The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Tales From the Couch: NBA Christmas Games. Plus, Life Advice 

Episode Date: December 26, 2020

Russillo shares his notes from all of the NBA Christmas Day games including: Heat-Pelicans, Bucks-Warriors, Nets-Celtics, Lakers-Mavericks, and Clippers-Nuggets (2:00). Then Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

this is the plan for today we have a old school old school tales from the couch used to do way way back in the day at espn and we didn't book a guest because i don't want to book anybody around christmas so that's what we're going to do and a couple of life advice at the end. So thank you for checking out the Ryan Rassoula podcast. Today's episode of the Ryan Rassoula podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate? That's like drafting a player that becomes an all-pro, the real deal.

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those that are new to this podcast and i mean even people that have been around for a long time still you may be thinking what's this guy gonna do basically what i used to do back in in the day for the nba today pod which was one of the first NBA pods we had at ESPN. I think it was, then it was actually the first one. I would watch as many games as I could and write down notes and rotations and all the stuff that I thought was fun or some of their go-to stuff in a big spot. Like, okay, this is something that they would run. You know, look, I, it was, it was a little obsessive and it was actually the end of the pod because I was putting so much work into it that the people at the podcast department were like,

how about you just do less work? And I was like, yeah, for 75 bucks a podcast though, this is, this is a lot of work. This is a lot of work. And so anyway, uh, I would do something where I would watch every game. Like if it were Tuesday, although Tuesday is usually light, I would try to watch a piece of every single game that was on the schedule take notes so it'd go from like 7 to 2 a.m. and then I would go in and go over all the notes again and actually I'm taking too long to even set this up so I watched the five games yesterday I'll admit I probably lost a little steam after the fifth blowout of the day so the first, Miami's win against the New Orleans Pelicans, 111-98. Looking early at some of the rotational stuff, Bam was on Zion. Didn't really matter. Here's

the great part about Zion. He covers up for some of your problems just by sheer force. I mean, he does not care whether it's on offense or attacking glass. I mean, he had a play, as much as we all love Bam, where Bam had perfect position and Zion just went through him, not in a foul way, but in a, you're just, you can't box me out. Zion's power, his force, his aggressiveness, the second jump, all those things that we like about him. There's just really not much you can do with it. So even though I worry about the lineups that we're going to get to in the spacing and where the shooters and how does this Adam Zion thing fit together? Cause I am really worried about it. They're just going to be moments offensively where Zion is just too much to deal with. And there's, there's nothing that you can do, but the heat were on fire from three.

They started this one 13 and 19 from deep and even Myers Leonard got into the act. Did you know Myers Leonard, 41% from three last year, 39% from three for his career. That's on two attempts, I think, per game for his career, but he's obviously going to shoot him a little bit more. So when I was looking at the Zion Adams part of it and how they'd match him or stagger it, they took Zion out in the first quarter at 532, but then brought him back in at 243.

So you can see that Stan Van Gundy, a lot of this stuff is very obvious. We obsess about it and talk about it. Stan knows the issue, but Stan also knows that the team last year that just gave up layups left and right. Jackson Hayes, for those that had Jackson Hayes stock, you might want to figure out a way to hedge that a little.

He played three minutes in the second game. This is somebody who played 17 minutes a game last year. Again, we're only two games in. Let's do that. One big declaration. If I'm doing all this stuff, I too am also aware, like you are when you hear something you don't like. I realize that a lot of teams have played one game. Some played zero.

And a few have played two. So it is very early. I am aware. Okay. But New Orleans throughout this, we got the positive out of the way. Let's focus on the negative. They put on an absolute clinic for bad defense.

I don't know what they're doing. I don't know what the rules are. I don't know what the coverage is. I don't know how they want to play certain screens because they don't know. They don't know right now. And it's not a knock on anybody. It's a couple of days in.

They weren't a great defensive team last year. We know this. But there are some moments where I'm watching going, I just, I don't even know what you're doing. And the reason I don't know is because they don't know. The help off a corner threes. It used to be standard. You just helped off a corner threes to the inside. I don't know if this is the best analogy,

but offensive linemen, when you're looking at pass rushers, if there's a screw up, it's stay inside. Let the outside guy go. At least grab the inside guy. And you could tell guys like LeBron who would just read your help ahead of time. And this stuff is stuff that can be really impressive, but then once it's explained and you see it enough, you go, Oh yeah, no, that makes sense. Where LeBron would drive right and set up the help off the corner. And then he would just throw it into the corner for a wide open three, because everybody would help off of that all the time. And now everybody's such a good shooter and everybody's just shooting threes all the time that some teams will say,

don't help. And here's a's a here's one if it's Duncan Robinson you probably shouldn't leave him alone in the corner I'd rather give up the layup than than Duncan Robinson in that spot especially if you're asking Zion to go out there and recover because that's the position that Zion was in in a Duncan Robinson play where I mean yeah he left Duncan I don't know if he's supposed to not supposed to I would think he's not but then it's also Zion who's just used to being around the basket a little bit more so I don't I don't know what they're trying to do there Van Gundy's talked about you know fixing some of the rim protection issues that they had from last year and that's a big reason why they have the Zion

or excuse me the the Adams uh acquisition and the extension on top of it so then they actually switched JJ Redick onto Duncan because he could at least chase him around a little bit better. And you had something on the left side. So it was the opposite side where Zion got caught in between deciding, did he want to go to Avery Bradley or did he want to go to Iggy in the corner for a three? And Hart was behind him directing him. And I don't even have heart. This isn't criticism. I don't know if Hart was telling him the rule or what they were supposed to do. Zion caught in the middle hey do I go to Avery so he he goes kind of like he's just stuck and then Iggy hits a wide open three and it wasn't just that there was one play where Butler who was had Ingram on him Ingram Ingram kind of got screened, but he didn't.

