The Ryen Russillo Podcast - How to Stop SGA and Brunson with Raja Bell. Plus, Conference Finals Preview.

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Ryen Russillo is joined by Raja Bell to discuss the Conference Finals, including whether the Pacers can upset the Knicks and what makes Anthony Edwards’s game so special as he tries to stop the Thunder from reaching the Finals (01:16). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle (53:00)! Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Raja Bell Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias This episode is sponsored by State Farm. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Ryan Russo podcast presented by Fandul. America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during an NBA playoff game. Even after tip-off, just look for the live SGP tab on the Fandul Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back, relax, and track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. And if you don't already have it, download the Fandul app today to make every moment more. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. And if you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available.

And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. On today's pod, we have Rajah Bell. We're going to get into a deep dive on the Eastern and Western Conference finals. We'll talk about some of the other theories I have, but it's just a good little back and forth with a guy that I really like talking hoops with. And we have a Kyle Heavy. Well, I don't know if it's Kyle Heavy, but we have life advice and it's about

30 minutes and Kyle's in it. So what else do you need? Joining us to dig in to getting into the conference finals, we have Roger Bell Who along with Logan Murdoch. Part of the Real Ones podcast. It's out Tuesdays and Thursdays. They've got a good Yanis episode talking about that and also the self-described best playoff preview in the business. So make sure you check that one out. It's good to see you.

Yeah. Good to see you too. I didn't know we had self-proclaimed that, but hey. I'm not missing it. If it's the best, we'll try to do as good of a job. Let's, let's start in the East here a little bit. Um, no, there's not really much left to say with Clem, but since we haven't really talked, you know, I think that if you were Covey Altman or, um, Kenny Atkinson, you could say, okay, look, I mean, it sucks. We lost.

Um, but we had to, you know, compromise Garland, we missed Mobley for a game, blow the game too, but I still think that game five, for them to get that lead and then the Pacers to put it on them and come back and close that one out and close out game two, like there's something to be said of what the Pacers did to this team. So I think both things can be true that the Cavs have

legit excuses, but the Pacers put it on them. And so when you look at that series and their comfort level now, getting through what they got through last year, but then closing out a really special Cleveland team, special regular season team, um, how much do you think that factors in to how you see the East playing out? Yeah. I mean, it's going to be really, this could be really interesting summer for them because it's almost.

You know, for me, I was saying a week or so ago, it's like the worst place to be in. If you're the Cavs, Dan Gilbert and Kobe, it's that, you know, you could make the excuse if you wanted to make the excuse to hang on and not have to shake it up at all, right? Like you could very easily hide behind what you said. Like we had a couple injuries,

things just didn't go our way in terms of health. Having said that, I do think that fundamentally, like from a roster perspective, if I could, I would explore what was out there. Like, I like their nucleus. You know, the question was posed to me about Garland. That would be the one that if I could see what was out there on the market, this is just me personally, nothing against the player. But if I could find something else out there that made sense and only have to part with something like that, I would entertain it. I'm

not a big blow up guy. I think they're really close to it, but that was definitely concerning what happened in that series despite the injuries. So when you look at the Pacers' defensive options the injuries. So when you look at the Pacers defensive options, uh, against Brunson, I mean, how does that, like I thought Detroit, you know, watching that series, I'm thinking, okay, really good effort from Schroeder, but like there's some bad switching matchups, um, that have to get stuck with Brunson and the reason, one of the reasons why I thought Boston won the series is like, there's going to be a totally different challenge.

Um, what do you think the Pacers have for Brunson and how that compares to like teams that are ready for it or teams where you feel like they'll get exposed? Yeah, I think first of all, he, you know, he's going to do what he does late in the game period. I think, I think, you know, so the question is, can you make the rest of those guys have to work in a way that might be uncomfortable for them to get them to that point, striking distance late in the

game, right? Like to keep them in it. I think they have a unique formula. They got length and they have, you know, rangy defenders. Like Halliburton's a rangy guy. Siakam out there is just as long as you can get. Miles moves his feet pretty well. They have people that in a switch situation can really stay down and stay long. With him, I watch him and the question is, do you have to get close enough to him to give him your body as a defender? Once you give him your body as a defender, like he's just a master at a bump, at a, like once you get bumped as a defender, you feel like you're at a disadvantage.

So it puts me as the defender in a survival mode. So the next thing you do, typically, I'm gonna react to that. So then a bump in the head fake, and you're getting a lot of people in the air because they feel like they're behind on the play, right? And so if you don't have to give him your body because you can space him with length and still challenge a jump shot, that's the ideal situation for me

looking at having to guard Brunson. And so, you know, I think they have some pieces. Um, I think there's some advantageous switches for him as well, but I think the Pacers have a lot of length out there on the wing that could space them in a way where they don't have to react to all of that bumping and then reacting. Yeah. I think we're going to see a lot of TJ picking them up full core and trying to, you know, be like a SAR who I thought fought with Brunson well.

I mean, I still think about how he just rode him out of bounds on that one. And Brunson wanted the foul on the scores table. And then you watched the replay and you're like, man, he just kind of like, he just guided them out of bounds, which is like, feels impossible against the best players in this league. Neesmith is chaos in a good way, but I also think he's probably gonna foul out

at every one of these games. I think Matherin has stepped up his defense from a place where he felt like you could attack him to now, you know, I think his effort, I think his competitiveness, I think there's a real edge with Matheran that I absolutely love. But you're right. We can all sit here and talk about switches and he'll hunt, he'll try to hunt Turner and bring him up. He's going to prefer to attack Halliburton over in Nemhart, over in Neesmith. He's not gonna wanna switch necessarily into Siakam

because of some of that length. But you're right, you're still gonna see the 28 and nine. It's still happening and he's still gonna get his free throws. So I'm asking you as somebody, this would have been your assignment. I imagine the first thing is stay on the ground. My first thing is stay down. What else are you trying to do and prepping

yourself for what should be a long series? Yeah. Well, so it's a great, it's a great question. And just to, like, just to go back a little bit, you talk about TJ picking him up full court. Like the number one thing is just start to wear on him from the jump ball. Like this, you're not going to win this series in game one. So, so like, let's just start to kind of a la Houston with, with Steph Curry. Let's just start to pay the tolls early. Let's get in front of it and just start to beat them up as much as we can keep a body on and make him have to work to, to bring it up the court.

People, people don't realize the toll that that takes on a point guard physically and emotionally just to have to work. That's six seconds of work off every play if you don't pick him up in the front court. You pick him up in the front court, he's working six seconds every play, like that starts to take a toll. So starting there, that's important. Game plan wise, staying down is like the most,

it was the same with D Wade, like force him to screens, right? Because D Wade was a reject guy and then stay down. No matter what happens, stay down, make him have to finish over length. He does it very well. But like I learned pretty early in my career, and most people know this, great offense is going to be great defense. It's just going to beat it every time. There's nothing you're going to be able to do for a Kobe Bryant basically laying horizontal and shooting a 16 footer over a defensive possession that you felt like you did everything right on. So with a guy like Brunson, it's very similar. I'd like to keep him on the

perimeter as much as I could. Like if I could find ways to build those perceived walls as a team defense that doesn't let him feel like he can get in those cracks and crevices and then once he's in the midpost, I kind of, I have to be on his body, Ryan. So like that's his wheelhouse. I'd like to see if I could keep him maybe settling for more jumpers than he normally does. I think part of his brilliance is an offensive player specifically for that team. Is that he does so much of that work in the paint. Anytime you can get in this is my beef with boston. What was it that they were shooting the threes as much as they were it was how they decided to shoot them once they get hot. There was no real presence in the pain anymore these were just.

no real presence in the pain anymore. These were just, we're never going to explore whether we can collapse your defense and we're just going to cast threes. That's very different than collapsing the defense over and over again, right? So if I can keep Brunson out of the middle of that pain, I'd like to explore every opportunity to do that. And then keep them off the foul line. It's always important. Off the foul line, you know, which goes hand in hand with staying down with him. Once he gives it up, I always felt like if, you know, again, we're, we're playing this five, six game series in our mind. Every time he gives it up, if I can make him work to catch it again in a spot that he, that he's not the best in, because now he's got to work to get me to the spot where

he wants to be. So I can get six seconds in the backcourt of extra work. He gives it up. I can get the couple seconds of having to pop out somewhere to get it where he doesn't want it. And then I get the extra work of having him get me to where he wants to score. That's a lot of work that accumulates on him, right? And this all goes into the game plan. Maybe not a great answer, but like those are all things that

would take their toll on a guy over the course of a series. No, those are, those are great. Cause you know, there's a lot of that series. I think Boston probably felt good watching the tape and how they contained him. But again, there's all sorts of different stuff we could go through in that series. And the fact is that of all the players that are out there and I imagine, you know, maybe Halliburton has the kind of ego and confidence that can match Brunson a little bit because it was pretty clear against Boston. It's like, oh, Brunson's the most comfortable despite the resume and despite the title that

this group has, like Brunson's just more comfortable in this stuff to close out games. So I want to ask you about like defense and fouling. And then maybe we'll get your pick on this one, but after the Caruso matchup with Jokic stuff, you know, it turns into a bunch of different debates. It's usually everybody's made up their mind ahead of time. And then they're just going to use the evidence to back their argument part of it.

