau Geddy were all over all the games, so you can catch their recaps. Also, Michael Bowman, baseball expert from the Ringer MLB show.

He actually, little known fact, started writing about hoops right here in Philadelphia. He's at the Rockets Wolves game. He has a recap of that, so you want to read that. And of course, the pod father, Bill Simmons. He's in Boston. He had returned to the Motherland. He's going to be podcasting up there. I'm sure you'll get lots of Celtics talk after they pulled out a thriller against the

bucks in overtime. And we're going to talk about all the playoff games for the weekend gang. It was a lot of fun, a lot of crazy games that happened. We're going to have Danny and Justin Varyer on later in the program. Kevin O'Connor will be here, of course, to talk about his beloved Celtics and a bunch of other teams. But first, one of our favorites here at Heechak, on binge mode at NBA desktop.

It's Jason Concepcion. Isaac, let's do it. All right, joining me on the other line from Ringer, L-A-H-Q, it's Jason Concepcion. We just watched the end of the Rockets Wolves game. I was ahead of you, so I saw everything that happened. He did. 40 seconds before you did.

What a bizarre fucking game. game, the Rockets won by three. Chris Paul taught, like, they should have won pretty easily, but Chris Paul was bringing it up at the last second, tossed a turnover out of bounds. And then the shot that the wolves got was Jimmy Butler with a turnaround, weird jumper that wasn't even a three-pointer that would have tied the game. It would have been a two even if it went in. That was horrendous.

Well, listen, if we've, anybody who has watched the Timberwolves over the last couple weeks of the season, in particular, those last two games against Denver that got them the playoffs. Their execution down the stretch is not good. And it's a combination of things, namely being Jimmy Butler at times seems like the only guy who really wants it

wants the ball and just a strange passivity from the rest of the squad. That was a terrible, terrible, terrible shot. And it looked like a lot of the possessions that were coming down the stretch against Denver in that final game. Yeah, give Jimmy the ball. I'm definitely cool with that. I think

like he would probably admit that was a bad shot that he shouldn't at the end of the game when you have a chance to tie it, shoot a turnaround two. Yeah, that's not great. With a guy draped all over him. Yeah, it wasn't. It was contested. It was just a very strange game from start to finish.

Of the games this weekend, I thought the most surprising result up until we just watch Rockets, uh, wolves was the Cavs game that I'm going to talk about a little bit later with KOC. But this one, I really expected this. to be an absolute blowout, and it wasn't, and it wasn't for weird reasons, one of which was that Derek Rose all of a sudden started playing well? Where did Derek Rose come from? You know, I got to say, I think this was the game that if Minnesota kind of wants to make it a series, they kind of had to get.

Houston just looked like they had the jitters at times, not they weren't really executing cleanly, and anytime you can get Derek Rose to shoot 50% from the field and almost lead the team in scoring, but basically lead the team in scoring from most of the game, you're just not going to get another performance like that, probably out of him. Also, only one foul shot, which is classic. I wrote this down because it made me laugh, so I wasn't listening to the game. And Marv Albert goes, Derek Rose has been outstanding. And I'm like, oh, no, that's not good. It's a bad sign. It's a terrible sign. It's in the short term, it's maybe like a not that bad sign. In the long term for the Minnesota Timberlop said, it's not a great sign.

I mean, Carl Anthony Towns took nine shots in this game. That is not enough. Like, that's got to go way up. It's got to go way, way, way up. We 1,000 percent have to talk about Carl Anthony Towns taking nine shots as opposed to. Derek Rose took 14 shots. Yeah. Only Wiggins took more shots than him.

Wiggins had 15 shots. Derek Rose was leading the team and scoring for much of the game. I want to know what the hell kind of game plan tips put together that he was like, I know what I'm going to do. We're going to run Derek Rose out there for 24 minutes. And he's going to shoot a lot and it's going to be good. And you know what? It almost was.

It didn't make any sense. Meanwhile, like you said, Carl Anthony Towns disappeared from this game. 40 minutes, nine shots? What happened? It just can't happen. It really can't happen. And some of that is just a function of Jimmy Butler being here,

of Jeff Teague being here, of Derek Rose's arrival. But his shots have been trending downward. He's averaging the lowest amount of shots per 36 since his rookie year. He is one of the most robust, offensive big men in the league. He needs to get the ball and he needs to be cut loose. They need to let him score.

They need to get him shots. Nine shots is just not enough. It's crazy. It's the same amount of shots as Jeff Teague. He just has to shoot more. He just has to shoot more. He has to get those opportunities. And it looked like for most of the game,

it's not even like he was part of the offensive scheme, you know? He just needs to be more aggressive. Yeah, the scheme was really weird. And the coaching staff needs to go to him more, like, in particular. Yeah, they had a chance to steal this game. And like they mentioned this during the broadcast where there were a number of times. And the rockets are famous for this. They'll switch basically everything.

Right. And there were multiple times where smaller guys, Hardin got switched on to towns a couple of times, like in the paint. And towns rather than like working down low and trying to get a shot would, you know, pop out again. and go to the three point line. And, you know, they were pointing it out going, like, what are you doing? You've got a mismatch. You've got a chance to score down low. It didn't make any sense.

Meanwhile, Clint Capella had 20 and 10 in the first half on, much of which came on towns. That was like a really bad game for town so bad that, like, I almost felt bad for him. I mean, he was nowhere to be found at either end of the floor. It's definitely not the way you want to start your playoff career. Not at all. And really a very surprising outing from him. Just a very, I mean, it's just like a shocking stat line to see Derek Rose with 16 points and then Carl Anthony Towns with eight. Super, super, super weird.

So weird for the wolves. Weird for the Rockets, too. Hardin had 44 points. He was typically wonderful. Clint Capella cooled off after the half. He only had four points and two rebounds after that at 20 and 10 before the half. Chris Paul did Chris Paul play off things? They were fine.

But this is a game like you, again, like you look at what the Timberwolves did and you would think to yourself, the Rockets were the best team in the NBA this year. They're at home. It's the first game. They're against an 8C that only got into the playoffs on the last day of the regular season. This is going to be a walk for, if you just showed me the Timberwolves box score and not showed me anything else, I would have said the Rockets are going to win this game by 30. Yes.

