The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Tales From the Couch: NBA Christmas Games | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

Russillo hits on the NBA Christmas games, including Lakers-Clippers (2:30), Nuggets-Pelicans (14:40), Bucks-76ers (26:42), and Celtics-Raptors (35:00). Then Ryen is joined by 12-year-old point guard Sully Miller to discuss his top 5 NBA players, among other basketball topics (50:55). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossillo podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. There were unexpected results, not necessarily who won. Well, Golden State, we'll get to that one a little bit later. That's not going to be a major focus that went against Houston today. I didn't even think I was going to watch that game. But we are live on Christmas night. And Merry Christmas to everybody celebrating.

This is releasing Thursday morning on the Ringer Podcast Network. So don't you worry, State Farm. You're going to get your money's worth on this one. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. Here is the plan. Tales from the couch. I've been taking notes since 9 a.m. Pacific time. I took a little time off because I said I'm not going to watch the Houston Golden State game. I lied. I watched some of it. I did go outside to play hoops. So a lot of hoops today. I just got a real quick thing about the downtown Manhattan Beach area to play pickup hoops. I know it's a community that struggles, but can we take the locks off the freaking rims? Can we stop doing that?

Last year we had run. I go down there, and they put these metal bars across the rims and lock it out. And there's just, they put these metal bars across the rims and lock it out. How am I supposed to enjoy a joyous holiday with close family and loved ones, extended family, without going out there and playing a little hoops? And so I had to find, I went to a court redondo that was locked. And then I found another place and shot around for a little bit and then came back and watched the Warriors beat the Rockets. So that's the plan.

Tales from the couch, all the games today. I'm not going to do Denver and New Orleans. That's going on right now. Tight one at the end of the first half. Maybe something happens at the very end. We'll do a little live broadcast of it. No, we won't because that's illegal. And we're going to have the youngest guest ever in the history of any podcast that I've ever done. We've got a 12-year year old who's going to join us. Major NBA fan. So that is the plan. And I know maybe a little stats for the ladies, stats to impress the ladies at the end. I don't know if that's allowed in 2019.

I think it is. Some of you guys are like, Hey, I've been out. I don't know if you're out tonight. I was invited to go out tonight. I felt like that was going to be a little depressing to, to go out on Christmas night. So,

you know, power, power to you if you're going to do it. But you may have needed those stats on like a Tuesday, even though Tuesday, Christmas Eve, is not exactly like Thanksgiving Eve that Wednesday. So let's start with what we just watched. Clippers and the Lakers. Big win by the Clippers.

And I'm going to tell you, like an overriding theme of this is I don't know necessarily what to do with the results. I maybe am not great as a post game studio guest because I just, I don't feel like I saw a lot today that is super definitive of, okay, this result absolutely means this because I think the Clippers and Lakers are that good. I think they're that much better than everybody else in the West. I know Denver is the second seed. I'll get to Denver a little bit later, but when I watch Lakers and Clippers play throughout the season, I go,

those are the two best teams. Maybe the two best teams in the NBA. It's not as deep at the top where we thought it was five or six. I thought the Lakers were going to coast a little bit more in the regular season, and that hasn't been the case at all. I don't know what to make of the Clippers record-wise because the record would be better if everybody were playing all the time,

but this is what they're going to do with Kawhi. So let's run through the game a little bit. It was a lot of fun stuff. Even though it was a little messy, it was sort of awesome too at the same time. And LeBron was passive, but I think he was passive by nature. I mean, it's not like LeBron's going to go, oh, Christmas, I'm not feeling this. It's too much pressure on me here. But he was passive because of what the Clippers were doing. And then Kuzma goes off. And so in the first game, when the Clippers won at the very beginning of the season, the bench numbers were massively in favor of the Clippers. And in this case, with that big Kuzma start, they got to a 19-4 bench advantage over the

Clippers, which is unheard of because we know what Lou Williams and Montrez mean to them because they start Zubac and they start Patterson and they do some of those things where they start different guys that are never going to be part of their closing group. And the Lakers actually got up 15 at one point and it was a 17-2 run. And you're like, okay, all right, this is the Lakers thing that Lakers fans talk about all the time. Is that when it really comes down to it, Lakers against the Clippers in a playoff game, what is the solution going to be for Anthony Davis? Because as much as I like to track matchups, where do you start? What are the things you're looking for early?

A lot of this, you don't know what the teams are truly trying to do until it's a close game at the end, and they're searching out bad switches. They're searching out certain defensive players. I mean, there's some games where I watch. I'm like, oh my gosh, this must be the worst. This guy's out there, and they're clearly just trying to get him to switch like five different times. This game was not that.

And I'm going to get to all that stuff. Hopefully it's interesting to listen to me track switches. But I thought in this game, that's what was so interesting about it. So Davis had a good game, but it wasn't even though I thought when the Lakers are going up, you're going, okay, maybe this is the problem.

Maybe this is the problem because you've got to put Montrez on Davis. They had Paul George on Davis. And the way the Lakers are matched up against it, they were going with LeBron wasn't going to defend. He doesn't defend the best players. He's just not going to because they're going to just try to pace him throughout the entire year, which is smart.

I'm not knocking it. Maybe I'm knocking it when I hear he's going to be defensive player of the year because that's absurd. But he starts off on Patterson and then he finds different things throughout the game. And it was just a game where it felt like both teams were kind of trying to search out like, what would we actually really do if we're playing here in a seven game series? Lou wasn't scoring at all. So that was part of the problem for the Clippers early. And if you watch Montrez as much, we all like him because I think every one of us would love to have a Montrez Harrell on our team. If you're giving him post-ups, especially against the size of the Lakers, that's a problem. We know that he's a

better rim runner. He's somebody that's better on a screen, slipping it or rolling hard and getting him with some momentum towards the rim. Maybe when everybody goes small, the post-ups aren't as bad because his energy level is like in the 1% of the NBA. But when you're trying to finish against Dwight and JaVale and then Anthony Davis and all these guys, like, Machez can't hold the ball down there and expect to kind of finish. started writing all of this down because I was trying to keep track of it. And this is all in order. This isn't necessarily like transition cross-matching where you just end up with somebody. Like you rarely in an NBA game like, okay, tip the ball. All right, I'm against you, and I'm going to defend you for 100 possessions.

It just doesn't happen that way. And this game was crazy in that regard. So you had Danny Green on Paul George. Davis was on Kawhi because, again, they were always trying to put LeBron on whoever the third guy was that was, you know, whether it was Mohawk, was Patterson at times, Michael Green got some minutes in there. The Clippers actually weren't getting a ton out of those guys.