But it's very clear that smaller players against big players can do whatever they want. And I'm not using that as the example. You're down 40 or 50 points. This is not why Denver lost game seven. But it felt like, at least for me, Roger, that it was like a three-part thing with how they would defend. It's like Caruso's there to, kind of in football, like chip Jokic, and then it's on the catch, and then it's, okay, here's the next stage of this. So if Caruso can muddy the timing just by fighting with Jokic in here,

it's not gonna necessarily stop Jokic, but it's gonna just delay all of this up. We're going to be able to disrupt this stuff. As a smaller player, the problem is now like, Neesmith can say, hey, they can't call them all. Cause I think Caruso is probably going, hey, they can't call all of it. And I don't even feel like he was hacking them so badly

late again, that it was like necessarily part of the game outcome. When you knew that, like it's funny because with Brunson, they might call them all against, against Kat. They're not calling all of them. How do you balance that when you're thinking about how you're getting switched or what your primary assignment is? Yeah. Well, let's just say like, you know, what Caruso did to, to Yoke,, just kind of what I was saying that you want to do to any great score when you're talking about chipping. I mean, it's essentially, you described it well in terms of just kind of muddying up the process of getting the ball. The way I kind of explain it on

top of that is now, you know, because I fought him so hard and I've just basically surrendered to this fight, he's got to catch it three feet away from where he really wants to catch it. And he's preoccupied with this fucking fight now. So now I've got him off of his spot, both mentally and physically. I've done my job. Then it's up to whether or not I do get that second wave of support coming to help me or not. The way I approach that with like a cat, if I'm anyone else, is really 100% predicated on whether or not he's cooking or not. If he's, you know, he's one of those words, you'll get you know you got to put that fire out. Like cat, I mean, I might not have to build a defensive game plan to accommodate for him right off the bat. He might, there's

a world in that he's not there. Do you know what I mean? So I think I would, if I were the Pacers, yeah, I'd have a game plan for it, but my primary would be Jalen Brunson. Like I'd expend every 97% of my scout time on like how we're gonna defend that. And then, you know, Kat, I think if he's working the post more than he's like stretching the

floor and shooting, I think I might be all right with that if I'm the Pacers. You know, if we keep getting that switch and he wants to go down there and play in the mid post and have his back to the basket, I think he can be more dangerous for them at times when he's spacing and then he's allowing Brunson to be in the middle of that paint. And then, you know, all those other guys are able to operate around the rim because you're big is attached to him. I'll tell you, it feels like with the Pacers, you have to defend everything. You've got to be ready. That whole idea of all those possessions over the course of a series, you have to get back. If you're the other side of the shot, you have to get back. You've got to make sure you're back in transition and that can wear on you.

The same way we were talking about facing somebody, picking you up full court, but the struggle I've had in kind of picking this series is, is it going to be that the Pacers, you have to defend everything, the entire game versus the one guy that's better at closing than any of the 10 players are going to be on the floor or do I take the Knicks because this Mitchell Robinson thing is real, it's been terrific and thinking about how much the Celtics struggled in the physical part of this,

that restricted area was owned by the Knicks during that series and in an alarming way and when I think Turner's like your only option, other than the handful of Thomas Bryant minutes that they're gonna just try to save Turner with, it's when you go to that side of what we saw from the Knicks and how big they played, that's the tough thing to get past

when I try to figure out if I can pick the Pacers. Yeah, look at this one I've gone back and forth on. I was firmly Knicks over the weekend. I was out at UA with my boy in Ohio. I was like, man, the Pacers can get them out on this highway and just get up and down. The Knicks could be in a world of hurt. Then I think I've come back to the Knicks, Ryan. I think for all the reasons you just talked about, and that's been the theme of this playoff, in terms of the whistle that's being either, you know, gotten or not gotten. Like this has been physical. They've

allowed these play from the very jump. They've allowed a level of physicality that's kind of near and dear to my heart. I've been, I've been watching it and, and, and feeling real nostalgic every night on the couch. But if we're going to live in that world, I am taking the Knicks. I'm just taking them. They're physical. They'll grind you out. Um, they just, you know, I don't know what it is, but they, it's going to sound real cliche, like some teams. Just stop believing at some point in a game, like down 12, late in the third.

I mean, yeah, we're going to give it a shot. Um, you know, typically you don't see it as much in the third i mean yeah we're gonna give it a shot. You know you typically don't see as much in the playoffs but still it the next just have to stick to it that that that is really interesting for me so like you could. I convince my i could convince myself that even if the bases run away you know ten twelve fifteen at some point because they hit one of these. 12, 15 at some point because they hit one of these, you know, incredible transition runs and they're just lighting you up. Like the Knicks are still going to be there. And I like the physicality to win out over the course of time. I just, I, I, the more physical football team wins when they're

roughing it like this, the more physical basketball team wins. Usually the more physical hockey team wins, the more physical soccer team wins, like I'm, I'm going to go with that. Yeah, it's hard to dispute that. Um, I've really struggled with this one, but I'm going to go pacerous. There's not conviction just because I think this is going to be an awesome series. I'd be surprised if it's a short series either way, and then who knows, we're surprised by outcomes all the time. Where are you on Halliburton? Would you hate him if you played

against him and love him as a teammate? Yeah, I think so. I think I'd be, you know what? I think he'd be the kind of dude that I'd be entertained by. I'd hate him, but I'd probably be cool with him because I just like his style. I kind of like, I like people with a little bit of shit about him. And for whatever, man, he's got a lot of shit to him, man.

And I'll tell you like this, you touched on it. I have Brunson as my, like, he's the number one closer, but Halley is like right there. And if there is anybody that would convince themselves first and foremost, right? Cause that's what this is all about. Like I gotta believe that I'm as good a closer as you are. Like I don't think there's a piece of Halliburton

that doesn't believe he could close like Jalen Brunson. Yeah, and he closes in a different way. Like he closes with opportunities, um, because I don't think he's convinced he's taking the shot when he has those huge possessions. Like I think his, his approach to the game is that, Hey, there might be something I see that I actually like a little bit better than me just getting it. And then of course, he also has some of those shots that he hits calves or

it's like, I'm not giving this ball up because I just have the utmost confidence. Look, the most overrated thing when you look at the total voting of the number of players that actually voted and put Halliburton down, I think it's a good reminder that there's so many people that didn't vote on that, and it ended up being a pretty low total number. But because he was voted, he's the headline like, hey, this is the winner. And I can understand like kind of hating him

if he had to go up against him. But I don't know any neutral person. Like if you love basketball, you should love the way this guy plays. Cause I think he does play the game in a fun, like it's aesthetically pleasing. It's not Vince Carter, it's not Ann, it's not that kind of stuff.

But his control of the game is something I know I appreciate. Yeah, totally. He's a conductor, right? Like he's just making all those pieces work together. And I love it because it's a unique game. Like it's kind of off beat. It's got a, you know, I don't, if you said, hey, draw a comp to somebody he plays like,

it's going to be really hard for me because he's just got this kind of unique flair to his game. I appreciate it. Is there anyone that you can think of that you were like, Hey, this guy was annoying to a lot of people, but I appreciated the, I'd say at times it's arrogance, you know, but I, again, I'm basketball and athletics. I'd rather you be arrogant than be doubting yourself.

Is there someone you can think of from your era that you were like, all right, this guy feels himself quite a bit, but I actually appreciate it. No, because with the, no, because I always hated those dudes. I was too close to it. I didn't have their perspective.