And they won by three. I thought before the start of this series that every game would just be a blowout. Not the case, obviously, in game one. And that's why I think it's really a weird missed opportunity for them. Never let it be forgotten, by the way, that the Rockets have three key people, Mike Dantone, James Hardin, Chris Paul, who have at various times over the course of their career, and this is not shots. This is just facts. No, yes it is. It's not total shots.

I love Mike Dayton. It's the heat check. Do it. Those three guys have at various points over the course of their career choked at different times. Chris Paul has never. been to a conference finals, James Hardin put in one of the most perplexing performances ever from a superstar in a close-out playoff game last season, like truly mystifying playoff game. And, you know, Mike Dantone just was never able to break through with his son's teams.

So it's not out of the ordinary to consider that they might have had some jitters, especially at home, where they're the favorite, so much riding on them. And the Timberwolves really don't have any pressure on them. Like, their pressure was just getting here. So I think this was really, this is a missed opportunity for the Timberwolves, of course. I'm like, that's not, you know, that's kind of obvious to say that. But I think this was their best chance probably to really steal a game. Yeah, we're not worried about the Rockets.

I'm not worried about the Rockets are still going to be fine. No, I think though. I think the Rockets will figure all of this stuff out and we'll just roll from here on out. I think so, too. It's interesting that you mentioned that they're going to roll from here on out. you know who's already rolling. The Philadelphia 76ers. Oh my God.

I don't know if you have the song ready. I'm sure that you do because I make you play it every week now. I came to Philadelphia for the first playoff game of the process. And J.C., I thought, like, the heat were going to be a really tough matchup for the Sixers. Yes. They might still be eventually. They were the team of the Bucks, the Wizards, and the Heat. They were the team I didn't want to see the Sixers face.

And in the first half, when the Heat were kind of, building a lead, I thought, oh, you know, this could be bad. And then all of a sudden the Sixers turned it on. They were playing great defense. They end up rolling the heat. Now I'm thinking maybe it's a sweep. I don't know. It's too much for me to process with the process because I'm not used to nice things happening

in Philadelphia. And everything here is just really fantastic right now. It really is. I think the first thing that I didn't really expect was that counterintutively, I think White Side is strangely worse off with Embeddied out of the game. And we were talking about this before we started taping and you mentioned that Spolstra basically said that. They're just playing too small, too fast for him. He's just getting played off the court. Very passive game from him. And the other thing is like defensively, the Sixers got

everything they wanted. Like J.J. Reddick constantly open. Dario Sarich open all the time. Ilyosovah opened. Like all of their three point attempts were just like wide open shots from the ball movement and it was a scary performance for the heat because even factoring in the fact that Dragich was had a down game, I don't see how they get better. Like if this is if this is how it's going to be for Whiteside, the rest of the series, I don't know where the where the rest of the scoring comes from. And it's just going to be. And then if you play him off the floor, their defense takes a hit, it's just very tough.

that was a really scary performance for them. It is sort of counterintuitive that, like, in a way, it's almost better for Whiteside if Embed comes back because then at least Whiteside has a chance to play. Because right now, I mean, Brett was talking about it. Like, once they started, the defense kicked in a little bit and they were able to get stops, which led to transition opportunities. That was it, man. They ran them off the floor.

They ran off everything. They ran them off the floor. Danny pointed this out. They had the fourth most efficient three-point effort in playoff history. Thanks to, in part, a game high 28 points from the ringers, JJ Redick. Shouts to JJ, who keeps giving me heat on his podcast for not giving enough love. So here you go. Heat Check love.

JJ had a hell of a game. Bellanelli had a hell of a game. Erson and Dario. Of course you want to see and beatback because they're an amazing team with him. It's just really fascinating how playoff basketball changes that way. And you get a guy like Whiteside who was so pissed off during the regular season and towards the end of the regular season. And now, like, Spode just sat him on the bench.

And that's, who knows when he's going to use them. It's crazy. But to see that game, Jason, in Philadelphia, after six years with no playoff basketball, and all the bullshit that the fans had to take from the anti-process people and the people who thought it was a Ponzi scheme and, you know, said the tanking was bullshit. And they changed the rules and all that stuff. To see them, the arena was so loud. It was so loud.

I had a scream to talk to people. It was amazing. What was the vibe from M. Knight Shyamalan? M-night looked absolutely abbullient on television. He looked like he just couldn't believe what was happening. Also, there's these three dudes that always are like the third row at every home Sixers games that look like every low-level Nicky Scarfo associate, like from Philly. That's a good way to describe potential Philadelphia Mob associates as a pretty low level. But I thought that, like, I love, you know, it's just part of Philly, right?

Like, so we get, like, the not quite A-list celebrities. So I don't know if you saw this as well. We had former CEO of the Sixers who now runs AMC. Adam Aaron showed up out of nowhere to, like, come back. Sure. LaShawn McCoy, who plays in Buffalo, showed up courtside wearing a Fulch jersey, which I was like, that's perfect. And then we had little Uzi Verr sitting courtside because,

free meek. So it was great. It was a really great night for all of Philadelphia. And a long time coming. Like, this is one of those things. I don't want to get too ahead of myself right now, but the vibe in Philly is so overwhelmingly positive for maybe the first time, I'm 41 years old. This might be the most positive Philadelphia has been in my entire life.

Post Super Bowl. The Sixers are all of a sudden really good and they're set up for not just right now, but for a long run in the future. The Flyers are in the playoffs. The Phillies are rattling off a bunch of wins. I don't even know what to do with myself. How I'm supposed to be positive? Let me try and bring you down a little bit.

Okay, great. At what point do we see Haka Simmons or Haka Fultz? Listen, 56% for the year for Ben Simmons. Fultz, it's just a huge question mark at this point. Like his free throw shooting just is an extremely small sample. Obviously, he shot well from the line in the games, 7 to 10. You have to try something. You know, if you're going to get run off the court like that,

that part of it was just the turnover battle, the heat. Every time they turned it over, it led directly to fast break points, and the Sixers kind of against type took care of the ball. But if they're going to get run like that, you've got to try something to slow them down. Yeah, I don't think, I mean, Fultz didn't really play enough for them to bother with it. Simmons is something that potentially could happen down the line. But also, you know, we all talked about it. What was going to happen in the playoffs when you're going to, I mean, teams all regular season gave Simmons

a lot of space and figured we'll force him to shoot and he never did and he got into the paint and like more than half of his field goal attempts this year were either dunks or layups. And I thought, okay, well, that's something that might change in the playoffs because the playoffs are different. And it didn't matter. It didn't matter. They tried that. And every time they gave him a running start, he just murdered dudes in the paint.

