The Ringer NBA Show - Upset SZN: Game 1 Shockers and Not-So-Shockers | Heat Check

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

The 2019 NBA playoffs are finally here! The first round kicked off with some surprising upsets (2:53), most notably the Brooklyn Nets defeating the Philadelphia 76ers (29:55) and the Orlando Magic edging out the Toronto Raptors (57:16). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Justin Verrier, Spike Eskin, Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Season 8 of Game of Thrones begins this Sunday, which means binge mode Game of Thrones makes its long-awaited return, with your resident experts Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion guiding you through each episode. And to get your fix every Sunday night, Chris Ryan joins Mallory and Jason on Talk the Thrones, a Twitter after show recapping each episode throughout the season. So make sure you check out the binge mode podcast on Apple or Spotify, Talk the Thrones on Twitter, and for even more Thrones coverage, you can head to the ringer.com. Welcome to a very special playoff edition of Heat Check.

I'm your host, John Gonzalez, in Philadelphia, joined all the way across the country in Los Angeles by our esteemed producer, Isaac, Isaac, it's very late here in Philadelphia. What day is it there? Is it still Sunday there? Because it's Monday morning here. You are in the future. It is Sunday here. You are already in Monday.

Yes. I've moved across the timelines and the day. days in the calendar per usual like we did for last year's heat check podcast because it's the playoffs and because there's a lot of action happening and because we want to deliver all of that news to you sooner heat check listeners what we will be doing moving forward is recording sunny nights and then that way you get it first thing monday morning everybody wins that way except for my sleep my sleep does not win but everybody else wins sorry for your loss it's a very exciting time though is it because we are in the postseason it was a crazy start to the proceedings

and we've got a lot to get into but first i want to thank everybody for listening and encourage everybody to please rate and review us in all of our fantastic ringer nba shows and pods and don't forget about all of our great content on the ringer.com. We've got haley and palo who had all your winners and losers from the weekend. One of the teams I like to cover, they fall into the latter category, the loser category. And I wrote about the Sixers face planting Isaac Lee in game one against the nets. It was not good. Such a shame.

I was there. I flew out for this and probably could have just stayed in L.A. and watch the Clippers. It would have been easier. Later in the show, for the first time ever, we are going to have. have Spike Eskin from the rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast on the program to break down the Sixers game on debacle. And then later on after that, we're going to have Kevin Clark on the show to Crow about his Orlando Magic winning in dramatic fashion in Toronto against the Raptors. But first, there's six other games. We've got a ton of other games to get through. Jazz and Rockets just wrapped up. We've got a whole

bunch of other games that happened on Sunday. And for that, we need to bring in an expert. And we have a good one. Let's hit it. He's heating up. All right, joining me on the other line. He's the senior NBA editor in charge of our wonderful NBA coverage at the ringer.com. He's also the host of group chat on Thursdays. Justin Barrier. Thanks for doing this, man.

Gentlemen, how are you? Good. It was a long weekend of playoff basketball. You said you were on your couch the whole time. Yeah, you watched every game? Yeah, there's a dip in the center of my couch because I'm often on it watching basketball. But now it is officially a crater because I haven't left my house more than maybe two times to see the sunlight. I respect that. You worked a nice groove into your couch. It's basketball season. Basketball season never stops. Now we're in the playoffs.

So we have many games to discuss. We're going to carve out two games later on in the program. We're going to talk to Kevin Clark about his Orlando Magic upending the Raptors. And we're going to talk to Spike Askin about the Sixers going down in abject fashion to the magic. But you and I are going to do all the other games. We're just going to roll through all the games that happened not related to those two people. So we'll start with Sunday and work from. the beginning backwards. So the Pacers and the Celtics, I missed this game because I was at Sixers practice, but when I checked in on the box score later on, it didn't look great. And you said there was a lot of blood. Yeah, definitely in that third quarter. I was worried about the Celtics early on, especially given all the upsets that we had on Saturday. I thought this was veering toward that. Given what we know about the Celtics, they're not perhaps the most mentally strong team out there to perhaps prevent something like that from happening. But whether there was a combination of their defense or the Pacers going through what was like a historic shooting drought, it just completely snowballed.

I think they ended up with only two field goals in that third quarter for eight points. And I believe one of them was a goal tend. It's incredible. The Pacers were up 11 in the first half. As you mentioned, they had an awful second half, just eight points in the third quarter, 29 points total after the break. 29 points, according to our very own, Zach Cram, is tied for the fourth worst half this season. And this particular game, Justin Verrier, I can only imagine your eyes bleeding, watching it.

Lowest scoring combined score of the NBA this season. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. You really missed something here. I was at Sixers practice, like I said. And we had to wait for a while because I can't be certain on this, but I'm pretty sure. I'm going to take an educated guess that the media avail was, postponed or at least, you know, we had to wait a little bit longer than otherwise we would have because I think that they were watching Tiger win the Masters.

I think the Warriors did do that. We were definitely doing it while we waited. We were just sitting on the sideline watching the Masters. So congrats to Tiger. This was for the Pacers, I think, like kind of what we expected because without Victor Oladipo, it's been rough for them to score. They only had two players in double digits in this game, one of whom was Bogdanovich, and then off the bench,

you had Corey Joseph lead the way with 14 points. They just have a really hard time scoring, and the Celtics on top of that good defensive team. Yeah, they're not a three-point shooting team either. And if you don't have a talent advantage, I think that's what you're probably going to have to rely on. I think they took the second fewest three-po in the league since Victor Olipo went down.

And if you look at the shot chart from that very bloody third quarter, it's pretty much all like three-point misses and long two misses. So I want to say that the Celtics did something right. On the other hand, there's just like so much noise here that it's such an extreme result that like to miss all these shots that I do wonder like how much of it was just like a giant title wave of like comeuppance or just like law of averages and all this stuff. There's just like I'm still trying to figure things out about this result. But I guess the big takeaway writ large is just that the Celtics were the more talented team and they played like it and they got the job done. Yeah, 82 games, I've mentioned this so many times on He-check that, like, I still don't know what to make of the Boston Celtics. We have 82 regular season games and now a playoff game, and I still don't know.

Shouts to my buddy, Jason Schwartz, S.I., who tweeted the Saturday, said, three straight years, people crap on Al Horford during the regular season. Three straight years, the Celtics' entire playoff success depends on surviving when Al is on the bench. I don't know if that's sad or funny or some combination of both, but they got through. They got the Pacers in the first round. I think that's good for them. that's enough of the Pacers and the Celtics. All right. So O.K.C.

and the Blazers, much better game, much more enjoyable for you, yes? Unless you're Paul George, I guess it was enjoyable. He just looked terrible, and it's really sad to watch. Blazers hold on and win that one at home. The Blazers social media team tweeted, this one's for you, Jennifer, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Shouts to Ian Carmel, who got a victory on this one. OKC cut the lead to one with under three left, and then, like, game hit this really deep three-pointer to put them ahead. And it felt like, I thought that OKC's defense in this game was pretty good,

except for in certain instances. And that was one of those instances late in the game where Russ was on dame. And he just gave him way too much room for that three. And then that was it. Yeah, there were like flashes, if you want to be an OKC optimist. I especially like Jeremy Grant and what he was doing. He seemed like you came up with a few big defensive stops toward the end there. And we could talk about this in a bit.

But I wonder if, like, maybe going to him more in center is like their only counter that they have left in their cooffers, given this really weird lineup that they have. But overall, I just think like it was a kind of a big victory for the Damon C.J. Backcourt. We've been talking about this for, I don't know, 20 years now, where it's like, do they have to break up? Do they have enough? And they really found something with this team before Nurkich went down. And so far, it looks like Ennis Cantor can do enough to maybe get them by, especially if you look at the like that side of the bracket, now that he's,

Houston is in the four seed and has to go against the Warriors in the second round, there's kind of like an open lane for anybody. And I'm starting to convince myself that maybe the Blazers have enough to be that team. I want good things for the Blazers. It was a tough out last year. And it would be nice if they put up a better fight this year. Although, OK, C had a tough out last year, too. So somebody's going to have a repeat of that performance.

As you mentioned, Dane played really well. CJ looked good. The Addis Cantor thing is crazy. Like, all of a sudden, you can play him? I haven't always been very high on Ennis because I feel like, you know, outside of offensive rebounding and rebounding in general, scoring in the paint. He doesn't do a ton, but he had 20 and 18 in this game, a couple of box. He had some critical offensive rebounds late.