You know, Kawhi had a really good first quarter. You look up and you go, what? He's got 14 points. I mean, look, Kawhi is, he is one of the most, you know, look, we know he's arguably the best player in the league, but when he has these nights and another one of them today where you go, how many did he have? Like, God, that seemed absolutely effortless. You know, it just doesn't seem like it's force or doesn't seem like he's taking as many shots. Even when

he took a million shots against the Sixers in that game winner, where he hit it from the corner, that iconic shot, he had taken so many shots. And I remember after going, God, you know, it just doesn't feel like that. So here we go. So you've got green on Paul George. like that so here we go so you've got green on Paul George and then you end up with Davis on Kawhi and then I'm thinking wait a minute is there a part of this that's a counter that who's going to guard Anthony Davis for the Clippers is the counter to that saying well wait a minute which wings like what are you going to do with wings against Kawhi are you going to have Anthony Davis chase him around the whole time like because that doesn't make any sense because they still at least in regular season games want to keep Davis at the four

and keep a combination of Dwight and JaVale in there, and those guys are going to be up against Montrez, which is going to be the closing center for the Clippers. So all of this was through the lens of what would the playoff series look like. LeBron, I mentioned his matchups there. He had Moe Harkless at one point on Anthony Davis. So here I go. This is tracking. And then

finally, I was like, stop, because you're not even enjoying the game. The Clippers ran a play to get LeBron switched on the ball. So now I'm thinking, OK, are they actually going to go after LeBron and try to get him on these switches? And the Clippers run a very, you know, Doc is very good at running offenses to get efficient players. You know, he just makes players more efficient. But a lot of it is pretty simple in that it's horns is always thought traditionally two guys you can go off of on the elbows, but they bring it up. And then Kawhi just kind of picks what he wants to do, where Beverly, even though he's the point guard, it's not like Beverly's running the offense and waving guys all over the place. Kawhi's just that good with his handle. So they run to get LeBron

on a switch. I'm like, okay, pay attention to that. And then on the other end, LeBron in a switch I'm like okay pay attention to that and then on the other end LeBron had the ball where the Clippers switched three different guys onto LeBron and I'm telling you not even seven seconds where it was what the Clippers do is they love to go we can switch with Beverly Kawhi and Paul George on any kind of action you want and if you end up one-on-one with any of those guys like good luck and that's actually kind of scary and want. And if you end up one-on-one with any of those guys, like good luck. And that's actually kind of scary. And they did it against Boston. I remember they just ran a thing where it's like, okay, we're going to have one of the big guys

defend probably their one option. And then we're going to have the other guy defend the ball handler. And if that's the action that they run with those two guys, like congrats, you just switched from Paul George to Kawhi. Have fun. And that's the thing that should scare everybody.

Okay. So they have on that position where Kawhi had to start on LeBron. ended up on anthony davis offering the corner and three different guys are on him okay so next time down kawaii has lebron on him so i'm thinking all right he's gonna iso with him and they run a switch with ad's man to get kawaii onto ad and now ad's defending kawaii and kawaii misses a three so'm like, what the hell is going on? Next time down. I'm telling you, these are all successive possessions. Montrez ends up on LeBron, and then you come back down,

Kawhi's got the ball, and now Danny Green's on him. And then the Lakers run a screen with Pope, where I think Harkless was on Pope or something. And they ended up getting a switch so they could get LeBron going at Beverly. And again, like I said, these weren't transition matchups.

And at that point I'm like, all right, stop, stop doing this. Um, because this isn't, this isn't fun anymore. Uh,

later on in the game, you know, it was, uh, Anthony Davis trying to go at Montrez, which didn't really hurt the Clippers. He had a jumper. He hit a jumper. He missed another jumper. They did an awesome

out-of-timeout thing that I'll get to on this timeout where Vogel got mad and he kind of called another quick second timeout where he got mad about something they did and how they were defending Kawhi going to his right off of that horn stuff. The out-of-timeout play was incredible, but it was a lot of straight

Anthony Davis, what can you do against Montrez again? Fine. Clippers passed that test. And then it was Paul George defending LeBron straight up and it, it wasn't terrible, but you know, it's not something you're going to do even with Paul George and his length and everything. You're not going to just let that happen. George, um, actually LeBron did get it going after starting 0-7 from three.

And then you look at the closing groups. The Lakers went with Beverly, Shamit, George, Kawhi, Montrez. The Lakers are Rondo, Green, LeBron, Anthony Davis. After Lakers went with their, excuse me, the Clippers went with their closing group at eight minutes left. Um, the Lakers brought in Davis at 720. Dwight was still in, but then this is the thing to always look at. Okay, wait a minute.

This was a big game against maybe their best opponent they went with Anthony Davis at the five with those five minutes to go and I mentioned all those matchups there a little bit earlier uh the out of timeout was awesome it was a handoff where it was like a ball reversal as Van Gundy mentions handoff LeBron gets at the AD who slips the screen dunk here we go and I'll admit I'm watching this expecting the whole time Davis is going to go off, Davis is going to go off, and it didn't really happen. Offensively, for what the Clippers did, they got Kawhi on a really good post where I have these concerns

where I go, is Lou Williams holding the ball a little too much when you have George and Kawhi out here with two minutes to go to close in a close game? Like, what are you doing? And the answer's both yes and no, because there was one possession where Lou looked like he was going to run it down to the clock, where he had LeB because there was one possession where, you know, Lou looked like he was going to run it down to the clock where he had LeBron on him. I so no help.

And I'm like, is he just going to go at LeBron and not let anybody else touch the ball here? Because I don't know that I love that despite Lou's scoring prowess. But they didn't do that. Kawhi got a really good post position coming from like the right block to the left block. And he got fouled by Danny Green. It was a good foul. He got fouled again. He hit all of his free throws. And that's really kind of what happened in this

game is that the Clippers made their last 16 free throws and the Lakers didn't really know what they wanted to be. They just kind of went one-on-one matchups and the shots didn't go in. And it's very important though, after the Lakers got the ball back with the shot clock off, down three, LeBron's going at Beverly. I almost didn't have this in the notes, and I just double-checked here, by the way. I looked at it and go, okay, are the Clippers going to foul? They're up three. They don't.

LeBron had a hard time kind of getting free of Beverly. Beverly got his body right into him. I mean, that guy is unbelievable defending bigger guys. Not that he's going to shut down LeBron, but he did on that possession and he blocked the shot. And my least favorite review in sports is when the guy swipes the ball out of your hands, like science on the super MythBuster slow motion cam is going to show the ball usually is always going to be out of the shooter's hands last. But the intent of what you would always call was, okay, if you have the ball and somebody swipes it out and it just happens to be that a molecule in your pinky is

the last thing to touch the ball, it's still off the other guy. I bet there's people listening to this that are disagreeing with me saying that it's better this way. It isn't better this way. It sucks this way. And I'm the furthest thing from really being a fan of either team, so it has nothing to do with it. I just don't think that that's really what the spirit of the rule is. And I know they reversed it and they called it out. That's your ball game. But I hate it. I just hate it.

So I don't, I don't care. I'm not sure who's better. I'm really not. I know for a fact, like these guys are going to be fighting over Iguodala. It's just going to be, you know, they're going to need an extra body. The Lakers are, I think, I think the Lakers need Iguodala more than's just going to be, you know, they're going to need an extra body. The Lakers are. I think the Lakers need Iguodala more than the Clippers do. I really do.