I probably would have hated him. Like I would have hated him because he would have been annoying as hell and I'd want I didn't have the perspective. I probably would have hated him. Like I would have hated him because he would have been annoying as hell and I'd want to fight him all the time. But no, I can't, I always, I was too deep in the trenches at that point to really have an appreciation for anyone. Trying to think, trying to think of somebody

that you would have gone up against back in the day. You know what, let's keep it a buck. Kobe was like that for me. I mean, it's an easy one, but like. Yeah, but I mean, he's too good. He doesn't. That's fair. That's fair.

No, I feel like every interview I ever see with you it's like, hey, let's do Kobe stories again. You know who was like that? I use his name a lot. And like Kevin Martin was kind of like that, but Kevin Martin didn't have an arrogance. He was really understated. Like he wasn't like a brash dude,

but like he had a weird kind of herky jerky game. He was tough understated. Like he was, he wasn't like a brash dude, but like he had a weird kind of herky jerky game. He was tough as hell to guard. Like I hated guarded him. And I just had a lot of respect for his game and like he's an interesting one for me. Dion Glover. I didn't play glove. Glove is my guy. I got a glove. I didn't get it to match up with glove too much. I got a glove. I didn't, I didn't get it to match up with glove too much. Ira newble. Ira's my guy. So I played the CBA with Ira went to, went to Spurs camp. They kept Ira. Who'd they kept? They kept, they cut me. They kept Ira, Sean L Scott and Derek dial. And, and I had to go back to the CBA. So those are my guys.

Yeah. I got to tell you, there was some calves seasons in there. I was like, you know, I'm not, you're going to throw iron new ball out there for 15 minutes. I don't hate it. Yeah. Yeah. I like IRA. IRA is tough, man.

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Simply make your bet, activate your boost, and go for even bigger winnings. Okay, I'm feeling a little spicy today on this Western Conference final tip game one, looking at the odds. They have not moved since Sunday night at all. It's still OKC minus three seventy five. So there's a lot in play here. I am personally going to bet the Tim the timber wolves plus seven and a half.

Um, I'm just going to go with the Minnesota has been able to rest. Okay. See is coming off an absolute grind. The Western conference has the quicker turnaround on the scheduling here. So I would, you know, like we all know how this goes, but I feel a lot better getting the seven and a half going into this game, looking at these teams. And I guess I personally think some of the numbers are looking at the Thunder as a massive,

massive favorite in the series overall. So let's put that together and get a little bit more action off of it. So Minnesota plus seven and a half, Anthony Edwards to score 20 or more, which you figure even on a bad night he's gonna get 20 or more. And Di Vincenzo, that's right, Dante Di Vincenzo,

two or more made threes. If you look at it, hit two in game five, two in game four, 0-4 in game three, but three of eight in game two. So that's three of the last four games he's hit two or more after a disastrous shooting series against the Lakers. and just seeing him, I'm like, I think he's ready to go on a bit of a run here.

So Timberwolves plus seven and a half, Edwards plus 20 or more points. Teevenjenzo two or more made threes. That's plus 195. Personally, I probably am just gonna go ahead with Minnesota plus the seven and a half. You wanna get real, real on this? Minnesota is plus 5,000, or excuse me,

that would be ridiculous. Minnesota is plus 550 to win the title. And again, I believe it's plus three, now it's plus 295 on the Western Conference Finals. So if you said, let's throw in a little NBA Finals action, I mean, now we're just doing crazy stuff here. Well, yeah, I don't know. I'm thinking about it, but since I picked OKC over Boston

in the summer for the NBA Finals, that's kind of one of those things where you're gonna go zag against it right now. What I don't wanna do too is if I said, hey, go plus 300 and I'm playing the odds and instead they went outright and like, see, I told you. I don't know that that's always entirely fair, but that's the play.

That's the play at least for that. So you've got three legs if you want it or straight at it with the plus seven and a half. Don't just be a spectator this postseason. Head to fandle.com slash Orion to download America's number one sportsbook and make every moment more. Must be 21 and older and present in select states

or 18 plus and present in DC. Opt in required bonus issued is non-retributable profit boost tokens, restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amounts. See terms at sportsbook.fanbill.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-hell.com. Okay, let's talk the West. visit rg-health.com. Okay.

Let's talk the West. Um, when Bill and I first saw the line and how heavy a favorite OKC was, I was like, man, that seems, you know, again, what these guys do for a living. So I'm not saying they're wrong. I guess I felt like the line when it first came out was a little disrespectful of Minnesota. Um, but it's also following the idea that like, okay. See probably could have been a 70 win basketball team if they wanted to.

Um, did okay. See do enough in that Denver series that makes you think of them differently now. Uh, no, I thought, I mean, no, I had them as a tier one Western conference champion type of team. I had Minnesota and a few other teams in like, in a slight tier two for me. I don't think that's changed. Um, you know, I, I, I wasn't really given pause in the Denver series. You know, these were, these were things that I thought, okay, see, was going to have to do in real time in

terms of learning on the fly, learning how to close, learning how to withstand some turbulence in a series and still figure out a way to sustain game plans, momentum, play, and win series. So like, I don't think I've been moved either way on OKC. I would just say that I think Minnesota might be closer to the tier than I had originally thought. In this particular series, I think I could make a case for either one of them. So I don't know that it's absolutely clear cut for me as it was coming in, but it didn't really, nothing OKC has done has shaken me on that. I just think I might've underestimated Minnesota to be frank.

Okay. Let's talk about what Denver did in this series. And I think it's important and I wonder if Minnesota is going to want to go to that. I doubt they're going to want to go to that much zone. But Denver just basically is like, Hey, we're a zone basketball team now. And what I loved about game six, even for OKC and the loss was I was like, there are points, there are points there for OKC. If they can play this a little bit smarter and stop attacking the top and try to figure out a way to like, just get it in the middle. And it's not going to be an SGA attack to get to the middle

because they're collapsing everything. Their number one thing was all that stuff at the top that SGA lives on during the regular season. We're not going to let you do that and we're going to hope everybody else misses enough shots. But if you have Chet running these dunker baseline cuts, I think they did a much better job of that stuff and then everything just becomes a mess in game seven. But that seemed to be the number one priority.

I've seen Minnesota sent to, to SGA in a non-zone way where it's like, we are going to sell out the last few minutes of the game here to make sure that off a screen or anything we're doing, it's two with you all of the time. Um, is there something in that that concerns you for, for SGA and Oklahoma cities execution offensively because at least when you think about the size and the options Minnesota has on the perimeter, like there's some actual stuff for Finch to work with, which he already knows because of the regular season matchups.

Yeah, for sure. And you know, look, it was the concern we had coming into the postseason with them was if you were going to get the J-Will type of game to support SGA or not, was Chet going to be a viable number two or number three consistently through the playoffs? So if you're going to roll the dice as a team and say, we're taking SGA out of this by sending two, yeah, I would be, I would be concerned. Like you would have to show me that those guys could carry, uh, in a way that would produce a win.

Like that's just what it is. That's their, that's kind of the Achilles heel and what I still need to be convinced of for, for OKC. So yes, um, they're, they're, they're better defensively, quite frankly, even without that than that than Denver was. The zone is interesting because when you throw that zone and essentially the two top guys are in that double by assignment in a zone, the rotations are a lot clearer behind it. So when SGA gets off the ball, because we are kind of, you know, there are assignments in a zone, like there's a little bit more clarity on who's going to make the

run to that next pass, who's going to make the run to the pass after that. When you're in man, it leaves a little bit more up to interpretation, right? Like we got to be really assignment driven behind it. Do you know what I mean, Ryan? Like one person gets this wrong and the whole chain of events on a rotation and we're, and we've given up a wide open three. Um, so that could be a little challenge if they decide to do that from Minnesota standpoint, but I do think if they can execute it, what I worry about, okay, see a little bit, yeah, I'd be, I'd be worried. Yeah.

And then you can also look at what some of the regular season results were, even if I'm thinking about some of those closing minutes, like the shooting splits for SGA against Minnesota this year are just absurd. I mean, he's lit them up. I mean, I know there's one big free throw attempt game in there, but the three point shooting, I mean, the splits for him against Minnesota are alarming.

And I don't know if that's just the right night. I don't know if it's him reading something. And I imagine Finch is gonna try a bunch of different things with him because it feels like at least. I don't want to say Denver exposed something, but it's, it was crazy to think of what they were willing to give up to make sure that they could just clog the top of it, that we can clog the top of it. Like we still think that's better than just letting SGA get downhill and putting

our defenders in a spot where he's going to make all of the stuff because he's that talented. And if you're compromised on just any kind of defensive angle, he's going to get into you and he's going to get the free throw. So you're, you're, you're being nice. They basically said the rest of you all can't beat us. Yeah. That's what they said. They were like, yeah, we're not going to let him beat us.