He also had, I'm sure you saw a ridiculous late layup where he basically picked up his dribble at the three point line and laid it up anyway, well, high off the glass because sure. And afterwards, he was telling reporters that he was on the worst team in the league and he wasn't playing because they thought I was too old. So a little shade to the Knicks. It was Ennis Kander's night. Yeah, he was basically Janus. He did the Yonnes, like, go from the three one line and cruise in.

You know, I think his biggest advantage here is just that he's not Myers-Leonard. Because if you were to watch any of the minutes that Myers-Lennard or Zach Collins, my God, they were just atrocious. And I thought that was one place going into the series where the Thunder could expose. They obviously have Stephen Adams, probably one of the best centers in the league. they have some of these bigger burlier guys, there on his Noel, another guy where they can really rough them up in the paint. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Adams is like totally healthy.

And it just seems like Cantor, I mean, he's doing enough. Even defensively, he's like passable. It's like not good. But he's enough to where like they have so much firepower that they could really outshute a team that's going five for 33 from three point land. We talk so much about like opportunity and fit in the NBA and how like one guy on a certain team might not play well or play much at all. And then all of a sudden he goes to a different team and it just clicks. And not to say that NERC and Cantor are the same guy. There's certainly

not. Nurk has a much different and I think like a wider skill set. He's certainly a better passer. But I do think that Cantor for the Blazers after NERC went down, it's a good fit. Yeah. I mean, he's just going to get you all these extra possessions and like kind of one of these battles where you're just scrapping things out, especially that's what happened late there. It's definitely advantageous. I just, I wish the Thunder had another move here. I want to believe in them, and they have certain guys that I really like Grant being one of them. But I was talking to someone on staff earlier today, and I'm just like, well, what else can they do here? I think if you really wanted to expose Cantor, you could work it so you have like maybe a Grant Paul George front

court, and now Grant would be fine, but Paul George, what are we getting from him spacing wise? And then how many actual guards and wings does this team have? Like, at a certain point, you're getting to playing maybe like Raymond Felton, Dennis Schroeder, and Russell Westbrook together. And that's just a whole new set of problem. So the matchups are all screwed up here. And I don't know how much longer the Thunder really hang. Well, I think that those are all good points.

And yet, I look at the score and they lost by five in a game in which they only hit five of 33, three point attempts. Like, I thought the other night was an absolute brick fest for the Sixers. the Thunder made them look like sharpshooters. They shot 15.2% from distance. Like, if they hit even like a normal amount of threes, they are definitely, you know, they were already in this game,

but who knows, maybe they pull it out. Like, do you give them, like, is that even a small consolation if you're a Thunder fan? Yeah, I guess it's really eye beholder there. I mean, I think you're right. They can't shoot this poorly again. Dennis Schroeder went 047 and Russell Westberg will hit one in every like 50.

So you're bound to get something from him. I guess it just comes down to their not a three-point shooting team to begin with. And I do wonder, like, what George's health is. It's really a bummer because you're basically like, can this guy play well enough? And it just really comes down to the human body. And unfortunately, I have no expertise in that. Yeah, it's a shame because, you know, his line, if you just were looking at his numbers,

he had 26 points. Paul George had 26 points and 10 rebands and four steals. And he was six of six from the line. And yet, I don't think he looked right either. Like, there are just moments where clearly he's not. himself, and I don't think he has been for a while. And without him being himself, the early season, like, at least in the conversation for Dark Horse MVP candidate, Paul George, where he was killing it and carrying them, it's going

to be tough for them, I think. Yeah, he still was a pretty spry on defense, which I guess is something. But it reminded me of, like, you know, when a defensive lineman, like, breaks his hand and just wears a club, he's basically, like, a specialist out there. He's basically Jason Pierre Paul with, like, one hand. Yeah, he's got, well, it looks like they took all of the black men. masking tape on the planet and like taped up his shoulders. It's like he's part man part masking tape. It's really impressive. He's like a Dothraki. He has. Yeah, I haven't, don't spoil it

for me. I've been watching basketball. I didn't say it. Um, okay, so on to, uh, another game here. We had Pistons of Bucks. I want to spend mere seconds on this one. This was the worst game I have seen in quite some time, unless you're a Bucks fan at which point you were super excited about it. The Bucks had 69 points in the first half alone. Absolutely blew the Pistons out. The game was really over before it even began because, no Blake. Yeah, I guess the only thing to be encouraged by if you're a Pistons fan is it can't possibly get worse. I guess. There's really not much else to say because almost every player was bad and even Andre Drummond got tossed at a certain point. Yeah, I was wondering about that. That was such a blatant

shove. But you know how like sometimes when games are going really badly a coach or a player wants to get tossed? I wonder how much of that was in Andre Drummond's mind because that game was over from the beginning. Maybe he just wanted to go into the back and say, forget it. But no Blake being, out there. When Joanne Casey said at the end of the regular season that he was excited that Blake was on the core playing basically on one leg and diving for balls with like this bulky knee brace. And he also said he couldn't hurt it any worse by playing on it. I think maybe he shouldn't have said that and possibly regrets that now. Yeah, I'm also not encouraged by the fact that like they haven't really said what the injury is. As far as I know, it's just like soreness, which to me is

always like, we're not going to tell you what the actual thing is until after the playoffs. And oh my God, maybe he needs to lose a leg. Yeah, right. They're going to have to amputate or leg transplant for sure. Last quick thing about this, aside from the fact that it was ugly basketball and I was just desperate for it to be over so we could get to the last game of the night. The starting five for the Detroit Pistons had 35 points, 21 rebounds, and eight assists. Janus alone had 24, 17, and 4 and was also caught like mouthing I'm fucking unstoppable, which he is.

Yeah, it was a really cool afternoon. Yeah. By the way, this is the only criticism I have of the. the bucks for this game because they absolutely destroyed the pistons. They looked incredible. They played well together. Everybody was clicking. They were shooting while.

They were moving the ball while. They were playing good defense. Explain to me why Janice was playing in the third quarter up 40 and was in the game and able to be shoved by Andre Drummond. Like, why not take him out way before that? I know. This is such a like reporter thing to ask of coaches and they always hate it. I definitely got yelled at by Elvin Gentry once for doing so.

Yeah, I don't know. there's no real reason to other than like maybe because they have days off in between multiple days off like they need a certain amount of minutes but yeah if yoness goes down like they're definitely exposed i mean that's pretty obvious to say but like in addition to that like a lot of their players are also ailing from injuries you know they got nicola meritage back but they're still waiting on brogden still waiting on a few other guys it's the best possible scenario but like there are i guess lingering doubts that they'll get to in later rounds after they just completely in that'll like the pistons here.

Yeah, I think like, you know, if I'm bud, maybe there's a case to be made for, hey, you know, we really want to assert ourselves. We're the best team during the regular season. Let's come out and just put it on them. And like if Janus wants to play, let him play it. But, you know, yeah, if he gets hurt in that scenario, you'll never hear the end of it.

And rightly so. But with a healthy Janus, this feels like an easy sweep for the bucks. And, you know, the Pistons made in the playoffs. And I guess good for them. The last game of today that just wrapped, jazz lose to the Houston Rockets. There were moments. like right after the first half

where it felt like the jazz might kind of maybe climb back into the game and then they just definitely did not. Yeah, I was, I definitely earmarked this series is the one I was most interested in just because the jazz always do this where they come on late in the season

and whether it's schedule or just like their defense finally figuring it out but all the analytics just love them and we just think of them as a sleeping giant you got to give respect to the jazz. Their fans are always very vocal about that. but if anything, that's just confirmed how damn good

like James Hardin is and how good I think the rest of the rockets are at playing around Hardin. Yeah, well, I mean, the jazz are obviously a very defense-first team and that's one of the reasons why, like you, I was intrigued by this series to see,

you know, here's the jazz. Maybe this year Rudy Gobert doesn't get dragged out to the three-point line and they figure out some answer for it. And now all of a sudden, like, defense versus offense and styles make fights. And this could be interesting.