The screen missed. Ingram just stopped. And then with a front line of Zion Adams and Brandon Ingram, Jimmy Butler has a layup. So they're bad. They're really bad on defense. I don't know what's going to happen, but on that Ingram play, that one wasn't a rule.

That wasn't a coverage. That wasn't miscommunication. It was, ah, I'm just going to get caught up in this. It's just a bunch of people around and I don't want to deal with this. So there you go. The Miami ball movement, incredible. Butler didn't come back in the second half. You didn't even notice it. That's how good they are offensively right now. The lack of layoff for them, meaning less layoff for Miami actually may be a huge positive for them because they look crisp. They look like they know exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And there are times that ball is pinging around for them in the half court where you go, I can't believe this is the first

week of basketball. And that's where, again, that shorter layoff for them may be a huge advantage. Ingram went absolutely nuts sometimes offensively. He had three drives in the second half where you're like, I can't believe he actually got these shots up. But it didn't matter because they couldn't stop anybody. The fourth quarter, there was hope. It was 88-79. Looking at the lineup there, it was Adams, Zion, Hart, Bledsoe, and JJ. And the Adams, Ingram, Zion, Lonzo, Bledsoe deal, they take Bledsoe out, it looks like, early and put in JJ.

And they start the staggering process in there. I was a little surprised in how it went. Zion out in the first and then back in again to get him away from Adams. But, you know, look, on the other side, it didn't matter. It looks like New Orleans is playing seven guys with Hart and J.J. off the bench. Mellie played about nine minutes and then, as I mentioned, Jackson, three minutes. But the Heat had Bam, Duncan, Harkless, who was playing, Avery, and Dragic once Butler was out. And Dragic had some moments, incredible, incredible drives himself.

So, you know, the big thing, I think the lesson in this is Miami has so many aggressive offensive players. It's terrific to watch. I know the star power, the way we define stars, that drop from one to two is significant. And even Butler, I know what he power, the way we define stars, that drop from one to two is significant. And even Butler, I know what he did in the playoffs, but he's not some locked top 10 player in this league. He hasn't been.

Maybe he will be for an entire year. But he put together a performance in the playoffs that wasn't really even who we had seen him be in the past. But as far as the collection of pieces and Precious Achua, who I already love, I liked before the draft. He fits in perfectly there. There's a really cool moment at about three-something minutes left to go. Buzzer sounds.

They're on the free throw line. Precious turns to the bench looking, expecting Bam to come back in for him. Turns around and is like, oh, I guess I'm staying in. And those are those little moments. And maybe moments we're going to see with this kind of schedule where teams are going to go, you know what? If we trust you enough, we're going to keep you out there in some situations where maybe you didn't think you were going to stay out there. All right, so there you go.

That's Miami's win. Second game, Milwaukee Golden State, 138-99 for Milwaukee. This was a foul fest from the jump. Milwaukee was in the bonus with 733 to go in the first quarter. Sweet. Okay, let's do the Golden State part of this first because there's actually more to it. They're bad. They are really bad right now. Now, this is also what happens when $57 million isn't playing between Clay and then Draymond still not playing. So what happens here is Steph's your one, but now Wiggins is your two and Oubre is your three. I think we like the idea

of Wiggins as a three, four off of the full roster, or at least to see what it looked like, but we already know what it looks like. There's some great drives that don't work. He's just not that good. I can't believe he was 19th in scoring last year. He's just not, and he's a terrible contract. They had hoped to flip Wiggins into something else this guy but Wiggins is getting his moment to showcase himself and you know he's he's still gonna put up numbers this year he's gonna have a couple games where me saying this I'm gonna go oh look at Wiggins yeah he's gonna probably have a month where he hits 40 percent of threes and scoring like 23 24 a game I don't know what it means with him because the problem is now that

with Curry one and Wiggins who was supposed to be a 3-4 and Oubre was supposed to be a 4-5, you have Wiggins as the 2, Oubre as the 3, and then when Curry is out, Wiggins is the 1. And that's not good. Wiggins is now at one point,

he was what, 2 for 10 on 3s I think now in the season. Yeah, that's, that's a season note there. Oubre's shooting 17 and 0% from the floor and three. He's 0 for 11 from three already on the year. But Oubre's not afraid to celebrate a turnover. It's almost like you watch it and you go, oh yeah, that's right. This is the part where people get annoyed with this guy.

Okay. They had a lineup at one point of Wiggins, Poole, Wanamaker, Pascal, and Looney. Any guesses on how that went? They actually, and I say ran with quotes because I don't think it was a play. They ran an action on the left side where it was like a Looney, Poole, and Pascal weave. And that ended with a corner three attempt by Looney, who's 15% from three of his career, and he missed. So it's tough to watch.

It's tough to watch. And Curry has been bad too, 34%, 20% from the floor. Now, what this comes down to is, are they going to figure out a way to get this to work? I mean, Draymond coming back to have another facilitator is one thing but it's also adding another non-shooter uber and wiggins are supposed to be passable enough as shooters and they're terrible every curry movement is followed by if there's a screen for curry two people stay with them and there's no one else to pass to

and the difference between the harden and curry thing is that harden actually physically is more conditioned to hold up. I'm not talking conditioning. I'm talking size and strength. Harden is stronger. He is durable. He is somebody that can take on isolation the entire time, but also everybody kind of knew exactly what they were doing.