And we dare arrest you to do it. Look, it was almost right because I thought, okay, see whether it was missing every single three to start the fourth quarter in game six, Jaylen Williams having the terrible game, but there were stuff where, you know, it drives me kind of crazy when NBA teams can't after a few possessions against his own. It's like, can you, you guys can't set a fucking screen

and get somebody on just the catch in the middle. Like, how can you not? Like I remember getting screamed at because you play youth basketball. Yeah, I'm not comparing, I'm not trying to compare the same two things, but you're putting your head down. So I think you're in agreement with me here,

but like, how can the NBA guys struggle with getting a fucking catch in the middle against these zones? Dude, I don't know. I, what was this? Was this, when was it the Heat Celtics? That was two years ago now? That series was two years ago?

What, when it was the eight seed Heat? Yeah, 23. Yeah. And it was very similar. And I was losing my shit, not using Twitter or X in the right way, because I just was venting. I was just tweeting out, why can't we hit the middle of that zone?

Why won't they throw the damn ball in the middle of the zone? Why can't we hit a short, a short corner and flatten out this? I just couldn't imagine. But there's something to be said that you don't play against it a lot. Like nobody practices it. If you don't weaponize it as a defense, as your, as your own, you know, team, you're never going to see it in a practice situation. And you kind of take for granted that even pros, like you tell them to do something, and they should execute that. It doesn't always work like that, right? Like you have to be going live against it. But Ryan, I don't know. Because even in game, what game was that, man? Was it game three, maybe? They had figured out,

they had figured out how to screen. They were kind of screening the top of the zone and then slipping the screener, and they were spraying it quick to the wing, and then you had the middle touch, and they did it for like four minutes, and it unlocked the zone, and then they never came back to it.

Yeah, that's what my favorite part of watching zone stuff, because as soon as it breaks, then the coach is like, oh no. Yeah, right, got it. Oh my God. We have to stop doing this. And we're spending a lot of time talking about it.

I don't think Minnesota's, I mean, who knows? I mean, they'll probably try a few different things, but I don't think of them as a team that's like, they just don't have to play zone because they have really good defenders and they have a back line guy. Um, and yeah, I just, I can't, I, I think it's a bigger thing and I already know what you're going to say considering how you made your money, but it started to become too much of an equalizer, I think between the bad team and the good team. And I think golden state, Minnesota was like a good example of that too, at times where

it's like Minnesota should be running away with these games. And they did in the second half, they took control. They were clearly the better basketball team. But it used to always be the thing when like the high school team sucked against the much better team. They're like, hey, we're going to play zone and we're just going to see if we can like muck this up long enough and then have a chance at the end. I don't know that I want that in the NBA playoffs.

I agree. I mean, that is general rule of thumb. If my team is not as talented as yours and, and I don't think, you know, and you're well coached, so like I can't coach my team into a, into an equal kind of position, all I'm sitting in that two, three, Oh, we're going to, we're going to sit here all night. And so I would agree with you. I don't think it's a, well, I like the physicality. And by the nature of liking the physicality, you're going to get some lower scoring games and some more grind you

out type of games. I'm not here to watch teams break, you know, the code that is some of these funky zones that they can design. I don't love that for NBA basketball. And who knows? I mean, who knows? Maybe they'll just say, hey, we're gonna put our length at the top and screw this up here. But like when I think of how much Denver played it, when I think of how much Golden State

was throwing it out there, I thought it was at least worth a conversation a little bit. Okay, on the Minnesota side of things, I can't believe we're getting this Randall in the playoffs. This is a completely different dude. I mean, if you look at any of this, it's not like there's a ton of playoff experience here, but I remember a few series in the past

where I was like, okay, you might just be the guy who gets 20 on teams that don't even win 40 games. I don't know that you're going to be somebody. I mean, he is just a rebirth of Julius Randall, which I think has to be part of the way. If you're going to get that kind of guy out of him, like this is a completely different series than I think just the understanding that OKC is far superior to everybody else. Yeah, that's for them. I mean, you got, you know what you're gonna get out of hand, it becomes, you know, and this is a lot of the time, it becomes about the others in the playoffs.

It just becomes about what you're gonna get consistently from someone else and who gets it more. It's a team A or team B. Julius Randall's been fantastic. I think you could make a case that Jalen Brunson's style of play is as great as it is. Like it doesn't really work for Julius Randall.

You know what I mean? Having the amount of live dribbles that he has in a game, Julius Randall needs touches and needs a little bit of a usage rate. It's just who he is. You got to figure out a way to put him with someone who's better because he can't be your number one, but at the same time can allow him the breadth to have a little bit of a usage rate. And I think they've cracked that code and he's confident.

And again, this is a really crazy thing, but even professional athletes, when they're not confident they'll look like one player. And when they're riding some confidence and some self belief and they have someone that believes in them can look like, I don't mean a different player, I mean like a polar opposite kind of player. I think there's a little bit of that going on. So yeah, he for me is the biggest question

in the series from Minnesota's perspective. What, which one will you get in this series? Where is Ant on your favorite players to watch? Yeah, he's a top five player for me. I like Ant. I like everything about how explosive he is. I like how he plays the entire game. I think that he's grown exponentially in the, all right, I'm the focal point of an offense. Teams are gonna do X, Y, and Z to take me away. So let me learn how to kind of like control the game.

I'll, you know, I'll LeBron, I'll Luca, like those guys that have it and are just, you know, playmakers because you're not gonna be able to score 50 because the defense says you're not gonna be able to score 50 tonight. We're watching him grow up in real time. I still like him downhill a lot more than I think, you know, I like him. All right. This is weird because I know analytically it doesn't make sense and he's become a much better player because he's kind

of streamlined the amount of mid ranges he gets to. I still think there's space there for mid for him. Maybe not to the degree space there for mid, for middy for him. Maybe not to the degree that it was there, but I still love him in the mid range space. But yeah, one of my favorite players to watch. When you're dealing with somebody like Ant, like I wonder how much the others matter in how you prepare because, you know,

I think Golden State had some stuff., I think it was in the last game where it was like, okay, they're really gearing up to try to prevent him from taking over and he was really good out of it. You could say, hey, maybe I still have to get a hand in Connelly's face or Jaden McDaniels is somebody I still have to think about. Obviously you're gonna play off of Rudy,

but he's never gonna be that far away, so somebody's gonna be near him anyway, because you're gonna worry about the rebounding part of it. Like the Lakers who just didn't have the personnel and it's like, okay, well now you're gonna give them all these extra possessions. Are you helping off of the perimeter shooters because of Ant?

Are you helping off of the perimeter shooters because of who they are? Yeah, but because of Ant, I think they go hand in hand, but I would always fire my first bullet. I mean, it's, all right, let's go back. The question always becomes, hey, do you let the guy try to go for 50 and then cut everybody else off that would supplement the scoring, right? So like you're going to have 50, but I'm not going to give anybody else more than six because I'm not going to allow you to feed them. And I don't think you can beat me like that. Or do you, you know, do you make him have to

get off of it and make the others beat you? I'm always going to fire at the first, at the ladder. I'm going to devise this defense to try to you know mitigate what ants gonna be able to do and see if those guys Can win games? So I would my defensive strategy wouldn't be because I don't believe Necessarily that like they're poor shooters, but I have to take care of first things first, which is you know, and The Rudy part of this You know, he's like 28 minutes a game here. I think it was very clear against the Lakers

where there was a couple of moments where, I always think about him and how Finch is gonna wanna use him. And to this part, it hasn't really ever felt like it's an issue. Even against Luke, it's like, oh man, his eyes get wide open and he's gonna be hunting Rudy and he's gonna get him into these switches. And then sometimes I think teams get so like switch happy because they want to attack this one specific thing

Then you're actually like doing the defense a bit of a favor because you're probably still gonna hold up enough Like rarely are you gonna hunt somebody then it's like five buckets in a row It just the sport doesn't really necessarily happen that way So I think the long version of Rudy in that series was that he held up really well and what he provided you from a size advantage was worth it. But there was still, I think in one of those games closing, Finch was like, actually I went through it. He was taking Rudy out in some of those spots. Golden State, same kind of thing. There's not really any bigs that you trust, even though they were trying with Looney and Jackson Davis,

so they brought back a little bit later. Is this a series where you go, wait, like you need Rudy maybe 35 minutes a night here because of the amount of size that Oklahoma city has, or do we maybe get that revisit of the concern when Rudy gets hunted, um, like somebody like an SGA or something, because I, because it hasn't been an issue really, other than some finch decisions in certain certain spots depending on the score laid against the Lakers. Yeah, I think it'll be time and situation driven just like it's been so far. I think SGA is uniquely kind of talented and skilled to be the exception to that rule that you're talking about, that we hunt them five

times and we're not going to score five times in a row. A hot SGA can be, if you give me five times on Rudy, I'll give you four buckets real quick. I agree with your point generally speaking, which is like, look, man, first of all, it's taking you at a rhythm of what you want to do offensively if you're just going to hunt this guy and it's not providing enough to make it worth the while. I do think SGA could be the exception to that, but I think they're more organic minutes for Rudy, right? Just because of the bigs, because of the personnel that OKC is going to have on the floor.