I don't know. I'm starting to get to the point where I'm thinking maybe it doesn't matter. And theoretically, you know, with Winslow and with James Johnson, they have like the guys who have the body and the size to kind of stay with him. and it just didn't matter. He also has a thing that he does that would drive a coach crazy like at every other level

if it wasn't Ben Simmons, but where he leaves his feet to pass, you know what I mean? Like he'll go up and then kind of hang there for a second and be like, okay, now who am I going to pass this to? And it's just something he can do because of his size and athleticism. He's freaking incredible.

The degree of difficulty for him, I think needs to be higher just so he can, you know, make it a little bit more of a contest because he was just absolutely killing them. And I am 1,000, percent of believer in him even without a jump shot. And if he ever gets one, look out.

I forget about it. Here's my question for you before we move on to Jazz and OKC. Who's the favorite in the Eastern Conference right now? Great question. I think it's got to be the Raptors. I think the Raptors had the best season. I'm still not sold on the way.

I watch them play against the Wizard. I'm not sold either. I mean, just after the last how many years of watching them choke at various points in the playoffs, I'm not sold. But I think like top five in offensive and defensive efficiency. The way they play is

textbook modern game, did not look shook at all. The difference between this year's Raptors team and the previous incarnations is when it got tight in games and the Wizards started to make a run. In the past they'd just get shook and the bricks would start coming, but they just took every shot. They took every shot on the chin and then just kept coming.

They look really confident this year. I would say they're the favorite. It's a good answer. I would remind you What podcast you're on and that I was leading the witness there and that you failed the test. But that's okay. If the Sixers win the next game, you're going to have to lock down all of Philadelphia because it's going to be bad for the rest of the league. Listen, I have kind of mildly doubted the Sixers all season and each time they have surpassed the limits I, the theoretical limits I placed upon them. So you should be happy that I'm still not ready to anoint them the favorite yet.

I mean, listen, you know, Ben Simmons in his first playoff game, is someone going to figure out how to make his lack of shooting hurt him? Maybe, maybe not. Embed is a question mark. Fultz, we've seen, like, barely anything of him, but what we've seen has been good, and you just never know. So, like, you can't bring me down. I'm on high.

They look incredible. I refuse to let you bring me down. I am rooting for them so hard. All right, I'll take that. All right. Last one for you. We had jazz and OKC before we get you out of here. And then, of course, we're going to talk about your next coaching hire.

Oh, my God. But first, jazz and OKC. I thought this was going to be the most intriguing series because, you know, the jazz could have been the three seed. They fall back into a four or five matchup with OKC at OKC. And all of a sudden, where the hell was this Thunder team all season? Paul George went absolutely bananas. Yeah, he went Steph Curry. He had 36 points, 83s.

That's an OKC record. Where are you on him calling himself playoff P? I mean, listen, 8 of 11 from 3. three, you can call yourself anything you want. If he's going to do that, then, I mean, this is, this is going to be a Thunder win. I don't even think that's like, is that even a controversial thing to say? I don't expect him to go 8 of 11 from 3, 36 points like every game. He's like 72% from 3.

I need to check this, but I'm pretty sure that's not sustainable over a long period of time. That said, like, it just showed you the Thunder have the two. best single players in this series, you know, between Westbrook and Paul George. I think, would you agree with that? I guess Gobert is a different, is a different beast, obviously. But I think Westbrook and Paul George are cut above like the rest of the guys in the series. So that just gives you a cutting edge when things kind of grind down and slow down. And Paul George was just ridiculous. He was ridiculous. He was insane. Actually, all of the Thunder were insane. They shot 48% from the floor, 48% from three, almost 80% from the line.

Russ almost had another triple double, 29, 13, 8. Did you see his postgame outfit, by the way? He had a jacket on like a dress. No shirt. A super tight dress jacket with no shirt and a chain and red tinted glasses. Also, here's another question for you. Yeah.

Does he shave his chest for that? You know, he seems like a hairless gentleman. Like, I just said naturally, but he might. I think he might do that. His, listen, his chest looks a lot better than many people's chest. The lack of shirt is literally a flex. Imagine just being like, you know what I'm going to do today is not wear a shirt. Just not bring a shirt to work today.

He went to work without a shirt on. You have to win the game when you dress like that. Oh, right? What happens if they lose that game and he has to go, he has to like put on his jacket without a shirt and drive home? Does he think to himself like, I don't know what I'm doing? I don't know what I'm doing. It's a strange look. I got to say, it's a strange look.

After a defeat, for sure. Like, how do you do it? How do you go up there and talk to the press, like, after a loss and you're not wearing a shirt? With your glasses on, the whole thing was bizarre. It was bizarre from Utah's end, too. I thought it was weird, not so much like shirtless Russ weird, but still weird. Like, Quinn had them really moving towards the end. Like, once they got Rudy Gobert back, like, he had him killing it.

And their best lineup of the post-deadline period was Rubio, Mitchell, Ingalls, Gobert, and Crowder. But tonight he started Favors instead. And I wasn't there. I don't know what the reasoning was. I'm sure he addressed it. But Favors was not that good. He was a minus 12 and 30 minutes. He only had 7 and 5.

Crowder was slightly better. He was a minus 4. I wonder if that'll be an adjustment next time. And they need Donovan Mitchell to do so much. That's a huge X factor for them. You know, it's Donovan Mitch. This is obviously his first time in the playoffs. And just being an NBA rookie, you know, this is the most games this guy has ever played.