Now, I think Curry could run isolation if he wanted to, but I don't think you'd want him driving relentlessly to the hoop for 70 games here to salvage the season. The problem with Curry is that everything is based on movement. It's his drives and passing while everyone is moving around him. That's why basketball people loved Golden State because it was unbelievable to watch people play to the end of possessions, to constantly move. The movement set up other things. And Curry was the orchestrator of the entire thing. So Curry has put together incredible plus minus stats that show you it was him and it

was not everyone else. But now when it's guys that don't even know how to play with him, guys that don't move, guys that miss, I don't know what the hell they're supposed to do. And Curry's going to play better. He'll have some nice moments. But him dragging them to the playoffs, I don't know, man hell they're supposed to do. And Curry's going to play better. He'll have some nice moments, but him dragging them to the playoffs. Yeah, I don't know, man, that, that looks tough. The positive is Wiseman looks like already in a week, you're going to have teams going. Why did we wait? Why wasn't he like the clear cut? Number one, going into the draft.

Why was there like a debate about this? Why does some people have them so low on their board? Like what, What's happening? And I'm not even talking about three-point shooting because he hit a couple yesterday that were, they look good, but that's the thing. It's Wiseman's ceiling is, wait, does he have perimeter skills and some touch and can handle a little bit and all that stuff? Because the non-ceiling stuff that really gets you excited

is actually really impressive too. Okay, Milwaukee on the other side of this. Here's the great news. Giannis made his second shot from the floor, I think it's 66-56. So even though this game got disgusting, there was actually a time where it was competitive. Giannis wasn't that good is what I'm saying.

And Giannis, by the way, yeah, that's right. Second field goal of 66-56. But his free throws are a big concern. 7-15. Let's look at Giannis' career here. Free throw shooting. 74%, 72%, 77%, 76%, 73%. And last year, 63%. Once these guys get it in their heads that I don't really like being out here, it can be ugly to look at. So the free throw thing, I mean, you hope it doesn't get worse here. And Westbrook's one of the rare guys who just was all of a sudden missing and then kind of turned it back around. And Westbrook was able to do that a bit last year. But we know this about Milwaukee. They're plus 17 in rebounds in this.

Their shooting was light years better than Golden State. You can have this kind of game, and Middleton is that good. And even though Drew's numbers overall weren't terrific, you can already see the Drew offense stuff that

is going to get them out of some of their jams in the playoffs. I already feel comfortable about that. And honestly, this is a positive. It's seriously a positive for Milwaukee because you could have Giannis play that poorly and still beat a team by like 40 points. Brooklyn 123-95

over Boston. Kyrie goes off in the first half. There's one play in the baseline where he was left baseline. If you're watching on your television, left to right, so left baseline above the rim. He went baseline. If you're watching on your television, left to right, so left baseline above the rim. He went base. He just U-turned baseline on Jalen Brown, and it was like Jalen wasn't even there.

It wasn't. And when you see Kyrie do some of the things he's done offensively now this week, you go, oh, that's why everybody puts up with that stuff. Because that's why I also thought it was really funny. Like people love, front offices love to say stuff like, oh, I wouldn't trade for that guy.

Like, okay, do you have the assets? Would he want to come here? Is it a seamless transition for you? Were you offered Kyrie and you said no? As much as I can't stand some of the Kyrie stuff, like trust me, we've been over all of it. Teams would still take on Kyrie. They just would.

And the only teams that wouldn't are already set roster-wise. The Lakers don't have to go, well, yeah, we would still take on Kyrie. They just would. And the only teams that wouldn't are already set roster-wise. The Lakers don't have to go, well, yeah, we wouldn't take them. Well, you don't need them. Probably going to beat everybody already anyway. We'll get to the Lakers in a little bit. It's 54-51 halftime, though, for Boston. Okay? And then we had the Kevin Durant show. And this was the entire package. I'm telling you in a seven minute stretch in the third quarter, this was the game. He got Tristan Thompson on him, sticks a three in his face. Tristan, by the way, his mobility on switches is the thing that was always great about him defensively that he could switch out into smaller guys and not just keep you even. He was

actually an advantage. I'm telling you, he was that good at it. It gets lost in Cleveland because of effort. The team stinks. So you're hoping to see that back. I'm worried about his movement near the rim now. So when Kevin Durant pulls up at 7-1 and sticks a three in your face and you're Tristan, that's not bad defense. It's just Kevin Durant. So then they got a screen where Durant had two with them because they tried to keep two with them this time, a screen at the top, throws an alley-oop to DeAndre Jordan. Then he works. He's like, hey, Grant Williams, you want some of this shit too? Okay. Sticks a three in his face. And then he gets smart on him and he goes right at smart.

He gets free throws. Then they try to double. They make a great pass out of that. Then he gets Tatum on him, and he just shakes Tatum right to left, goes right past Tatum, dunks baseline. This was all in seven minutes. Oh, by the way, and when Tatum was in, Durant was guarding him. I don't know why people had moved off of Durant so quickly. Yes, I know it's an Achilles, but I still feel like the version of him that's out there playing,

maybe he gets hurt again because of compensation or whatever, but healthy, cleared, and ready to go. What did you think it was going to look like? You think it's 1984? It just isn't. Now, granted, I saw some of the comps. Hey, DeMarcus, these guys are massive. They're huge.