We could talk about secondary scoring for the Clippers. You know, what is Lou Williams in a Western Conference Finals versus a regular season game where he's getting 20 in the fourth quarter? Is Lou Williams somebody that another team is going to seek out defensively? Does it really matter, though, because you've got those other two guys and Montrez covers so much space himself, and then the fact that Beverly can switch on a bigger guys I mean that defensive position against LeBron was all-timer so even though I don't like the review I mean he he blocked LeBron shot you know what that shot wasn't going in because he was set up so poorly

and it was just going to be really hard for him so um you know there's there's not a ton to add to that Denver fans you know you're always going to be mad at me. And you just have to understand, there's a very simple rule for this. And it pertains to Milwaukee, too, where I called Milwaukee a little Denver-ish, although I probably like Milwaukee a little bit better just because of the East versus not having two LA teams in front of them in the East. These are the rules. Like Pascal Siakam, when I sent out that note where I was like, for an MVP candidate, which he was at the beginning of the year, and Pascal Siakam when I sent out that note where I was like you know for for an MVP candidate which

he was the beginning of the year and Pascal Siakam is awesome it's an awesome story and in this Toronto team which I'm going to get to uh they are incredible but when I am pointing out some things with Siakam you know what I'm not going to point those things out two years ago because he's not even on the radar so in a way when you're scrutinized more intensely at least by me it's a compliment because, you know, the expectations are that Denver probably should have been in the Western conference last year.

And, you know, we want to see if you're the big boys, you know, we're going to see if you can get out of the West. I mean, some people were picking them to get out of the West, like real people on TV.

We're picking Denver, get out of the West and Denver beat the Lakers, uh, Sunday night, no LeBron. Lakers are kind night. No LeBron. Lakers are kind of lost without LeBron. I thought Van Gundy made a pretty good point about minutes for Davis without LeBron.

Is there enough playmaking there? Is Rondo enough? Green was solid at times. Pope hit some big shots. Is it collectively enough where you can trust all those guys? Bradley, what is he going to be? Just a couple numbers on Denver.

A lot of the metrics are really good. They're really good. I don't know who their third guy is because there isn't one. That's who they are right now. When you look at their home road, that's something I always look at. If you're really good, why are you below 500 on the road last year? They were 6-5. They played 11 road games going into that Sunday night game against LA and a handful of other teams have played 17 or 18 games on the road last year and they were six and five they played 11 road games going to that sunday night game against la and a handful of other teams have played 17 or 18 games on the

road already so um denver's gonna win a ton of games and yokich you know slowly is getting it going again you know murray is not the is this guy ever gonna be any good uh you know he's he's good he's good i don't i don't know if he's gonna to be great. He's not great now. And that's my deal with them. And the reason I talk about them that way is that I don't look at them as a six or five seed. I look at them as a team that people talk about coming out of the West. So that's why I sound a little bit more critical, but it's only more critical because they're more in the crosshairs. That's it. That's all there is to it. So, all right. So that's the first game. Let's do a little Golden State-Houston because I think it's actually worth doing a little bit more than I thought. All right. You know what's weird is I swear in the broadcast, and I may have this wrong,

that they had said, well, you know, Golden State-Houston, Houston, this is their fourth game in five nights. I swear they said that because I wrote it down. It could have been off because I was just coming back from playing hoops myself, and that was also solo. So I have no stats to give you on this one. So let me get to my Golden State numbers here because I have a plethora of them.

There are no more four games in five nights, by the way. There aren't. So it hasn't happened now. This is the third season without it. Gamblers are complaining because they love that fourth game and five nights. It's the fourth game and seven nights. They're fourth on the road. You know, I know Houston fans will be like, all right, yeah,

I know it wasn't great, but here are all of your excuses because I know you want to make excuses, Rockets fans. Of course you do. And here are the four teams they played. They played the Clippers, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Golden State. So it wasn't like they were going to Orlando and then Moscow. Okay. And it's Christmas and you didn't play.

Nobody played on Tuesday. And you came, what, from Sacramento? And they were terrible. So here are some simple things, though, with Houston. If they have 11 free throws through three quarters, then you're probably doing something right. And on the other end, Draymond looked like the guy who used to hit threes five years ago. That's how good he was in the fourth quarter. And there's some free throw numbers here for Harden that I want to look at because his

first attempt was at 759 to go in the game. They had 11 free throws through three quarters. If you want to look at just some of the offensive and defensive efficiency numbers here, Houston's number three on offense and their 16th on defense. You're like, okay, wait a minute. Are they slipping a little bit defensively? No, they were 17th in defensive efficiency last season. Remember, their defensive season, they were pretty good two years ago, and the thing with them was always they were really good. Even when we thought they were bad, they were good off of makes,

and they were terrible off of misses. And honestly, that speaks to effort more than anything else. But, so Houston's offensive defense efficiency numbers again, number three overall offense in the NBA, 16th on defense, 109 points allowed per 100 possessions. And last year, if you go, hey, sometimes your ranking can be misleading. Well, they were at 110.1 points per possession. So there's the same team defensively, at least when it comes to that.

Golden State, these numbers are a little different. They're 30th on offense and they're 23rd on defense. They were first on offense, just a fraction better than number two Houston last year. And they were 11th defense defensively where, you know, they were close, you know, they were only about a point and a half better per a hundred possessions than Houston was, but Golden State was starting to slip a little defensively last year. Cause that's just sort of what happens. Like you just keep winning titles. You get to the finals every year and you just, you're not going to have the same

locked in effort throughout an entire regular season. You're not going to contest. You're not going to, you're not going to switch as hard. You're just not going to, the same locked-in effort throughout an entire regular season. You're not going to contest. You're not going to switch as hard. You're just not going to because you know you're really good, and you'll turn it on. We saw that slipping a little bit with Golden State a couple years ago. Now it's way off. Okay, Westbrook. The Westbrook thing is not working, but is he getting a little bit better? Well, the free throws are better.

He's 88% in December after having a really weird stretch where he wasn't playing that well. I mean, there are numbers going to tell you right now what he is across the board. He has been as bad in some stats at any point in like seven or eight years. Okay. So let me pull him up here again because I was going through his monthlies and there was some improvement. And really the biggest thing was like, okay, he's finally hitting his free throws. Because there's one thing about guards. If you drive a lot, but don't make your free throws, that's not great. And guess what? Westbrook drives a lot. So October is only four games, 34 minutes a game, 16 and a half shots, 48%, 31% from three, 72% from the free throw line. Because some of the raw numbers,

you're like, oh, what are you talking about? He's getting 22 a game. He had 10 assists and 12 rebounds. He averaged a triple-double in October. November, 33 minutes, taking 20 shots. So he jumped up the shooting a little bit more. The shooting numbers, the percentages went down big time, 41% overall, 21.6 from three. And the three free throw numbers there were 72%, 22 points a game. This month, he's averaging 27 a game in December, eight and a half boards. So the boards are up again, eight assists, 29% from three, which is a major improvement from last month, still terrible. And that's on four and a half attempts. So he's down in attempts by at least one, but he's now taking 23 shots a game. I think Westbrook's available.