So it's just a huge question mark as to how much they can rely on him for offense, which they've been doing for most of the season. Yeah, he had 27 and 10, and he had soreness in his foot at one point, and he came back and he lobbied to get back in, and they needed him to get back in because, and this is what I was saying. They need him so much because he's their entire offense, and this really underscored it to me. Donovan Mitchell had 27 points. Ricky Rubio took 18 shots. That was the second most shots on the team, and Sean Fennacy, our fearless leader at the Ringer. He was like, why is Ricky Rubio shooting that much? And the answer is when you look, I mean, they took Joe Ingalls out of it. And then after that, you have no shooting. Yeah, what else are you going to do?

Like, really, what else are you going to do? And the rest of it is just like really weird matchups with the thunder. So it's like, in a lot of ways, it's kind of harkening back to the early, early, early part of the jazz season when Ricky Rubio was shouldering much of the load on offense. That didn't work. And I don't think it's going to work here. I don't think it's going to work either. But who knows? I mean, if they're going to win, if Utah's going to pull back into the series, it's going to be with defense, not going to be with shooting anyway.

All right. Last one for you. We must talk about the Knicks coaching search. And we'll set up a timer with Google assistant. Hey, Google, set a timer for two minutes. All right, two minutes. And we are starting now. So the Knicks are looking for a coach.

Surprise, surprise. The Knicks are always looking for a coach. Among the candidates. I can't wait. David Fisdale, Mark Jackson, Jerry Stackhouse, which those three alone, I mean, David Fisdell is a good one to go after, but they're not going to get them. So then you look at the other two and you go, eh, but then also on the list, Mike Woodson and David Blatt. David Blatt, maybe.

Well, there's a lot of spice to all these candidates. I like Fisdale as well. I thought he got kind of a rough deal and was put in, just put in a really hard position in Memphis. Jerry Stackhouse thriving as a G. league coach, David Blatt, a tumultuous season as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers currently plying his trade back in Europe. That's an intriguing choice. Mike Woodson is the one that doesn't make any sense to me. The Knicks team that he coached to 54 and 28, they took a ton of threes. They were actually kind of ahead of the curve in a lot of stuff. They took a ton of threes.

They had this very haphazard switching defense, which is kind of like the deregure, like defensive style in the modern NBA when you get like a bunch of guys that are the same size and that can fly around the court and kind of smother those pick and rolls. He tried that with his guys and they won 54 games, the best season the team had had in a long time. And then in the playoffs against Indiana, all of a sudden they got rid of all that and just went with like a classic too big lineup and got smoked. So I have a weird relationship with Mike Woodson. It's like he designed this offense and defensive scheme almost like against his nature like you could kind of tell like he didn't want to do it because as soon as he could switch he changed back to like what he wanted to do I would be happy if he didn't get the job hey Google stop timer it's just a very strange collection of people and it's I'm writing a piece about this for the ringer.com the Knicks are a graveyard of many things coaches among them you know like they've and until they really have have a overarching strategy and a front office that is willing and able to create a culture of

stability, then it's just always going to be like this. I hope they get Mike Woodson or David Black because that would be such a Knicks hire. Godspeed to you and the Knicks. I think it's wonderful and it's even better because the Sixers are doing well. You've got to go. You're very, very busy and you have many things to do. You've got binge mode. And now you've got NBA desktop two times a week.

Two times a week. We hope to have you on. I hope to be on. To just gush about your children in Philadelphia 76ers. Yeah, I haven't done that enough. All right. Thank you, and we will talk soon. See ya. All right, before we bring in KOC, a word from our sponsors.

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and fees, applies to traditional services only, certain markets are excluded, licenses available at ADT.com, and now let's bring in KOC. All right, joining me from L.A. our next guest, Kevin O'Connor is here. Kevin, a lot of basketball this weekend, buddy. Oh, it was a great time, God. It's great time. How was Philly?

Philly was wonderful. Couldn't be better. Super excited about game two. I think that they probably won't ever lose again. But we did Sixers with Jason. For you, I'm very surprised that this team lost. Pacers went to the calves and beat them on their floor. I have said many, many times in the Heat Check podcast, as our listeners know,

the playoff LeBron is a different LeBron. LeBron said before the game, it's like the Hunger Games. Let's see if we can keep it going. Extremely narrowed a voice right now by me. They couldn't. First time LeBron has lost a first round game since 2012 KOC, breaks a streak of 21 straight first round wins.

The Pacers led by as many as 23. I mean, LeBron had a triple double, but it didn't matter. I was just talking to Jason and Cepseon before coming on with you about this game briefly. And it's a type of thing where I thought it was going to be. a close series, right? And I still think that way after one game, even though Indiana won by 18, they really just dominated the game. They're just out-toughed Cleveland. But watching the actual game, I wonder, who on Cleveland exactly stops Victor Oladipo? Who is it? Yeah, this is a really good point, and they brought it up in the game broadcast when you look at their team. And this has

been a problem for that. We've talked about it before. There's been a problem. Their defense has been a problem all year. And you look at this team for Cleveland, and you're absolutely right. Like, who do you think could possibly lock him down? I don't think anybody. I mean, you really don't have, I mean, maybe George Hill would have the best shot. LeBron? That didn't work out of you. Are you going to ask LeBron to do it too?

Does he need to do literally everything? I guess you'd have to. I guess he might have to right now because he, I mean, nobody else, literally nobody else did anything. So LeBron James had, as I said, a triple double. And then after that, Kevin, wait, Larry Nanche Jr. was the only other player for the Cavs to score and double figures. Kevin Love didn't have a very good game. George Hill was only out there for 19 minutes. They barely played Rodney Hood as well.

Jeff Green was horrendous. He played 27 minutes, went 0 for 7. I mean, this is a bad look for them in this first game. Did you see Kyle Kuzma tweeted earlier, reminds me of the 07 Cavs, and then he deleted it? He shouldn't have deleted it. It's the truth. It really is the truth. This Cleveland team has a very,

Really, okay, put it this, let me backtrack. It's the worst team LeBron's had this decade. He's gone to seven straight finals, and some of the teams were better than others, some were worse than others. This is the worst one this decade. And that's why it is so similar to that 07 team where they're relying on like Boobie Gibson, guys like that. You know, Anderson Varajau, who is young, not even quite in his prime.

That team was so weak for Cleveland in 07, yet LeBron managed to bring them to the finals, of course, they got swept. And this year's team feels a lot like that where there's going to be no easy series for Cleveland. This Indiana team is extremely tough, and it's not just Oladipo. They have a lot of good players in that team. Sabonis was terrific.