I do think that you'll see situational stuff with him though. It's got to be. How does OKC play down the stretch of a game in terms of their personnel? We're in a four-point game with three minutes to go. Now that hunting doesn't always become about whether you finish five in a row, as much as it becomes about the quality of shot you're going to get after milking 20 seconds off of the shot clock, right? And then we're going to get pummeled on the offensive glass because Rudy's out here guarding SGA in the mid-range. So like some of those things are going to have

to figure out, you know, time, score, situation, personnel that OKC has on the floor, but I do think there are more organic minutes in the series for him. Maybe it's because I just watched the Celtics series, but I think I'm starting to become anti-hunting. Yeah. You know, like when I'll look, I'll look at certain things, it's like, oh, hey, they're going to switch into Brunson and they're going to do, it's like, you know what, if you want to bring the ball up, map it out, start your action at 16 seconds, and then just try to hammer into the switch over and over and over again when we're just gonna send help to the guy that you're attacking anyway and now you're left, like this thing that I felt like this game is almost like predicated on, like oh,

they're gonna keep doing this, they're gonna keep doing this. I don't know, I think if I were, again, I don't have to worry about being a coach anytime soon. I think I'd be like, you know, that, that actually like becomes really boring in it and it becomes easy to defend. And then the help starts cheating and we're doing the same shit over and over again. And so even if we think we have the advantage with a guy on the ball

against a big or a smaller guard, like maybe the reward isn't there as much as we think it is. Yeah. The more, the more you see it, um, as a defender, I mean, you might get us as help defenders the first time, maybe two times you get the switch. But like, I see something three times in a row, I shouldn't be out there if I don't have an answer for how I can help my guy. I always tell like my son Ty or any player that gets a switch, right? But he's the one that I coach the most.

So I wind up talking basketball through his lens and how I coach him. If you hunt it to get it, fine. Don't play around with it. Go get it. Like once you get the ball, get after him, whether that's you get into the bucket or that you collapsing defense quickly. And like, I always, I use the analogy of like, like a fishing war, right? Like when, when bass see something swimming, like really slow and methodical and like, they're like, yo, that's fake

I'm not I'm not hitting that but if something flashes like you're gonna have an immediate knee-jerk to it So that's the way I like to attack those mismatches just get at him Then you're gonna get the collapse and then you got to realize like yeah, I got the mismatch, but it's only to ignite the play The finish could be me if the help isn't sufficient and he doesn't do a great job. But the finish might be somewhere else. We just use the mismatch that we hunted to initiate it. And I don't think enough people follow those rules. So the Celtics hunt the mismatch to dance on the ball and then cast up a three. That's not what we're hunting mismatches for. That's not the, that's not the essence of why you should do that, right?

And way too many, way too many dudes do that. Luca does that a lot. Where Luca's really good is where he hunts that mismatch. He gets deep into the paint, two feet, and now he's collapsed and stuff and the ball starts spraying around and he can knock down that jumper every once in a while. So I think you got to get to it a little quicker and I would agree with you.

You show it to somebody too many times, they're going to get a beat on that. I promise I'll let you go after this because I mentioned it with Bill on Sunday because I was at the combine and a lot of the conversations that were just fun is just talking about the game. Like, hey, where's the game and some of this stuff. And, you know, a combo guard and I repeating this for the audience that heard from Bill, so I'm sharing it with you, but you know, the combo guard was kind of like a dirty thing for a little while, like the Aaron Brooks type. Yeah.

Where I'll never forget, you know, doing a show with Van Pelt and it was like, man, Aaron Brooks, like out of Oregon is going to like get buckets in the NBA for a long time, like college has so many of these dudes that it's like what happened to that guy? You'd be like oh you didn't see that video of him in Turkey? Like yeah he's getting 38 game but it's just it's not gonna work in the NBA. So like shout out to Aaron Brooks for finding a way to take that and go in but it was like that combo guard thing was like kind of small you're not a two you're not a one but you get buckets. Then it evolves into if you're not a two, you're not a one, but you get buckets. Then it evolves into if you're

not a combo guard as our point guard, if you're a point guard that can't score, that can't pull up from three, but also like that's worse than, you know, you can't have a guy who's like a non-shooter initiating all this stuff. And I do wonder if we're at a place right now where we kind of miss the point guard mindset and of the foreclosures, right? Between aunt SGA Brunson and Halliburton, Halliburton has the mindset that reminds me of what we have, but like, I couldn't stop thinking about Chris Paul or Jason Kidd or Gary Payton in some of these possessions late in the game, or it's like, you know what they wouldn't do? They may not get you the bucket,

but they would not have the same approach. They would not let themselves get stuck into these ruts that some of these teams are like, hey, this is the shit that we did all regular season, and we're getting this many hundred points or this many points per 100 possessions. All the math tells us that this is the right way to do it. I feel like there's an element of that that is missed because once we decided the point guard couldn't be, he had to also be a scorer that we're forgetting about the point guard part of it.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, that's, yeah, I could see where you're coming from with that. And again, like my guy is a ninth grader who would fall into combo guard status. And the conversations with him are like, look, and this is the way I think it should work, because a true point guard, like a conductor, a setup man, an organizer, he's a quarterback, right? Like he's, what you're saying is like, we're at the line of scrimmage,

we're in this two minute drill, man. We've got to make sure everybody's where they're supposed to be, like I can't hike this ball, I can't start running this play before, you know, before we have the floor space the right way and guys are where they're supposed to be. That's a learned skillset. Like that's not something that you just roll out and say, Hey, you're playing point today because you have a combo

guard skill set. And I expect you to do all of that shit. Like it's not really being taught that way at the youth level. It's being taught in terms of skill level scoring, pick and roll reads for sure, but not like the mental side of like playing PG, you know? And so, you know, what, what, what? Can I interrupt you there though? Like the pick and roll stuff when it's like, hey, it's this or it's this or it's this. That's not really being a point guard.

It's predetermined. And it reminds me, which you'll understand really well because of your current situation with the boys is like, I may know what the progressions are as a quarterback, but if I can't adjust when the progressions aren't there, then I'm not really playing quarterback. I'm just following a set of predetermined options, which is what I see with a lot of the pick and roll stuff.

It's like, okay, well, here's the read, here's the read, here's the read. It's like, okay, but where's the part where I see something and have instincts that tell me this is actually the better option than all the things that you told me are my only options to go off of a list? Totally, so to continue the analogy,

what we're saying is like, look, you gave me the play, I know the progressions in that play, but my pre-snap look is not good for this fucking play. I gotta get us into something different because that's not gonna work. I know it, you know it sitting over there on the bench, but you're not good for this fucking play. I gotta get us into something different because that's not gonna work. I know it, you know it sitting over there on the bench, but you're not out here in real time. So my job becomes to organize,

yo, yo, check, check, check, check, we're doing that. And not too many PGs are being taught how to play in that space, right? They are this combo, they have the skill set. To your point, the predetermined- The skill's insane, right? It's insane, It's insane. No, it's insane.

But like, you know, it's really cool for me because I get to go out and I'm at the UA circuits and I'm at these Pangos camps and stuff like that. And every now and again, I'll see a dude who is like just a, a real general. And you're like, yo, that's pretty cool to watch, man. Like he might have 12 or 15 shit. He might have eight, but his team's always winning. They're always might have 12 or 15, shit, he might have eight. But his team's always winning, they're always organized, he's getting it where it's supposed to go.