I don't know what Cousins is going to look like in older years in his career anyway. Like a lot of guys will tell you 25, 26, the leaping, the power, the quickness, that jump. Like 26, 27 for NBA players is actually when it starts to go away. Because if you were really special, you were already in the league at like 19 or 20 anyway. So that's six, seven full seasons of that wear and tear for Durant. It's also smooth. It's not shaking you like Derrick Rose. It's even though he can kind of do some of that stuff. I mean, those are the times too, where you'll look at Durant going as great as Anthony Davis's perimeter skills are as much of a unicorn as Przingis is. This is stupid. What Durant is as a human being

on a basketball court. It doesn't make any sense. And I'm thrilled to see him back out there. I love it. I hate to see greatness derailed by injuries, even if I don't even like the player. And Durant's somebody I think most of us all like. So Brooklyn, the scary part here is Kyrie engaged defensively.

Durant, terrific defensively on top of that offensive collage that he hit us at. And then Karis Levert, who second unit gets wherever he wants. So yeah, nasty. And I don't think I saw a Kyrie jersey swap after this game from Robert Williams, which if the Celtics had caught him immediately for doing a jersey swap with Kyrie in the preseason game, I don't know if you could argue against it. Two more games to go. I'm going to go a little quicker on these because it was just blowout Friday, basically. Dallas at the Lakers. I was trying to figure out the rotations on this a little bit. That LeBron Davis-Montrez thing is just not going to happen,

as far as I can tell from watching them start the season. Let's pick it up eight minutes to go in the second quarter. It's Caruso, it's Talon Horton-Tucker, the long-armed THT. LeBron, who then got subbed out for Pope. So it was Caruso, Tucker, Pope, Marquise Morris, and Trez. So I was like, wow, okay. And then on the other side, Dallas just is trying to throw all these wings at you. And without Porzingis, I don't really know what's all that insightful about Dallas.

If Porzingis has come back in January, all right, let's see what it looks like. So that's why I'm not getting that worked up about Dallas getting beat in this game. For the Lakers on the side of it, I mean, maybe Montrez with the new contract. And another thing that I've noticed too, the national reaction versus the Los Angeles reaction in LA, it was a slam dunk that, Hey, look at the Lakers.

They grabbed Montrez, one of the Clippers, most important players. And I'm sitting there going, why, why does everybody look at it that way? Like it's way more about a Baca nationally. People are in agreement.

So I think I got a little too caught up being too close to it here in Los Angeles where it felt like the Lakers' domination of everything was that, yeah, it was also a great off-season thing. I like Montrez, but sometimes energy, even though we love energy, sometimes energy can actually mask a lack of ability at times. And I still like Montrez.

I would want him on my team, but I don't want him trying to do a million things. And in some of these lineups that, especially with the Lakers and how they're going to try to find rest within stretches, that's fine. And I mean, still look, they, they still blew them out. It's not a big deal, but there was some moments with Montrez trying to do a little bit on his own offensively. And I don't know if that means that when they recruited him, they go, Hey, we think you

can do all sorts of stuff and take our contract and all this stuff you would say, recruiting people. And then it's like, okay, by the way, just catch, catch it on a roll. We don't really want you trying to dribble through people and posting and throwing multiple moves because that's not really who he is. Um, you know, Anthony Davis is going to just crush you with, with that front line for Dallas. Now, what Dallas liked to do when they had Przingis is they would use Przingis is they would use Przingis in a way where Davis had to chase him. You know, it was something Dallas did that

was really smart is that Przingis, they liked the matchup with Przingis because they would, they would make Anthony Davis have to guard him, which would change Anthony Davis positionally all out on the court. And I'm not saying like Przinga is going to shut down Anthony Davis. Nobody is. But if Davis is hitting threes, they were talking through the broadcast. He's going to take more threes. Vogel wants him taking five threes a game, all that stuff. I mean, that's a wrap.

So the Lakers are hitting a million threes. They got 69 points at the half. They're up 14 rebounds. There was one play where Doncic drove, got cut off, drove again, got cut off. Hard away, shot clock layup, terrific play, drive, just gets the shot off before. It was a struggle. It was like three possessions in one, and they finally get a bucket at the shot clock.

The other side, they come down, run a Schroeder AD pick and roll, and it doesn't even matter. It was just bucket. It was so easy, and that was the game. There's maybe one slight concern, and maybe it's the Akogi back-to-back strips from Minnesota in a preseason game on Doncic. But the swiping at Doncic now on drives, not like this is new, but maybe even more so with this current lineup and no real secondary guy. I understand what they did. They brought in Josh Richardson, more complete player than Seth Curry.

They have a financial decision they have to make, and that's probably why Dallas, or excuse me, Philadelphia was ready to trade probably the better player in Richardson, even though he wasn't great in Philadelphia, for somebody like Seth to provide spacing. We all know why all this stuff is happening. James Johnson, the same deal,

but then it's a little Finney-Smith, then it's Hardaway again. It's Cleaver, who's kind of underrated, really, know it's trying to salvage some defense that was a mess last year by bringing in some more hard-nosed multiple switchable guys like we could see why all that's happening but it's still donch it's trying to run everything in a hardened five out style that uh is is tough i mean it's just tough. As great as he is, and he's that great on angles and getting you on the hip,

and you know what else he's great at? He drives away from the rim, but then is big enough to turn his body at the last minute to finish at the rim, so it's almost like he's setting you up with a punch outside of your ear to get you to move your head to set up the second punch.