And not really. Like the jazz had no answer. Not surprisingly. And like in their defense, nobody's had an answer for James Harden for years now and certainly not for the last two. But he basically got anywhere he wanted on the floor. He hurt them in every possible way that he wanted. And I have a hard time seeing the Jazz,

one, figuring out a way to how to stop Hardin. And then two, where do they get extra offense from? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what the Jazz can really put out there, especially when you have Hardin cooking like this. It was really fun to watch. to watch because they were pretty much at a certain point just selling out in order to try to

stop him, which is impossible to begin with because he's now not only like just stepping back into three-pointers, he's like full on like leaping away from a defender. So it's like, I don't know how you keep up with that, but he was also doing a really good job of like finding guys like PJ Tucker in the corner and Klingapela who's getting really good, just like kind of like timing off these lobs. And like the one advantage you expected the jazz to have is guys like Rudy Gobert, like, kind of get into the paint. But it seemed like early on in particular, the Rockets were doing a good job of, like, keeping Gobert from even getting into the paint. Like, they were pretty much trying to wall them off so they didn't have that advantage.

And so I wonder if the kind of, like, sneaky advantage the Rockets have here is actually on the defense event because, like, since they've gotten their full allotment of guys, they've just kind of been incredible on that end. Yeah, I'm looking at the box score as we speak here. And not surprisingly, the first five for the jazz had to play really heavy minutes. And then after that, Quinn Snyder's options get really ugly, really fast. You get 20 minutes out of Jay Crowder. You had to play Thabo 15, O'Neill 15.

Netto was out there for a little over 10, as was Kyle Korver. Like, those aren't good options for them. I just don't know how they can, I don't think they have enough for a lot of reasons, but specifically because they're just thin. Yeah. I mean, Ricky is always kind of the inflection point for them. He does some things defensively, but it didn't seem like he was much of a turn against Hardin, so it didn't really help.

But then offensively, he's going to just give so much away. They're still super reliant on Donovan Mitchell, and he'll come in flashes. But if Gobert is not going to be dominating Gobert, I make him sound like he's a goker. If he's not going to be able to have his effect down in the paint, it really just like has this trickle-down effect. And it just seems like everything was kind of springing from this offensive success that the Rockets had. they weren't able to count. I mean, at a certain point, it also just becomes a track meet.

And they really don't have the horses to go up against a team that's going to put up 41 three-pointers in just a regular old game one. Numbers' numbers don't look terrible here. He had double-double. He made all of his free throws. And yet he was a minus 23 in the game. And I think he just got out played by Capella in a lot of ways. But we'll see if the jazz can get back into it.

I'm not optimistic about this. If you asked me before the series, I definitely would have picked the Rockets in, you know, five or six, but maybe the jazz will surprise us. All right. So for the first day of the playoffs, we had the Clippers and the Warriors. Isaac, how much do you want to talk about this one? I defer to you because I don't want to hurt your feelings here. You get one of those like participation trophies for this series and for the season.

And like I think as we, House and I told you, it's all gravy from here on out. But not the best effort. Yeah, this is always going to be a sweep. And I have said this. If you don't have hope, you can't be disappointed. So there's that. It was a great season. It was glad to convey a low pick in a top heavy draft instead of next year or the year after.

But more importantly, we're rooting against the Raptors so Kauai doesn't stay there. And that's really where my playoff loyalties lie is whoever is facing the Raptors better play well so that Kauai comes to the clippers over the summer. That's a big one for you. Justin, what did you think about? And Steve Kerr wasn't thrilled about this, but late in the game when it was obviously over and Patrick Beverly was just being a nudge and trying to annoy the hell out of them.

He won in that he got KD to fall for it and they both got a double technical when it really didn't matter. And Kerr afterwards said that they took the bait. What did you think of KD falling for that? Listen, it wasn't a good move for Kevin Durant who has to play, as Isaac was alluding to, several more playoff games than Patrick Beverly will

in these playoffs. On the other hand, I thought it was the most endearing moment for Kevin Durant in probably a calendar year, maybe since winning the finals MVP. And you definitely heard it from the crowd as he kind of went off into the tunnel as a result of that. It just seemed like we need reasons

to get behind Kevin Durant and like kind of standing up to Patrick Beverly was like one of the few times where I was like, okay, this guy is not just like some weird internet troll. How do you feel about Patrick Beverly? Because he's definitely a divisive figure. I kind of like how relentlessly,

continually annoying he is. it's like endearing to me in a way. Yeah, I mean, he's the type of guy you love if he's on your team. I guess I have a certain, like, affinity for the clippers just because, like, when I first moved out here, I spent a lot of time at those games. And so I'm like, all right, I could definitely see the effect he has on a team. And there's so many young guys on that team that seem to take their kind of their orders from him at the same time, probably a little more bark than bite at this point of his career.

But I guess if you're not going to beat them playing actual basketball, you have to muck it up. I don't know. I'm not super offended by it, but I don't necessarily love it. A lot more bark for sure. The Clippers, not many bites in this one. Isaac, it was fun. It was fun. Three more to go, buddy. It was great while we had it. Last one, the one that I actually am very interested in, if I had to pick another series out West that I thought would be intriguing, it was the Spurs and the Nuggets, and this is something that we've talked about on this program quite a bit,

which was I was wondering about what the, like, depending on matchup, how the Nuggets would respond to the playoffs, because I love their season, they're super deep. Yokic had a great year. He took that step forward. And yet I was wondering after Yokich, what happens if he gets taken away who's going to step up?

Because it's one thing to have depth in the regular season and just rattle off these wins. It's another one you need a bucket in a big game. And sure enough, San Antonio Spurs got it. Derek White played great. The Nuggets, they lose at home. They're one of three teams that got upended at home by the underdog. And now all of a sudden, the Spurs, you know, here they come.

Yeah, this is the one series where I tried to outsmart the conventional wisdom. I was like, like, pretty much moustacized that, you know, the nuggets weren't playoff ready. maybe they didn't have that type of go-to crunch time scores because Yokish doesn't like to shoot sometimes and Jamal Murray's so erratic and that the spurs, you know, they have all this veteran know-how that I don't know how to like really quantify.

I was like, no, they can't be that. I think the nuggets like have shown enough in the regular season. They're going to be fine. And then we played the game and it was literally what everyone had been saying the entire time where down the stretch Jamal Murray just like looked a little catatonic and like he disappeared for huge stretches,

which is not what you want for your second most important player. on the team and then Yowich. He didn't have a chance though, right? I mean, he had a game winning shot. He just missed it. They got a look. He did, but then the turnover at the end. And then overall, he's just like, oh for six and eight for 24 from the field.

It's just like, not good. You're the guy that really needs to step up because when Yokic is like shooting as much as Paul Millsap, who else are you turning to on that team? It looked at a lot of the times like Gary Harris was that guy. And I'd rather Gary Harris spotting up off of Jamal Murray kind of picking roles. after the game, Pop said that he kind of gave Lamarcus Aldridge a pass

because he said, you know, we didn't let Yokic play the way he wanted and they didn't let Lamarcus play the way that we wanted and it was sort of a push. As the series goes forward, that's got a favor of the Spurs, right? I mean, if you're going to cancel out, if you're going to trade Lamarcus for Yokich,

that's got to be a net win for the Spurs, no? Yeah, I think the Spurs have enough just like with their system and then entrust in Pop just being able to kind of like outmaneuver some of the many flaws that I think the Denver Nuggets have. I mean, there's a point where like Tori Craig was the most reliable shooter from the perimeter for the Nuggets and it's just like not a good spot to be in, especially if you're the two seed.

I am a little bit worried about the math problem that they kind of always find themselves in because they have all these kind of mid-range guys, guys who are kind of like avoiding the arc at all whatever they can. They only took 15 threes and while they made seven of them, it's not the type of thing where you can make up when your opponent is like taking almost twice as many. So if they're not hitting three-point shots, the few that they take, I do wonder how they're going to keep up. All right. Last one for you before I let you go because it's late here and you've got lots of stuff to do tomorrow. On this particular series, I'm fascinated by it. If you had a bet right now,

who are you taken? I'll say Spurs just because I like it. I don't trust Yokic at this point. I don't really trust him either. And it's crazy because they had such a a good year and he was so good and they were entertaining and they played well together and they unearthed all these other useful pieces that they can bring in off their bench. And I've spent this whole last couple of weeks complaining about the Sixers not having a bench and the Nuggets are the opposite. And yet, Net Effect is the same. I think I'm with you. I think I take the Spurs. Well, the Sixers have Bobon. Let's be real here. I saw him. I told Isaac, I saw him dribbling. He was doing dribbling drills with two hands. It was fantastic. All right. That should be good for game too.