And like, I'm a throwback guy too, I'm a traditionalist, I love that. So as I speak to my boy, it's like, look, man, his skill set, I think, is more natural kind of combo, because he likes to score, he's got little gifts in that realm. But where I always tell him his bread is butter and he just doesn't know it yet is he really can organize and quarterback, right? And have fun with playing it like this right now in high school, dude, early in high school. But you're going to become a conductor and you're going to be able to run a team because

that's the priority. Scoring is scoring. Like, shit, every Like shit, look, you're good enough, you're going to score buckets. But the mental capacity to like run a team, run an offense, time, score, get us in and out of things that are good, knowing when Ryan needs a touch because he's been asleep over there and now he's not defending. Like all of those things are kind of a lost art. And it's a really interesting thought because I hadn't really put two-to-two together in terms of like why that's a dying breed. And it's a really interesting thought because I hadn't really put two to two together

in terms of why that's a dying breed, but it is, everyone's a combo. Scoring is consuming a lot of that instruction for these young players. The skills that it takes to score a ball versus the skills that it would take to run a team. People are gonna watch Jason Kidd videos 50 years from now and be like, what? How did, like, what? Was there more of them? Is there anybody? And there's, there's, look,

there's incredible point cards, but I don't know. Like to me, you have to be born. There has to be something that happens in the way that the DNA is put together for you to see the game. And look, there's a lot of great point cards, but there was just something about Kidd, man. There's something about Jason Kidd that was just off the charts. Damn, I love basketball.

That was a lot of fun. Roger Bell, our guy, the real one, check him out with Logan Murdoch again, Tuesdays and Fridays. He'll be dropping another episode here shortly. Enjoy the conference finals and thanks for the time. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me This episode is brought to you by State Farm great teams need great coaches and when it comes to insurance Your State Farm agent is there to help you find the right coverage for your home car and more They're local and ready to assist when life hits you with a full core press.

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It's just me and Kyle hanging out today. Wargon's going to be okay, but he's not going to be with the show today. So just me and my bud, what's up? Not too much. Not too much. Did a debt consolidation though recently, feels pretty good about that. Got a better rate, always hunting for a good rate. So yeah, I don't know, feel kind of like a new man today. Yeah, there is something to be said about doing stuff. Yeah. You know, it gets contagious. Like when I have a to-do list,

I mean, sometimes I'll get into this rhythm where Sunday nights I'll write out the to-do list and then Monday, and it's like that first thing you have to do always feels like it's not hard, unless it's like a really easy. Sort of the gateway to the rest of the list, you could say. Really, really it is. And then you get a couple things done and you're like,

what else can I get done? Well, that thing that I was just probably just gonna ignore, let's call and figure that out. Dude, you're so right. Uh, the first thing on the list was the debt consolidation. You know what I mean? Get that big weight off my chest. Then I went out and bought a brand new Swiffer power mop.

I did all the floors. I was using a wet jet. Now I'm a power mob guy. I mean, what's next? Getting shape. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. What's Blade doing right now?

Is he free this afternoon? When you decide to start lifting and getting into shape, you're gonna be a monster. Oh, shucks. No, serious, big frame, big frame like that. Speaking of lifting, it relates kind of to what we're talking about here. These aren't even emails. These are all free. But I was thinking about like the psychology of when you think

you're finished in just anything, really. But if we keep it specifically to lifting. So every now and then I'll do this 225 thing, right? I'll see how many times I can bench 225. And it just kind of keeps me in check. And like some days it's just not the day and you don't get the number that you're used to or excited about and you're kind of disappointed. But what I'll notice is if I just pick a number

and then I work my way down, right? So if I go like, all right, I don't know what I'll notice is if I just pick a number and then I work my way down, so if I go like, all right, I don't know what I have today, so I'll say like 18 reps, 18, 17, 16. That when I get to two or one, my body and my mind have decided that I've almost done. Okay. And so two is a struggle. And then one is like, okay. And I haven't used a spotter because I always feel like it's kind of stupid sometimes, but it'll be like, all right, I have to get this off of me. And then it's just like, you know, those videos you see of people with having superpowers to protect a loved one.

If like a fence falls down or something. Okay. Right. Um, but if you just arbitrarily like a fence falls down or something. Okay. Right? But if you just arbitrarily like don't use any number, then you're not giving your mind a heads up as to when it is over. Clock watching. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think there's a parallel in there for you. So don't count. Yeah. Yeah. Just go. So that's sort of what I'm doing with my golf game right now. Okay. I'm just kidding. So let's see. No, it's terrible. I'm so bad, I'm not counting. That's all. That's all. Golf is a little tougher though, because you kind of have to count just to get an idea.

Because it's really easy to go, well, I think I had this, and then the score is always better than what it actually is when you start doing that kind of stuff. All right, so one to grow on there to get started. Don't limit yourself. There you go.

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm wonder grow on there to get started. Don't limit yourself. There you go Yeah, but there's something like there's there's a parallel there that if if that happens think of all the other things that are happening in your life when you think this is all I'm going to be able to do and Then you accept that that's the maximum that you can do

Because your mind has already made some sort of agreement with your body, again, on the physical side of it, granted it doesn't apply to other things, but I do think that there's something there because it just, how often I will go, all right, I'm going to count down from 12, I'm going to count down from 10, I'm going to count down from eight. And that whatever that one rep is, it's always like the body and mind have made some sort of like commitment to each other. They're like, this is over. This is totally over. And so when I started just randomly being like, okay, same way, only got eight, let me just count down from nine.

Guess what happens? I get nine and two has replaced the one and two is a way better rep. But that one is always just like, good, we're done with this. and two has replaced the one and two is a way better rep. But that one is always just like, good, we're done with this. Crazy stuff. Life advicey thing. That's the most life advicey start we've had in a while. So I feel good about the rest of this. Not sure there's a book in there.

Probably pretty short, but. Bath or book. All right. Coke Zero issues with Kyle. Oh, no stats. This is just a response. I like that. You're just responding. Hey, I want to get in the game with you guys. Yeah, we don't, we don't kind of like TJ McConnell,

but more, more range. The dude who is digging in on Coke Zero being Coke is out of his mind. There's no debate here. I'd imagine almost everybody agrees with you on that and that's I think what we said. But Kyle is also wrong. Coke Zero is a fantastic drink, probably the best Zero anything I've ever had. I actually buy it more than regular Coke and especially Diet Coke. Any respectable pop drinker who also looks for Zero Cal options would agree.

Over DC, Coke Zero over DC. That's gonna start a war. Yeah, I don't know. I think DC's got its own alternate name. There's no alternate Coke Zero name. Coke Z, CZ? No, doesn't work. I think Diet Cokes are in that spot.

So maybe we'll look back five years from now and it'll be different, but I think as of right now, Diet Coke has that spot. So, you know, maybe maybe we'll look back five years from now, it'll be different. But I think as of right now, Coke, Diet Coke has that spot. Yeah, I don't I don't even want to get into that world. Alright. So if you're a Diet Coke person, you know, but we're, we're just gonna put that one to bed. We're gonna keep harmony going here. Okay. We sent the picture of this disastrous taco bar situation of Kyle, so he's in on it.

All the names have been changed. No gym stats, player comp, poor man's Michael Oluwakandi. As if a rich man's Oluwakandi is worth noting. Well, you know, pretty big guy, good touch. Here's my dilemma. My son Tom recently graduated from a fairly well-known college west of the Mississippi His squad includes a mix of male and female friends one friend Tracy told Tom that her mom Betty

Oh Was going to organize a grad party and wanted our cell number to Texas about the details. So One of the friends of the Sun said hey, my mom's got it All right One of the friends of the son said, hey, my mom's got it, all right. We never heard anything until three days before the graduation when we were asked to provide $100 via Venmo for the food, which was going to be a taco bar made by her housekeeper

who had just started a side business. We were also told that it was BYOB and to bring a dessert, but he said they would pay $200 since she had more guests coming. Mind you, we are five people total. The other squad member, a party of three parents and a graduate was asked for $100 as well. Thus you were looking at a $400 bill for a taco bar.

Total number of people there was 25 plus three plus eight from the families plus perhaps four other friends. I attached a picture of the taco bar. To say this was underwhelming would be a compliment. A bag of chips, store-bought tortillas that were cold, only one salsa that was way too spicy for all there, unseasoned chicken in what appeared to be meat of some sort, and a small cup of guacamole that was put out

after everyone had already ate. That covers- The food looks dry, I'll just say. The food looks dry. I'll just say. The food looks dry. Yeah, so maybe we zero on for the picture as well as we can in a descriptive vein. Look, this looks bad, really bad.