He'll drive. It's not always straight line of the rim. He'll drive away a little bit to, to kind of finish in a, in a way that like, you don't know exactly what he's going to do. I mean, he's absolutely brilliant at all this stuff,

but everybody's helping off and swiping and you're seeing some of this stuff happen where it's clogging him up a bit. Um, you know, Gasol got a little run. That was a really important note. apparently that i needed to share with you um i don't know it doesn't really i don't think it really matters even though it was 106 97 and i'm looking at it was a caruso caldwell pope kuzma montrez ad lineup and the other side is

don josh burke richards Richardson Hardaway and then Boban but you know none of this I mean just basically it's a TBD on Dallas entirely until they get Porzingis back and even LeBron I mean he went for 22 it was pretty pedestrian the fadeaway that he hit on Donchich is ridiculous some of these fadeaways LeBron's hitting you know the last couple years it's just a whole nother of comfort. He's more comfortable with that than free throws. And he only played 31 minutes. I mean, he got 50 out of those guys, and they played 61 minutes combined. So you had a lot of different bench things they're looking at.

Kuzma gave you something. And honestly, Montrez's overall numbers were terrific. I was just talking about a couple of those isolation plays where you're like, okay, that's probably not what they want to do. Last one, Clippers at Denver the emotional rematch let's put it this way, the Clippers had to win this game, if they didn't

probably with Christmas and the weekend and more football, week 16, the playoff race is coming down to the final week, a lot of times news and results can get lost in the shuffle of everything else that's going on so, that could have happened here with the Clippers, but at least for those of us that are hardcore NBA people, if the Clippers had lost to Denver, there would be a lingering up. You know, they're just it's in their head.

It's a huge problem. Well, it wasn't last night. This was a show from three on this one. I picked it up 47-33 Clippers on the game, 19-38 from three. I mean, if you're going to do that, you're just going to beat everybody. Paul George looks terrific. Terrific. We all know my 30-13 on Paul George.

The theory is still alive and well, but in the two games that I've watched him, him drive and put the brakes on you, forget it. I mean, he's looked incredible. And then there are moments where I was like, does, does he look better than Kawhi? And then Kawhi has a moment where, you know, he's got Jamal Murray in a post on the, on the left block. It was like further out on the left block, just nightmare over, uh, Richard Jefferson getting on Jamal Murray big time. I mean, Jamal wasn't terrible last night on the overall numbers, 23 points, nine to 10 from the floor, not great from three to get the free throw line.

But he was like, hey, man, you need to wake up. I mean, it's two games in, so let's relax a little bit here. But the Clippers look really good. They won a game where had they lost it, they'd be talked about differently, at least in local circles. I think it would have been missed nationally, where if this were a Thursday night game and the Clippers lose to the Nuggets, this Clippers team mentally, there's just something wrong with them.

And right now, it looks like there's nothing wrong with them. I thought the Clippers were really good. I thought the Clipper hangover was a little too dramatic. Yes, it's brutal. 3-1 lead to a Nuggets team that's still finding its way at that point. But there's a couple things that I want to point out that don't really have that much to do with the game because even though Kawhi missed time,

it sounds like he's going to be back with with the stitches it was really about three-point shooting it was about assisting the threes in this and Denver has lost two games and their defense is uh is the carryover from last year so here here's the thing with Denver so I have to get to these two points and we'll be done I saw something that I liked for Denver, even though it was bad for Denver. We know how much we've talked about Michael Porter Jr. on the podcast and that like at some point, especially during the regular season when they had injuries

and Porter Jr. was showing these brilliant offensive glimpses of who he could be. They're like, wait, so when Millsap and like somebody else is out, Grant's out, you still can't get Porter on the floor? It's because Porter was that bad with some of the screening stuff. And they would just take him right out. And he'd be like, you know, look, just leave him in. Leave him in.

He's not going to get any better just constantly getting punished or thinking he's going to get yanked. And anybody that's ever played at any level, there's just nothing worse than when you're a young player and you're thinking, oh, am I going to get benched if I screw this up? I actually don't think you can play with that stuff. Now, there was a screen that was right in front of Porter Jr. at the far left corner. So left to right on your TV, we're at the bench left corner. And Beverly comes and sets a front screen on Michael Porter Jr. that seals him from going to the corner for Kawhi

who hits a wide open three. I mean, it's bad. It's right in front of you. You're going to see what's happening. It's Kawhi. Chances are he's going to be corner for Kawhi who hits a wide open three. I mean, it's bad. It's right in front of you. You're going to see what's happening. It's Kawhi. Chances are he's going to be involved in this play. What are you doing? Beverly just walks into him, seals him off, and Porter gets caught.

And he got caught because he wasn't paying attention, not because of some back screen or, oh, what the hell is going on here? I mean, sometimes you just get beat. The NBA will remind us. There was a play in that Heat game where they ran an action where Duncan got screened on the left three-point elbow, the wing area. Hart gets screened, has to chase Duncan Robinson

all the way to the right side. Robinson catch and shoot three. Hart had no chance. And then everybody on the bench gets mad, and you're like, you know what? Sometimes the NBA's insane. Sometimes these guys are so good with the amount of ground they cover on any kind of play that you're just going to lose that possession. And in that case, that was a winnable possession, or at least it was a contestable possession.

And Porter Jr. didn't do anything. He just got caught. They call the timeout. So I'm sitting there going, all right, are they going to not bring Porter Jr. back in? Like, are we still doing this? And they brought him back in. So I thought that was a positive, despite the fact that Denver, who again, was 16th in defensive rating last year. They're bottom eight right now. The number's terrible.