Point Bobon, here we come. He's Justin Varyer, listen to him on group chat, hosting group chat with Palo and Haley every Thursday. Justin, thank you. Thanks, guys. All right, that was Justin Varyer. He's excellent. Make sure to read him. Make sure to listen to him on group chat on Thursdays before we bring in Spike.

Askin to break down the Sixers for us, let me tell you about the watch of the night on Monday. TNT 8 p.m. It's game two of the Nets and the Sixers. And Isaac, I don't know. I hope it goes better for the Sixers, not to get too rude here. but I hope it was better for the six years in the city of Philadelphia than game one did because game one was a disaster.

Not the best performance from your Philadelphia 76ers. I will say we saw 15 minutes of Bobon, which is a win in my book. Bobi, I saw him at practice today and he was doing handling drills. He was dribbling two balls at the same time, one with each hand. And very impressive.

Who knew Bobby had handles? And frankly, with the way that the guard situation is going for Philadelphia, both defending and offensively, maybe Bobby is the answer of point guard. I say run them out. Point Bobon. Point Bobon.

If you lose game two, I think you got to try it. Check that out. That's game two of the Nets and the Sixers on TNT at 8 p.m. Followed by Isaac Lee's Clippers and Warriors game two on TNT. And remember, gang, if you want to watch every NBA game, subscribe to NBA League Pass on NBA. com or from your preferred video provider. Before we bring in Spike to go in depth on the Sixers, let's do a word from our sponsors. Today's episode of He-check is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

Hiring used to be hard. Multiple job sites, stacks of resumes a confusing review process, but today, hiring can be easy and you only have to go to one place to get it done. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Ringer NBA. ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards, but they don't stop there with their powerful matching technology. ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job.

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And now, back to Heat Check. He's heating up. All right. Joining me on the other line, one of Philadelphia's favorite sons, one half of the Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast. I can't believe this is his first time on He Check. It's Spike Eskin. What's up, man? John, I believe this is the first time I've been on any Ringer podcast at all. I'd like to thank you for being supportive of the rights to Ricky Sanchez. Not everyone in your organization has been so nice to us. Several have. Several have not. And I support you, John, and I support Heech. Thanks, buddy. Back at you. Before we continue with this conversation, because, like,

I've been on the East Coast back in my hometown for, I don't know, like 72 hours or so. So immediately I was just leaning hard into the Philly. And I texted you and said, like, we got to have you on the rookie. Let's talk about the first game. I expected it to be better circumstances. But about the ringer stuff, just try not to get me fired. I had a good run. I wanted to continue.

Absolutely. I'll do whatever I can, not to get you fired. And you can edit out whatever you need to edit out. It's going to be just like 20 minutes of blank space. Yeah. It's going to be fantastic. All right. So that first game, not ideal, buddy, the Sixers lose at home to the Brooklyn Nets, 111,102.

And it wasn't particularly close. I think like in the very opening moments of the game, Joelle looked pretty good. He was feasting on Jared Allen. And I thought, oh, okay, this is going to go fine. You know, Embed is playing. The Sixers are at home. They expect good things in the playoffs. And then at some point, I was sitting on Press Row and I turned to the guy next to me.

And I was like, hmm, it feels like the Sixers are up really big. And I looked up at the scoreboard and they were losing. And then that's the way. the rest of the game what? They just got throttled. Yeah, I mean, the talent disparity is pretty noted, so you wouldn't expect that would happen, especially in a home game when you're that heavily favored. But when you, I think when you take a step back, the context of all of it, when you look at everything together, it's really not all that surprising. I think the Sixers for the last month have looked like they were actively not caring, you know, and this is a team that has had

the starting lineup, at least, or even the whole team has had very, very good. few games together to develop any sort of a rhythm. And Bede has been out for a good portion of that. And Bede also hurt, you know, and Ben Simmons, his struggles in the playoffs, and especially against the Celtics last year and against teams who sort of scheme for him have been noted. And all of those things happened on Saturday. So while, you know, I didn't expect them to lose and I certainly didn't expect them to get run off the court, which they basically did, I think what happened is sort of less surprising if you take a wider view of it. So let's take the wider view before we bore down on like these,

because there's so many things I want to get into with you on this. It was just such a shit show, and it started from the very beginning. And I think that this is a point that you and Mike Levin made on your post-mortem game one, rights to Ricky where you were talking. And this is a theme that's been talked about a lot, actually, in Philly since I landed, even before that were these guys,

these five starters that they want in assemble that they have super high hopes for, still look like they don't know how the other ones like to play. They don't know how to play with each other. I think that that's pretty natural considering they only play 10 games together in the regular season. Game one of the playoffs was their 11th game together. And it's a theme that I've heard consistently about this team since I got here. And at first I was like, okay, it's not that big a deal. They'll be fine.

Now I think it's a pretty big deal. Like now I think having seen it in action or not seen it in action, like I get why everybody was worried. Yeah. If you look back into the history of the NBA, and nobody here wanted to hear this, but when you look back into the history of the NBA, where are the teams who have made giant midseason trades for important players depleting depth and then went to the finals? That doesn't happen. Teams don't make big huge trades in the middle of the season and only play 10 games together and then just sort of talent their way to the finals. And they don't have, they're talented and their starting lineup is talented, but we can't act like they traded for Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, right? I mean, Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris are somewhere between the 20th and 30th best players in the league. So I hate when people do this because when we play basketball, meeting like you and I in regular people as opposed to pros, it's a different thing.

But when you think about pick up games and five on five, who ends up winning those games? Like the super talented team where everybody just met when they got there or the team that runs at that playground every single weekend knows themselves, has the guy who knows where he's supposed to be, the hustle guy, the post guy, the point guard guy, who are actually running plays. You know, you're looking at each other. You're like, where do these guys come from? Those are the teams that win. And when you look at the playoffs, the strongest teams, I would say in the East, have that. Milwaukee is essentially the same team as last year. Toronto actually has made significant changes, but the most significant one was before the season. You know, the Sixers, I'm sorry, I'm talking about a long time here, but the Sixers said that the reason that they, and if please excuse my dog in the background, it's his birthday. No, I love it. It's Rebel's birthday. Happy birthday, Rebel, the baddest good boy ever. The Sixers continually said they were making these changes to optimize this year. And I just don't think that makes any sense. I think you could argue, I wouldn't, but you could argue that they raised the, the ceiling of the franchise by acquiring two high-level players and that in the next few years,

they're going to have to build around all these guys. I think you could make that argument. But to make the argument that it raised their ceiling this particular year, I don't think makes much sense at all. So this is a point that you made. You actually wrote a post for, in your day job, you run 94WIP, the local sports radio station here. And you wrote a post saying that star hunting costs the Sixers potentially a chance at a deep runner at the finals. And I had Dan Fyfer on last week on Heechak. And Dan was doing some, you know, like, I think like for people who aren't Philadelphiaans, last year was sort of an anomaly in terms of how excited the fan base was, how positive

everybody was. I think that part of that was like riding the high of the Eagles Super Bowl and like everything went well towards the end of the season with the 16 game championship. But our default natural position is worry, if not panic. And so Dan was doing some pre postseason worrying. And then he texted me afterwards and he goes, I felt like I was being. too negative, but then I read Spike's story. And I think, like, you took some heat for that. And now I think, like, a lot of people feel the way that you did that, like, you know, they made

these moves. And I understand why they made them. But there's something to be said for continuity. Yeah, it wins. It wins. I mean, I don't want to go too deep into Sixers history. But when you even look at that, you remember the last lockout season, the Sixers were one of the only teams that didn't make offseason adjustments. And they came into that season. And I think they started like 11 and too because they just had the same team as the year before. And I have to do this weird balance here because I care about the team. I care about their success and I care about the fans and all of that. But we, the podcast has sort of painted Mike and I as these, we were really positive when they were winning 10 games. So then when they were winning 50 games and I'm being negative, I think it makes

people mad at me. But ultimately, I try to see things for what they all. And I didn't want to ruin everyone's vibe by saying that this worries me. You know, the Butler thing worried me. The Tobias Harris thing worried me. Playing Joel Embed 40 minutes a game for the first two months of the season, playing it every back-to-back. All that stuff worried me. And I think you come off like this typical Philly worrywart or I got a lot of,

well, you just liked it better when they were losing. And I guess in some respects I did. But, well, only because I believed in. why they were losing. And I think they can still wind up in the finals this year. But again, I don't know that everything they did this year, or I would actually say that everything they did this year gave them a less of a chance of reaching the finals than if they had just, I mentioned in that article, I was like, instead of going after LeBron, what if they had just signed Trevor oriza? What if they had traded for Merritt Titch at the deadline? And what if they had signed Austin Rivers?