We could talk about semantics. Of course, Daryl Morey would trade anyone if he thought it made his team better. Of course, he would trade Westbrook if he could get off of that long-term money. If he thought the assets, the sum of the parts was better than having somebody that's considered a top 10 player. I think Westbrook is a misleading player. I've said this now for a while. And the only difference with Houston is that he, he can't keep Houston hostage the way he would another franchise. Now, when I ask around and I'll get more stuff, cause he didn't want to talk to guys, you know, on Christmas and Christmas Eve coming back from the Vegas

showcase where it's kind of just a big gossipy weekend. But is Daryl Morey actively calling people saying, I got to dump? Well, of course he wouldn't do it that way. But there are people who believe that Westbrook is available and that Daryl knows, I got to figure something out here. And it's about the contract more than I think somebody watching Westbrook one moment going, hey, you know what? I think I'd like him. The only time, here would be a good example. Find a flat franchise that is flat for a bunch of years that feels like they have nothing to sell that goes, you know what? Screw it. Now we have a superstar and we weren't going to win any games before and now we're not going to win that many any, but at least we have a guy that's going to sell a lot of jerseys and kids are going to like and it's going to be exciting. We're going to get

more people in the stands. Think about a team like Orlando. Now, I would guess that Orlando actually wouldn't do that deal. But if you were looking at franchises that felt flat for years, they may be the only solutions. Now, do they have enough pieces that actually Daryl Morey would say, hey, this actually makes sense? I'm sure people will deny this after they hear it on the podcast. I don't care. Okay, so Harden's free throw attempt numbers, as I mentioned his first one at, at eight minutes or so, it was a three that he made in the end one. He actually missed the free throw. Um, I went through all of his minutes, his free throw attempts, his field goal attempts and all that stuff in the three point attempt. So October, cause I'm like, wait a minute. Harden at one point was averaging 16 and a half free throw attempts per game in October. He's not getting the same foul calls that he used to get. And then I compared it with drives too. All right. So this is, this is a little nerdy, but here we go. October, 37 minutes a game for Harden, 24 shot attempts, 13 and a half of those are

threes, 16 and a half free throw attempts per game. You could say, all right, well, he had 16 and a half in four games. Not a great sample there. And he averaged 22 and a half drives, which was number one in the NBA in October. All right, so let's go to November more games. Again, 37 minutes a game, 24 shots a game, 14 threes a game. All the stuff is the same, but then 14 free throw attempts per game. All right. Not a major correction. It's only two and a half. I looked at his drive numbers.

Was he driving less? Yeah, a little less. Two and a half less drives per game, 20 per game, third overall in the NBA. December, 39 minutes a game for Harden, so more minutes, so more minutes, 26 shots per game, still only 14-3, only 14-3s, but only 10 free throw attempts per game. So he's jumped, like there's a drop off here. And I looked at his drives and in the month of December, he was 12th in drives, 16. So he's like six less drives. So is he driving less? Sort of. And that's leading to less free throws or is he being called a little differently? I've never understood how he was called the way he was. I'm not going to get into that rant for the hundredth time, but I think it's a combination of some things and it's something worth paying attention to. And then I went and looked at Westbrook's drives and I was

like, well, wait a minute, is Westbrook driving more? And the numbers are all pretty close. 18 drives per game, which was fifth best in the NBA in October, 16 drives per game in November, 14th best, but in December, Westbrook is averaging 21 drives per game. That's second overall in the NBA, so it was Westbrook's drives taking away from Harden's and then taking away some of the free throws. All this stuff is sort of connected.

Houston's not great, and this was a terrible loss. Draymond Green said after the game, hey, we're getting better I've thrown a lot of numbers at you here they are getting better let's see here I'm not going to go through all this even though I wrote it all down

they're getting better on defense hooray they're 12th in the month of December and defensive efficiency but they're also last in offense in this month too, which is kind of where they've been all year long. They are the worst offense in the league. I still think it's really worth pointing out D'Angelo Russell when this run happened. He got subbed out at 98, 99, but he got subbed out as the free throws were being made. So let's

say he's off the floor at 197, and then Golden State, I mean, that was part of a 19-2 run. Alec Burks came in, and D'Angelo Russell did not get back in the game. So I don't know. Just something to think about there. Bad loss by Houston, but I'm not going to sit here and now say, now I've got to look at this team entirely differently because they lost to the Warriors.

Let's talk Philadelphia, okay? Because Philadelphia, who I picked to win the East, has not looked like the best team in the East. Whether it's Milwaukee's incredible run, and that Milwaukee win against the Lakers, that meant something to me. I looked at that game, and I know I went off on the people that tweet, but the team itself, it's always tough.

It's always tough when you're really good, but you haven't done it. It's much like Toronto last year, you know, when you go, okay, but what are you guys going to do once you get into the playoff? So when they were down 2-0 to Milwaukee, and it was funny to hear some of the Milwaukee players that were interviewed in part of the broadcast against Philadelphia, it's like, yeah, you know, we got up 2-0, we started looking ahead a little bit. And we're like, or Kawhi happened, that too.

And the problem with Milwaukee is, as I've said, hey, spread everybody out. Giannis attacks the middle. People have to help. Leave shooters open. It's kind of like Harden without the three-pointers, and instead it's Giannis at the rim. 18 points at the rim in the NBA. That's 18 points per game at the rim for Giannis.

I believe that's number one in the NBA. I think it is. I know he's number one in field goal attempts under five feet. So sometimes that rim under five feet restricted area thing can, depending on how you want to sort this stuff, it can lead to different numbers. But he's number one in field goal attempts, five feet under 18 points of the rim.

I don't believe anybody's above that. So this game was about two things. Philly shot the hell out of the ball. And Embiid was not just great on offense. He was outstanding on Giannis drives. Like unbelievable. Okay, now I think Gian Giannis the best player in the league and I think Embiid when and granted this is not the best day to say Giannis but that's just

not the way I roll I'm not gonna say go hey I thought Giannis was maybe the best player in the league for the first three months of the season but he was terrible against Philly on a Wednesday I almost said Saturday he was bad in the middle of the day so now I'm gonna change my rankings again I mean I'm not trying to get clicks here. So he's the best. He wasn't the best today though. Embiid was, and the Embiid conversation is always frustrating. You know, I was texting with Simmons and we're going, this is unbelievable, huh? And you know, it's one thing if I say it, but when Shaq and Barkley, who you can call guys that aren't always compliment, look, let me, let me rephrase that. They are not complimentary of today's players, but they were so precise and specific about Embiid during one of those TNT broadcasts

just a couple of weeks ago. And Embiid even commented on it that it's just one of those deals where you go, hey, if you're the best player, because when Embiid is right, when he is locked in like he was on Christmas day, he looks like the best player in the league. He just does. And some of it's conditioning. Some of it's, I don't know if it's a passive nature. Some of it's just the frustration of playing for a coach that by the way, is just now figuring out to split up Simmons and Embiid minutes more. I was on 82games.com looking at their minutes groupings and comparing last year with this year. And I think it's pretty definitive and I don't want to go through it all because I still think

we need more time, especially with Embiid missing time because some of the ways they sort it, they'll sort it by percentage of available minutes for the entire season. So Embiid's numbers are going to look lower because I'm missing some games. But whenever I'm tracking a Philly game and I look at those Embiid-Simmons splits and the substitution patterns, they're splitting them up more. No way. No way. It's just so obvious. But they shot it unbelievably well today and Philly is not a

three-point shooting team right we know that they're not so coming into this one Philly despite being ninth in the league in three-point shooting 36 percent their 30th or excuse me there are 30 attempts per game for three are 26 in the league where Milwaukee is right at 36% from three, which is 11th. They're actually like right there with them in attempts. But Milwaukee takes the third most. So they take 10 more threes a game than Philadelphia is taking every game. OK, so we know that Philadelphia like this today. If Philadelphia were to become a team that could shoot the ball like they did against Milwaukee today,

again, this is against the number one defense too, and a Milwaukee team that has the most deflections of any team in the NBA. Excuse me, not most deflections. That's a different stat. They're actually a little middle of the pack.