The Fire Fest of graduation meals, if you will. This actually would have been the nicest thing served at Fire Fest. Yeah, you're right. So look, they've got the rice, the chicken looks fairly unseasoned, that salsa looks like lava. One bag of chips almost makes it worse.

Like the one bag of chips, you would have been better just not putting any chips out there. There's a ground beef thing. So we're looking at kind of the tin foil catering trays of this, the black beans. I mean, they never look good, even when they're really good. Yeah, gelatinous, what are you gonna do? I do like the lime, radish, cilantro.

I'm not seeing any cheese, by the way. I'm seeing no cheese. No cheese, man. College kids, college kids love cheese. Adults love cheese. So the rice, again, we're looking at five bins here, ground beef, pretty bland chicken, beans, the rice, the hue of the rice looks good. And I do appreciate the effort in this,

but this isn't really a fixin's bar. There's no- It looks like premium paper plates too. I just wanna know, premium. So, but this isn't really a fixin's bar. There's no. It looks like premium paper plates too. I just want to know premium. Okay. Yep. Yep.

But you know, the radish thing doesn't make a ton of sense because that, I mean, I don't know where radishes are right now with everybody. It feels like nobody talks about radishes anymore. But if you ever, when's the last time you bit into a radish, like they're not, that's not really. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really a- It's not gonna be a salad.

Yeah. It's like, ah, no. It's not like a taco move. And they're not diced up or anything. They're like pretty thick slices of radish. And to just, that would rip through the tortilla like, yeah, you know, I mean, I don't wanna make any sort of tornado thing now because of what's going on.

So let's not talk about natural disasters. So we got diced white onions that look huge too. Like I don't know about her knife skills and the cilantro is not diced at all. So I mean, there's the limes, thanks. She cut them wrong too, by the way. This is bad. It's really bad.

But we agree. Yes, agreed, agreed. But I know there's more and he's got a question and I don't know if I agree. My dilemma, I was immediately pissed to be asked for $100 for the tacos no less than three days before the event. I could go to Chipotle and get more food

for eight to $12 a person. I made the payment because Tom's squad is really important to him and they have forged likely lifelong friendships and my wife told me so or two. We never received acknowledgement or thank you for the payment. All right.

Now you're just like trying to find more reasons to pick this up. I wanna request a $50 refund as the food was the worst Mexican food I've had in a long while. My wife said not to do this as it's likely to get back to Tom. And she doesn't want him to have to deal with this and disturb the squad vibe.

Uh, as he is around for another one and a half months, as he keeps up the search for a job and his lease expires at the end of July, while I want to go off in a text, my thought is to send a Venmo money request that just reads Taco Bar graduation refund, please. My wife says that Betty probably thinks this is a great party and there are no problems. Of course I disagree is there were no places to sit, which man, this thing gets worse. It was served in a small coffee table,

which by the way, in the picture it shows there's not a lot of square footage on this table that was set out as some sort of catering thing. Food is like below the knee. Yeah, it's pretty close to the ground. This feels like a freshman year parents weekend thing the kids would do thinking we nailed this and a senior with an apartment would go,

we have to do better than this. So I'm worried about, I'm worried about, what are the fake names here again? Tom, I know Tom's one of them, Tracy. Yeah, but Tracy and then her mom Betty, I'm worried about Betty's housekeepers like future earning potential with this side business. My wife says that Betty thinks this is a great party,

no problems, okay, small coffee table. We said that already. We had to bring a dessert and our own alcohol. If I had $400 to spend, it would have been a far superior to that slop in the alcohol and all the alcohol you could want. Your thoughts are appreciated. Signed, Discretional Taco Bar graduation participant.

Kyle? You certainly have a reason to feel gross about this. I think what's clear is that Betty, this may be the first party she ever threw. She doesn't know what things cost. You know what I mean? I don't know if her daughter- You might have been a soft opening.

Right. This was the friends and family. Maybe they welcome feedback. But I think this could have been one of those situations where Betty's daughter, you know, in classic kid fashion, the night before the projects do, let you know you need some construction paper and poster board. And maybe she just thought she had to do this. So she clearly doesn't know the right price to charge people for parties. I don't think she's done it before. She's and if she has, she's certainly switched

up the food vendors, but I don't think, I mean, think of, put about, put it this way. When you think about your guy, Tom, your grad, Tom, think about how much money you've just thrown into the furnace to get this kid through. How many times he's hit you up on like a Saturday night with like, you know, some story about how he needs money. I'm sure you've, you've poured hundreds and thousands of dollars just outside of tuition and whatever you're paying to have him live in that apartment. Think about all the shit you've shoveled into this venture. And this is the end of it. And you, and you're thinking about like doing this, come on. It's a, you know, some people think that it's a scam with everything you have to pay for in college. Like this

is a hundred dollars for a bad taco party. This is the end of it. You could leave on a good note. I mean, you're probably so happy that he's graduated and you can just exhale and not worry about what his grades are anymore. Think about all the good feelings you have. And this thing is like shooting up the rankings and in your feelings right now. I think you just think about just, just chalk charges to the game, charge it to the game. This is the last shitty thing you have to pay for in college and probably to get them and all of the shit moved in a storage unit. But yeah, it is moving. Yeah. Just trick yourself into thinking

this. Like we said, with the numbers you're counting down from instead of counting down from nine, we're counting down from 11. So So you get that that second to last rep is awesome. So there you go I think I think you just have to trick your brain into thinking this is one last shitty thing you have to pay for To get your kid through school. This would suck This would suck if this is a thing that they're talking about while they're hanging out in the last month You know what? I mean, it doesn't sound like Betty is very reasonable and she probably would think this is coming out of left field and I imagine this trickles down to the kids and it's the one thing you and your wife don't want.

Yeah, that's what you don't wanna have happen is there's probably all these dynamics with your son in his squad that you clearly wouldn't know anything about and I'm not even meaning it in any kind of nefarious way. It's just, you don't know what the dynamic is at all. And I know back to college, like, it's just an odd thing when you realize like a college roommate who's your guy and then his parents show up and one of them sucks.

You know? And you're just like, man. Like I remember one guy, his dad was just like mean. Like not in an intimidating way. Not in a dearing way either. No, right. It wasn't like he was a logger. Yeah, that guy said through some shit.

Makes sense now. No, this guy had seen very little shit I believed and he was just kind of mean to all of us. And we were kind of like, how is the son so nice and the dad, like it was, again, you're right. It wasn't funny mean, it wasn't earned mean. It was just, it was like he walked in the door and was like, all of you guys suck.

Right. It's like, it's one thing if like his dad was David Lee Roth, what's the matter, got school tomorrow. I can't stop watching that Bill Hader video. I think I love Bill Hader more and more every single week. But I think you gotta lay out, or you ask Tom, you ask your son, you're like, hey, cause I know you're right, this thing sucks.

This party's bad. The picture does do it justice. And we're on your side. And it isn't about the hundred bucks. And we shouldn't always default to the charge to the game thing. But your financial, it's not even your financial recovery here. You're really more motivated. You need to let them know how bad this party is. But beware. We're on your side. You're right.

But a bunch of 21 year olds, 22 year olds may process it entirely differently. And if you're causing any kind of friction in the squad because you want wanna have your moment, is that really worth it? Dude, this is such a great forever joke too. The next time Tom wants to get you to go somewhere, you're gonna be like, oh, is it gonna be like the taco party of 2025? Should I not eat the night before? Like, you have this forever.

You have this forever. You love razzin' your son. My dad loves, you know, hittin' me with some jabs every once in a while. So, this is one, this is 100 bucks and you have this forever. You just bought, you bought a fun, like, tension-breaking joke for years down the line.

You guys will remember this forever. And, you know, it's not as bad as it feels. But I think you're right. The whole thing is, you want Betty to know just how terrible of a party she put on right down to the three days before Venmo request. So. Yeah.

I think that's it. Okay. See, this is another money one. I don't know that I wanna do that one. Okay. This is always a tough one here. Should I endorse a stranger for a job opening? Gentlemen, long time, first time, 6'1", 185,

no real gym stats to speak of. MBA comp, Clay Thompson, for no other reason I can shoot. My friends say I look like him. Apologies for the long email. Let's jump in. I'm finishing up my training in cardiothoracic surgery. There we go. Sorry for the stall on that word.