Bogdanovich did what he had to do on the offensive end of the floor, providing spacing or entering the shots in it fall. Miles Turner was solid, off the bench. Lance Stevenson did Lance Stevenson things. They're a tough, tough team. And it's been like that all season long. This is really nothing new.

You wrote about them. You spent time with that team. They're tough, John, aren't they? Yeah, you know, and this is, I think that that's something that we need to talk about because on the one hand, the calves were horrendous. Yeah. And you are absolutely right. Like, this is probably the worst team LeBron has had in a very long time.

So, you know, like they lose with LeBron on their home floor. You know, a lot of sirens should be going off right now. But that also takes away from the Pacers who all season long, they've been doing things like this. And all season long, and I did write about it, like they don't get. credit for it. It's kind of like they played the Kings, right? And they beat the Kings in one of the final games of the season as they were coming down the stretch with this really long road trip. And I wrote about, this is in the piece, Willa Colley Stein didn't get out in time on a three-po and afterwards, he was like, I can't believe they beat us, basically. I'm paraphrasing.

But his whole thing was, I can't believe it didn't stop the three-point attempt. He shouldn't have got it off. It was my fault, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking to myself, like, we had a whole season worth of evidence that Indiana is good. And now we have a whole season plus a playoff game. And still we're looking at how the other team failed and not how the Pacer succeeded. And the Pacer succeeded. Like you said, this is a deep team. They play a lot of guys. And those guys are good. And like, it's not just Oladipo. They play as a team. And it's been, it's been really amazing to watch. Oh, and by the way, they also played Cleveland really tough this year, too. Right? It's not like they just beat up on bad teams or like, we've seen teams like

that in the past where they're just really, really good versus bad teams, but they don't beat up on really the top teams that they have to beat to have success in the playoffs. Indiana had success against Cleveland in the regular season, and it's translating so far. Granted, it's just one game, and you can't overreact. The odds are with LeBron James, it's going to go six or seven, but anybody who either picked Indiana before the series or somebody who felt like they were going to really make it hard on Cleveland, you have to be feeling a lot better based off the game one. Just the disparity and the toughness level Indiana had their defensive intensity and their ability to beat you in different ways. Whereas with Cleveland, it's LeBron and not a lot else.

And you know what, JJ brought this up last night after the Sixers game or two nights ago by the time people listen to this. That, you know, a playoff series, it's like an old, it's an old basketball axiom and also Doc said it all the time. But it is true that the series doesn't really start until somebody beats you on your floor. and it already happened for Cleveland, which, look, the whole like, hey, LeBron's going to handle it, we're going to be fine thing. I think you've got to be really nervous about that. Not only that, because of the way that the first round is so spread out, they don't play again until Wednesday night. They have a lot of time to think about this. What chance do you give the Pacers to pull this out now?

I didn't pick series like as games. I picked Cleveland. I probably would have said in six or seven. I still think Cleveland wins the series in seven. But that's close. That's close. It's pretty close to a coin flip, I think, but I'd still favor Cleveland in the series,

just based off the fact that they have LeBron, LeBron still has another gear that he can reach, and I think some of their role players are going to be better than they were in that game one. I think so, too, but if I was a Cavs fan, I'd be really nervous right now. I'd be sweating. Yeah, all right.

So let's talk about Buck Celtics, which probably the game of the weekend. Celtics pulled it out in overtime. Terry Rozier, 40 minutes, 23 points, hit an amazing shot with points five seconds left in regulation, when he stopped on a dime and it had a step back three. And Eric Bledsoe, I don't think, still knows what happened. And, like, he slammed on the brakes, basically, like,

like Mav and Top Gun and Bledso flew right by him. But then the most of it, like, Chris Middleton, what was that play that Joe Pronti blew up, like, drew up out of a timeout where it was basically like, we're not going to get the ball in anywhere near the three-point line. So we'll just have Chris Middleton, heave one up from Medford. And he did. That's a Boston reference for all my Boston people. He did, and it went in, and they went to overtime, and then they lost.

What a crazy game. It was wild. And then with, you know, Prunty, a lot of people expected the Bucks to go to Janus and to the Kumpo at the five, putting him at center, surrounding him with shooters. And that didn't happen until way late in the game. And it kind of worked for the Milwaukee Bugs, at least for a while. And it still required that miracle effort by Chris Middleton to send it to overtime. Yeah, and you mentioned Yannis.

Yonis was really good, but he was also barking at the refs again. He had almost triple double, 35, 13, and 7. He had three steals. He fouled out with 13 seconds left in overtime, and he didn't believe it was a foul. He was pissed off about it. But earlier in the game, towards the end of regulation,

he got a similar call in his favor when he basically dove on Jason Tatum to try to get a jump ball. And he got it instead of getting called for a foul. It was way late on it, and the refs gave it to him anyway, so I don't know why Janus was complaining about that. but Jason Tatum to KOC.

Jason Tatum has had a weird season. Simmons mentioned this on Twitter. He was really good to start, and then he hit the Ricky Wall, and there was some injuries, and then Kyrie went down, and Marcus Smart went down, and all of a sudden,

like, Jason Tatum is flourishing, and he's really figuring it out right now. Yeah, it's a lot similar in a way to what Ben Simmons did for the Sixers where he's just exploded at the end of the season. Tatum has really elevated his game. Ever since, like you said, around the time,

Kairie went out because Boston has, putting him into more on-ball actions. They're putting him in more dribble handoffs, more pick and roll, more off-screen actions, and his efficiency as a scorer hasn't taken a hit. He's improved his playmaking. He made a awesome pass, a whip pass. I forget to who it was in transition,

but that was the type of play that people wondered if he had that in him. A lot of valuations questioned his passing ability at Duke. But, man, he has really elevated his play. It's still only 20 years old. He was fantastic. Fantastic. Boston needs. I mean, that's what Boston needs. They need their young guys, whether it's Tatum, Rosier, Jalen Brown,

even someone like Shemmy Ojali off the bench to elevate their play in order to, even win just this series, never mind a potential second round series. It's not going to be easy for them. I think Milwaukee's going to go with Yannis at the five more often moving forward, and that could present issues for Boston. I think if I'm the Celtics, I'm thinking about what's the, What's the counterattack to Janus at the five moving forward if Milwaukee goes to that in the first quarter, instead of waiting until three minutes and 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter to go to it?