And if you just kept the team from last year, added a wing defender who can hit threes, added a guy who can maybe score some points off the bench, and added a stretch four guy. I don't know. With a team that won 52 games last year that already won around in the playoffs, that everyone, including Bill, was saying was the lock to go to a finals last year when the playoffs started. If you just added to that team, what is the argument that they couldn't get to the finals? and why did they not have a better chance than this team does? In individual moves in a vacuum, I get why they did the things that they did. Certainly on paper,

like you have five guys where you go, this is a good team. They should make a deep run of the playoffs, like Josh Harris said, and we're going to get to Josh Harris in a second. But my whole thing with this team has been how thin they are after that first five, and that still remains the case.

But unless the first five guys are really playing well, then it's double jeopardy. I mean, it's even worse than you would expect because once you go to the bench, you're super screwed. So now if your starters aren't playing well, then you're behind before you even started. That's what we saw in that first game.

And like I want to couch all this because like you said, they could still turn this around. They could still do something in the playoffs. But it is a very Philadelphia reflex to watch one game and go, oh, man, we are fucked. All right. So for the guys that did play, Jimmy played really well.

M. Bede's line was a monster line, although there were moments when I didn't feel like he was playing super well. And he did say afterwards that he was tired and out of shape. And then beyond that, nobody played well. Tobias and JJ, who are arguably their two best shooters, had seven shots each. Ben Simmons, for long stretches of the game, was completely invisible. The whole team got booed. Ben got upset about them getting booed.

Not a good look for those first five guys. I mean, was there anybody aside from Jimmy that you felt good about? Boy, no. I mean, when the next guy on the list is Boban, Marianovic, that's troubling. I think the MB thing can be directly tied back to, either the knee, I think we're sure that the knee is far from 100%, and the fact that he's been not playing for the last month to try to get the knee there. So you have the combination of the knee injury plus being out of shape. The nets are a team that you can use. I don't want to talk too long

about Bobon, but they're a team that you can use Bobon against, and I think they did to some success. But Reddick is surely an all-time shooter, but when he is not hitting shots, the fact that he is currently an all-time bad defender becomes even more drastic. You see it more. And Tobias Harris is interesting. And I think when you talk about putting this many players in the starting lineup whose key benefit, like what they're best at is scoring points, you'd sort of have this situation where everybody is a little less valuable when they're all together. And if Tobias Harris is only going to shoot seven times, then the ability for him to really get it going is less because they're so many guys to take shots. Now, Harris has not been good. He hasn't shot well since he's been with

the Sixers. I think he's shooting about 30% from three. But if he's not going to hit open threes and he's not going to score points to the same thing with Reddick, they're both minus defenders. You sort of wonder why they're even out there. Yeah, Tobias just like in addition to the way that like Ben Simmons completely disappeared that I had said this in our slack as we were watching the game. I wrote about it. There were moments in the game, multiple moments in the game and long moments in the game where I forgot that he was out there. Simmons and similarly Harris, the same deal.

Like he had seven rebounds and six assists, but I don't feel like he was influential in the game in any way. And you're right. Like you need those guys, especially Harris and JJ to shoot. And I'm looking at the box right now. And Bid had more threes than both of them.

I mean, it's crazy. They made three threes out of 25 attempts. It was just a really poor, awful shooting night for them. And they just can't play that. And conversely, as you mentioned defensively, this is something that Sixers have struggled with

all year, but they get crushed by good guards, speedy guards. The Brooklyn Nets happen to have three guys who are both speedy and have a little bit of size to them. And between DeAngelo, Russell, walking into those mid-range shots and then Spencer Dinwiddie and Karas Leverd off the bench, the Sixers didn't have any answer for them. I mean, like, after Jimmy Butler, I don't know what you do there. And Brett was asked too. He was like, okay, well, what do you think?

Like, will Jimmy Butler be the principal backup point guard to Ben Simmons? and he said, well, you know, I kind of think like we might need to use TJ because TJ can be a pretty good pick and roll defender. And I'm like, okay, if that's the situation, then you're in a lot of trouble. I mean, they just don't have anybody to guard any of the Brooklyn Nets guards. Yeah, well, I'm sure anyone who knows me has been waiting for the setting the timer on the Robert Covington clock. But he was the guy, you've watched enough Sixers to know, even though Covington is a six-eight, six-seven, six-eight wing, he was the guy who they would stick on those guards. He was the guy that would guard Campbell Walker, or he's the guy that would guard whoever the lead guard was, whoever the best offensive

player who wasn't a big was, was on the other team. You would put him on that guy. And they lost him and their point of attack defense has gotten worse. Simmons typically this season has been better at it than anybody else they've had, but he was not good at it yesterday. And he's 6-10, too. You can't do that all game. So defensively, they didn't compete. And I do think, too, there is something to the fact, and I mentioned on our podcast yesterday, again, to go back to all of these guys coming together for the first time. And Harris being an unrestricted free agent, Butler being an unrestricted free agent, Redick being an unrestricted free agent, Mike Scott being an unrestricted free agent, all guys looking to get paid next year. And they've only been together for a couple of months, if they have to

dig deep defensively and die for loose balls, you sort of have to feel like you owe it to the other guys in the locker room too. It's not just about you. And you sort of wonder whether they've even been given a chance to develop that. So when Jimmy Butler goes home at night or Tobias Harris or JJ Reddick and these guys go home at night, do they think, I've got to risk my health a little bit. I've got to go all out and maybe be worried about getting hurt or whatever happens or looking foolish or not getting to the ball for these other guys who I barely know, which might cost me several million dollars next year. And I think defensively, you can look at individual skills like JJ Reddick or Tobias Harris or all of those things, but there have been teams in NBA's

history who are able to scheme around guys who can't guard. You know, Tony Parker couldn't guard. You know, Manu Genoobli couldn't guard. All these guys were bad defensive players and they found away. And I think part of it is scheme, and that's on Brett, but I think part of it is just sort of effort and want to, as Andrea Godala used to say. And I don't think all of these guys are playing with the effort and want to defensively that they're going to need to be a finals team. Yeah, I think part of that goes back to the conversation about continuity and chemistry and like them not having much time to gel. But you also mentioned Brett there. And I wanted to get into this a little bit because Brett might be the most divisive figure in Philadelphia at the moment.

there are people like myself who are very defensive of Brett because one, I like him as a human being. And two, again, I'm not sure what he's supposed to do with the bench that he has. I mean, when you're looking at options like banged up Jonah Bolton, you've got Mike Scott who didn't play particularly well, has played well previously, but not particularly well. Jonathan Simmons, who's largely useless, Boban, who, as you said, you can play him in this series at times, but they got 15 minutes out of them. And like, when Bobon is one of your better players or your third best player in a given night, you've got problems. T.J was getting picked on.

And after that, you've got Zaire and Greg Monroe and Furcon and Monroe and Furcon didn't play. So I want to know, like, where do you stand on, on Brett? Because there are a lot of people who don't, like, for example, he got criticized for playing Jonathan Simmons last night. Jonathan Simmons did not look good. He was in minus 16. He only played 11 minutes. Somebody's got to eat up a couple of minutes and let the starters rest.

So for me, I look at it and go, Brett's hands are tied. I don't know what people expect here. I think you can look at it a couple of ways. first of all, I don't think most people are complaining about this when they're talking about Brett Brown, but he surely has a hand, more of a hand than he used to in personnel decisions. For sure. So you can say, look, he's partly responsible for this, and I think he is. But simply as a coach, I think a lot of the, I agree with you, a lot of the criticism of

Brett comes from, if you're a fan, you think to yourself, well, what is it easier for me to swallow and what is easier for me to fix? Saying it's Brett Brown's fault because he's easily, replaceable, right, just in terms of you can fire a coach and hire another coach. Sure. Or is our whole team have so many holes that regardless of what I do with the coach, it's not going to matter? That's a way more difficult question. And I don't think people want to deal with that, understandably.