I say that not as some type of brag or anything, but merely to demonstrate that my field is pretty small and can be very difficult to break into. I received an email recently from a person I work in close physical proximity to for a couple years, but never really spoke to clarify. I did a couple years of research during my residency and had a desk in a room with three other desks,

one in each corner of a rectangular room. This person worked- Kitelli was close to those guys. Three other desks. These guys didn't have a taco party. This person worked at a desk diagonally across the room for me with our backs to each other. We were on completely different projects with different supervisors. We were just physically near each other. It's not an exaggeration to say we spoke maybe three sentences to each other in two years. I don't even know his name. Fast forward to last week and he somehow tracked me down to my new institution using my new

email address to ask me about putting in a good word for him to the boss to hopefully get one of the open first year resident spots here. I had to run his name through the old Google machine to try to figure out who this person was or if it was just a Junk spam email turns out he's at a really tough road through life including immigration and visa issues that were no fault of his own He's requesting that I speak to the program director Basically hiring manager to put in a good word for him regarding a spot that opened up unexpectedly My question is do I have to on one hand? I don't know this guy at all,

can't possibly go to bat for a stranger. If he gets hired and he sucks, it's a direct reflection on me and damages my credibility. Not to mention that this is one of those fields where if you suck, you can actually be a danger to people. Also, I'd be lying to my boss. On the other hand, I feel like a real dick either ignoring his email or telling him I can.

It sounds like his road through life has been much more difficult than most, most of which would seem circumstantial. I want to help him out if I can, but how do you personally vouch for a stranger you work near but not with for a couple of years and haven't seen in four to five years? I'm pretty strict on this one. I think when I was younger, I was a little looser with it as you know how hard it is in the desirable fields. But I've got burned so many times in the beginning and even people I knew a little bit, you know,

you're like, cause it's, some people are just really loose with it, hey, do you know this person? You have a contact here, okay, boom, done. Yeah, voucher me. Like, yeah, I know this person. Then you're talking them up and then- When you're younger, it seems cool. Like to be able to be like, you've done something

you could pull something like that off. Like, yeah, right. It's a great call Kyle. You feel good for yourself. You're like, yeah, I got some fucking sway around here. And then younger it seems cool like to be able to be like you've done something you could pull something like that off like yeah Right is you feel good for yourself. You're like, yeah, I got some fucking sway around here. Yeah, like Todd's here Wouldn't you be here without me? Yeah. Oh, like I like the idea of it Yeah, there was a time where Not that it's the same but you know towards I don't know ten plus years of ESPN like every now and then somebody would come By and like people said you're a good person to talk to about like some of, some of these contract things and like how this stuff all works. And I was like, yeah, I don't,

I don't know, I could tell you, I could tell you some stories, but sure. But yeah, I guess there was a moment where I, when I realized it was happening a few times, I was kind of like, oh, I guess this is a compliment or some thing, but it's not necessarily relating to my own power and influence for myself. So it was kind of a contradiction on the whole thing. Like, yeah, I have this place absolutely fucking wired, except for the parts that have to do with me. But yeah, these people eating out of the palm of my hand.

It is something that I did. And then ultimately I started realizing like, unless I absolutely know this person, you know, like Saruti is a perfect example. When he was kind of in between some stuff, um, after the NBA radio thing, you know, it was handled really poorly. Um, it was, it was like, okay, well this, I know exactly who he is and I was with him all the time. So like, it's not saying like everybody has to be at a sorority level for everybody, but I think it gets a little dangerous. And you're right. When you're younger, there's a part of you that wants to be able to pull something off like this. I think it's so perfectly set and a great observation

from you. But when we're talking about this kind of field and you do not know this person at all and it's a very small world. I don't know that you can take this kind of risk. I mean, this isn't like saying, I mean, some of the references here are going to be a little outdated. But like think of the jobs where you're like, yeah, I can whatever. Like it's up to you to kind of get it done. Like you get somebody a bartending gig, you know, and then they're like, hey, this guy's slow on Fridays. Just, you know, whatever, shrug. But if you're in the medical field, this specific field, and you're just going, yeah, this guy's good, it's actually kind of ridiculous,

I think that he even asked you, but that's also kind of the way the world works. It's like any kind of- Just put them shots up when you're looking for a job. Yeah. Any kind of contact, any single person you could be like, oh, I know this guy and I was with him. But I mean, it sounds like you guys were almost in detention together for two years, more so than it was anything that you worked together. So I don't know. Look, if you're feeling somewhat guilty about it, is there any way that you can talk to people that do know him?

But then you're like, what are you doing? Hey, I got a free afternoon. So now I'm going to research this guy's background to see whether or not a guy who I do not know is deserving of a recommendation that I still don't feel really good about. So I know it's a tough email to go, Hey dude, I don't really know you. I can't do that. But considering what's on the line, I don't know that there's any other option. Is the like, I don't know, is apathetic. The word is like, is the kind of shrug conversation with the hiring manager to be like, I met him.

Um, he was a nice guy. He was quiet. He asked, he asked me to talk to you. Uh, you know, he didn't eat any stinky food, like just whatever, whatever info you have over those two years. Be like, he seemed, you know, seemed like a, it wasn't eat any stinky food. Like just whatever info you have over those two years, be like, he seemed, you know, seemed like it wasn't bad for morale. Like, is that worse than no reference at all in this?

I don't know. Like, would that be okay for you to feel like you didn't say anything bad or you didn't lie to try to get this guy in, but you're just like, I do know this man. He asked me to talk to you. He's real. He's real.

And as far as I could tell, he was never late. Or something like, I don't know. I just, I wonder if, like, that's the way that your conscience is okay on both sides of the fence here. You're not screwing this guy over, and you're not screwing over the poor guy who's going under the knife by him because you don't know anything.

So maybe that's okay, or maybe that's just like, why would you give a totally bland reference about somebody? Like, are you stealing their faith that way too? I don't know. I would just say that on our point before, when it feels good to get your buddy's jobs, my friend became the kitchen manager at the melting pot

and then ultimately the GM hired all of his friends and then had to fire all of us over the next two years. And so, you know, there was a, like it was two years of being like, man, that guy, that guy just hooked us all up. And then he had to like one by one fire all of us. We're still friends to this day, but you know, it's not all good just to get your buddy's jobs.

Like his brother was fresh out and he was like, he was out of jail for like two weeks and it's like, oh, welcome to the kitchen. It's like, holy shit. I know, I had a friend who was a show runner and you know, somebody I was friends with. So it wasn't like some random person, but somebody that I'd known for a while. He had said something about needing this role cast for a location. And I was like,

oh, I know someone. And he was like, have her come in and read and try out for it. So I thought it was kind of like a huge favor. I was like, yeah, all right, no problem. I'll set it up. I'll link you two up. And then a couple of days went by and I was like, oh no, I haven't heard anything. And then he was like, dude, are you serious? And I was like, yeah, all right, you know, my bad.

Didn't know which direction we were going on this. And I was like, yeah, all right, you know, my bad. Didn't know which direction we were going on this. Yeah, you know, so I guess it wasn't, you know, it may have been somebody wasn't right for the part. Let's just say it that way. But I think you nailed something also, Kyle. You're on fire today. If you want to like technically be in the clear and not feel like you're being addicted to this guy,

do exactly what you said. Go to the director, go to whoever the person is that's in charge of this thing and say, hey, look, this guy sat in a room, I never talked to him. He wants me to put in a good word for him. I don't feel necessarily comfortable doing that because I don't know him, good or bad. He might be great. I have no idea, but I do know him. And there you go. And so then when he says to you. I can vouch for his whereabouts in 2021. I can tell you.

You need a height and a weight, I'm gonna get you close. Hair color, yeah, I could do that. Right, if you robbed a convenience store, I'm gonna get you a good description. But that way, you know, when the guy's like, hey, did you ever say anything to that guy? And you'd be like, sure did, sure did. And you're in the clear.

All right, thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Jonathan Frias. Get better, Wargon, he'll be fine. And then, you know, the countdown to Saruti is gonna be, who knows, who knows what's gonna be going on? We're gonna have summer league MVPs. That'll do it for the pod. You can check us out on the Spotify app as a video pod

and also our YouTube page, Ryan Roussela Podcast Ringer Spotify. They were going to name me Michael Jordan. My dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it. So they named me Michael Jared. Must be 21 and older, present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support Massachusetts or call 1-877-8 HOPE NY or text HOPENY in New York.