Because Milwaukee gave them trouble with that. Granted, it did kind of fizzle out in overtime. Yeah, the adjustments there will be interesting, but it was a good effort from the Celtics. And, you know, credit where it's due, Marcus Morris had a good game. And your guy, who I give you heat for, Al Horford had a good game. He played 44 minutes. He had a double-double. I mean, he was good.

He was good in that game. And, like, I look at the same. Celtics without like their key guys and they just keep like you know moving along and getting after it and the bucks could have won that game and good for the Celtics man but like conversely you mentioned the bucks and like how what kind of adjustments they're going to make maybe they move you know they play yannis more at the five okay fine but beyond that their bench is garbage i mean really bad they got 32 minutes out of malcolm brogden that'd play jason terry 18 minutes jabari only played 15 minutes and that was it. They had nobody else.

By the way, I saw a lot of stuff on Twitter today about Jabari Parker needs to play more. Let me just preface what I'm about to say. I really like Jabari Parker. I had him ranked ahead of Andrew Wiggins in his draft. I am a big Jabari Parker fan. But right now he stinks. He can't defend. He's not scoring. He doesn't pass.

He doesn't rebound. If anything, Parker needs to play less right now. But the problem is, as you said, Gons, Who else are you actually going to turn to on that team? To me, maybe it's a guy like Sterling Brown. Maybe you throw someone out there like that. Maybe once Delvedova's back, he didn't play today, but once he's getting his minutes back,

maybe he's somebody you turn to. But right now, Parker isn't providing the answers that they need him to. So I think they need to try to find that from somewhere else. They need to experiment with Delavadova or increasing Sterling Brown's minutes, who I like a lot. Yeah, that bench was really thin. I mean, on the one hand, I give Pronti a lot of heat because, again, that play out of the timeout at the end of the game where Chris Middleton saved him was just so atrocious. But I don't know what he has to work with.

I mean, you only have so many tools. There's only like 0.5 left on the clock, though, with that final play, the Chris Middleton. Yeah, but I mean, I agree with you. There's only 0.5 left. But you're telling me the best thing you can get is almost a half-court heaved pressed up against the sideline. Like, all right. I think you could do something better than that. There has to be some shot on the floor somewhat better than that.

Don't make me angry, KOC. It's very late here. All right. You're still on West Coast time, though. You're in your clock, though. Your mental clock, though. Speaking of West Coast, the Spurs went to the Warriors. It went the way that we expected it to.

You know, people were, like, grumbling about the Warriors because they didn't have a great finish to their season. They lost six of their last 10. They lost to the Pelicans. Steve Kerr said they didn't try. And then they did what the Warriors do in the playoffs. They went out and they smacked the spurs. Yeah, sure did. And then Draymond Green after the game pulled the nobody believed in this card, which isn't true.

But, hey, whatever works is motivation. I know people are making fun of them for saying that, but it's like, who cares? Get motivation from whatever corner of the earth that you can. And they did that. And they were really fantastic against San Antonio. I think we need to be a little bit cautious and not overreact too much to their performance. performance however the rest of the series goes, and that's because this San Antonio team really isn't that good. It's a pretty average team. It's going to be a lot tougher moving forward for Golden State. Obviously, depending on what happens with Stefan Curry and his health and how he performs whenever he's back. But this San Antonio team really isn't that good. I forget who tweeted this Gons, but I thought it described San Antonio perfectly. You know, watching this team is like seeing all these great rock bands just get old and they're and like they've been replaced. there's some former members in there.

There's just a bunch of new guys that you don't recognize, and they're trying to play the hits. And it's just not the same. And that's really what it's like watching the San Antonio squad, unfortunately. Rudy Gay led them in scoring. I mean, like that's that right there. I was like, oh, man, that is not good. And then, like I said, Lamarcus Aldridge,

like if you're going to go into the playoffs, with Marcus Alders is your main guy and you're a lot of trouble. And it looks like that's all they're going to have because now it says, you know, there's a report to Kauai's going to be out for the post. season to concentrate on his rehab. And when Pop was asked about it, he said, I don't know, you're going to have to ask Kauai

and his group that question. So clearly things are not going well there. Quickly, you mentioned Steph Curry and when he comes back and what the Warriors will look like. Can we talk about Steph Curry's game one

wardrobe choice? Oh, it was fantastic. He had a blog boy's t-shirt on. It's fantastic with the black blazer and the blog boy's shirt. everybody can get there as a ringer.com. First of all, it looked really good. Second of all, excellent promotion for the ringer. So, yeah, make sure everybody goes out there and gets their blog boy t-shirts.

Last one for you, KOC, because then you have to go. You have a lot of things going on your rating for the ringer.com. You tweeted out during the game that Manu is out there taking charges at 60. Manu and I are at the same age, buddy. I think I have to, in the same way that you were banned from other various podcasts, I think you have to be banned from the heat check for a little bit as penance. I didn't realize that you and Monter were the same age. I apologize to you for that.

I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry. You're only as old as you feel, KOC. God damn it. All right, he's Kevin O'Connor. Make sure you read him. He's going to be back all week. There's tons of basketball happening.

We've got all your basketball coverage here at the ringer. Kevin, go be a writer about basketball. Talk to you after game two, Shayserano. All right, buddy. See you. All right. To round out the rest of the games, let's bring in Danny Chow and Justin Varyer. All right, joining me from L.A., two of the best editors at the Ringer.

We have many very good editors, too, so this is a high compliment. Danny Chow, Justin Varyer. What's up, gang? Hello, Gans. How are you? Wonderful. It must be what, so it's past midnight for you when we're recording right now. You were up very late filing a wonderful Sixers piece that we put up on the website over the weekend.

That you edited. It was a great, great team win there. It was a team win. It is late here, but that's okay. Basketball never stops. It's the playoffs. We put our heads down. It's not like we have real jobs.

We have good jobs. We work hard at our jobs. But we're not breaking bricks. We're watching basketball. Speak for yourself. That's what I was doing all afternoon. Breaking bricks? Yeah.