I think Brett deserves criticism for sure. But I thought the same thing about Jonathan Simmons yesterday. When the fight is, when the argument is, gives Zaire Smith a chance, who has played four NBA games or whatever. this year, who three months ago was 30 pounds less than he is today. You know, who they drafted as a pro- who looked good in his few games, but drafted as a project guy anyway, if your choices, we can't wait until James Ennis gets back, but until then we have to play Zaire Smith instead of Jonathan Simmons. Those are like no-win choices. Yes, yes. And that's what I said.

Like, I get that people look at Jonathan Simmons go, he's bad. He is bad. He has been bad. But Zaire Smith, look, who knows? Maybe you put Zaire in and he could give you a little something defensively. I haven't seen him play a game yet where I thought he looked like he knew what he was doing offensively. So I think it's a pretty natural impulse for a coach to go. I'm going to at least try the veteran to start. But I wanted to, this is where we get into the Josh Harris territory.

And I'm curious to see what you think about this as well because before the game, majority owner Josh Harris gives a little press conference. He's asked about a lot of things. And Josh is very good of not answering things. and deflecting. He said that they want to keep Tobias and JJ because those kinds of players are hard to get. And I understand that impulse.

You also paid a lot for him. You'd want to retain them. It is hard to get those players. That makes sense. But when I asked about Brett, the question was essentially, is Brett Brown going to be your coach, regardless of what happens in the playoffs?

And he was super noncommittal about it. He basically said, you know, we have confidence in Brett and we're focused on the nets. And I thought that that particular time to give this surprise and prompt to press conference and then like vote of no confidence on your coach or at least a vote of like shoulder shrug confidence in your coach. Not ideal necessarily.

No, I mean, Josh Harris for everything he's good at and everything he's bad at, I wouldn't put public speaking like really close to the top of the good at list. So I think there is as much chance of him not knowing the right way to answer that question as anything else. But I would say that on the bad at list as well, this owner's, If there's one thing that I can identify as something that they have struggled with in the time they've owned it, is their inability to settle on who is making decisions and picking one person to be responsible for those decisions. And when they bought the team, it was, well, Doug Collins has final say. Well, Rod Thorne kind of has final say. And also Tony DeLeo is the general manager. And also Adam Aaron is there too. And then we pivoted and they replaced everybody. And then it was Hinky for a while. But then it was, well, what if Hinky and Brian Colangelo both were together? And then we get to this point where when they fire Calangelo or whatever happened with Calangelo, they keep his entire staff, his entire staff, who is also responsible for the

asset mismanagement of the last two years. So they keep everybody. They go through free agency and the draft with a team of collaborators, which is not how you make it. You make decisions with collaboration and then one person making the choice. That's how it works. Collaborators, again, who's making these choices? And then when it comes down to, they empower Brett Brown, which is, I think, part of the reason

they hired a rookie general manager to head up a staff that they kept in place. Now, when it is time to say that this is the guy that we empowered six months ago, and he is our guy and we're willing to move forward, they choose not to do it, it is, again, more more of the same, unable to commit for a long period of time to one sort of power structure and one person who has final say over those things. So that is that he knew what he was saying answer, though I might bet on the he didn't know what he was saying answer. Yeah, it's, again, I would have just been like, maybe Josh doesn't need to speak right now. Right. All right. So before I let you go, you got a lot of stuff going on. I'm going to run over to practice. Sixers came in

to heavy favorites in this series. ESPN's model had the Nets, winning this just one and four times. And 538 gave the Nets just a 6% chance to win this series. My question is, what's your confidence level in the Sixers still winning the series? And did you feel any better that the Sixers weren't alone in getting upset? Toronto lost at home to Orlando and Denver lost at home to the San Antonio Spurs. So three Road Dogs won on opening night of the NBA playoffs, which is super rare. And like part of me last night as I'm watching that Denver game goes, all right, so the Sixers

got some company here. Well, it makes you feel better until, like, I think Toronto and Denver are frauds anyway. So that, it makes me feel less good. But I still think I'm pretty confident they win the series, but I thought they would win the series in five games. If it takes them seven games to win the series, I don't know. I remember that Celtics team, a few years back that ended up winning the title, or even the Celtics team that got to the finals that beat Sixers in what, 2011 or 2012, had to go seven with a bad Sixers team to get to the finals. I think sometimes these series can be good and can galvanize a team, but I don't know if that will be the case.

I'm still pretty confident they'll win the series. But John, one and four, I mean, the Sixers have won in the lottery with less than a one and four chance. So one or four chance is a pretty good chance of winning. Six percent not so good. I would bet on the Sixers winning this if I bet. Yeah, I would like to believe that they would get back into the series. That first game, though, like change every.

about how I look at these two teams. I mean, I thought that they'd have problems with those guards, but I didn't think they'd have that much of a problem. And then again, the bench I thought was going to be an issue. And it was a bigger issue than anticipated. And then on top of that, the first five guys weren't good. And like, that was about as bad as it could possibly be, but we'll see if they can get it together for game two on Monday night.

Before I let you go, is there anyone you want to unbanned from the ringer on this podcast before you leave? All right, John, I'm glad you gave me this chance. So as you know that we have a list of people who are banned on the rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast. Many of them ringer personalities. Well, we have recently unbanned Kevin O'Connor. Which was great. I was happy about that.

And the ban list is named after screenwriter Mike Weber, who has never won an Oscar, but he has harassed the commissioner of the NBA. So we love Mike. So we decided not to ban Dan Devine, even though we thought about it. Now, you might cut this out, but here's what I would say about your boss, Bill Simmons. Okay. Don't get me fired. I'm not. I'm not. Okay. So you're talking to somebody who has a book of basketball framed poster in his office, two autographed copies of his book. And he in the past has been banned. Now, we unbanned him several months ago when he said the name of our podcast and my name on his podcast. But that was like a provisional unbending, right? Correct. A probationary measure. So he is, he is on probation until May 14th. May 14th and night of the lottery. And the only way, that he stays unband as if he invites Mike and I onto his podcast or he comes on our podcast and allows us to relitigate Sam Hinky in the process with him because he was unfair.

Otherwise, on May 14th, he will be banned again. He'll be rebrand. It's tough stuff. He's had a really good run in life and career. But I think that this is a massive blow to him. And I wish him while I hope he gets unbanned. Always say the name. It's the Wrights to Ricky Sanchez podcast.

It's the one and only in the best Sixers podcast on the planet, along with Mike Levin. He is Spike Eskin. Buddy, we've got to do this more. Yeah, anytime. Thanks to Spike Eskin. He was excellent. Make sure to listen to the Wrights to Ricky Sanchez podcast before we go to Kevin Clark. So he can be very excited about the Orlando Magic.

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All right, joining me on the other line. The name of the show here is Heech, and he's coming at hot. It's a staff writer, covers the NFL, but really he's Orlando's favorite son. Magic number one fan. It's Kevin Clark. How are you feeling? I'm pumped and jacked. Both pumped and jacked.

Well, that's Kevin O'Connor coined that phrase, and I'm stealing it because it really applies to me. I'm excited about a team I love for the first time in seven years, maybe eight years. I mean, they kind of limped to the playoffs in 2012. Dwight was hurt. They played the Pacers. They kind of mailed it in a little bit. So we're really going back maybe nine years since I've been excited about the Orlando Magic. Everything I've done in the last nine years when I'm rooting for them has been dripping in irony.