That was surprising to me. Milwaukee leads the NBA in contested shots, and it's by like eight or nine more than the second place team. It's a staggering number. I don't know that I have it here. I may have just looked it up because, hey, it was Christmas and I was here to serve you. So that's what we know. And again, yeah, Philly shoots like this, that'd be like Colorado having an ocean, okay, where you'd go, wait a minute. Okay, that's what's going to happen. That doesn't seem fair to every other state, and it wouldn't be. Real quick, I look back at the

latest or I guess earliest, however you want to phrase it, as far back as dot-com would go on three-point attempts. Boston led the league, which they shouldn't have, in 2001, 2002 in three-point attempts at 24 a game. Philadelphia was last in the NBA in 2001-2002 with nine three-point attempts per game. Harden takes like five more than the Sixers did almost 20 years ago in a game. So let's go over some of the Embiid stuff at the rim because it was brutal.

In Milwaukee without Giannis, it's even worse. Like Lopez disappeared. Middleton, I know he ended up with 30-plus points. Those were empty as hell. He was nowhere to be found when they needed him. And, you know, there was like a late run there where if you didn't watch this game, you may have thought it close.

It was not close at all. It was 69-48 at the half. The first Giannis possession of the second half he drives right and beat again nothing okay and that was when Embiid I believe got him in transition then there was another play where it was sort of a loose ball and it was a dunk on Tobias Harris where he probably pushed off on Tobias but he's smart because he doesn't extend his arms he puts his shoulder into you and as long as the arm isn't flailing because his hands are on the ball. So he gets the dunk there.

I don't know if anybody's ever going to get that call against Giannis, but at that spot, it was because Harris got bumped. It wasn't anything else. And then Giannis gets going at Embiid again, and he shuts him down again. At that point, Giannis is 5 of 18, 0 of 5 from 3. He went at him again and he missed. And then Giannis had a three-pointer

where Embiid didn't even get beyond. I mean, he was like five feet below the free throw line and Embiid didn't even go out there. Giannis misses that three. So now we're at 5 of 20, 0 of 6. Then there was another drive where Giannis went in Embiid and it was actually a bad foul call. And then Embiid went out. They're up 78-54. And Milwaukee didn't hit threes. They didn't take free throws. Giannis was a mess. Middleton gets it going a little bit there late. Ben Simmons, who has not been on the

cover of the Rosillo podcast, but his effort defensively. And the effort thing with Simmons is always so weird because if you put in the effort to be that good defensively, defense is more effort than anything else. All right, that's it. Pay attention, know the rotations, and give a damn. And Simmons does. And whenever Simmons was being knocked coming out of LSU, LSU was an absolute mess with four wings that all thought they were going to be number one picks. That's a little bit of exaggeration, but there were four guys that all thought that they were the man.

But when Simmons would get just dumped on for being passive, which he is on offense, he wasn't necessarily like a passive, lazy player. He's getting like 12 boards a game in college. So for him to care that much on defense, and there was like an incredible strip he had in this game. And some of the stuff that he does do, you just go, how could you have that much effort on one side of the ball and then never really figure out the other side and have these games with these real highs and lows? So I don't need to go over all the Simmons stuff there again.

It was a really, really impressive win by Philly. They led up a bit there defensively. People got it going in the middle. Middleton, as I mentioned, I'm just kind of scanning through all these notes here a little bit. And that was the largest deficit. I think when it was 173, that was the largest deficit that Milwaukee had faced in two years. So great win for Philly, but I'm not going to write off the Sixers all of a sudden thinking that, or excuse me, I'm not going to write off Milwaukee all of a sudden just because they lost this game and

looked so terrible. Let's do Boston and Toronto, which was the first one, because again, that's another one of those games where, how about this stat? I couldn't believe this stat. That was the first win against Toronto in Toronto. So Toronto had won 34 straight games versus the Atlantic Division at home. That seems impossible. Not every game is at one o'clock on Sunday afternoon in Toronto. They're not allowed to play all of their home games in an afternoon after NBA players go out in one of their easily top five favorite cities to visit on the road. And Boston gets this one, but you can't be team green on this one or a green teamer, as they used to call us back at Comcast

with all my co-hosts, because the Celtics wanted everybody that worked on that show to be an absolute homer. And that's why, I don't know, even though I think some of the Celtics guys didn't mind me, I just wasn't ever going to be a homer. I mean, that's one of the things that, like last year, I was telling you all year like especially let's say second half of the season going don't put Boston down as a title contender or

a team that can get out of the East like are you watching these guys and they weren't they're so much better now Boston's top four with Kemba Jalen Brown who was incredible today Jason Tatum and Gordon Hayward that top four one through four is going to be just going to be better than a lot of teams' fours.

And if they can find another big, and Daniel Tice is a nice player, but he should be a backup, not your starter. Kanter has his moments. And Lowry was going at Kanter, and Chris Boucher, who's such an incredibly odd, talented guy, a big guy who can block shots, set screens, roll, catch, and then his three-point shot looks terrific. That was actually something I took out of this Toronto game more than anything, you know, despite them losing and it not being, it was competitive. They got up 10-0 in the first

thing, and then, you know, Boston went on this massive run to match them, and it just, you know, Boston was the better team, at least today, against an undermanned Toronto team, but even when I look at their bench, you know, Abaka, 23 minutes, that's an incredible big to have in your rotation. Gasol was out. Siakam, the best player, is out. And Powell's out. Powell's a nice player.

So that's three guys that are probably, I don't know where Gasol's minutes are. I'm not going to look it up right now. I'm going to imagine he's probably like outside of the top five. But those are three starters, three guys that are outside. You know, I'm going to look it up because it's going to bother me. Just trying to be thorough. I don't want you talking to somebody being like, you know, whose minutes I think might be top five.

Yep. All right. So there you go. So Powell is the starter for like half the season, but Gasol is sixth in minutes. So they're missing three of their top six minute guys. And Ibaka is now starting and Ibaka would be a starter on a lot of teams. He's the backup on this one. So let me just go back to this because it's just something that jumps out at me. Here I am raving about Toronto as they lose

by 16 at home, but Ibaka, bench guy, OG Ananobi didn't do anything today, but I still like him. Lowry, you know, getting back in the mix. He wasn't very good, but I'm going to mention a couple of things that are very pro Lowry. Van Vliet's incredible. He had 27. McCaw, playing minutes. Boucher, as I mentioned. Excuse me, Boucher.