I like that about you. You're a multitasking. Well, while we were, we were multitasking last night after I got back from the Sixers game, going through the edit with Danny. and we had a pause because the Pelicans and the Blazers game was really fun and also bananas. So the Pelicans won on the road at Portland by two. And down the stretch, I think Terry Stotz lost his mind at one point because he put, I had forgotten that Myers-Leonard could do anything for the Blazers except for be a hype man.

And actually, I guess he still can't do anything for the Blazers except for be a hype man. Terry Stats put him in and ran a play for him. Yeah, it was the final 12 seconds of the game, I think. Right? And it reminded me of all those years that, you know, Doc Rivers, sorry Isaac, but, you know, he used to have these players, you know, like Spencer Hawes, Byron Mullins. He would never play them in the regular season. But for some reason, during one play in the playoffs, he would put them in and they were just completely like out of water. They just had no idea what to do. And that was kind of what I think Terry Stott's pretty much set, you know, Myers-Leynard up for failure. even though it was a great play that he ran, but, you know. Can I just pause for a second? In fairness to Terry Stotz, Myers-Lennard sets Myers-Lennon up for failure. But yes, I hear you.

Like it wasn't a smart move. Justin, you put this on our slack. You said that Stats was out gentrying gentry because at the end of the game, he also had a play that was supposed to be apparently, this is what the Blazers said afterwards, it was supposed to be a designed three-pointer, but the Pels took it away. So instead, what they got was Pat Conaton

getting blocked by Drew Holiday, and that was the end of the game. Yeah, not just any block. It was Drew Holiday, just pinning it to the glass. And as people pointed out on Twitter afterward, Drew was already walking away from the play before Anthony Davis had even fully corralled the rebound. The last couple minutes of that game was just insane

because, as we were all talking about, on that very slack, Gentry, just going full seven seconds or less, never calling a time out. I don't know if he called one late there, but pretty much ran his guy's rag at himself to the point where the Blazers were even able to get back into that game.

There are so many long passes that just went nowhere. Right. I had no idea what was going on. It was a complete, like, weird meltdown, plus Dame and TJ just happened to start hitting threes. It was just like a perfect storm of, oh my God, so the Blazers just are just, they're back. Yeah, like I, you know, you guys know how much I like the Blazers,

and I thought, you know, they're at home. They got the three seed. ended up at the very end of the regular season, beating the jazz so they could get the three-seat and play the game at home. And I'm like, all right, this is good. They're getting it working it out again. And then all of a sudden, like Stats had said, you know, he was going to start the series with NERC and see, you know, how much time he could play him against AD because during

the regular season, he hadn't really played him against AD. And NERC was fine. But also, like, the matchups were super weird and the rotations were weird. Zach Collins played 22 minutes. And I know they like him. Shout out to Zach Collins. Shout out to Zach Collins. I mean, I had kind of boosted him up in the draft class podcast last week.

Charks kind of shot me down, even though he, Zach Collins is Charks' guy. But he was just like, yeah, this guy's going to be sacrificed at the altar of Anthony Davis. But you know what? As a, you know, 20-year-old, 21-year-old kid, he's out there being like basically a 3-&D center for spot minutes. I mean, that's really all you can ask for him. and I think he did a pretty good job. Yeah, and to his defense, and in his defense, you're asking him to guard Anthony Davis.

Like, can anyone actually guard Anthony Davis? So they were really put into a poor position. The one thing I thought was really interesting, and I said this on Twitter afterward, was I thought Drew Holiday having the game he did on the night where the process came to fruition, was particularly apropos. And obviously, Drew was a huge part of the Pelican success this season, obviously a big part of this game, as we mentioned the block earlier.

But on the flip side of it, I thought the fact that Evan Turner couldn't take advantage of the matchup advantage he had there, just the size advantage he had on the wing when the Pelicans liked to go three guards the entire time, really put the Blazers at a disadvantage because I don't know matchup-wise where else they're going to get that. This is kind of a situation where you look at it and you're like, oh, man, the Blazers really, really miss Mo Harclis as a guy who can actually space the floor

and not kind of moonlight as a guy who might be able to hit a three sometimes in Evan Turner. with Evan Turner in the starting lineup, it's kind of tiffy. Yeah, so the Blazers said, though, afterwards they were like, look, you know, we think we like the way that the game went for us, we got good shots, and like I was kind of skeptical about this,

but Kevin Pelton actually tweeted this out, or maybe I saw it on ESPN, but either way it was a Kevin Pelton thing. He went back and did like the shot quality numbers, and of the teams in the first round, only the Warriors had a better shot quality. So they did get some good looks, but you're right.

I mean, like, you know, it just didn't work out. And then conversely, everything seemed to work out for the Pelicans, especially Anthony Davis was an absolute monster per usual. Justin, like you said, you can't stop him. And then Drew Holiday was super efficient, 21 points on 50% from the floor. He played amazing defense. Micah wrote about him. Go read that on the ringer.

Like, good for Drew. I always like Drew. And, you know, he helped start the process off by getting traded. So I always appreciated that. But here's something I wanted to run past you guys. I didn't think that this was going to be much of a series. It clearly can be. But Alvin Gentry, after the game, said he's a believer in playoff Rondo.

And I was like, oh, no. Like, I know Rondo had 17 assists, but are you guys a believer in playoff Rondo? I don't really know what playoff Rondo is at this point. I know he did a good job of moving the ball and defensively he had his moments. But to be honest with you, like, Ian Clark was just as big as Rondo was in that game. I mean, I think someone said this on Twitter, and I can't give them proper credit because I forgot who it was, but I think playoff Drew Holiday is way more important than playoff Rondo.

I think Anthony Davis just being the best player on the floor is way more important. And Nico Mertich, being a hot-blooded human who can, you know, run around and do things. Right. Yeah. That's huge for that. The front court was way more important in this game than Rondo playoff or regular season. I want to get, in addition to blog boys, I want hot-blooded human as our next show. I totally meant warm-blooded, but, you know, it's fun.

Whatever. It's better that way. You came up with it on the fly. It's brilliant. Yeah, I think this was a very important game in terms of the public perception of Drew Holiday. It's really funny because we're kind of in this era where everyone's a point guard, but no one's a point guard. And it's funny that Drew had this game in a season in which he didn't play point guard for the Pelicans. Like, you look at the basketball reference numbers, and he played 99% of his minutes at either the two or the three.