And now it's very sincere. And I don't know what to do with my hands. You went from, you went from irony to Ernest. And it's really an incredible transformation for those who somehow missed it. The magic were one of three teams on the opening day to get a road upset win. They went to Toronto and beat the Raptors, which we'll get to in a second. The Raptors continue to be bad in the playoffs, which is kind of crazy. I'm shocked that this happened for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the hero of the game was DJ Augustine,

who not only scored 25 points, but also hit the game winner. Kauai had a chance to tie the game and send it to overtime instead he missed and shot an airball. You then today, before I had you on the pod to tell us about how excited you are and how you don't know what to do with your hands. You tweeted out the following. I'm just going to read this. Yeah. It is amazing that the two greatest athletes of our lifetimes, Tiger Woods and DJ Augustine are competing at such a high level this weekend. We are lucky to witness it. Again, two of Orlando's favorite sons. I'm just going to turn it over to you. He checks yours. Tell me about it. Yeah. I mean, it was tough to put Tiger in the same breath as DJ Augustine, but, you know, Tiger performed so well on

Sunday that you kind of have to put him in that conversation. I was shocked. I didn't watch the game with anybody, but my wife, and that's kind of atypical in those situations. I thought we were going to get slaughtered so much that having people over would have been a mistake. That's how discouraged I was about the matchup. I think that there were a lot of matchups in the board that I would like the magic in. I think we would have gone deep into a series with the Sixers. You know, we lost a tiebreaker with the Nets for that six seed. I think we would have had a good chance against the Celtics, who we swept during the regular season. And so when we drew Toronto, I was very, very pessimistic. And I don't remember being more shocked. I mean, I didn't think it was going to happen until

the last three went in, until that top of the key wide open. By the way, do the Raptors have a coach? Yeah, well, they got rid of the one who won the coach of the year award doing Casey. And now they have Nick Nurse, who's supposed to be really good. Well, he was supposed to. And I saw two things from him. One is he has a bunch of patches inside of his jacket. That was the one. That was the one thing I saw. Your anti-patch. I'm certainly not pro-patch. I'll say that.

It's a radical middle of the road in different patch position that you've staked out. We had a Mark Gasol Crunch Time Corner 3 that didn't go. Not exactly the most high percentage shot when you have Kauai Leonard sort of driving at that point.

And then DJ Augustine just wide open at the end. I don't know if you've known this. One of the hallmarks of the magic for the past seven years is that we can't make shots. Yeah, I've heard about that. Ever.

And the fact that DJ was wide open like that, He probably, along with parents Ross, I guess Fornier when he's in a groove, there are very few guys you can't leave open on the magic. And that's, he's one of them. A lot of things that you just threw at me there. Normally I would have pushed back on your Sixers slander because before the series started, you were in our slack being yourself saying that you were, that you would much rather have faced the Sixers, which I thought was madness.

But considering what happened, I checked the scores. The Magic won their first game. The Sixers did not. Maybe you were right. also well no what I said I'm sorry I just want to clarify I'm actually anti airing out of slacks here but I do want to clarify what I said in slack please I said I said I wanted to play the sixers so that we could play the Celtics in the second round yeah so you had a whole thing you had it all scheduled you were ready to go you you had a path for them to get deep into the playoffs and

now you might do it anyway because apparently they're just going to sweep the raptors but before we get into the matchup with the rafters and and how you feel about it like moving forward in the series I think it's fair even warranted that the last time that you appeared on this program, we did it as a lark and made fun of your team, the Clippers, and the Kings, all of which had resurgent seasons.

The ringer curse is real, or at least the heat check version is. Well, wait, hold on. That's not true. I came on after we beat the Sixers in Jimmy Bellwere's first game. Did you come on then? I did. I did.

I went to the game. Oh, yeah, that's right. I called in from a jubilant Orlando, because Terrence Ross just took over that game. And so, I mean, yeah, it was an amazing season. Again, like something that struck me as odd is when Orlando was much different city 10 years ago. And the stub hub prices to get in for game three and game four this year are higher than what I sold my extra finals tickets for 10 years ago.

Are you going? Oh, I'm going. Yeah. I'm not paying. I'm not stuff. I have friends who have season tickets. I'm going to game four on Sunday. Look at you.

I have a wedding to go to on Friday. And so I can't go to game three. Unfortunately, I've tried logistically to work that out, just not going to happen. However, I was thinking about this today, game three might be a little too lit for me. Like, if I was going to game three, the first home game we've had in seven years, I might be too pumped and jacked. I might just gas out. You're going to have to pace yourself because being pumped in jacked, you burn a lot of fuel. But it seems like the entire city of Orlando is pretty pumped and jacked.

And I want to get into this because I was of the position. again, I will stipulate the wrongheadedness of all of this, that this was not the year for Orlando to really try to fight into the playoffs and be in that 6, 7, 8 seed grouping, which is where they ended up. I thought that it made more sense for them to sell off Vucevich at the trade deadline. They did not. I thought it would be another year of player development, and then you worry about it next year. All of these things that decided to go the other way.

And the reason, among others, I had heard from people all over the league all year long, was it the magic, the organization, very much wanted to make the playoffs again. and Orlando the city very much wanted them to make the playoffs again. And so can you explain this to me, put it into perspective why you were so desperate for the protracted interminable rebuild to just end and then finally get back in the playoffs. Okay, so there's a couple of things. Number one, I don't know if anybody saw it. I'm sure you did not.

There were some watch parties downtown. Like we have a plaza called Wall Street and a lot of people got together and watched the games over the weekend. And there was a real energy there. And I was really happy to see that because when you're in the doldrums for so long, you just don't know who's out there. You know, you just don't know if the city can come together again. And I was surprised to see that. And so that's what ownership wanted. And that's what the city wanted. And I think that the other part of this, John, is that like, we've seen what tanking brings.

Okay. Like, we tanked for six years. And we kept getting the second or fourth or fifth pick. We kept getting someone like Mario Hizonia where we think he's the future and he's not, you know, Olo Depot was obviously a very fine player for us. We shouldn't have traded him away. But the result. But the result of, results of a long tank were very, very discouraging. And I think that one more year of tanking when everybody, even though the path of tanking is the smartest one, we've been burned by the tank. We're done with the tank. We're going to try to build with the guys we have. Mo Bamba is probably our last lottery pick for a couple of years. I don't necessarily see us going forward as sort of a two or three seed in the next couple of years. But I do see us getting progressively better with the core we have. And I think that's what ownership is after because look, we tried to bottom out, it did not work. And so we like where we are. I mean, the city just needed something like this. We don't really have much else. We have an MLS team that we're very excited about. But at the end of the day, it's an MLS team. You can claim Tiger again now. Tiger lives in Jupiter now, dude. That's still Florida, right? Yeah. That's all the same. For those of us who do not live in Florida, same deal. Yeah. But no,

I mean, like, I really like going to the MLS games and all that stuff. But the difference between our only city in the magic is very big. And, you know, they had to have something going for them. UCF doesn't really rally. Rally is a huge portion of the city, but you still have a lot of Florida, Florida State Miami fans. So it's not the galvanizing thing.

This was what the city needed. And I think everybody involved with the magic organization sort of knew that. What do you think this is sort of a two-prong question, but it goes together. One, what do you think the ceiling is for this team? And two, would you be okay if getting rid of the tank years, turning away from that, trying to be a playoff team every year, ultimately nets you out like just sort of an average

to slightly above average team that's in the mix and relevant and like making the postseason in the east. Is that good enough for you? Yeah, for right now. I mean, I think that any of our players are going to develop into super duper stars? I don't know. Is Jonathan Isaac going to make a leap and to become a top 10 guy? I don't know.

I'd rather have this and climbing our way up, all of a sudden we're a five seed, a four seed, maybe a three seed in a good year in a couple of years. I'd rather have that than going back to the drawing board and tank because I just can't... I mean, I don't think people really get it. If you have one team you like,

and that's true of me, having to basically write off sports is very, very bleak. Like, I have not earnestly... Again, the word earnestly is coming up again, I've not earnestly rooted for a team. I had to root against them for like three years. Yeah.

You know, and not only that, but not only that, but you're rooting against them because you think that like Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker are going to save the franchise. I mean, that's the other thing is you get burned. It's almost like when I used to follow college football recruiting and it's like, oh, man, can't wait to this, get this guy, Arthur Brown and then Miami gets him and he's like, he transfers, you know, a year and a half in.