I'm not worried about what their defensive efficiency is two games in after the weird game against Sacramento and losing this Clippers game. People could talk about Jeremy Grant. They were an average to below average defense last year. You know what's funny is Gary Harris, who gives you no offense, had one great offensive play, two points. But, you know, he'll be back at least full time to maybe help you cover up for Murray because Murray's never going to be a defensive stopper. And it's not even fair to get on his case against some of these posts where, you know, he got stuck with Kawhi Leonard. And when it was solo, Kawhi

went to work. And then when they brought a double, it was almost like a triple Kawhi made the right play. So this is way more positive about the Clippers winning their second regular season game against a team. They should never have blown a 3-1 lead against than it is any anti-Denver stuff. I was thrilled that Malone left Porter in after what I thought was a pretty obvious mistake. One last thing, because there's a thread. There's a Nick Batum thread. If you say Nick Batum is a sneaky, awesome pickup for the Clippers, I'm not going to have a ton of respect for you. I don't even think you're a good parent, perhaps.

No, I'm kidding. I'm being a little dramatic. And I'm not talking about a broadcast because that's not fair. Broadcasters all have to be positive. The NBA is a product where they want everyone talking positively about the product for the most part, especially the home announcers. So I've given up. That doesn't matter. But Batum is playing like, have you ever played in a pickup

game where you know you're the worst player? You're like, man, everybody else is a lot better than me. And what do you do? Or that high school kid who just shouldn't even be on the varsity team. Maybe the dad's a coach or something. And what do they do a lot of? They they do a lot of those like in between passes that lead to nothing. If there were a version of negative assists, they would have like 12 a game where it's you pass to them and they're not making a decision. They're just immediately passing it to somebody else. And then like running away to the corner where they're not going to be in the movement at all. And it's like, yeah, you know, like keeping the ball moving, we're getting, it's swinging, you know, clapping a lot, a lot of that shit. And when you watch it, if you look for it, you can see it. And it's certainly when you're

doing it, you know what you're doing. You look like you're active. You look like you're part of the game, but you just aren't. And that's what Batum is. I can't believe they're playing him this many minutes. They put in 36 minutes in this game. And I know his, his field goal percentage was good. He's five, eight. God, he had 10 rebounds too. That's, this is hilarious. Uh, I, I don't see it at all. I don't, when, when you stop, when you drive against Batum and you stop, he keeps going, trying to recover. So it just, it looks bad, but he's playing 36 minutes. He's still only 32 years old. The 10 rebounds things, actually, I got to admit,

I'm like, wait, 10 rebounds. That's weird. Uh, he's eight and he's an eight and eight, five guy right now with a 15 per. So I'm just telling you, I, um, God, he's playing 36 and 28 minutes to start the season. I don't, I don't see it. I don't see it. And I'm glad I didn't see the 13 and 10 because it wasn't going to change my mind anyway. I've seen too much of the stuff where I'm like, I can't believe this guy's out there starting and now playing 36 minutes for a team that should contend in the West. As good as the Lakers are, I still think the Clippers should at least be part of the conversation,

but nobody's going to want to do that because of what they did last year. That's Tales from the Couch. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid.

So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Kyle, did you have a good Christmas? Yeah, man. I chilled out in the house. How about you? Just chilled out? Yeah.

What do you mean? Well, I watch Christmas Story. I do that every year. Yeah? Were you with anyone? Yeah. My girlfriend, but we didn't go anywhere didn't do anything

there's old folks around gotta keep them alive so we're just staying home that's good that's a responsible that's a responsible content guy right there good for you alright let's let's see what else we have here for people that had never heard

Tales from the Couch I'll admit sometimes I'm surprised people like it. So we'll see. As the podcast grows, new audience, they're like, wait, this guy just talked about his notes for 35 minutes. So we'll see. But hey, it's Christmas. We didn't want to do guests. We're going to do that for you. All right.

Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Check it in. Hey, Ryan, a lot of guys are in this situation I'm going to ask you about. Well, let's find out. I'm 26 and single. Work at a financial firm. Sweet. Long story short, I work with a girl who I got to be really good friends with at work.

Similar personalities, always making each other laugh. But it was always platonic because she had a longtime boyfriend. Recently, one of her friends we both work with told me she broke up with her longtime boyfriend and the friend thought we'd be a great match and I should ask her out now that she's single. I've always been a proponent of not dating someone I work with and melding those two work personal lives together. But the more I think about it, the more I do like this girl more than a friend and from office gossip, I think she feels the same way about me. That's exciting

how should i yeah how should i approach the situation should i ask her out right away give her some time since she just broke up with her long-term boyfriend or keep feeling out the situation before making a move well buddy you have uh asked one of the uh it's not new this is one of the great mysteries of man because everyone's different. So let's start there. Everyone is different. So you could give her space and you don't know what her timeline for space is. She could want to date you right now or she could be mentally in a spot where she's going to need a little time. You don't know the answer to that, do you? where she's going to need a little time. You don't know the answer to that, do you? We had these answers. Everything would be easier, but we don't know.

We don't know that. Now, if you ask her out right away, she might say, yeah, geez, I need some space. And then it's like a weird, bad, new first impression because now you're making impressions. Even though you've already made first impressions because you've known her a long time, now as a potential partner in romance, you're making new first impressions all over again. There's an analogy that I'll use here

where, well, I'm not going to use this analogy. I'm going to hold off on that because I don't want to get the rails here. I want to focus in. So I'm not trying to scare you off, but you don't know. You don't know the answer to that. Now there's another part of this where because you give her space and then Bruce in accounting all of a sudden fires on her and it's been you know you thought you were going to give her a month or two but you didn't say anything and four or five weeks went by and this Bruce motherfucker asks her out and she's actually been really lonely it's a pandemic you know she's not Bruce isn't you but he's good enough and maybe she needs to be with somebody I have friends that need to have girlfriends when we were younger. They could not not have a girlfriend.