Hollis Jefferson had some nice moments today. Terrence Davis has been pretty good for them. And you just keep looking, going, this is this team that can that can play you know nine guys and you're not scared to death like all of them that's that was the big lesson in last year and not to say that everybody can match it and roster management how you want to build it but it's something to be said about having seven or eight guys that they have the ball in their hand with a few seconds left on the shot clock can find a way to get a shot off or you know that Oklahoma City team back with back with durant westbrook you just drive me crazy and be like how could you have two non like not forget guys you don't have to close

out on two two to sometimes three guys it felt like the thunder would pair with those two that didn't need to be guarded just not just not a lot of balance offensively despite at the time having durant westbrook and maybe should have won a title in 2016. So compliments for, for all of that. Lowry, you know, I, I find the annoyance of Lowry throughout,

of course, the game to get in the way of me enjoying how, how important he is to the team, which I need to admit right now, because I saw some things, even with a bad shooting night and that loss, like this is the difference between a Kyle Lowry. And let's say,

well, I don't want to do a Trey Young thing here again. I might though. Even though every point guard now needs to actually have a shot, if you're going to be a special point guard because of how incredible this position is now, you have to be a score. Score first point guards were a bad thing. Now it's like a prerequisite to play the position. But there's still something to be said of somebody that knows, you know what? I got to get somebody else going here,

or I got to keep somebody else engaged. Kind of like the anti-Westbrook. Westbrook didn't care if anybody else was engaged, he was going to do his thing, and then if you've got the ball, cool. Kyle Lowry not only understands what needs to be done, possession of possession, and he, look, he's going to take a few bad threes,

and he's going to do some things you're not always going to love. And he's never going to be like a top five guy or any of that kind of stuff at the position. But he also, you know, there was a stretch where they were really bogged down and then they ran something out of a timeout where they got kind of all the action going left to excuse me, right to left around the key. And Van Vliet ends up with it. But really, the play was Lowry to catch it to the top of the three for a look off a screen that was set behind where the ball action was. And Lowry catches it and hits the three. And I go, you know what, that's, that's the thing I need to point out

here and talk about Lowry. Now on the other end, defensively, you know, what Toronto's doing, you know, they threw a little zone at Boston, you know, not necessarily as much as Miami's doing. And that's something about Philadelphia, especially this last week or so, more and more teams trying to throw some zone at them. But Toronto, I love the zone after a timeout. I love, look, they even full-court pressed, especially after what needs to be mentioned, and there needs to be maybe a 30-for-30 on it.

But Toronto coming back down 30 with two-plus minutes to go in the third quarter against Dallas and scoring 40-something ridiculous go in the third quarter against Dallas and scoring 40 something ridiculous points in the fourth quarter. That was an all time comeback that was completely buried in the day at NFL and didn't get its due. Boy, I'm really talking up Toronto a lot here for team that lost. I guess I'm just going to be honest with you. Like Boston's really good. I love their top four. I don't like their bigs. The Grant Williams at five thing has been a disaster. Grant Williams at five thing has been a disaster, but they're the two seed, and I'm not sure.

I'm not really sure if they're definitively like the second best team. I still think Philly's more talented. Toronto with Siakam is right there with them. Miami's really good, and Oladipo's coming back for Indianapolis. So there's a lot there at the top of the East, and it isn't crazy anymore to say the top of the East is deeper than the top of the West. It's just I'm not sure if any of those two teams are as good as the two L.A. teams. So as I sift through all this Toronto stuff, I mentioned the Lowry deal there.

That made it 78-64, but really didn't matter. They would trap Kemba, and that's what's going to happen to Kemba, especially as you start getting him against the big boys in playoffs. You know, the small guard trapped, force him away from it. But I'm telling you, Kemba is splitting some of these doubles really well. He's anticipating them perfectly. And if there's any lag in somebody trying to get over a screen with him, he's doing that thing where he pulls up from three quicker than you think, and he doesn't have to be straight up and down. He's floating into the shot from three, and he's hitting it. And no

Marcus Smart for the Celtics fans that maybe are so frustrated with this segment so far, but come on. They were missing three of their guys. Bad Tatum game. Bad Tatum game. Five at 18, 11 points points 0 free throws he is and this is kind of like the Tatum Denver Nuggets Siakam Milwaukee Bucks

all of it put together I love Tatum out of the draft there are tweets that back that up when he did what he did in the playoffs that first year I'm like this is something special we also didn't realize the East was God awful. When you think back at two years ago, when LeBron made it to his last finals,

not last forever, but you know what I'm saying? And I had high, high hopes for Tatum. And I didn't know what Jalen Brown was going to be. Jalen Brown last year was terrible to start the season. Then he just said, screw it. Cause I think that's the part about Jalen Brown that I really, really like. Um, and Tatum wasn't as good. And I do believe Kyrie had a lot to do with that. And we can dig into some of the stats and say, ah, there wasn't really much difference that sometimes stats, you know, what I don't like about going back and looking at certain stats, but like, you know what, that guy, that's what he did in the playoffs. So what happened when I watched in the moment, none of it was true because 20 points not every 20 point game is created equal okay so I have higher hopes for who Tatum is going to be but now in his third year he's had some games this year that are

nuts I think he's had four 30 point games and he's had more 30-point games in less than half a season than he'd had in the previous two years combined. I've got to double-check that. That'll be my to-do list for next week. Double-check that Tatum scoring stat. I like Jason Tatum, but I think my expectations for him are so high that when he has these god-awful games, I'm like, you know, he has some real duds in there.

He does. And he's always going to be linked to the Brandon Ingram thing because he was the piece that was going to be in the Anthony Davis trade. The Celtics would have traded him, but Davis wasn't coming here and Kyrie wasn't staying. So none of that stuff was going to work out, but they would have traded Tatum for Anthony Davis. I believe that. And then, you know, the whole Ingram stuff, like it just goes on and on.

It's really just Lakers and Celtics fans yelling at each other all the time. But I have this rule about guys and I'm talking about Tatum. Look, Tatum was in the top 16, 16A MVP votes for Magic Johnson. You guys saw the tweet. When we're expecting that maybe you could be a top 10 player because Tatum has flashes where you go, this guy is absolutely unstoppable. The size, the handle, the shooting, the range. What are you going to do with this guy? And then there's nights where it's just terrible.

I go, by his third season, shouldn't he be more consistent? Now, we are in this age where we're seeing longer, slower growth from the best players in the league in a way that we've never seen before. When LeBron was awesome right away, he was awesome right away. Okay? When, I don't know, take your pick.

Chris Paul was awesome right away. He was like, pick Chris Paul again. Congrats. You know, Steph was a little different cause he was off the ball and he had Mark Jackson holding him back and you know, they were running stuff where he was standing in the corner and granted he hit all those corner threes, but they had Jared Jack and they had that stuff. And they just had other guys that were more established. They were taking shots away from him. so he wasn't allowed to just freely go nuts like some of these high-usage guys on bad teams. But Giannis took time. Kawhi took time. But I still think the special ones, we know pretty quick. I don't think the league has pivoted to this thing now where the best players are going to be the best versions of themselves in sort of a surprise at year five, because Kawhi's a surprise, Giannis is a surprise. Hell, even Paul George took a little bit of time. Shout out to

John Hollinger for being the first person I ever remember saying he's going to be an all-star. So I feel like Tatum, if he's really going to be what I personally, the expectation that I have for him, and certainly a lot of other people do, then I'm kind of like, why are there still some of these really bad games? Whereas Jalen Brown, I didn't have the same expectations and I think he's been incredible. And I probably, I wouldn't say more of a pass, but I never thought Jalen Brown could potentially be a top 10 player in a league. I'm like, oh, hey, Jalen Brown was awesome again. That's great. Oh, he was bad? Whatever. When Tatum's bad, I'm like, man. Here's an example of something

really stupid. I saw a Browns website tweet out something about Baker Mayfield's first two seasons and they compared it to Drew Brees. Now, here's one simple rule. If you're going to compare a quarterback playing today versus a quarterback 10 years ago, hell, this is almost 20 years ago, playing today versus quarterback 10 years ago. Hell, this is almost 20 years ago. Stop right there. Don't do that. And you can save yourself like 30 minutes of writing stuff down because it's a completely different game. But if you're stubborn and you're going to go ahead and do that anyway and go, well, look at Drew Brees' numbers. Look at Baker Mayfield. There's basically no difference. Yeah, well, you know what you're doing? You're comparing Baker to somebody who lost his freaking starting job in San Diego. Okay, go back

and read Burt Breer's Monday Morning Quarterback with an incredible interview. I think it was Schottenheimer who was working with it's the kid, Schottenheimer, who was working with Breeze, and they're like, hey, we're drafting a quarterback. Breeze is like, great, awesome. They're like, hey, if you don't get a touchdown

this drive, we're benching you you and we're going with somebody else. So you're comparing Baker to a guy that becomes a Hall of Famer because he got a lot better. It's the same thing with Peyton Manning. Anytime a young quarterback throws a million picks, it's like, wow, Peyton Manning had a million picks his first year. Yeah, then he became one of the three best quarterbacks in the history of the league.