So, you know, you also get burned by even this, these false sort of profits where, so I'd much rather have this just from an emotional standpoint. I understand thinking sort of critically and thinking practically, it's probably better to tank, but I just want to like basketball. again. Is that so crazy? Well, I mean, considering that I'm from Philly and spent years advocating on behalf of the tank principle to my mind, yes. Also, like, I've had many conversations with the rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast and Spike is on this episode where it was like, you know,

that made sense to us, right? Like academically, this approach makes sense. And also, there's like an odd like comfort in it because you know that the season is inverted and the wins and losses don't matter. It just matters about like how you're positioning yourself in other areas like, you know, picks and cap space and how you can grow your assets. And it's like a totally different game you're playing. And to a certain extent, there's like a lot less pressure there. Yeah, but I mean, I'd rather have pressure than nothing fun to watch for years at a time. Yeah. No, there's a case to be made for that. Pressure can be a good thing. Dare to dream, John. Dare to dream. This is something I've talked to Ian Carmel about about like, you know,

know, like the Blazers being a very good, but not great team during, like, the Dame years. And he's cool with that because they're in the mix every year. And they're, you know, they're relevant and they're fun to watch. And the experience is good at the arena. And I, like, I get it. It hasn't been that way in Orlando for a while. So, like, this has got to be a really fun, exciting season for you. They have decisions to make, though, because, like, at some point, like, this year,

it worked out for them, like, the whole, like, simultaneous player development and try to make the playoffs thing. But then they've got decisions to make. to make about, like you mentioned Mo Bamba, who they took, I think, six overall. Now, what do you do with Vooch? Terrence Ross. Yeah, Terence Ross. Yeah. Terrence Ross. Yeah. I mean, what would you do with Vooch? I don't know. I mean, I think that I was talking to some folks down there during the season. And they were saying that Vouch becoming an all star, while a good thing, certainly a good thing, we're pro Vooch becoming an all star. That was not in the plants. We didn't expect that sort of development. So you dropped to Mo Bamba. You have that front court there with Jonathan Isaac. Obviously, you're planning on building around Aaron Gordon. He's under contract. He's under contract. now. And so it's very strange. I don't know what you do. I still like Mo Bomba. I certainly like Jonathan Isaac. I guess you see if Vuch wants to sort of stay home on a very manageable contract. If not, you start looking at other things. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be opposed to

letting him walk. And the reason is because he's the focal point and has been the focal point of kind of a bad team. He is our most efficient player. I think he was for a long time. He led our team in effective field goal percentage and all that stuff. But I don't think you're exactly going to be a top four team of which is your best player. And I think there's ways forward that don't involve him. So I trust the front office. I haven't said that. Oh my God.

What was the last time I said? I trust the front office. I don't even know because Henigan obviously not. Well, they haven't written down a bunch of stuff on a whiteboard and exposed it to the world in months. Otis Smith, certainly not. John Wisebroad, certainly not. So I don't know.

I cannot tell you the last time I trusted a magic front office. and I don't know how to react. I'm very happy for your transformation here. I am, however, going to try to pit you against your two favorite organizations before I get to your confidence level in the rest of the series. Here's what I have a question for you. So the magic, obviously, they were on a heater towards the end of the season. It got them into the playoffs, got them the seven seed.

I didn't think they were going to make it. I believe we had the same record as the Raptors in the last 30 games. They were really, really good. They won 22 of their last 31 games. and Steve Clifford, your guy, was asked about this and said, hey, you know, like, you guys were hot towards the end of the regular season, and then you come in and you beat the wraps on their floor, and do you see any connection there?

And he said, I think it helps. We've been playing games that we had to win and were meaningful games for a while, except the ringer, Zach Cram wrote a piece where he did the Zach Cram bit, and he looked at the numbers, and he found no connection between playing well late in the regular season and advancing in the playoffs and playing well in the playoffs. He said that that's just sort of apocryphal. So now I'm going to make you pick sides. Which side are you on here?

Are you saying my two favorite organizations are the magic and Zach Kramm? The ringer. But sure, Zach Kramm. No, Zach Kramm specifically. Zach Kramm is an institution unto himself. I love Zach. That's my guy. Let's do that.

So you have to pick between Steve and Zach and you can only have one. I think game one speaks for itself. I love Zach Kram. But game one speaks for itself. So first of all, I need to sort of rectify this. So I like Moamba. but Kem Birch fit better in the second half of the season. Mo Bomba is going to end up being a better player than Ken Birch.

He's a better prospect, all that stuff. But Birch brought something to the magic that they didn't have. I also want to say that there's a toughness that's developed with this team. And I think that one of the failures of the Hennigan era was there just wasn't, there weren't a lot of jerks. And I do think you need a couple jerks. And I'm not calling Michael Carter-Williams a jerk, but him tearing down,

just freaking out on the refs, gave us, I mean, I didn't see the stats there, but they gave us a little boost. Like, he was hot. That got our team hot.

And I did, you know, sometimes you have to believe in things that go bump at the night. I believe in intangible some of the time. And I kind of feel like

there's a toughness that's developed around the team that we didn't have in the Hennigan era. We didn't have in the Vogel era. I'm pro this team's chemistry right now. I am super happy, by the way, that you mentioned MCW,

because in the course of this bizarre season for the magic, they went and got MCW at the end of the year. Now he's there and they also have Markell Fultz. And if you want to see the end of Philadelphia, forget about them potentially losing the series to the Nets. If somehow like the Orlando Magic squeeze usefulness out of MCW and

Mark Hull Fultz, that'll be the end of the city. Like everybody will board up and close it down and it had a good run, but that's the end. That would be amazing. I really don't have any ill will towards Philadelphia, but I do have ill will towards all 29 NBA franchises. I like that. You're a magic fan first and foremost and only. All right.

So what do you really believe about this series before I let you go? So they go and they win a game. And I remember not to bring everything, all roads lead back to Philadelphia, but they kind of do. I'm old enough to remember when the Sixers go to the finals with Alan Iverson, and they win that first game in L.A. And it's the Tileu stepover game.

And I'm telling myself and my buddies are telling each other, and everybody in the city is saying to each other, they're going to win the series. And then they lost four straight. before this series started with the Orlando Magic and the Raptors, ESPN gave your Orlando Magic a 20% chance to win, 538, less excited about their prospects, gave them only a 10% chance to win.

However, they're up 1-0. So what do you think? Like, how much do you really believe here? So that is not the comparison I was going to make. Tell me. In 2009, the Orlando Magic, an overwhelming favorite, hosted a little team called the Philadelphia 76ers, and Andre Ugudala hit a game winner.

Do you remember this? Sure. I was thinking more of this. We're the Sixers now in the situation and the Raptors are the magic. Stay with me here. And so I think that sometimes these things just happen. The Raptors are a much better team.

Again, as I said, I was discouraged when I saw the draw. And when I look at, there's no real matchup advantage for us. I don't really see a way where we say, okay, if we nail this, whatever, you know, we're not the greatest shooting team in the world. I just don't think there are many paths forward.

So I think if we play this series 10 times, I think nine of those 10 times, the Raptors win. And practically, everything points to the Raptors. Having said that, Magic and Six. I hope it happens. I really do. Although, poor Toronto, if that happens,

if they lose to the magic in the first round, that's it. Same deal as with Philadelphia. Just shudder all of Toronto. That'll be the end for them. But we'll figure that out later on. What's up with the Leafs? Are the Leafs in the hunt?

That's the hockey team. I know all about them. They are a team that plays hockey. They got Mike Babcock as coach now. He's pretty good, right? I will take your word for you. You are my expert on all things Orlando Magic and then all things Canada.

Okay. They lost to the Bruins yesterday, 4-1. So tough look for Toronto. Next week will be he check hockey talk with Kevin Clark. in the interim. In which I just Google results in the names of coaches.

I'll just turn over a 20-minute segment to you in the middle of the polls. It'll be perfect. Kevin, read all his stuff on the ringer.com. He's excellent. Kevin, thanks for doing this. Congratulations.

I'm happy for you. We deserve it. Thank you, John. All right, we thank Kevin Clark. We thank Spike Eskin. We thank Justin Vary of course, Isaac Lee as well. And we thank all of you for listening to Heat Check.

Please rate and review us on iTunes if you would be so inclined and read all of our content on the ringer.com. And look, it's playoff season. It's time to go. We've got all of your NBA postseason needs right here on the Ringer NBA show. You get mismatch on Tuesdays. Guess what?

We switched up to schedule. Corner 3 has been moved to Wednesdays group chat on Thursdays. And then Isaac and I will be back Sunday night from Monday. Thanks so much for listening, gang. For Isaac, I'm Gons. See you.