I've known girls that need a boyfriend. I've known girls that don't need them at all. We're all, again, different here. So now Bruce is dating your girl. And you find out through her friends that she was kind of like, yeah, well, if this guy is not going to step up, it's so obvious I like him. I thought he liked me. I'm single now. But it's been a month and he didn't do anything. It's time to move on. That's the problem, man. That is

the rub. That is the issue because you just, you don't know. And space is funny. Women can talk about wanting space. And this isn't even a male female thing. I can only give it like the perspective. I remember bartending back in the day, especially like in Boston or something. And you know, some, some women get dolled up, it's a Friday night, they're feeling it, you know, little Rihanna in the air. And, you know, a couple of guys that probably a little out of their league, you know, would come over to the girls and, and, and talk and chat them up. And, you know, I'd be bartending and they'd look at me and trust me, this is one of the, uh, that the way i was bartending that place boston um nobody liked me so don't worry about it um it was you know the girls would be like dude we just want to get drinks it's girls night

these fucking losers won't leave us alone you know and you just go all right you know it's girls night until you know sergei Serganov comes in, blue liner for the bees. And she's like, Debra, he's a bee. You should totally bang him. You know, so, you know, it was girls night until somebody awesome showed up. For people that say, like, don't date at the workplace. Okay, did the hottest person at the workplace ask you out?

They didn't, you know, I've done it. And I look back on it and go, man, that was really great. And it was also really terrible. And then I think, Hey, I probably wouldn't do that again. I'm like, yeah, I probably would. I probably would. Okay. So here's the, here's the answer.

Cause we've worked through all of it. The answer is you have a massive advantage in that her friends are telling you everything and how she feels about you. So you need to go to the friends immediately, not wasting any time because this Bruce guy, you can't predict him. You go to her friends and say, I want to ask her out, but I want to give her space. I want to ask her out, but I want to give her space. You guys need to tell me how to do it. You need to tell me the right time.

And even that could backfire, too, because it's like, you asked my friends first without asking me. You don't know. You don't know the answers to any of this stuff. The female ally, okay, the becoming friends with a female to date her friend is one of the great strategies in the history of man. It just is. It just is. Because if you have an ally where they're saying, oh, he's so great. Yeah, no, he's great. Then everybody just becomes kind of convinced of it. So you have a big, big advantage that other people don't have. As far as the workplace part of it, maybe you are, if you're working on the same projects,

another thing you got to worry about too, is whether there's somebody, a superior that's going to go, wait, why is this guy, he's 26, why is he dating somebody in his own project group? Could that be something that comes back to hurt you? So figure that part out, but make sure the work part of it'll be fine. You don't have to go to HR and start registering. That stuff's always a little weird to me. I'd be like, Hey, if I put a ring on it, then I'll start signing some paperwork for you people. But until then, just back off. Um, but in this case, work, the friends work, the friends find out. And also, you know, you're almost hitting on her through the friends too. So you want to take, Hey, look, obviously I'm very interested.

She's the greatest. She's the total package, but I just want to know the right time to be sensitive to everything that she's going through. And so frame it that way. You'll get the information. You'll get the answer that you need, whether it's immediate or give her a month.

And you know, you're just gonna have to play it cool for a little while, but you have a huge advantage. Like I said, Kyle sounded like you wanted to chime in. I was laughing. I was just, I know you're just gonna have to play cool for a little while but you have a huge advantage like i said kyle sounded like you wanted to chime in i was laughing i was just i think you're right i think it's like um what is it with badminton it's like you don't run around chasing the shuttlecock everywhere you wait until it comes into your quadrant otherwise people get upset with you so just wait until it like makes sense like you said you're right right right but you know if you wait too long so you still have to be aggressive when

you're playing badminton but you just want to be all up in everybody's space otherwise nobody's going to want to play with you whoa that's amazing are you good at badminton i'm great at it great i'm pretty good too you know that's how i graduated what like bad top badminton player no i had i thought i've told this story before, so I'm not going to tell it again. But basically, for years, while I hadn't finished my degree, well, I shouldn't say years, but there was a gap there. I kept having to take this one course.

And then finally, when I was like, all right, enough of this is ridiculous. Get this finished with. They were like, actually, you only have one gym credit left. So I tested out badminton. That was it. Not bad, right? No, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. I used to play, we used to play one-on-one badminton at my house growing up my gateway into racquetball also a huge fan i never got into racquetball i tried it a couple

times and it was somebody who was far less athletic and they smoked me in like back-to-back games yeah it's definitely an old guy game i go what the hell is this and he's like dude it's all angles like you know yeah we don't really know that much you don't really know the angles do you i go yeah whatever you know i was like i'll i'll do this later okay i'm not knocking it just hard to find a venue you know yeah hey what is what's something you tried and sucked at for a couple hours that you were super passionate about although you know what there's plenty of like golf i guess surfing would be one. Not like working out is a lot of fun in the beginning.

Okay, let's see here. Last one. A. Ryan, a bit of a primer to the situation. I'll get quickly to the point. 29-year-old digital marketer in Columbus, Ohio, a great, relatively inexpensive town. I'll admit, first time I went to Columbus, didn't love it. 2008, I don't know if they've changed it a lot.