So what am I supposed to do? Like, Jameis is just another season away. Like, Jameis throws a lot of picks. So did Peyton Manning. Basically, he's Peyton Manning, dude. He's just in Tampa. No difference. People do that all the time.

So that is my point, is that if you're going to be really special, I need to see it more consistently from Tatum. But the Celtics are smart. They're great offensively. They're really good defensively. And the way they anticipated some of the trapping with the second pass,

it was just really good. And that was a nice win for a team that you know i i can't wait to actually see the eastern conference playoffs because it's going to be it's going to be real matchup heavy if philadelphia ends up at boston and boston doesn't add a big good luck good luck boston this word from state farm and then the best interview i've ever done and now it's time for the state farm safe bet of the Week. Less quarterback roster turnover than you think. That's what you can count on.

Ryan, what are you talking about? Look at all these teams. I went through all the teams. I think there's nine teams right now that could have a different quarterback starting next season. Cincinnati, the Chargers, maybe even Chicago, the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Bucs, Carolina Panthers, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, Tennessee Titans. And we could even add Detroit if we want to, but I'm not going to speculate on Matthew Stafford's injury, although we do know it's severe. So it sounds like there are nine teams. But before I actually break that down and tell you that number is going to be less,

let's remind you about these big numbers. Because if you're fumbling with insurance, State Farm agents are here to help because with over 19,000 agents, they're local to you and available to help whether you connect in person or by phone or through the State Farm mobile app. Agents are here to help, so go with the one that has coverage and agents you can count on. So if we go through this, the only locks that are absolutely going to have different quarterbacks week one of 2020 are Cincinnati and Miami. Cincinnati, I'd imagine after benching Dalton when it didn't look like he deserved it, and they've actually been a little bit better with him back, are going to take Burrow one. I would think they wouldn't continue the Dalton thing for another stretch. And the Dolphins,

despite the Fitz magic that we've seen and Rosen being on the roster, I can't imagine that they aren't going to take somebody and we'll have a different week one. Because if you go through the Chargers, are they really going to move off Rivers if he wants to come back and they may not have the perfect solution? Are they really going to move off Mitch Trubisky if you're in Chicago? Hell, we're hearing that Jameis is a lock to come back to Tampa Bay for another year. And despite all the Kyle Allen love, he just got benched for Will Greer. So another one-year commitment to Cam Newton. Is that really the wrong call if they feel like he gives them a better chance to win some football games?

Derek Carr's contract isn't just something you would kick away. And Denver with Drew Lock may have their guy. And Tannehill has been incredible for the Titans, one of the best fantasy producers, which is not really the number one qualifier for a GM to give a guy a new contract, but it's real. So usually it's always about five or six teams because they move on. You just get tired of that same guy. But even though there's nine teams that could potentially make a change, I think the number is going to end up being a lot less, as low as we've seen in a long time. State Farm, talk to an agent today. Okay. Here is the youngest guest we've ever had on the podcast. His name is Sully Miller. He's a really good basketball player and I I'm, as creepy as it sounds, in his bedroom interviewing him.

We got Lakers jerseys everywhere. Let's talk a little about you first before we hear your takes. How old are you? I'm 12. And which position? Are you like a combo? Are you a point, shooting, everything? I'm a point guard.

Who would you say you've modeled your basketball game after? everything? I'm a play guard. Who would you say you've modeled your basketball game after? I'd probably say more of like Chris Paul player because I'm like mostly like a pass first, but I can also score. I like that. I like that answer. You know that a lot of people say they hate playing with Chris Paul. Except I'm a good teammate. All right. So you're a leader too. Okay. All right. So if I have this right, so like in the beginning, your favorite player was who? Kobe Bryant. Okay, so it was Kobe.

Here's the other thing though. You were born, do you consider yourself an LA guy? Well, yeah, I was born in LA, but I grew up in Vermont, but I've always liked LA teams. Do you tell kids that you're an LA guy in a Vermont classroom? Yes. That must be kind of awesome. Does that play well? Yes. And you lived in Manhattan Beach, right? So do you feel like I'm copying you trying to live out there now? Basically. Okay. And your dad was also a pro hockey player and you seem to have

little to no respect the fact that he was a pro athlete. Is that fair? Yeah, he was terrible. He wasn't terrible. He was a defensive first defenseman. He played the man, not the puck. Yeah, he was good. Yeah, he was okay. Okay, alright.

So right now, your favorite player in the NBA is who? Anthony Davis. Okay, now it was Russell Westbrook for a while, and then it was Lonzo Ball. Why has it transitioned from those players? Take me through the Westbrook, Lonzo, and now Anthony Davis transition. Well, when I liked Westbrook, I didn't really like a specific team, but then I started to like the Lakers and Lonzo,

like all the hype around him, and I just started to like him, but he left teams. I still have mad to like him, but he left teams. I still have mad respect for him, but I like AD because he's on the Lakers. Right. Now, did you ever order a pair of the big baller brand shoes? No, I wanted to. I have a shirt though.

You have a shirt. You didn't order the shoes and they didn't show up. You just don't. So expensive. They were expensive. So that's all right. I don't think you missed out on that. Okay, Anthony Davis now.

I'll give you credit here. You liked the Lakers when it was just Lonzo and Brandon Ingram. So how tough were those years for you before LeBron and AD showed up? Terrible. Really bad. See, I love watching Lonzo because he's like, he's just, he's just, to be honest, he's not that good.

It's just when he does good stuff, it's amazing. It's beautiful. Yeah. I do think he might get traded again. So would you want him back on the Lakers? What if he went on the Celtics? What if Alonzo went to the Celtics? Would you become a Celtics fan?

Definitely not, never. Yeah, and you were there for the Westbrook game winner in Boston. You were cheering amongst a sea of other people named Sully. And I know that you weren't drinking that night, so you were pretty excited. But you had to kind of rein it in a little because you were afraid to cheer too much for Westbrook and a Boston crowd, correct? Yes. I was very scared. I didn't want to wear a jersey. So I feel like I got a lot of hate. By the way, I bought you a Tatum jersey last year for Christmas. You said you wanted it.