And so having Rondo being a guy who can, you know, obviously he plays at a completely random pace and a completely random thought process to the rest of the team. You just kind of have to live with that. But it allows Drew Holiday to kind of focus on what the team needs them to be. And that's being a 3-D guy who can really lock down any perimeter player in the league. The thing about this matchup between him and Lillard is that he's guarded Lillard more. than anyone in the league other than Donovan Mitchell. And in Saturday's game, he defended on 78 possessions in the game, and 47 of them were against Lillard. He completely locked Lillard down.

That's huge. It was a rough night for Lillard, six for 23. It's a series now. Also, the other series that we didn't get to yet, and the last one for you guys before we let you go, Wizards and Raptors, rough game for John Wall as well. he had a similar shooting night to Damian Lillard only made six of his 20 shots. The Wizards lost to the Raptors.

And we'll get to the Raptors in a second. But I'm going to channel KOC who was on right before you. In our Slack, he said that John Wall is the worst elite point guard in the NBA. What do we think about that? Is he? I don't know. I don't know if that's like a real indictment because if you're an elite

point guard, you're an elite point guard. But it's select company. But it didn't, he certainly did not help the Wizards in that game. That's a take that he's been kind of. kind of, you know, sharpening over the past couple months. It's been dropped a couple times in the Slack. I might have popped up in one of our, like, Slack posts that eventually make it online. I am very much a believer in John Wall.

I've been hashtag page on wall for the past, like, four or five years. No comment. Wow. Danny abstaining. Wow. You know, my thing is they played through John Wall when he's been on the court for years. And to ask them to do something else at this point in the season, just ask them to be a completely different team than who they are. Like, you could look at it from the flip side with the Raptors.

I think you talk about how teams change in the postseason so much, how they get away from what they're usually doing. The bench is shortened. But you look at what they did, and they basically recreated the success they've had all season. Now, on the flip side with the wizards, like, what do you want them to do? You want them to figure out a completely different way to play. Like obviously everybody eats era of the wizards produce more wins, but I don't know if that had longevity. One, and two, if you can get that going with the personnel,

I just see a few misplays from Wall. Maybe if he doesn't just try to jam it down the Raptor's throat onto those late possessions, they get that back. Maybe Beale plays off him a little bit better, and this is a different ball game. Yeah, Beale had 19 points. He shot 8 for 17, but it was a. a pretty quiet kind of like invisible performance from him in my opinion. So, you know, you get,

you get a better, you get maybe six more points out of him and suddenly this is a different game. And also, justice for Sateransky, my guy, he got less than 12 minutes. Let's get that up to 20. Yeah, Satiransky and the Everybody Eats era, RIP on that one. Also, like the matchups, again, like the first game, teams are feeling each other out. And as Justin said, what you do in the regular season isn't always what you do in the playoffs, but somehow Gortot and Valanchunis both played, you know, enough that they were out there together. I thought that they'd probably be phased out, but like you said, what are you going to do if you're the wizards, right? Like, you look at your bench all of a sudden, you're like, ah, yeah, it's pretty thin. Yeah, it just seems like that proved to be

the difference in this one, but we'll see what happens in the next game. But like you're saying, it seemed like Lowry and DeRosen did a good job of when things weren't necessarily clicking for them deferring to guys like Sergei Bac and Valenciunis. I guess the differentiation is Valenchunis can come and go within the Raptors' offense based on matchups, whereas Gortat still seems to be a big part of what they're doing. They're running a lot of pick and roll.

He's going to be out there setting the screens. He's going to be out there trying to play defense with whether or not his guys are helping him out, which is something we'll hear about from him perhaps later in the season, in the postseason. But for me, I don't know. I'm still up and in the air in this one.

Danny, as the resident Raptors fan of Theringer.com, how are you feeling about your raps here? I just think game one was everything that Dwayne Casey had kind of prepared his team to become. You got really, really good early minutes from O.G. Ananobe, who scored quite a few points in the first quarter, I believe. And, you know, I think a lot of kind of blog boys were a little bit concerned about the lack of Fred Van Vleet, who was sitting out with a shoulder injury. but I was always kind of under the opinion that Dillon Wright was their more important backup point guard because he's 6-5, 6-9 wingspan can kind of be a guy who can seamlessly defend across a couple positions in a way that Fred Van Fleet can't. And you saw that in what we got out of him yesterday.

I mean, he scored 18 points. He was second-leading score on the team. Like, Dwayne Casey has built this team so that these nine, where Lowry's only scoring 11 points or DeMardo's and can't even get to 20 points, where these games are games in which they aren't necessarily going to be, you know, in such a tough place. Yeah, and we should also mention that the Raptors snapped like a really weird streak where they lost 10 consecutive game ones until they beat the Wizards.

And afterwards, Masayu Jiri, according to reporters, said, you know, like fucking assholes, we won game one. and I wonder who do you think he was directing that at? Do you think that was like directed at us at blog boys or do you think he was just like relieved that they fucking finally snucked that street? He's still unfucked Brooklyn. It's still directed at Brooklyn. What a potty mouth for a general manager. I kind of like it, but it really is a nice contrast to him as this man in a three-piece suit like resplendently dressed just out there just cursing everybody in his path. I am I am team Maasai. The Raptors have been a revelation this. year. Good for them. They pulled it out. They beat the Wizards. They snapped the streak. They've been a good team all year. So good for the for the raptors. And good for you guys for coming on the Heat Check podcast. We appreciate it. We appreciate everybody else who was on the Heat Check podcast. KOC and we had Jason Concepcion. And you can listen to all our Ringer podcast. KOC and Verna will be back on Tuesday. Group chat has been moved to Wednesday, late Wednesday night after all the games. So these two guys will be back.

Draft class on Friday. And of course, Bill Simmons. He talks about basketball. all the time. So you listen to Bill Simmons podcast as well. So thanks to everybody who helped out. Thanks to Isaac. We will be back next week, probably from Washington, D.C., maybe even with Joe House. Thanks for listening to the Heat Check podcast guy. Bye.