Maybe I just hung in some different areas, but I really liked it the second time through. That was a few years ago. Great college towns are great. I love a great college town because it's always unique. It's got some soul to it. Bad college towns, however, kind of depressing. I guess it's got some soul to it. Um, bad college towns, however, kind of depressing. I guess you could just say, Hey, good town, bad town. It's kind of the same thing, but yeah, I like, I do miss the college football travel and all that

kind of stuff and learning about a new town and hanging out. And I, I went from kind of like, yeah, to Columbus too. Hey, you know what? I don't know if they've improved it a lot. Maybe I just were on different streets. Early September, his girlfriend broke up with him. Okay. All right. So early September, girlfriend breaks up with me. We're living in the same town. When we first started dating about a year in, I then took a job an hour and a half away because I thought this would be great for my career. Dumb. But after a short time there, I moved back to Columbus and we've been here for two plus years. Okay. All right. So you tried something. No problem. That things were great. I thought parentheses, and to keep this tale concise, I plan on asking her to marry me in October, but alas, I had no such opportunity. My question is, and I know there are a lot of

additional variables typically, but what is the acceptable waiting period before I actively and publicly start hanging out with other women in a safer environment, obviously. The answer to that question as far as what day was yesterday. He continues, I have no worries about the dating life. Again, I actually look forward to it. Hence the email 510-FIT-168. I work for a professional sports team in town that just won its championship. Okay. Which is never a bad sports team in town that just won its championship. Okay. Which is never a bad thing when it comes to small talk starters. Now I'm just throwing out excuses today

that I realized, no, don't start. Don't start looking in the mirror. Be nice to my friend in the mirror. All right. Anyways, for me, the factors to keep in mind are four years together. She dumped me. We haven't talked at all other than a few texts and to boot her family, including her parents still text me. Her older brother texts me almost daily. Actually, keep up the good work. Okay. All right. Look, man, you weren't even married.

You weren't engaged. And it sucks. I can tell you from experience, there are two ways to handle this. There's a mope around experience where I've done that. And sometimes you like it. You actually like being bummed out. I know that sounds crazy, but you like being bummed out because then it gives you excuse for all the other shit you're

not going to get done. And I don't even, you don't even seem like you're that bummed out, but we're just going to use this for the dating part of it. Right. You know, you get behind some stuff, you stop returning calls, you know, and I'm sure plenty of you have done it where you almost are like, this is kind of cool that I get to use this thing that's happened to me as an excuse. Now, sometimes it's so devastating, it's legitimately that bad. But I think for others, they can carry it a little bit longer because the rule of if you give somebody an excuse, they're going to use it. And in this case, if you're going through something, I think at the very minimal part, because you haven't talked about being bummed out, which is great. The minimal part of it is you've let this breakup kind of get in the way of you getting back out there. Now, the other version is to go, okay,

screw this. It didn't work out. She dumped me. It's on, it's on. And I'm not talking about, you know, Dirk Diggler action here. I'm just saying whatever amount of time you spend, like sometimes you need to get through it, but a lot of times you'll take more time than you need. And then you'll go back and you'll regret wasting all that time. No one has ever, you've never met anyone that said, you know what I really thought was a great use of time being bummed out about my significant other for like two years. That was, those are some of the best years of my life and i appreciate all the times i didn't go out i appreciated all the times i turned down dates i appreciate it we got we got fucking guys who nobody wants to talk to email in this podcast okay like nobody talks to him ever and some of you

dudes are emailing in and i'm not saying you specifically here but we've had some guys being like you know it's not like a million women don't want to date me. I just don't know what to do next. And then I can imagine some of the listeners being like, oh, poor guy. How do I navigate all of this interest in me? So you didn't do this. So I don't want you to take a lot of it. I'm sort of speaking generally to the theme of the email here. There is no, there is no set time. There aren't kids. You weren't married. She called it off. If you're worried about telling her family who's reaching out to you about you like, hey, I met someone or I went on a date, fuck off, you don't owe anyone anything. I think it's great.

The family still keeps it. It probably means you're a great guy or maybe they wish she had stayed with you, but you left out some parts of your goals to get back together with her. I could see you being like, Hey, I don't want to start texting her bro. Be like, Oh man, look at this one. You know, you don't want to start doing stuff like that. So maybe just, how about this? You don't have to tell them about any of those things.

But to continuously ask, I don't like that you were like, hey, when should I start? You should have been doing it yesterday or at least, again, because of COVID. Start. I don't know if you want to go to a dating app. You're young enough. So you probably, the concept of it for you is far more acceptable than an older generation. You know, that beginning part where you're just texting with people and it's kind of exciting and it's new. And then the new person, the text pops up and it's like that little feeling. And it's, I mean, that's the, that's

like one of the best parts of meeting somebody right in the beginning. So you get to do all that stuff now. And you know, what's funny is that your mindset of like, yeah, we'll see what happens. And maybe you're upset about it. And you think you'll probably land into a scenario that's amazing because you weren't even trying because that's usually how this stuff happens when you're least expecting. And then all of a sudden it's like, boom, I wasn't even, I had broken up with somebody. I wasn't even thinking about another relationship. I just wanted to interact and start talking with some people.

So I would do that first, figure out a way to start, you know, getting social and start engaging with people and, you know, thinking about setting up things. If we do get through this pandemic, I don't know when it's going to happen. You at least, you know, have, have started the process and I don't, you know, you said you weren't moping around, so that's good. Maybe you are, I don't know, but there will never be a time in your life where you go, I'm so fired up I spent that summer bummed out about an ex-girlfriend. That was great. Great use of time. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this Christmas edition of Tales from the Couch and Life Advice.

Hope those of you celebrating had a great Christmas, and we will be back Monday talking NFL. So please subscribe, spread the word great review thank you as always you