Do you still wear it? Yes. Okay. All right. Just making sure. I didn't want to know that I wasted 80 bucks on you. Okay. So right now, this is why we're here. Your top five players in the NBA. I know you've prepped for this. So're going to break it down right now. Go ahead. Feel free to just explore the space. This probably isn't in order, but I'd say LeBron James, James Harden,

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, and Anthony Davis. Okay. I got to tell you, I don't know that there's a ton of argument to that one right now. Who do you think is the best player in the NBA? I'd say like maybe he's not the best basketball player or like offensive player,

but I'm not only saying this because I'm a Lakers fan, but I have to say right now it's probably LeBron James. Team-wise because like I know James Harden is probably like a better, way better scorer than him but i have to say like he he's winning more games to the lakers than james harden can for the yeah i think all those things are fair okay harden i am known as not necessarily like the biggest harden fan but he's definitely in the top five of players who would you rather have though on your team Steph or James Hart honestly Steph Steph I feel like he just he's probably a better teammate and he's just he can win games and he

can play around other people that's definitely the biggest part because pretty sure like last year like all of James Harden's points, not off assists. And Steph cuts around the screens, gets around the screens, and finds open shots for his guys. Does Steph shooting from 30 feet, have you ever pulled up from 30 feet in any of your games because of Steph? I don't even think I'm that strong, but maybe once or twice. You have the green light is what I'm hearing. Yes.

That's good. Okay, so Giannis or LeBron for one year? The rest of the year you can only have one. Who would you rather have? LeBron. What is it about LeBron? I don't know. I just feel like right now he's just,

a lot of people say he's not, well, he's not in his prime, but he's just like a lot of people say he's like not well he's not in his prime but like he's definitely still got it like a lot of people are saying he's wearing out but like he he can score he can defend he can pass he can rebound I mean definitely better shooter than Giannis and he can do basically everything does 34 seem like almost dead to you age-wise? No. Maybe. Not for LeBron, though. You know how much older I am than LeBron? Do you know who's older?

Yeah. How much? You're like 43? 44. It's close. It's close. It's close. Do you think you'll look as good as me when you're 44? Definitely. Maybe. Okay. Do you think you'll look as good as me when you're 44? Definitely Okay You didn't mention Luka

Okay I forgot about him He might make the top 5 Maybe He's playing outstandingly well right now But I just I don't know This whole triple-double thing getting kind of crazy played

out a little I don't know I mean he's definitely better than Trey Young he definitely won I definitely see how the rookie of the year award went to him that was fair because started the season when no one really knew him and then he just went off in games and yeah he won it now you're a point guard as we established at the top here if you had to pick any point guard though to run your team does that mean you'd take Steph over over Harden is what you said right and then where would Westbrook be? Would you rather have Harden than Westbrook? I feel like, no, because Westbrook is like, he's just like, I don't find,

he's not like in his prime anymore, I just feel like. He's just not really. He's missing a lot of shots. Yeah, he's not a good shooter at all. You mentioned Trey Young there. How do you feel about his game? Because I see you having the attitude of a trey young but maybe not the handles yet yeah trey young saucy uh he's just really fun

to watch he's like he's little but he shows that size does not matter he can like get by everyone and like he's very hard to guard because if he like dribbles the ball super low like that's almost like impossible to guard and he can finish his layups he's really good at floaters and yeah give me a couple guys that you don't like watching that you're not a huge fan of well i it depends because like if it's like if like, if they just like, are just like, I don't like watching like centers for some reason, cause they just don't do anything. So you're, but how tall do you think you're going to be? Do you think you'll ever be a center? No, I think hopefully six feet or six feet. I think you'll be over six feet.

That's great. How come you never wanted to play hockey like your dad? I don't like sports equipment. You just want to show up and ball? Yes. Yes. Okay.

What will you be if you're not an NBA player? I want to be a broadcaster like Ryan Russillo. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. an NBA player? I want to be a broadcaster like Ryan Russillo. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Merry Christmas,

buddy. Merry Christmas ESPN guys. I'm not with ESPN anymore. What? You're not? For real? Yeah, it's the ringer, man. Good stuff. Where can we follow all your fire content on Instagram? Sully.Miller on Instagram.

And yeah, I might make a Twitter account, blow up, and destroy all the haters. Okay, that'll do it for a long, old-school version of Tales from the Couch. And thank you for listening to my buddy, Sully Miller. You can follow his fire

Instagram content, at Sully Miller. He's a great kid and his family's great. So I always want to do that with him. So there you go. Hopefully you learned something. Ryan, are you seriously not going to give us any Christmas gifts? No tails from the couch. Bonus stats to impress the ladies. You know what? We'll give you a couple. You know how much I love the fourth quarter stuff can be a little misleading at times. By the way, LeBron James, who missed a huge free throw, because I went back and looked at something as I was listening to that interview, he missed a big free throw in that game in the loss against the Clippers. He's now 61%

from the free throw line in the fourth quarter. Something to think about, because you can see he wears the stress of those free throws on his face he does and it's something that was really going on there for a while i think it may have gotten better and we stopped paying attention to it where he stopped taking the technical that was like years ago i think he's still in cleveland when that story story uh first started developing but when we were talking about the lakers and the creativity offensively without lebron with both davis and james i just found the, on the floor together, plus 10.7 points net efficiency. Just LeBron, plus 10 points. Just Davis, minus 6.3. Whoa.

That's actually shocking. But when you've watched the Lakers without LeBron, even though Davis feels like because he's defensive player of the year and he's been great that he's like in the conversation for MVP as much as LeBron is, those are pretty staggering numbers. So just something to think about. Van Gundy pointed it out. It was really smart. How about net differentials for teams in the fourth quarter?

Top five are the Bucks, Celtics, Clippers, Lakers, and like, Hey Ryan, Clippers, Lakers, and like, hey, Ryan, that's not impressive. I'm going to Applebee's tomorrow for unlimited riblets, and

if the waitress is from Oregon State who still is expecting to go back to school at some point and finish, she had to leave after her sophomore year. I need something a little bit better than, hey, the four best teams in the league have the four best differentials. Well, the Thunder are fifth in net differential in the fourth quarter, all between 11 and nine points in the positive. And then actually after the Thunder, there's a pretty significant drop-off. So the Thunder, they're doing some things. They're doing them late. The worst five,

and this is worst to 26th, Memphis, Charlotte, the Knicks, the Nets, the Hawks. And here's some interesting numbers. Atlanta has the worst offensive efficiency in the fourth quarter. Okay. So Trey Young, who possesses the ball more than any single player in the NBA, 9.1 minutes per game, he has the ball in his hand. That's number one in the league. He's 6.25 seconds per touch, number one in the league. He's six plus dribbles per touch, which is number two behind DJ Augustine. Augustine, he's not afraid to hang on to the basketball. So there's your guy, Trey Young, who if you knew what to look for, you would see some of the things that I see. But some of you

are just going to be really stubborn about this until three years from now where you go, hey, a lot of the stuff that you said, you were kind of right about him. Atlanta's number 27 in offense, number 28 in defense. They're actually 13th in the fourth quarter defensive efficiency. That's probably because everybody's killing them and it doesn't really matter. Kind of like that Cavs game the other night where they were trying to give that thing away. The Atlanta Hawks run by the most touched guy in the NBA, Trey Young, have the worst offense in the NBA in the fourth quarter. Maybe you could say, hey, who cares?

They're getting killed already, so it doesn't really matter. I hope everybody has a great holiday and enjoyed this, and we will be back next week. I'm flying to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl. I cannot wait to see what happens, and we are not doing a remote I'm flying to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl. I cannot wait to see what happens.

And we are not doing a remote from the north side, but we may make an appearance. Thanks for listening. Make sure you subscribe to the Ryan Rosillo Podcast on iTunes and everything else. Thank you. you